• CREATION: from order or chaos?

    How do you do your best work? Do you need a certain amount of order, do you like to fly by the seat of your pants and put out the fires which spring up, or do you need all the decks to be stick and span before you get started? I belong to the goldilocks…


  • Rule of Life

    First painting of the New Year:  Sometimes you have to remember who you are and whose you are. Starting the year off right by setting my theme. Everyone needs a rule of life, even the nonbeliever, for we need a measure to test our lives against.  Are we living up to our expectations for a…


  • WORK IN PROGRESS: Landscape 

    This is on my easel right now. Last autumn on a warm and sunny day, I took an Instagram photo below of the woods near my home.  Maybe we’ll have one ofthose days   again, with no rain! The photo above is  my most recent painting. I’m letting it set overnight, to see if I need…


  • Field of Dreams 

       Spring forward has done me in & brought me down. I have succumbed to the couch, with the shades drawn against the extra light pouring in through the windows. No amount of espresso in the morning will overcome this lethargy. The promise of a chocolate bunny isn’t enough to drag me off my recliner. …


  • What’s a measure of worth?

     If an artwork doesn’t sell, it could mean any number of reasons.    1. It’s not any good, but good is a relative term. Fauve was a pejorative term applied to the bright colors and bold forms of Matisse and Rouault, among others.  2. It’s actually bad. Here bad means unskilled. Of course, naive painters like…


  • 2015 in review

    The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 380 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people. Click here to see the…


  • ONE OF THOSE DAYS RIDING THE WAVES

    This has been one of those days! A real roller coaster of emotions for my extended family, my own family & for me. Friends suffering the breakup of their marriage and all the emotions of grief surrounding the celebrations of others’ anniversaries. The highs and lows of a lost and found bipolar family member, who…


  • Destruction

     The old Majestic Hotel, a historic property in Hot Springs, Arkansas, burned and was deemed irreparable. The city became the official owner after several years of attempting to convince the true owner to clean up the wreckage. After demolition, the site will likely become a park or amphitheater. The good wrought from this debacle is…


  • Under Construction 

       I walk on Thursday evenings in the historic downtown district of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Most of our buildings are from our salad days of the Victorian period and early 20th century. We are building new construction, such as this new Regions Bank Tower, which will replace the one directly behind my back. I often…


  • THE MOMENT BEFORE 

      The moment before my daughter came into this world, my husband reminded me of the doctor’s orders: “Whatever you do, don’t push!” “Don’t tell me (horrible expletive deleted) not to push! I’ll (more expletives deleted) push if I want to! His look of shock and horror lasted only seconds before he turned for the hallway…