Artandicon's Blog

  • Homage to Van Gogh: Sunflowers

    Flowers please us because of their colors and forms, but also because of their fleeting beauty. While the class was painting, I threw some colors on an old canvas. It is a sketch, since never got to the dark accents of the petals. The paint was wet, so I would have had mud, not two…

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  • Dinosaurs and X-acto Knives

    I must be the last dinosaur on the earth who still hand cuts with an X-acto knife and a mat knife. Fair warning—this is an old codger rant of sorts. I still have the knife I used in art school. It’s the same one that took a slice off my left index finger when I…

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  • The Burning Bush

    How long does a new and unusual aspect of our environment need to be in place before we notice it? On the other hand, how long does it have to persist before we treat it as the new normal and begin to ignore it? My mom and dad were married right after World War II,…

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  • Our Best Life Possible

    When I was young, I thought I had to be Wonder Woman in order to please my parents. You know, the perfect daughter, the smartest child, the best artist, and the best behaved of all their progeny. After all, I was the first born and the only girl, so I’d had my parents’ undivided attention…

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  • Autumn Study

    My newest painting is full of energy and colors, for it’s a study of autumn leaves and tree branches, which I saw in the forest surrounding my home. Nature doesn’t plan out how the pine needles fall from the trees, nor how the ornamental pear tree leaves blow up the hill into the shade. Tree…

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  • 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…

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  • EPIPHANY SNOW

    The snow arrived overnight, as promised! Just enough to change the landscape of winter on the lake in Arkansas. The trees, mountain, and grey sky are just shades of black and white. Snow changes our perception of the landscape, so it is an epiphany of its own kind.  On the twelfth day of Christmas, or…

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  • NOTES ON A FAMILY TREE

    I’m finishing up my grandchildren’s family history scrapbooks. I got to thinking about our family tree. The high holy days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, and the year end festivities bring families together. This often results in a few fireworks or flamethrowers at some of these gatherings. I suspect alcohol may be involved in…

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  • 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…

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