Jumping

Eagle

Painting shows me how I "close my eyes and jump" at things.

Painting is a dance

Aloft

Painting is a dance - sometimes a struggle - between specificity and ambiguity.

Dialog

Agave

 The chief reason for practicing art is to engage in a dialog with my being.

Stay out of the way

"Cloud Form II"

Being inspired is having a smidgen of the creative force of the universe set up shop in my mind - doing what it does best - I really have nothing to do but stay out of the way!

Drawing for the next painting

By beginning with a drawing, I can let the composition of a piece start to tell its story without the complexity of color. Working from a reference photo taken in northern New Mexico, I begin plotting out the position and direction of the darks & lights and clarifying the composition of the drawing.

The beginning of a drawing – laying in the darks and lights

Developing the entire drawing-

Strengthening the darks –

The finished drawing. Charcoal on paper, 10x16 in

Habit

Winter Solace

Painting shows me how trapped I am in habit!

Why?

Raven Night

Why practice art if you don't observe yourself doing it?

Inspiration

Moonlight

Inspiration is a little like breathing a feather up your nose.Suddenly, it's all about "getting it out"!

Painting clouds

Clouds

Painting clouds reveals my gestures - my habits - my assumptions.

Part of Me

The sky is a part of me

I breathe it in

And it breathes me out.

KEM

When Mind Opens

When mind opens to what the eye beholds

When nouns lose their edges

When perceptions dissolve into sparkling molecules

Universe begins telling her story

- while I scratch notes with paint

KEM

We’re all in this together!

Get to know your arts administrators!

The inspiration for this bit of sage advice occurred while I was upstairs in the school gallery a few days ago, taking some time to really look at the work of Gage instructor, Larine Chung. As I stood in contemplation of Chung's use of color and space, one of the atelier students walked by and, in devilish good humor, said "Hey, what are you doing up here? This floor is for artists". I gave him a screwed up look, he said "just kidding" and we laughed. After he had tromped down the stairs, I got to thinking – he may not actually know that I am an artist!

If you are a student/emerging artist, you spend a significant part of your day in the studio in pursuit of your craft. You interface with the people working in the offices of various organizations to take care of things like registering for classes, submitting work for shows, applying for grants or residencies, etc. Much of this is done through email and online and you may never even see the people helping you grow your career, much less get to know them!

Many arts administrators are probably more like you than you realize. It takes passion and sympathy for the cause to keep the wheels of the art world turning and while it is not necessarily a requirement, most art-related organizations hire people who are actively engaged in the arts for this very reason.

So – get to know your arts administrators. You may find that the art world is much wider and deeper than you thought.