Hey Friends, anyone up for a February daily painting challenge? I started one on a whim this week, and to my surprise, it’s already taken off!  I’m doing one that is specific to flowers: #28februaryflowers. Instagram is usually where I share my regular artwork, and it’s a terrific platform for anyone trying to build a visual-minded audience, or, just wants to come along for the ride. This is my account, but do yourself a favor and search the #28februaryflowers hashtag to see what others are cooking. OR BETTER YET hope on the love train and post your own! I realize it’s February 2, b ..read more

It’s been a while. Most of my brain juice goes to art these days so, with that in mind, I thought it might be time for a throwback edition of Art History Sunday. This painting is one of my favorites and I think of it often in my moments of self pity; “Blind Girl” by John Everett Millais. It’s utterly gorgeous. It’s unusually saturated in color (for that time, anyway). It’s a teenage girl – you can tell from the title she is blind. You can tell from her tatty clothes she is poor. You can tell from her rough-knuckled hands she has known long, hard days of work. A girl clings from the shelter in ..read more

Happy new Year friends. Hope 2018 got on to a great start! A lot going on over here! The bad news is a pipe burst in my art studio and the water ran for hours and everything got wet or covered in frost and the whole place has to be gutted and everything tossed. Two weeks on and the problem has only gotten worse. The good news is I *coincidently* took over 100 works home, my landlord is being unbelievably helpful and hired a demo guy to help me empty the place, Home Depot rents tank-sized dehumidifiers, and the Super Moon stayed up late enoughto say good morning to me. You can see it peeping a ..read more

Oh my goodness, how is it already October? So much is going on in the world these days…and not all of it good. Some of it downright scary. I just want to blanket myself in crafts and painting and decorating and pound-size logs of cookie dough. My appreciation for dark humor has reached new heights. I have now become the person who trolls Michael’s looking for life-skeletons. Are they half off yet? Are they half off yet? Oh happy, day the skeletons are now HALF OFF! This is my face when skeletons go half off. As much as I like the skeleton situation, my craft itch needed to be scratched ..read more

When I was a kid I used to envy people who lived near landmarks. I thought, how cool would it be to say, “We are two blocks east of the purple gas station” …and everyone would know exactly where you lived, because even if they didn’t spend time at the purple gas station, a purple gas station just one of those things that’s hard to not know about. Right? Well folks, as of two weeks ago, I created my own landmark – the house with the flower garage. All of the neighbors can now say, “We are two blocks south of the flower garage.” and so on and so on. It’s pretty much a service to t ..read more

Well now, here is a trend you didn’t see coming: Rock Painting. Apparently, it’s a thing. I recall going to a hippie camp in the 80s and a dreadlocked, braless camp counselor named Artemis made us all paint faces on rocks and carry them around as pets (apparently, that was a thing too!)…had no idea it would be back in vogue 30 years later! Rock pets were a lesson in empathy, or something – that’s always a valuable tool. Not sure if it worked, but when Michael’s asked me to explore the painted rock trend, I was on it. With faces! BOOM. Now that’s a rock! So, what the kids are doing these days ..read more

Heyo! Local friends – quick note to let you know I’m helping put together a community art project with my favorite local store, Stumble & Relish. We will be weaving with fabric strips into a fence and it’s going to be AWESOME. No special skills required, but may involve sitting on the ground (read: keep your summer skirts and white jeans at home). Come on Chicago peoples, you know you want to! Party runs from noon to 3pm on July 28, be there. Will also be a bunch of cool sidewalk sales going on in the area, so really, you can’t lose. See you then!   The post Community Art Project app ..read more

Sometimes people like to ask me why I like painting. It is my least favorite thing ever. This will sound weird, but that question is sort of like asking a mother why they like their child. Which, depending on the child, might not be an unreasonable question. But there is never a good answer. I will say, however, there is a phase of the painting process that I always love the most. And weirdly enough, it is related to my mother. Didn’t realize that until I typed that out just now. WEIRDNESS!!! I call this the plaid stage. Usually comes in at layer two. It’s the underpainting to the underp ..read more

Colors  are funny things. As humans, we draw conclusions about all sorts of stuff when we see someone driving a bright yellow car, or wearing a pale purple neck tie. Colors communicate an infinite variety of information without a single word (whether we like it or not). Colors are unapologetically time specific as well; if someone tells you there is an avocado green refrigerator in their kitchen, you know exactly when that kitchen was built. Why, there is an entire generation of children who came up in the 1970s thinking harvest gold was a neutral. Poor things didn’t know any better ..read more

Greetings from Finland. Actually, greetings from the Åland Islands – an archipelago of Islands next to Finland. Actualllllly, greetings from the ferry boat between the Åland Islands and Finland, specifically, in the cough syrup purple colored lounge next to the children’s’ arcade. I have never been on a ferry boat large enough to warrant a children’s arcade, but I had never been to Finland before this, so, there’s a first time for everything. Right? Right. There is a woman sitting at the next table talking about how much she hates her sister-in-law and how she never sees that branch of th ..read more