Gifts

What a gift of a week with my family in Texas. I got to do something I enjoy tremendously - cook, laugh, eat, everyone in the kitchen.

Visited our mother and grandmother's graves with my brother and cried together. Something very special about sharing sorrow with your brother.

My family is so fun, so high energy. I am so lucky. I miss them. I wish they lived in my town so I could see them more.

But oh wow do I love my town & my home and my friends here. I was taking the garbage out today and as I walked by Smilin Bill's house, he offered me some fresh baked cookies. What more can I possibly say about that?

xo

The Most Beautiful Girl in the World

A photo of my lovey niece, Kimmie. I am here in Texas taking care of my sister after her operation. Which was thankfully very successful.
OOOPS gotta go the Queen is calling. She wants her lunch......
Yes mamm coming.............

THANK YOU!

What a fantastic turnout for our event this weekend! We made some great sales AND some GREAT new friends! We are SO JAZZED! THANK YOU to everyone who came out to support us. It meant so much to have you there. I am tickled to say we added some bloggees to our list. A lot of friends and artists were excited about the concept of networking, making use of the internet and THE EVENT! Lori's shop looked WONDERFUL and provided such a nice big friendly space for us to exhibit our work. Meggan and Annette sold almost all their art the first night! Thanks to Mike Cargill and Chuck Klein for their catering talents as well as their neverending support! Oh and Thanks to Smilin' Bill for the sales assistance! And a painting title idea, "Stick in the Mud."

It was such a success, we are considering doing it again around Thanksgiving. Now I definitely need a long nap. More soon!
xo
suzy

Reclining Stick

Let Your Neck be Free
or
Jade with Reclining Stick
12 x 12 x 1.5"
mixed media on wood

I really like this one. Lots to look at and touch. Some areas look like little pools of water and others like translucent porcelain. But it is the best translation in paint of what I feel when I am doing my Alexander lie downs.

Hope to see you tomorrow night at the opening! Lots of paintings under $100. Annette is looking for a blue light we can put up. [haha]

xo

OK OK OK!

OK OK OK here are all the new ones...
www.suzanneally.com

another appetizer

Carnelian Lithostone with Stick
12 x 12 x 1.5"
mixed media on wood

You have to touch these. No I mean you have to. They are touchable. I have glazed each one of them with polyacrylic so they are protected. In some places the glaze is really thick and you just HAVE to touch it to see what happens. In other places it is smooth and velvety. Other places it is translucent like fired white porcelain. I used to work with white porcelain pottery and sculpture. it was hard to keep pure because just a spec of iron oxide in the air would turn into a nasty red splotch on the surface of the pottery. Dawns on me as ironic that one of the things I am using to color this porcelain-seeming paint is dry iron oxide pigment. Funny how life goes full circle and the things we used to fight become friends.

Also used some carnelian beads and a dried day lily stem. Also the reference to lithostone. I loved lithography in art school. Then I realized I loved the stone itself. So stone age. Reminded me of the stone Moses brought down from the mountain. Full of a very important message of some sort. Stirred awe in the people. I don't think this will stir awe but I wonder what it does stir in you? Share?
Click on the title of this post & you will see where to post a comment.
Thanks and to sleep for me.....

appetizer

Oh sheesh it's already tomorrow. Been busy getting ready for upcoming show. OK I'll give you one little appetizer [get it, Taste of Troy... appetizer, heh, heh] This one is:

Amulet Page
8x8x1.5"
mixed media on wood

g'nite!

Two Whews

WHEW! How nervous! Just finished helping Harry with his application to the Guggenheim Fellowship Grant for 2008. Very exciting! Can you hear my knees knocking? It feels so good to seal the envelope & say ok that's all I can do. Zip 'er off in the mail tomorrow morning. Whew whew whew!

Tomorrow Annie & Meggan & I set up our show at Lori Middleton's Interiors in downtown Troy. If you are in Troy Fri 5 to 7pm or Saturday please stop by & give me a hug.

Been talking to my sister in Dallas all weekend getting news on the hurricane & making sure it is handling my other family members gently. It is. WHEW, minimal damage! Don't let anyone ever tell you prayer does not work! God is good!

Gnite for now!
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Boy Legs and Other Mik Pods

Mi's Story 1991
mixed media on wood

The emotion paintings seem to be a bit more than just a fleeting emotion. They seem to be snapshots of a potent emotion from the past. Like a dream that floats up to remind me of something I need to resolve in real life, something I forgot or was trying to forget.

This is definitely something I want to always remember. Our son Mischa telling us his dreams. He has always been an avid dreamer and the report on the dreams at breakfast quite epic. I used to suspect he was making them up. A little boy of three telling me this huge long tale - there was no way he could have dreamt all that and remembered it in such detail. But after living with him for 19 years, now maybe I am convinced he really did dream all that.

Anyway this painting feels to me like one of those boy dreams. A toy boat transforming into a real warship on a red sea. Steam and fury. ANd what are the two stationary red and orange objects? I am sure will Misch will explain.

Another Feelie

E From V October '06
mixed media on wood

Another hatchling from feelie territory. Curious to know the feelings this one evokes in my bloggees??

xo

Diary Page July '06

Diary Page July '06
12 x 12 x 1.5"
mixed media on canvas & wood
[name changed to Rose Lithostone]

Click image to enlarge!

These little duckies are giving me a new blog issue to deal with. I work with several at a time bringing them up thru the process and they hatch each in their own time yet usually within a day or two of each other. So several days may go by as I bring a batch up thru the processes, then POOF! they are all hatching! I really don't want to sit here and upload all those photos - I'd be here all day! What to do?!

I will try to get the latest chickadees posted intermittently. This particular one has a very personal feeling. Maybe because of the delicate light warm pinks. And pink quartz crystals represent love, emotions, and the heart. The embedded thing on the top right is a little find I picked up off of Harry's studio floor. Our son Mikhail used to wander around our large woodsy yard and collect strange little rocks and organic growths, fascinating little pebbly knotty pods; now I remind myself of him as I go fossil hunting on Harry's studio floor.

As I turned the corner from my bright summer story paintings with Mister Black, into muted tones of fall, my paintings seem to be going inward where there is less narrative story and more abstract other-sensed story. I am reminded of Harry's conversation with Larry when Hare explained that the difference between realistic art and abstract art is like the difference between music with words and music without words. You can tune into the music via your ears and get a feeling from it. So with abstract art you can tune in with your eyes and pick up on the feeling.

Harry also says there is a language of art to be learned. Being a very emotional person, I sometimes find it hard to put my feelings into words. Sometimes when I am really in the alpha zone in the studio I feel I am able to express my feelings in this language of art. This is one of those paintings that really happened that way for me. Do you get it?

Dnagg it, my comment button is still broken. email your comments to me and I'll post them.
s@suzanneally.com
xo
s

Hatch Batch

Been busy in the painting hatchery. By the time I had a batch hatched and ready to photo - the sun was gone and too dark to photo today! So let's take a relax and watch a little video from my nay bore, Smilin' Bill and his Rum River Blend Band....
http://www.whiotv.com/video/17417660/index.html

Tablets of White Rock, Crystals and Words

Jade Tablet
5 x 6"
gemstones & mixed media on wood

Lapis Lazuli Tablet
5 x 6"
gemstones & mixed media on wood

Rose Quartz Tablet
4.5 x 6"
gemstones & mixed media on wood

3 Lazulis Tablet
7 x 6"
gemstones & mixed media on wood

Paint & texture & feelings & WORDS tumbling thru my head. Books-related words. Word-related words.  Chapter, papyrus, scroll, tablet, Moses, yeah, I said "Moses". Sallie always says "that'd kill Moses," when something is really remarkable. There is that word, "remarkable. I wonder if these are remarkable? I wonder if they'd kill Moses. Doubt that. 

They seem awfully remarkable to me right now but that is usually the case with me and paintings that have just hatched. A mother always loves her babies, at least until they begin to grow up and sass her. 

I will come back and talk about these later. I gotta take a nap.

xo

What's up in the Studio Now?

CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO ENLARGE!
The hammering noises have stopped and now just tickled laffing. What's up? I got the first few coats of texture on a big batch of canvases and beginning to add little finds, dry pigment, wet pigment, photo transfers, and other little deliciouses that carry a beat and hint at rhythms of language. I am building up the thickness a lot more than I ever have before and really sinking the finds deep - some are like the tip of an iceberg - you just know something big is under there but you only see the innocent little top. Into several of them I have embedded smooth round crystal beads & I am really excited to see how they turn out. I bury them now and when it comes to buffing time will sort of mine them back up to the surface. This is too much like fun.

Canary Yellow with Stick

Canary Yellow with Stick

6 x 7"

mixed media on wood panel

Just posted the first hatchling from the new white rock basement experiments. Az usual I have to say that you have to see these in person, dang it.

Have eyehooks with wire to hang and more at bottom edge so the painting appears to float out from the wall. Cool.

Going to see if I can get any more to hatch today...

Buy.

Purple Cows

I am really excited about Ron Hart's post for Saturday Aug 30. He uses the word "remarkable" and he is talking about purple cows. Check it out. http://photobyhart.blogspot.com
BANG BANG BANG ... SPLOOCH!