From my garden this week...

And coming soon...

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

A beautiful sunny sunday , and we decided to trek to the Alameda Point Antiques Fair. It's the first sunday of every month, out on the old navy base runway in Alameda, CA. Yes, on the airplane runway, which is right on the bay and has an amazing view of SF. There was a lot to see...

 Someone had taken old wood strips, and made them into a 'painting', above. Kinda cool...

 Lots of old stuff, painted bright colors... hmm, maybe not.

 Symbols that light up? No thanks.

 Pillows and upholstery made from old linens... I like the look, but scratchy, and very expensive...

Some rusty barbed wire, or an old rocking horse? Honestly, I don't know what people will do with some of this stuff. After a while I can't decide what is a great deal and what is awful. The prices have definitely gone up since the last time I was here.

 How about a child-sized mannequin?

 This old trunk was the one thing I saw that I really liked,  I don't know if was a real or fake antique, but I loved the painting on it.

It's always good to have two heads when making these big purchasing decisions!

All we bought was a pretzel, but we had fun looking.

In the gARTen

art exhibit

Here's a little film of my students' exhibit this year. The theme was the garden, so the kids named the show 'In the gARTen'. Watch til the end, there's a stopmo of the show going up and coming down much too quickly...

Inspiration: Faith Ringgold and mother's day

 Faith Ringgold is one of my favorites. She is most well known for her storyquilts. And her children's books. Here's the cover of her first kids' book, Tar Beach, below, which won the Coretta Scott King award for illustration. She has written seventeen kids' books!

 I first saw her work at the UC Art Museum here in Berkeley, way back in the 1990s, when I went to hear her lecture about her art. She's a fabulous storyteller, and incredibly funny. She had been painting on canvas for years, but was having trouble getting her work into galleries. After seeing an exhibit of Tibetan Thangkas, paintings on fabric, she decided to try painting on fabric, making quilted borders or frames around the paintings. She had learned to sew from her mother, a fashion designer. Faith wrote stories to go with her paintings. Easy to roll up and mail cheaply, she started getting exhibits around the country, first at university galleries, then larger venues.

 

And the rest is history. I love to show my students a film about her work. She tells of having an art teacher in college who told her her work was lousy. She got mad and worked harder than ever. She sings a little rap about how anyone can DO IT if they try.

Great words to hear from a very successful artist!

You can read more about her at her website:

www.faithringggold.com

and some youtube videos of her below:

Faith videos

Faith on quilting as an art form

Here's my Mother's Day bouquet below, which I meant to show you LAST week. Oops.

And breakfast in bed... my daughter calls this 'breakfast salad.' YUM!

I learned to sew from my mother, as Faith had. And so much more from her. Thanks Mom!
Hope all you moms out there had a wonderful day!

In the gARTen

Here's what I've been up to...

 Transforming this mess above...

 Into this garden full of art, 

a gARTen, as one of our students aptly named it.

Waterfall, pond...

trees, flowers, fruit, birds chirping, fish and frogs jumping.

 So much fun to make this garden-themed art exhibit.

I"ll be sad to take it down on friday.

I'm Feeling Grateful

For the many friends and family who came to the reception at Collector gallery...

(my paintings are still up for another week)

 ( these three below stole the show!)

 ...For my terrific illustrators' group, who bring desserts like this! 

(and much needed illustrative advice, of course)

 and for my wonderful writer's group, who also make amazing desserts! 

(and excellent critiques, too)

... for this glorious springtime... 

all of our Cecile Bruner roses decided to bloom at once this year.

...and for time to work on the story of this incredible woman...

Sonia Delaunay

 

Here's a first color sketch for her story, playing with her style... and mine.

 

Where are the Women?

I guess I feel like ranting today, so consider yourselves warned, dear readers.

I was just looking around on Pinterest last night, and found a few links to parenting blogs, one recommended '13 great books for kids about artists',. Well, that seems great, until upon looking further I saw that only ONE was about a female artist. Only one.

Where are the books for kids about WOMEN artists?

 

There are plenty of women artists out there. The ratio of female to male students at art schools has always been disproportionately female. Yet galleries and museums still show a majority of art made by men.
 Unless your name is Frida or Georgia, you don't exist in the world of children's books. Even though the majority of editors at publishing houses are women.

 I am not saying that there are too many books about these two women artists above, btw. I think these books are all particularly beautiful and well-written. (The last one, Through Georgia's Eyes, was written by my friend Rachel Rodriguez!)

 

I'm just saying that I think there are plenty of women artists who deserve their own biographies, instead of continuing to be categorized as 'women' artists, and given only a page or two in a book shared with others.

P.S. The reception at Collector gallery was great fun on Friday night. Thanks to all my friends and family who came to join me! My work will be up until the end of April.