#100daysofart: weeks 4 and 5, art is what happens when you're busy making other plans

Another week, another 2 weeks + fraught with real life and peppered with art.

Ironically, those weeks when things are a mess, and time is limited I find it easier to create pieces I actually like. Of course, this is not always the case. There are a couple in images below that were more or less phoning it in, but this exercise is about consistency and making it happen - each and every day. Much like life, some days yield great results, and some just yield.

Below is a shot I took on the Sunset strip and decided to filter it and send it out into the universe. 

Below that I was in the office, had my notebook and had had a lovely afternoon, leaving me with lingering inspiration and a Bic. With no preparation and no real tools, strangely, this is one of my favorite pieces thus far. Perhaps the simplicity and actual emotion made it work so well.

day 31

day 32day 33

day 34

day 35

Wanting my art to inhabit all sorts of spaces, not just that of my notebook, I had the chalk, and the time to make the piece 'Faux Sweet Home' - a simple sentence that entered my head and exited my hands. With a recent extended stay in Los Angeles, a new home that does not yet feel like that - home - it seemed appropriate. I am proud of myself for trying something new, making major alterations to a life that felt like it wasn't working - at least not for me - but that is no way means I am not missing Wash Heights, NYC.

I recently dug up some old college equipment, including my charcoal and , with my father as a constant beacon of inspiration and continuing presence in my life I thought a quick sketch of a recently acquired shot of him as a little boy, not the man who was my father, first with the 'stache in the 80s and then with the thinning crown of hair in the 2000s, this little boy was just Chris, Betty and Neil's son, Elizabeth's little brother and, in this shot, Santa Claus's lap companion. Strange to think of a life before me, in terms of blood relatives, of which I have few, but nice to be reminded of the beautify of the individual, devoid of your influence.

A beautiful dusk at a favorite watering hole, and a sad day with a blue canvas, sharpie and melted 99 cent store crayons made a melancholic piece. My time management was tested for the image below in which I was shooting the founder of Ping Tank, a new and innovative app in his Hollywood Hills home seemed an obvious choice and allowed for rare sighting of the artist herself, though shot from behind. I stand strong that my face does not need to make the rounds on the Internet and that the world wide web benefits more from what comes out of it's contents.

day 36

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day 44

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day 46

day 47

My head never quiets. It is both a blessing and a curse and, more in the distant past than the present, I take the opportunity to pour those thoughts, emotions and lines out onto physical paper. It helps clear my mind and makes me feel like pain, confusion and anguish can be a beautiful and useful tool. A poem, written art, shot under a bougainvillea seemed an appropriate piece and helped download some of the data on my internal hard drive. Blue sort of speaks for itself and with the cyber lives of millions becoming a series of hash tags, it was brought to my attention of National Siblings Day, on which I chose to use collage to honor my relationship with my big sister.

Art of Bella is a DIY painting studio in Koreatown I had been eager to visit for a couple of months now and, with a guest visiting me in the city of Angels, I took the opportunity to make a mug with words of wisdom for someone who has brought me into a positive space by proxy and for whom I am eternally grateful.

A visit to the Getty Center children's gift shop left me going home with an all one-stop-shopping watercolor postcards and a coloring book of transparent dragons - one of which now hangs proudly on my window.

Canvas, chalk and a sharpie created day 44 and as I approach the half way mark another pen and paper doodle ended up being one of my best received pieces.

I had originally had great plans for a dollar store find puzzle but, when the reality fully sank in, I chose to grab a handful of colorful pieces, a glue stick and, once again draw a line bouncing around in my huge Heard cranium and made a piece that actually spoke from a personal place. I find I really like simple pieces with words that mean something, to me if no one else, and day 46 most certainly reflected that.

Wanting to make this a Tuesday update, I am finding myself falling behind and felt done is better than perfect, a mantra I chant to myself, and a couple of dear friends on occasion and am leaving this post with a set of paper dolls, or analog emojis if you will that I created taking the cardboard out of some recently purchased ankle socks that I felt needed to be re-purposed and doodled on to make this phallic family.

Nothing here took more than a 24 hour period to concept and create, nothing here was made with anything but my heart, mind and body and nothing here is perfect - but I can say with absolute certainty - that everything here is me.

#100daysofart: weeks 3 and 4, making it work

Though I have never seen an episode of Bravo's Project Runway, I do fancy myself a bit of a pop culture connoisseur and I do know who Tim Gunn is. It is my understanding that Mr. Gunn uses this term as a 'shut up and put up' sort of mantra, only with far more panache. Trying to create an original piece of visual art every 24 hours is most certainly a put up sort of agenda and, though thus far it has taken turns I didn't expect, I am currently 'making it work.'

I knew that travel outside of the state would create obstacles in my cerebral adventure, but I chose to incorporate my travels as oppose to avoid. Shooting Ghostface on stage was amazing and, not wanting to rely on photography too heavily for this project, I deemed him, and this shot above, worthy. With little time to spare my third day at SXSW I got crafty and created an environmental scene using the wrist bands I had received the day before. Though I didn't know what I was doing as I was doing it, I sort of think this works.

 

 

A plane ride can really take it out of you and making my tomato garnish into a piece of art and a symbol of love brought my mediocre Mexican takeout to a whole new level with just a couple swipes of plastic knife. Wanting to explore art with Photoshop I took the maturation of my oldest nephew into an official teenager as an opportunity to make his monumental 13th birthday well, monumental. Flawed as it is, it was done with love - and what could be more beautiful than that?

A postcard to a dear friend is a standard practice in my life, but drawing it with pictograms instead of an assortment of 26 characters was a fun new take in addition to being a throwback to the days of high school when Hillary Gatlin and I thought we were far more clever than any of our teachers when passing notes between periods in this DaVinci code. Seeing beauty in the nature outside, the flora of which is unparalleled in sunny Southern California, let me to my next now pressed flower and pen drawing and a quick article on permanent marker and rubbing alcohol led me to the baseball cap only a niece could love (at least hopefully!).

At first I envisioned this project as a chance for me to take my university honed art skills and get my still life or pottery wheel on. Having a degree in Fine Art has been a blessing, but the practice in everyday life can be hard found. Instead of using my charcoal on the daily, I find myself going way way back, perhaps to when I first became an artist, when I was just a kid with a box of Crayolas. After encouragement from my parents and desire building inside I brought it to college, to the professional world and now here, to social media. The full circle of life. Ha!

Making it a point to use different mediums and play with different techniques, all while fitting it into a busy work life and developing social calendar on a new/old coast has left me using the resources and time that I have to the fullest. Whether that is a collage torn from the pages of People, a quick shot of interesting architecture in a local Asian eatery, experimenting with crayons and fire, creating colorful lines and dots while burning the print off of my right thumb, or my piece de resistance, Selena Quintanilla Perez's portrait on a teeny tiny canvas commemorating the anniversary of her untimely passing. A big Selena fan I wanted to make sure to represent and though a full length image in a purple jumpsuit may have screamed the tejano star a bit more, this simple sharpie portrait would have to do.

 

 I will admit that this challenge is, well, challenging - but as I am forced to flex not only artistic muscles, but creative ones, in terms of logisitcs as to how to accomplish a piece each day - it is sort of fun!

#100daysofart: week 2, digging deep and making compromises

day 9 


Knowing this challenge would only become, well, more challenging traveling was only bound to add insult to injury - so to speak. With my first week under my belt I was feeling confident and seasoned and ready to take on the adventure of first, heading to Northern California, where I created the simple watercolor and pen portrait above, and next to Austin, Texas for work where I decided to use a handful of notecards I had taken from a fancy hotel several weeks back and create a DIY puzzle if you will with black felt tip pen, colored pencils, and the drag of my hand.

Day 10 brought a new medium into the mix with sewing, which I happily did with a dear friend and her daughter, using Martha Stewart as inspiration and a pile of felt and thread as our tools.

Making it a goal of mine not to only make something everyday, but make something different, maybe not everyday - but changing things up enough to not get bored with my own project, let alone anyone who might be keeping up with me, I went for duct tape wall art, a scribbled self portrait and a simple photograph of Our Lady of Angels I pause to admire each and every time I pass.

A few days in Texas with lots of work and limited access to the local Michael's I can only hope I keep an eye out for found objects and interesting opportunities to continue onto week three...

day 10 

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#100daysofart: week 1, getting creative being creative

A week in and I can already feel the enormity of this self proposed challenge I have chosen to undertake.

While perusing the site for #100daysofart you can see many people chose themes, creating a selfie a day or a watercolor of a variety of landscapes - perhaps a wise move when stumped for your next potential project. I, on the other hand, being a Jedi warrior in the art of making things far more difficult than need be, chose simply to create with an open ended idea of what that meant. I wanted to make sure I utilized different forms and mediums and, in the process, stretch and strenghten my idea of what constitutes art.

A stop at my old familiar stomping grounds of the local art supply store not only brought me back to my younger days; days when my father purchased and set up a professional draft table in my childhood bedroom, giving me the proper tools to create Louvre-worthy portraits of Peter Pan and Mickey Mouse, but also those days from university where one was often faced with the choice between a chunk of premium charcoal or nutritionally balanced meal. Ah, the good ole days.

A few basics in my bag and I was ready to go and conquer.  

day 2

day 3

day 4

Day 1 had been an introduction to the whole project and allowed me to use my middle school level typography that I love so much. Day 2 lent itself to my doodle days and came almost effortlessly as I dragged pencil on paper and made a random yet consistent pattern. Day 3 and Day 4 I chose to go 3-D, decorating mugs (a long stranding tradition for me and a couple of other ladies) and making a collage about said father who purchased that draft table all those years ago. Neither my typical form of expression yet both uniquely satisfying in their creation and result.

day 5


Figuring a trip to the Getty Center on Day 5 would simply lend itself to my next work, I found I was a bit stumped and, as a professional photographer almost felt like I was cheating it when I grabbed a quick shot of beautful bougainvillea wrapped around iron rods in the garden. Not having used photography yet I felt I got a pass.

Then life kicked in, as it is wont to do. Meetings and commutes. Social commitments and time at the gym watching How I Met Your Mother reruns while on the elliptical began to fill every conceivable moment of my day and I knew that, with this only being the beginning, I would have to think outside the box to accomplish this goal. Literally.

day 6

I knew when publicly declaring my attempt to complete all 100 days of art, time management would play as big a role, if not bigger, than the ideas with which I needed to come up to make my art. Day 6 ended up being totally out of left field and a back up when a previous concept didn't look like it was so feasible. A found rubber ball with a black sharpie and white out can go a long way when in a pinch. Day 7 was going to be a painting but, when seated at a basketball game watching an antsy 8 year old desperately searching for ways to fill her time when her father was shooting 3-pointers, I figured part of the beauty of this project could be my ability to share art with others. With a good pad of paper and colored pencils at the ready, I thought, pretending the entire time that I was not at all concerned about the fact that I knew my pencils would be returned dull and out of chromatic order, why not offer this little girl a distraction from her youthful boundless energy and allow her to create what ended up being a great portrait of her daddy playing ball. Though she was not able to finish the picture before I had to leave (with my compromised pencils)  I was able to give her a moment of art and, create art by proxy. Though I did not document her work, I did manage to capture a shot of her creating her own masterpiece, lost in her own world of color and texture - a place we should all visit more often.

day 7 

day 8


Siblings are a curious thing. Two (or more) people, made from the same ingredients who turn out totally differently. My sister and I are no exception to this phenomenon and while I was born an artist, she was born a businesswoman. Her business is fashion and, while spending a day fondling fabrics and chatting over tea I saw the opportunity to make a face right there - at the Sunset Tower Hotel with table scraps of artichoke, peper and honey for Day 8. The lemon wedge to create a sunny smile was simply icing on the cake to a day with my very different, yet almost equally lovely sister and my first full week of #100daysofart.

Hopefully having worked out some kinks and warmed up some muscles, next week will bring new inspiration and new visual adventures. Wish me luck!

#100daysofart: creatively recharging one day at a time ...

I am an artist. 

It is just that simple.

I was born one and, when my parents encouraged me to create, express and go on to study the subject matter in the world of higher education, it became not only who I was on the inside, but who the world perceived me to be as well.

As adulthood weighs heavy on our shoulders and the responsibilities associated with building and blossoming into this You 2.0 dulls your senses, many of us let the artistry of childhood fall by the wayside and 'real life' sink in.

I have maintained my status as artist, both in person and profession for many years, a fact of I am extraordinarily proud of, but one that can be a challenge to maintain from time to time. This is especially true when life gets hard and for me - it has gotten hard. Real hard.

Instead of returning to my brush or relying on my pen I find that, when I sink down into the cobalt blues I prefer to space than to create. This nagging feeling, paired with one of the few true benefits of social media, just the other day I was inspired. A fellow real life adult and artist had chosen to take the #100daysofart challenge and post it to her instagram. When questioned about the project she said, and I am paraphrasing, that this too was something she needed to exercise.

Not wanting my creative quads to atrophy, I decided to assign myself the challenge of creating something new, witnessing something beautiful, or learning something enlightening everyday and, in turn, sharing it with the cyber-world at large.

I will be documenting this atypical journey through my own instagram, blog and on SOAlife, I hope you come along for the ride and I hope it inspires you too to do some squats for the soul.

we're not in kansas anymore, we're in pensylvannia... (#weddingweekend)

 

I make it a point to, if invited, partake in the special moments in the lives of those I love.
Sure, buying yet another heinous bridesmaid gown or cooing over another not-yet-cute baby face can be a daunting task, but also a true honor. As I grow older and my life becomes more complicated, the important things in it become clearer.

Last year, I flew to Hawaii alone to attend the wedding of a man I once loved and now just have massive amounts of love for and several years back now I made my way to Sacramento in chilly October to attend a baby shower in a suburban home and these expenses and scheduling conflicts were all incurred for one reason - love.

As trite as it may sound, love really is the answer and if you love someone, platonic, familial or otherwise and they love you enough to invite you into their special day, or if they are Jewish, lengthy week, why the hell would you not say yes and make sure to be there?

This past Summer I had an event in my life, not joyous, but monumental and I can say with clear certainty that the people I love who chose to be there for me made me feel loved and I will never fully be able to express how much that meant.

Moving on.

Having worked at the ancient Hearst publication Good Housekeeping for a couple of glorious years before I had grey hair and a ticking biological clock I met a group of women who became family to me and this past weekend, one of them got married.

I had not seen her in some time, but our friendship had remained in sporadic visits, postcards and donations to one another's charitable endeavors. The fact that she was getting married in Pennsylvania seemed like a breeze compared to my standard cross country trips to witness nuptials - little did I know that Donegal was not a hop skip and a jump, but over the river and through the woods.

Joining forces with the other single woman invited with the now obligatory +0 with whom I also worked but never knew well, when departing Manhattan late on a Friday night I didn't realize that the nearly 7 hour drive to this tiny town in Amish Country with a population smaller than my graduating high school class would be a blur of unlit roads and Waffle Houses, all the while seeming less like the adventurous road trips of yore, and more like a never ending road to nowhere.

After countless snacks and caffeinated beverages consumed my travel companion, Annie, and I arrived at the designated wedding hotel. If we had blinked we most certainly would have missed it as there were perhaps 3 business that dotted this small country road, the most prominent of which was our destination, The Holiday Inn Express. Amused by the chain hotel expressly recommended to us but grateful to be out of the compact car we quickly made our way into the lobby of the Holiday Inn to be greeted by a cornucopia of dead mammals, stuffed and ready for the taking. Usually disgusted by such displays of savagery and taxidermy I was, conversely, besotted. The charm of the deer and bear theme etched, burned, embossed, woven and printed on every conceivable item in this mass produced rustic lodge enchanted me in a way that might make you think I have never before left the island of Manhattan.

High on the formaldehyde of our new lobby friends, Annie and I raced to our double queen room excited for a) sleep and b) what the following day had to offer.

Allowing ourselves to sleep in, which for grown ups means 9am, we were met with a sun so bright I thought perhaps we had traveled further into the atmosphere and a few houses that appeared once the light was there to illuminate them.

Baffled both by the lush green pastures as well as the lack of city planning I was ready, willing and able to see what this part of the country had to offer.

Being from California and having lived in New York City for the better part of a decade I often forget that there are, what I call, 'those other 48' states with their own charm and appeal. With visions of Golden Gates and Empire States of Mind who has time to think of butter churning country, but let me tell you - this place was amazing.

There is no way the proprietors of the Western Shop and Tchotchke Emporium I made my way into before our morning hike had any idea that I was a well traveled woman. I gave off no scent of having visited 6 of the 7 continents thus far, because I was completely giddy with the excitement of a child upon their first visit to Disneyland, only I was looking at deer light fixtures and carvings of bears in awkward positions, which I felt were must haves for my 1 bedroom apartment in Washington Heights. The Kool Aid I was consuming in mass amounts only got sweeter as we entered the adjacent Western shop in which I not only was an unwilling participant in a flirt-off with a grandpa in a 10-gallon hat who commented on my 'slacks' but in which I spent a pretty penny on some lovely jewelry and a Tejano crop-top, originally meant to be a square dancing vest, which I found to be essential at the moment and now think the studs and leather details might serve better for my ever impending Halloween costume as slain singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez.

Barely able to contain my excitement for these totally reasonably priced gems, I forced myself to first get my sweat on and headed into the kaleidoscope of color known as fall in the North East, not to be confused with North West - the person. The colors were vibrant and noise minimal, offering an escape from the life in which I usually live and opportunity to speak to a local grandma who got an Ooh La La accent when we told her we lived in Manhattan, but who I was envious of as she is the one that gets to live in this beautiful, natural environment. I could not find the right words to articulate this so we simply kept it moving as we knew there were places to patronize on te ride back to the hotel and though my inner lesbian was loving this bucolic bounty, we did have a wedding to attend.

Swag in tow we made took our sweet ass time navigating the 4 miles back to the hotel (beep beep) stopping for postcards at a mom and pop, gourds and peach cider at a family farm, and kettle corn being made right on the side of the road by a Duck Dynasty impersonator. It was all too much sensational stimuli for me to handle.

Showered, makeuped, blowdried and poured into a dress that solidified the fact that I did not belong in this provincial town (queue Belle) I made my way to the compound that more closely resemble fourth grade pioneer day than any wedding venue to which I have ever bore witness - and I have been a bridesmaid 12 times. The chapel was stone and log and let the light seep in like butter on toast. The wedding was small, intimate and consisting mostly of family, leaving me even more touched to have been included on the guest list.

Though the settings was the perfect Pinterest wedding, my fave visual may have been of Aunt Ruth and Grandma Jean (totally made up names for older women to whom I did not speak a word) seated during cocktail hour directly below what I believe to be stuffed Meerkats in a frozen battle,teeth bared as they sipped their whiskey sours and enjoyed their crudites.

Romantic lighting, covered hay stacks and a first dance to Metallica made for a magical evening, yet the mother of the bride took the cake, or more appropriately cookie, having adroened the dessert table with homemade goodies as far as the eye could see. My date for the evening commented on how you know you're at a wedding single when you devour the dessert table with the fervor and frequency with which I did, but I had to stop her right there. I would like to think no matter who I may be with, I will never pass up a free homemade cookie or cake. I mean, I do have standards. And an ever expanding ass, but I digress...

Knowing this wedding would be a hard one for me, not because I have become a main character in Sex And the City in my 30s ($20 bucks if you guess which one I am) but because the father daughter walk down the aisle, speech and first dance would most certainly hit me in a way it never before had, with the harsh reality that it was certain I would never be able to experience those rights of passage in my life and would only be able to hold onto memories past.

I excused myself for 45 minutes and called my bestie. Thank goodness for AT&T!

Being in the presence of true love is always a special occasion, but being in the presence of my own bed usually takes prescedence so Annie and I retired to what I now thought of as our own personal country retreat and anxiously awaited the two breakfasts for which we were in store.

The Ho-Inn Express offered a free continental breakfast with the catchiest marketing team behind their signage I have ever seen and when they posed the statement 'Bread - You Know You Want It' I had no choice but to acquiesce. Making the consumption of even more food back at the lodge on the wedding compound to bid the happy couple adieu before their honeymoon in Greece challenging. Luckily I have never been a girl to shy away from a challenge.

A beautiful vista on the deck with the bride carrying her gold goblet emblazoned 'Mrs' with her devoted husband obediently wearing a v-neck t-shirt with Hubby scrawled across the front was a perfect time to actually see the happy couple before getting back in the tiny rental and heading all the way back home, only this time with the light of the day to help be our guide.

A relatively speedy trip got us to the GW bridge just in time for what I consider to be the worst road block in history and always at least an hour wait where we waited, and waited, patience dwindling and bladders filled. But the results of that debacle is a story for another time.

Congratulations to Darice and Mike.
And much love to PA!