#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 38

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day 40

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day 42

day 43

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.

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!