I woke up this morning with a sense of unbalance that I found hard to place. I’ve never really felt this way before, but then, I’ve never really been this old before. With all the changes in the world—in my world—(mostly…not good), the best way I can describe it is the ground shifting under my feet. The easy place to …
Playing in the mud
I touched clay for the first time in a class I took during college in 2001. It affected me so much I married my professor. (Different story all together, but just know it really can affect you.) I played in it off and on until I graduated in 2005 and demonstrated a couple of pieces to a high school class …
I’m not a cook
Growing up, my mother ushered my sisters and me out of the kitchen while she cooked our meals and ushered us back in when it was time to clean up. Needless to say, I became an adult with no idea how to cook or even the desire to try. Until, I guess, now. It started with a lot of leftovers …
It’s been a long, long time…
I used to make it a point to get something new on this blog maybe a couple of times a week. I always felt I needed to have some kind of image to talk about before I could post. This time, though, I’ve decided the images will have to wait while I write some words. Ugh. I dread writing, but …
Autumn Rust
I needed to take a little time for myself and smear some paint around, and this is what came of it. It’s called “Autumn Rust.” I painted it with acrylics on stretched canvas, and it measures 20″ wide x 24″ high.
Art of Facts: Uncovering Pittsburgh Stories, part 2
So here’s the final illustration of the Pittsburgh H for the Art of Facts exhibit. I’ve titled it “Pittsburgh is Spelled With H” after the newspaper article in The Gazette Times with the same title. You can see the sketch for the illustration and an explanation of what we were asked to illustrate in this post from last August. It’s also …
Sunrise run
I finally got a Fitbit last November for my birthday. I had never carried my phone with me in the mornings when I ran until a couple of months ago when I got the Fitbit, and I would often kick myself because of the beautiful sunrises I wasn’t getting photos of. Well, now that’s changed. Here was a recent early-run sunrise, …
Biking in unheard-of February weather
We took advantage of the beautiful mid-60s temperatures and headed out for about 15 miles on the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail. We started at the West Newton trail head and turned around on the other side of Van Meter. The bench outside the West Newton train station visitor’s center. Texture texture texture. You never know when it will come in …
Visual Journal
This one is actually cheating since I drew it over a two-day period. I ran out of steam the first night, and had trouble thinking of ways to illustrate what I had done that day. As it turned out, I did pretty much the same things on the day I finished it, so it worked out in the end. For …
Zen Garden
A zen garden! We have a new addition to our back yard, and my husband gets all the credit. He did all the work; all I did was point and nod and sit back and admire. Among other mediums, he works in clay, and a few years ago he had an exhibit showing his tabletop clay zen gardens. He hand …
The Iron Worker by Gerrit Albertus Beneker
On a recent visit to the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg (Pennsylvania), I found myself drawn to The Iron Worker, an oil painting from 1905 by Gerrit Albertus Beneker. Drawn to it as in, I would walk away, and then walk back and stare. Several times. I studied the brush strokes maybe a little too closely; I backed away …
Sunrise walk
My ankle hasn’t recovered yet from the sprain back in June, so some mornings I need to walk my route instead of running it. I don’t bring my phone with me when I run, but I do when I walk. There’s been many, many times over the years when I wish I had my phone while I’m running to capture the beautiful sunrises that …