spare-oh

Things I love: a baby package from Rachel! "A Young Girl Reading" by Jean-Honore Fragonard. I love her hand and her yellow dress. This picture I took of O'Malley around Christmas 2006. I loved winter nights reading in bed with Tiger at my feet and O'Malley by my side. I knew those nights were precious and wouldn't always be around, so I took a picture of it. I'm so glad I did. I remember I was reading T.S.Eliot and this was around the time I fell in love with "Preludes". I wish I could go back sometimes. It's almost a year since Malley left. I miss him so much.

you called me a poet.

a piece I finished today: "I was too young to know how to love her (Conifer, stay with me)" - 9x12" - acrylic on masonite love, amanda

birch bark

I've always loved birch trees and found them to be magical in some sense. They remind me of my nana for some reason, and of lots of other wonderful things. For this reason, I've decided to embark upon a small endeavor of birch tree studies. I'm really excited. This morning I sat on the ground amidst a suspicious scattering of small bluejay feathers (perhaps from the heads of our two bald blue jays - yes, I said bald bluejays) and drew our birch trees. "#1: backyard birch at noon" - pencil on cardstalk - 5"x7" "# 2: peeling fence birch at noon" - pencil on cardstalk - 7"x5".

names.

I like how you can think of ten thousand different variations for the title of a painting, but you always know without fail when it is the right one. And you always feel better about everything when you've found it.

leftover downpour and three graces.

I just spent a very nice evening and morning in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with Kate for her Enormous Tiny Show opening. The show was great, and if all goes as planned, I'll be in the February show of the same name! Shauna came to stay with Kate and I in the hotel. We saw a lot of good people, did lots of good shopping, and I was hugged by a pug which made everything all the much better. We stopped into a bookstore where I purchased The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. I fell in love with it as soon as I read the inside cover and I know it's just what I need right now book-wise. I want to run away (via a book). I want characters with lives so complex that I can forget about my own for a while. I think it will do all of this for me. I have two paintings in my head. They should be coming out soon. That's about all. PS - It was time to update the music on this thing.

little art!

yay! Buttons with my artwork will be available at the auction for One Home! I'm excited to see my art on buttons. :)

Frida and Diego

Frida and Diego by Frida Kahlo.

Art that shrinks like Alice.

This Friday (September 5th) is the fourth Enormous Tiny Art Show at Nahcotta Gallery on Congress Street in Portsmouth, NH. My friends Kate Castelli and Ann Kirchner are in it! So stop on by if you can. :) According to Kate, the entire town is having a kind of open-studios event and there are lots of great galleries to check out. It should be a nice almost-fall type of evening.

wear a bandana; be a bandit!

This is just a preview for some little things I've been working on for the charity auction! Some wearable art.
This one is hardly done, but I'm excited about it and wanted to give an update on the work that's in process for the show! These pieces were inspired by a printed scarf of my Nana's that I've been wearing lately. I wanted to take the modern concept of wearing a bandana around your neck (or hair or waist) and make it decorative with images and symbols that I imagine could be close to someone's heart (I know they're close to mine).
This morning I found myself sitting on the grass of a lumber yard in a dress alongside a small river watching guppies try to swim upstream while I waited for new masonite to be cut. I felt really happy. And the woodcutters are coming to my show! :)

Once I wrote a poem about two white rabbits.

I always dream about animals. At varyng times in my life, I've dreamt of white badgers, birds of prey, sea creatures (presented to me by a man who wanted to be my lover), and so on. Last night I dreamt of my cat and a raccoon, both in the car with me and my mom, and not knowing what to do. I was afraid my cat would get hurt. But I wanted to spend time with the raccoon, who seemed so tame. In that car, I looked out the window and saw a white speckled owl walking the ground, pacing with his tallons as though he were human, looking down at something. I thought it was something he had killed to eat. Now I am not so sure. Animals mean so much to me in my daily life that they come to me in my dreams as symbols of things I can't understand. Until I do understand, I'll trust dream dictionary meanings. Because they haven't failed me yet.