Trip #2...

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We had a nice litle trip to Milwaukee...we ate at a few of our old favorite places, toured the neighborhoods that Rich lived in and visited the Milwaukee Art Museum where I was very inspired by the works of:John Wilde, Alan Davie, Milton Avery (painting below), Edgar Tolson (sculpture below) and Gabriele Munter.

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Top photo...sketching on the drive up on Sunday, you'll notice this is one of those sketch book pages that has to span 3 days..that's what happens when I get behind. Snapshots from the trip below: 

Conejito's Place

where they serve your enchiladas on a paper plate...no muss no fuss. Ta

sted just like I remembered and I don't think they've raised the price in the last 17 years.

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Sorry to mix the food with the art, Typepad has me using a new beta site that is making it very tricky to layout the images with the text. Have to see if  I can get my old  format back.

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That's Rich in front of Sydney HiH...the building where we met. His band the Psycho Bunnies had a practice space (where he was living very primitively!) and they often played in a bar in the basement called The Unicorn. It looks like Sydney Hih's days are now numbered. Other treats...Kopps Frozen Custard...Butter Pecan..mmmm. These cows overlook the parking lot. A fun little get away..I've been playing serious catch-up after excursions 2 weeks in a row. Suddenly my show in Kansas City is only a week away! It will be a working weekend for me...but I'm looking forward to it! 

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We Did...10 Years Ago Today

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On a Tuesday morning, 10 Years ago today Rich & I got married on the shore of Lake Michigan by Reverend Lee, who we found in the Yellow Pages.  This was our fun little announcement that we made from photo booth pictures..it was an elopement. We have been together since meeting in January of 1991 in Milwaukee. I cannot tell you where the last 17+ years have gone, it's been like a blink of an eye. So we are off to Milwaukee for a long over do little overnight visit to celebrate this 10th Anniversary. Big Love to You Baby...I wouldn't be living this big wonderful art life without you, your never ending support and voice of reason!

Kohler Art Adventure...

On Monday I took this first of many trips I will be taking in the next 5-6 months if you include all the art fairs. I often feel like a shut-in working from my home studio but suddenly the season changes and my world opens up. I love a road trip...especially when someone else is driving!

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My first adventure was earlier this week when I took a long overdue trip up to the Sheboygan/Kohler/Manitowoc area to visit my dear friend Erica Huntzinger. She works as a teacher at the the wonderful John Michael Kohler Art Center and has also recently become involved in their Arts Industry Program which brings artists to the Kohler Factory for residencies. I love this museum, it is just the right size and they show such an eclectic mix of artists. The wonderful surprise here is all the bathrooms, each designed by a different resident artist. The Women's Room shown above has all these exquisite corpse tiles and each sink and toilet bowl is also adorned with art. 

Photo on the left Erica & Daniel choosing the spot to plant a new tree. Daniel is an arborist among his many other talents!

After our tour we lunched at the yummy Field to Fork, hiked around their home in rural Cleveland, WI.(that used to be a cheese factory!) and had a lovely bonfire that night. The photo below is a peek at the cheese factory from over the hill:

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On Tuesday morning we took an extensive 3 hour tour of the Kohler Factory. It was amazing, unfortunately cameras were not allowed so all I have is a photo from  Destinationkohler.com. I encourage you to take the tour if you get the chance. Our guide, Joe, was was fantastic. He worked there his whole life, and has been a tour guide for the last 20 years in his retirement. We were able to also take a peek at what the resident artists were working on, they have the opportunity to work in the Pottery, Iron and Brass Foundries, and Enamel Shop.

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After the tour we had the most amazing brunch at Whispering Orchards....

Strawberry Ruhbarb French Toast!Fed the goats and mules then later hiked down to Lake Michigan and collected lots of great rocks.

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Then visited Daniel at the Cleveland Post Office...a really sweet small town place where the postage has also gone up only one cent. Of course they were out of one cent stamps!

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Finished up with a tour of the area, saw lots of great birds, a yellow finch and this is a red winged blackbird on the sign. I had not seen one since doing my field sculpture last summmer.

It was a wonderful little get-away...now back to real life: Trying to catch up in the studio!

KC ...my afternoon at the easel

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We head to Kansas City at the end of this month to do the Prairie Village Art Show. I was very happy to be one of the 90 artists selected from over 600 that applied. In conjunction with my new road trip series of paintings I also want to create similar works that encompass  places & landmarks of specific cities and neighborhoods (stay tuned for Chicago neighborhoods this summer!). Talented artist & my good friend Laura Nugent (who resides in KC and will also be exhibiting at the show) supplied me with a list of such items and with the added help of google images for reference I created this composition. I even taped it's creation with a webcam but you'll have to wait on that as I'm still challenged when it comes to editing. And of course I must finish this painting, (which I am confident I will do soon) now that I have this ability to document it. Curious? I'm using Gawker.

My Fleet of Trucks and a Bus!

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Amazingly, the trucks are all close to the same scale even though I made them independent of one another. The bus below is another story...it's way bigger than the trucks - of course it will shrink a bit when it goes through the bisque firing. It's a strange bus, I had 3 different images in my head and I kind of morphed them altogether in the clay.

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Now I have lots of glazing to do...that's the hard part! It's not likepainting with acrylics. Many coats are needed to get the saturationthat I like and even then the underglazes can do strange things in thekiln. Stay tuned!

Bullseye II

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Bullseye II...30"x30". This recently completed painting chronicles the pain of my typical migraine headache. My pain is generally targeted behind one eye. I developed the sketch for this one back in 2003 for an annual migraine art contest the National Headache Foundation used to sponsor and finally got around to painting it full size. The NHF gave me a merit award for Bulls Eye I, and you can see a few more of my migraine paintings here.

And this one: "Below the Blade" is also migraine related. That little circular saw blade over her neck signify's wanting to chop my head off...a lot of pain and stiffness radiates through my neck & shoulders during these headaches too. I feel very fortunate that over the years I have found medication and a combination of things that make them much more manageable for me. The sketch for this one was not as happy go lucky as this painting appears!

Using My Art to Help Our Furry Friends

Tree House Animal Foundation has their Annual Stray Cat Strut on Sunday, May 4th. I created the design for this Annual Fundraising Event. These folks know kitty cats and they do such good work to find homes and improve the lives of so many of Chicago's homeless felines and other animals too.

Chicago Animal Care & Control Will be using my banner design again for Be Kind To Animals Week, May 4-10, 2008. The banners will hang at Chicago's City Hall in the Loop.

Other Pet Welfare Events Going on this weekend:
Bark in the Park the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society's 5k Walk & Fundraiser.

Last weekend the  Humane Society of Berks County held their annual Art for Arf's Sake charity art auction. I donated this Smiling Black Dog Mounted Print:

May 1st

Our 112 year old frame house finally has insulation! They actually blew it into the walls from outside...only took one day.That hose is pretty wild, you could see as the fibers shot through it and all the pictures on the wall shook as the walls filled up. It's already quieter in here and now we won't freeze from all the drafts in the winter and hopefully avoid sizzling in the summer. Better conditions for making art!