Never Ever

Lisbeth has bounced back once again, amazing woman/child.I took a video of Lisbeth dancing in my studio yesterday. After she left, I viewed it, and as I watched it this song happened to be playing on my CD player. It seemed to fit perfectly, so I went home and made it the soundtrack. I had no idea what the words meant, or at least I thought I didn't know. I did take a few years of French when I was in Jr. High and High School. Maybe it stayed with me more than I realize, because after I made this video I looked up the translation to the song...




Am I ever fragile? Do I really have a choice?
Do I ever gently grumble, maybe? Was I thinking of death?
To eventually stop... being so strong
Can I even cry?
No never, never ever
Look, am I trembling?
No never, I'd rather die
Than let life kill me
No never, ever, never ever...


Julien Bense

Light from Darkness

Goya

Maya Bloch

Kathe Kollwitz

Guardians and angels are on my mind of late, and what it means to be a guardian. I'm one of my daughter Lisbeth's legal guardians, and she has many other sorts of guardians, celestial and terrestial. So do I. How do they show up? What do they look like? These are the thoughts I'm taking with me to the studio today...

Mondays with Lisbeth

My daughter Lisbeth will be joining me in my studio on Monday mornings to "do art." Today she was not in the mood to make art, but wanted me to draw her. She sat for about half an hour. I have made several portraits of Lisbeth over the years. It's an intense experience, because she is so intense, and our bond and joint history is so intense. In a thirty minute period, Lisbeth can rapidly vacillate between giddiness, anxiety, anger, sadness...it's all there.

More Proofs

A slab of white to roll on my copper plate which still had left on it remnants of blue ink.

Printed on Rives BFK gray, this created a pale steel gray image.

Preparing another slab of pink ink to roll on my second copper plate, my image of Lisbeth's eyes...

Which I printed over the gray image, and again by itself on the lower half of the page.

Some graphite drawing on the eyes at the top of the page...

Prints soaking, getting ready for another run through the press...

A pink overlay of Lisbeth's eyes on the indigo blue print.

Men at work.

Another sweet afternoon spent in the new printshop, experimenting with colors and layering images. Too Much Fun.

Etchings

Yesterday I pulled the first proofs of my sugarlift etchings.

And etched a new plate.

Here it is getting degreased with Comet...

I will be layering this image of Lisbeth's eyes with images of her snowflakes using multiple plates.

The plates waiting in my cubby.

Ooooh, it feels SO GOOD to be printing again. Ahhhhh.....

Many More Mandalas...

Nine new framed mandalas are for sale in Lisbeth's Etsy shop: Frog Queen, Glad Giants, Lobster Moon, Flaming Oak, Bat Song, Four of Acorns, Fish and Wishbones, Beach Rose and Bleeding Hearts, and Candlelight. All on soft shades of earth toned archival colored paper.

The 10th one is not for sale....

Mother and Daughter
This one's mine! Happy weekend, everyone!

Fabricating

I've been up to my knees in snowflakes - paper ones and real ones! Here are some of my daughter Lisbeth's shirts, hanging in the big pine tree out back and on the clothesline, waiting to be photographed, yesterday and today. Today was not a day for fingerless gloves - we have a wicked wind chill happening here in Maine, and I nearly got frostbite taking these pics!!! Lisbeth's shop is doing well! We've had 22 sales already! I am so pleased, and so is Lisbeth.

And look what came in the mail this afternoon! My two fabric swatches from Spoonflower! These are designs that I sent in about a week ago. I am very excited! Infinite fabric possibilities!! I just sent in single mandalas for these sample swatches, but Spoonflower can do repeats and patterns - I can make layers of them in photoshop with some opaque and some transparent - they can over lap - I can take fragments of the mandalas and play with those - I can play with scale....agh! So many ideas!!!! But to start, I like the single image. This will make great throw pillows, table napkins, QUILT SQUARES! Imagine a quilt made with all different Lisbeth mandalas, in all different colors!!!!! Or, in a more subtle monochromatic color scheme! Ahhhhh, fun times ahead...

Stationary (But Moving!)

Playing with color combos in Photoshop, designing some cards for Lisbeth's Etsy shop, Brain Storm Studio. ENDLESS possibilities. A bit overwhelming! So I just started with some of my favorite colors...