I speak, of course, of the “body politic.” It’s a pun and a ter­ri­ble one at that. After quizzing sev­eral artist friends of sim­i­lar age to my own, I’ve come to a star­tling con­clu­sion. The single-​most sig­nif­i­cant inhibitor to true cre­ative, non-​stop, start-​to-​finish, pro­duc­tive qual­ity time in the stu­dio for women over 50? Hot Flashes. Men have no clue […]

Some of the odd­est items in my col­lec­tion would have to be my boy-​hero nov­els from the early 190s to the 1930’s. No decent segue here — bear with me.… I grew up in the days of long car trips spent play­ing either car tag bingo or lis­ten­ing to my par­ents talk about the past. Oh, and say­ing, “Mom, […]

I stum­bled into an amaz­ing cacaphony of match­books about three years ago. Michael Cable’s Wood­side Antiques, an auc­tion house in Far­mville North Car­olina, offered box loads of stuff at the end of a large estate sale. Cable is a mar­velous auc­tion­eer who inserts bits of trivia with every round of bid­ding. I hes­i­tate to admit how much of […]

Well, the rodeo won out, with Shel­ter Island view­ing com­ing in on Mon­day instead of today. We’re going to the Bob Mar­tin Agri Cen­ter and I’m hop­ing the sights and scenes will pro­vide much artis­tic fod­der. Artists and writ­ers must get out of the stu­dio and observe, duh… of course you know that, but for […]

None of us will really go grace­fully into that dark night. You should know we will kick and scream and try to stop death. You should know it’s not always vis­i­ble — the strug­gle and yearn­ing to stay right here in this very moment. It’s hid­den some­times, just behind the eyes, the fight to remain in this […]

Are we ever really fin­ished upload­ing the celes­tial orb? Can life become so ornately dis­or­ga­nized that we for­get to down­load our dis­tress and trust in the almighty — the left­over Thanks­giv­ing, fight for it, wake up in the mid­dle of the night and find it, warm it for one minute in the microwave, get me some vanilla […]

Do you ISO or do I? Found out some­thing truly fas­ci­nat­ing today when I perused a knowl­edge lid­bit (which is slightly more than a tid­bit) con­cern­ing what the dimen­sions of a piece A4 paper is. Come to find out, stan­dard paper sizes are based on a sin­gle aspect ratio of the square root of 2 or [√2 = 1:1.4142] The way to figure […]

Been work­ing my lit­tle col­lage fin­gers to the bone. Well, that ain’t really true, because it went from col­lage to assem­blage in one fell swoop. Blammo… it started when I found these provoca­tive match­books in the pile o’what can I do with this? stuff in the stu­dio desk drawer. Rather than just have the matches sit­ting around […]

What trips your trig­ger? For me, it’s aban­doned metal, cracked and chipped paint on an old piece of wood, an old chest of draw­ers with the legs miss­ing… rusted ele­ments of some for­got­ten auto­mo­bile. I re-​purpose dis­cards and turn them into art. I assem­ble items some­one left behind and cre­ate mean­ing­ful (?) dis­so­nance. It’s a col­lage of […]

It’s so deli­cious when one explores genius online. This “Screw You I’m Fifty-​Two” post just made my day. 11) There are some peo­ple you just have to walk away from, and never look back. These can be any­one from a pushy sales­per­son to your own par­ents. 14) Also when it comes to your kids, you might as […]

Some peo­ple want a Porsche, oth­ers lust for cloth­ing or a large house, per­haps a trip to Paris. Me? What do I dream of own­ing? It’s sim­ple, really. A work from the hands and mind of Emilio Mer­lina. I can spend time thumb­ing through my giant com­pedium of Max Ernst work and then mogate over to the book shelves and pick […]

Work con­tin­ues on the Ann Head but progress is slow. This sore throat/​fever/​aches and pain — stuffy and I can’t rest syn­drome is for the birds. My seden­tary days make the dogs nutzo bazooms because I won’t take them for a walk until the sun goes down and the air is cooler. My lit­tle house­hold fills quickly with inter­nal squalor […]

The last Wood­side Antiques auc­tion we attended must have been in, what… Jan­u­ary? That’s when we acquired the Vic­to­rian scrap­book and the sewing bas­ket filled with dozens of spools of vin­tage thread. And the Vic­to­rian hand­made lace, the 1920s dresses… great bunches of “stuff” at some very low prices. Yes, I’m talk­ing to myself. Didn’t […]