On any normal day, you look at your calendar to make space for a vacation or even just a day off and you find yourself mumbling, "I really can't move that meeting." The next thing you know, the most convenient time to take your vacation is months away and even then you wonder if something more important will pop up.

...and then life happens.

Something far more important than your normal routine occurs that makes you look at your calendar differently. Suddenly everything on your calendar is movable and quite frankly, unimportant.

My mother has cancer... and a really nasty cancer at that: Anaplastic thyroid cancer.

I am her advocate. I am her rock. I am her number one fan.

....and she is worth putting everything in my life on hold.

Excitement!

 Practice firings done, and now onto production!

One of the reasons I bought my kiln and paid a good chunk to have the juice run to it was so that I could make handmade ceramic tiles for a mosaic I had imagined in my mind's eye.

I have  the perfect place for it... an area near my deck where Dave and I often sit in gravity chairs at the end of a busy day when the weather is nice.  It's one of my favorite spaces in my home (outside of my studio).  This is a place where we relax and toss the ball for our dogs and imagine our next vacation, hosting our next gathering, talk about the challenges life tosses our way and dream of our eventual retirement.

The mosaic will be 4' wide by about 16' tall and will include leaves and flowers from my garden pressed into clay, fired and glazed and affixed to my home. Included will be some of our favorite life quotes... not unlike the bronze plaque that adorns our deck funded largely from Home Depot gift cards we received at our wedding from those lovely people in our lives who can't accept the instruction, "No Gifts".  The plaque reads... "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our soul blossom." ~Marcel Proust

The mural will also include mirror a la Isaiah Zagar. The last Isaiah Zagar inspired wall, Dave and I completed in 2 days.  We were in our yard which is beautifully landscaped. One section of fence remained in cinder block because the neighbor that shared that stretch of fence, Elmira, was in her late 90s and didn't want a wood fence.  As you might imagine, we viewed the cinder block as an eyesore especially since the rest of our property had a beautiful good neighbor fence but the relationship with Elmira was far more important than the fence!

It was on a Saturday morning at our local coffee shop that the idea to do a large coverage Isaiah Zagar inspired mural on the cinder block all popped into my head.  We raced around town getting materials. Dave slathered the wall with thinset as I strategically placed the tile and in 2 days, we obliterated the eyesore with marbles, leftover tile from our bathroom remodel, and a little bit of this and that: bicycle sprockets, broken mirror, etc. 

This turned out to be a temporary installation because three years later, Elmira died and the house was sold and the new neighbors wanted a wood fence.  While we were sad to see the mosaic go, the relationship with the new neighbors was more important than the mosaic wall.

I was thrilled to see Exploding Time pictured in the Marin Independent Journal!

The show is in honor of International Sculpture Day which is on  April 24th.

“A Sculpture Exhibition” features 72 sculptures in a wide variety of mediums from wood to clay to welded steel. Many of the 49 sculptors whose works are in the exhibit are from the Bay Area, including Novato’s Peter Keresztury and San Rafael’s Barbara Andino-Stevenson and Allen Lavee.

The free exhibit runs through April 30 at the gallery at 1515 Third St. in San Rafael; noon to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. A celebration party is from 5 to 9 p.m. April 14 during San Rafael’s second Friday Art Walk. Call 415-454-9561 or go to marinsocietyofartists.org.

Susan Sayre Batton, Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at San Jose Museum of Art, selects Silent Song to be one of the 50 pieces from a pool of 797 Submissions to be displayed in a show called "Left Coast Annual".

Yes.

I'm thrilled!

In 1996, a group of artists, volunteers, and local residents, in cooperation with the City of Pacifica, leased an abandoned elementary school building that they subsequently converted into the Sanchez Art Center. In 1998, with a neighborhood grant from the Peninsula Community Foundation, a team of local artists, youth, and family members completed Pacifica's first large-scale mural, containing images that celebrate community spirit and commitment to diversity.

Left Coast Annual
Sanchez Art Center
1220-B Linda Mar
Pacifica, CA 94044
April 21 - May 21
Please come to the reception!
Friday, April 21, 2016,  7:00-9:00pm

International Sculpture Day is an annual event held worldwide to celebrate sculpture and it's vital contribution to society. Organizations, studios and galleries from 20 countries are celebrating this day by holding sculpture exhibitions during the month of April. Jeff Owens, the juror for Marin Society of Artists' Sculpture Exhibition, selected one of my sculptures to be featured in the event. 

This will be my second show at Marin Society of Artists and I'm thrilled to have had my work accepted for this show.

Come see  "Exploding Time on display with other fantastic art.
A Sculpture Exhibition
Marin Society of Artists
1515 3rd Street
San Rafael, California 94901
April 5 - April 30
Please come to the reception!
Friday, April 14, 2016,  5:00-9:00pm

For 20+ years I lived in industrial spaces where I could both live and do my work.  However, once I bought my home, I made a conscious decision to abandon some of the art making I did in my own industrial space and to leverage shared collaboration space offered by The Crucible for those disciplines requiring it: specifically, my neon and metal work.

This is The Crucible. The Crucible is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts education organization that fosters a collaboration of arts, industry, and community.  The Crucible promotes creative expression, reuse of materials, and innovative design, while serving as an accessible arts venue for the general public in the Bay Area. 

I'm frequently asked how neon is made.  You start with glass tubes in various diameters and then you work that glass over a flame. Pictured here is a crossfire that has just been lit.  This flame is not hot enough to do work - except maybe annealing,

Weights are used to hold your piece in place while you weld your electrodes on. Welding requires heating, pushing and pulling the glass, and blowing with your blow hose.

This piece of equipment is called an bombarder. Bombarding is the process in which the neon unit is heated up and at the same time the vacuum pump extracts all the air out of the unit. The reason for this stage is to purify the inner walls of the neon tube and create a vacuum. Once air is removed, the piece can be filled with gas of your choice:  neon (red), argon (pale purple), krypton (white) or include the mercury in a trap as seen above (blue).

Here is Christian Scheiss who teaches the neon classes at The Crucible pumping a long piece. This piece is filled with neon, so it will illuminate red. The process of bombarding also strengthens the areas of the glass which was worked with the flame and either bent or welded. Apparently neon sign makers used to put their finished pieces in large kilns to serve this purpose.
 

Here's a great video on how neon is made so you can see it live in action. :)

Berkeley Arts Center has to be one of my favorite gallery. It's a beautiful space tucked away in the Berkeley Hills just walking distance from Saul's Deli. The space is just the right size and I was completely amazed by the amount of people who attended the opening.  It was an amazingly active community.

I love to photograph people looking at my sculptures.  I love to attend events to lurk near my piece and watch people engaging as a result of my work.  I wish I were able to hear what they are actually saying but I'm not always able to and that's ok too. That my work gets their attention simply thrills me.

Berkeley Art Center (BAC) serves the diverse and creative citizens of Berkeley, through the presentation of visual art exhibitions, musical performances and literary programs relevant to its unique community.  This salon-style exhibition features small works in a variety of media and is a celebration of the deep and broad art community that makes Berkeley Art Center such a unique organization.

The exhibition is presented in two parts: a non-juried presentation, "HERE, Part 1" followed by a juried show, "HERE, Part 2". This year the juror will be Renny Pritikin, Chief Curator of the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.

Come see 84B and Me in the "HERE, Part 1" exhibition and who knows, it may get selected for the juried "HERE, Part 2" show as well!

HERE, Part 1
Berkeley Art Center
1275 Walnut Street Berkeley, CA 94709
December 3 - January 8
Please come to the reception!
Saturday, December 3, 2016,  5:00-7:00pm

I began designing a 3D Mosaic Mural for my backyard more than a year ago. It's hard to explain here but it promises to be spectacular.... just trust me.  During the design process, my boss gave me a small ceramic butterfly with the engraved quote, "Do what makes your heart smile." I had immediately thought to use it in my mural but the more I thought about it, this butterfly inspired me to want to incorporate many life quotes that resonated with both my husband and I and that were guiding principles for our lives.  Since I didn't own a kiln, I reached out to many artists on Etsy to contract an artist to create mosaic tiles to spec for me to incorporate in this piece, but that proved to be quote expensive.

So... I decided to look into getting my own kiln.  I reviewed models and manufacturers and ultimately decided on the Skutt KM-818. I configured a Craigslist email notification and in less than 24 hours, I was driving to Elk Grove, CA to buy my kiln (which normally retails for $1100) for $175.

Next up... how to power it and where to put it! 

I contacted an electrician to install a subpanel in the desired location with a NEMA 6-250 receptacle.  Next my husband built a surface for this and last on the list is building a suitable enclosure to protect the kiln for when it is not in use. Soon... I will be able to not only realize the 3D mosaic mural I'm looking to install on the back of my house, but also I'll be able to realize another project I've been designing for several years: a totem pole project that marries symbols from both my husband's and my own heritage: a blend of both of us.

I had always wanted to make a memory quilt from my fathers clothes to keep as a keepsake but... it never happened.

When my husband's stepmom Josephine passed in June, I decided to make a memory quilt from her clothes for each of her surviving siblings. Ultimately I made 7 quilts. The name "The Sentimental Seven" was given to them.

I'm including this story here for a couple of reasons.  Life has a way of impacting the creative process.  I have not been in the studio because I have been caring for a family member who was dying. This is more important than making art. Also... sometimes my art isn't intended for the gallery wall... sometimes I make things simply because they need to be made.... like these quilts... read more about their story here.

The Story Behind These Memory Quilts

“Families are like quilts, stitched together one piece at a time,
and the quilt tells a story, one piece at a time.” ~ Unknown

When we were packing up Josephine’s belongings, there were many moments of reflection, sometimes tearful and sometimes we found ourselves laughing. Items reminded us of her: drawers of buttons from clothing she had purchased – reminding us of her sense of fashion, drawers of travel brochures and trinkets collected from her various trips – reminding us of her desire to explore the world, and drawers containing cards that she had received from her friends and family – reminding us of all the people who loved her. 

We donated the bulk of her clothes and personal items to the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital (LPCH) so once sold, the proceeds would fund care for uninsured children who come to the Emergency Room needing treatment.  However, not all of Josephine’s clothes made it to the LPCH Children’s Auxiliary. A handful of blouses were pulled out of the lot – many that she wore in her final months – to make a quilt, this quilt that tells her story and keeps the memory of her alive in the homes of those people who loved her.

The pinwheel is an icon representing childhood innocence and happy memories of youthful experiences. The pinwheel also represents movement, so this is meant to symbolize Josephine’s movement from here to there. For this reason, the center blocks in this quilt are made using the pinwheel pattern from the clothes of Josephine G. Harris. A white background was used as the offset color to symbolize her pinwheels spinning in the clouds or in heaven.

There are seven of these quilts. Each was made using a different backing fabric. The border surrounding the pinwheel area contains pieces of fabric from each of the seven quilts. The various patterns represent each of the families who received them – who are colorful in their own special ways and who together, represent the tapestry of Josephine’s life. The border being stitched together by me is not unlike how we were stitched in to the Buitrago family by Josephine.

Finally, on the back of the quilt, you’ll find a heart. This heart is made from the shirt Josephine was wearing when all of you gathered in her home prior to her passing.