Art-Is-You

Time has been rushing by. I've been home from my Wonderful trip to old haunts...oh, good, only two weeks, with a huge make-up caseload at work and a weekend in Seattle since, so I don't feel SO bad about not sharing all that happened.

Teaching and selling at Art-Is-You was my excuse to revisit my old home turf and old friends, but more about NY and VT later, the nature of HOME, FRIENDSHIP and all of that.

Here I am with my new camera and my Hot Flash outfit, trying to smile while I take a picture in the bathroom mirror at the hotel in CT.




Sallianne and Ellen run a Fabulous Event, and asked Merrilee and her story teller friend to do an intro to my book signing for the debut of HOT FLASH: a Celebration in the hotel bar.

I wish I had asked someone to take a picture of me in the red tights, pink socks, and tie-dyed flounced skirt, the hem of which I inadvertently stepped on going up the stairs and flashed everyone. My other regret is not having sampled the HOT FLASH cocktail at the bar.


There was also a sales event...I'm Very Proud to have published 5 books now, and would love to do more, if everyone would like to chip in and buy books to fund future efforts.

The HOT FLASH book is a collection of wonderful stories and art works by 50 women about the wonders of being women...you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be inspired to tell your own stories...AND I have a HOT FLASH page on FaceBook where you can.

The theme of Art-Is was Wizard of Oz, and here Art Girl Tracy Stilwell meets the Good Witch.



















Good Witch, Bad Witch struggle for supremacy....it was All Good!


My class: Dancing on the Edge: Dolls from Found Objects...Each one did Totally Different projects, using Apoxie Sculpt as an attachment medium. The Apoxie Sculpt company even donated samples for each Goodie Bag...Thank you!

Bette contemplates her raw materials.



Jean had a moving truck with the entire contents of her studio out in the parking lot, taking the class in the middle of her move to DC...Needless to say, she had Plenty of stuff to use.







David, Bette, Pat, Thea--all Great! I've known Pat since We Folk of Cloth days. Now she has a degree in art therapy and is trying to make space for all her Stuff in a NYC apartment...Good Luck!
I try to keep honing and making my stash, my range of choices, smaller. Sometimes Creativity is stimulated by having Fewer Choices, And who has time to use it all!

The other side of the class--all deeply engrossed in their individual work...all so different, yet a Team. It's so much fun for me as a teacher to act as a catalyst and figure out what word, small act of encouragement, suggestion, will bring out the excitement, and therefore the best work in these very different individuals, all with different backgrounds and skill sets.




I've known Merrilee since doll club days back in CT. She took a piece from the discards pile and turned it into this Fantastic work of Art and philosophy, that also Lit Up!

Now she's a Retired teacher. Funny how people both change and stay the same over a decade.

I wish this huge store of Creativity to Everyone...and a Lot more Self Confidence and Pride to ALL of us!







Thea, with not the piece she made in my class, but always creative and joyful. I met Thea in one of my online Doll Making as a Transformative Process classes...She was Even Better in person!

I had decided to make this my last In Person teaching, because of lots of things: being 63 and not enjoying air travel any more, having a good deal of my time and energy consumed by the job I do for money, and wanting to spend more of the little free time I have painting, making sculpture, and Enjoying my life on the Olympic Peninsula.

Very Very Tough to think about giving up face to face contact with all these wonderful and creative people! Maybe I'll figure out how to do online teaching in a way that makes us all happy. In the mean time, my hand/elbow/shoulder patients are a lot like my students, in that we have a lot of fun telling jokes and stories and making changes in our lives together. There are a huge number of Fascinating people living out here on the Olympic Peninsula.

Sometimes the Best can be made of life by finding the Best in What IS, rather than always reaching out for change and excitement.

I'll work on my NY and VT pictures to show you something of the rest of my trip: Friends who are Forever, the lumpy hills of the Northeast Kingdom, that will always tug at my heart, no matter how beautiful and temperate it is out here. The mountains finally came out from behind a week-long low cloud cover today to reveal, ta da: new snow frosting! It's so pretty up there and FAR AWAY. A patient today said that he can't stand to be away from the smell of salt water for long now, and I'm getting that way, too. I figured out how to motivate him to move his finger, even though it hurts, and tonight we both went home happy.