Sunday, November 25, 2012

sixty nine ready for addition of emptied silent bellows

constructed from deconstructed domestic thresholds emptied of their welcome.

midday break

mmmm. homemade chili topped with fresh veggies and cheese, cold diet coke, midday fire. several hours of art. check. yard mowed/mulched. check. packets worked on. check. drop dead gorgeous weather in the woods. check. bugs buzzing, dog walked. check.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

ummmm. long day, but good

trailer to H-town, loaded domestic thresholds to be deconstructed, arranged for an 18 wheeler load of rubber (waterproofing) stripped from high rises (Goodyear). bahahaaaa — though it will take me several trips to get it to the studio; loading with fork lift; unloading with chica muscles; should be exhaustingly fun. limiting factor on hauling is not trailer load capacity but how many miles it takes the Tacoma to stop with a loaded trailer. overloading = dead sculptress. I'll take many trips. and honestly it'll take a while to unload each 1000 lb palette. pretty sure I'll be back to my arm ripped self by January 18.

anyhow now is time to kick back, watch the stars come out, scratch the Dopt, and sip my fresh crushed raspberry mush (absolutely NOT gin).


tiny dent in deconstructing domestic thresholds

and then reconstructing them in prep for potentially an 18-wheeler load of rubber. wanna be ready to crank a kazillion emptied bellowed deconstructed thresholds for January's show, the uncontrollable nature of grief and forgiveness (or lack there of) opening January 18 @ art league Houston.

they said they would cut them girl sized!

bahahaaaa. whatever!!? but I guess the electric company knew what girl sized was cause I got them all loaded. may be feeling it tomorrow!for sure.







Sunday, November 18, 2012

ghosts


I especially love the way each time I read this piece, my brain twists and turns it to a different reading, a different meaning. it is this ambiguity that allows the viewer to enter the work and ascribe their own meaning that makes art engaging for me..

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

pepì là peeUUUUU met my Dopt today

and my baby is wearing it well, but shamefacedly. she STINKS! bet she won't try to play with that skunk again.

Monday, November 12, 2012

mr bluebird clutching deadly to the grate

I am fundamentally an urbanite
girl all through
and am confounded by what to to with your frozen dead blue frame
not sure you count as fire starter fodder but too chicken to pluck you out
oh I am stymied
this is not a poem!

Saturday, November 10, 2012

ok. maybe I like drawing with my fat fingers on my iPad

ummm. that was fun. I need a far larger pad than this little pad!

ok might need at least a 2x3 iPad sketch surface. I don't do small.


potential tool for sketching tubular artifacts

playing in the morning remnant

why? don't know.


ha. and then there is why would I bite into the fruit of a plant of only guessed origin. ends up these are not sweet peppers. mouth on fire. ouchy. welp apparently I've planted a jalapeño bush at the edge of my deck. :) good thing it wasn't a poisonous fruit.

Thursday, November 08, 2012

odd rule of merging

one column political section; one column sports section; two columns aligned to read as one longer column; all direct references to sports and politics removed; unnecessary articles and such removed. poem generated from the remnant now one column, an experiment.

-----—-------—-----—-------—-----—-


one                 one chance
the most    one chance
                               only to upset

                                     reliable
         until and                    that is if
              the day     easily
                                      backs
                           extraordinary    
                              after the amazing remained

                        that is the talk you hear
                                 despite the unusual results

                                                       not so

                                                          if hopeful of gain
                                     because to move within one
                                         of an unbreakable
                                                                       two
                            we don't have space

Sunday, November 04, 2012

philosophy--schmalosphy the ongoing refinement of an intuitive mentoring/teaching philosophy

Through the assistance of three friends, I've been refining and codifying with words and reason what it is that I do in the teaching-studio environment. One leaning me toward more academic less my poetic impulse, Two to hunt for research backing to substantiate, and Three just for freaking posting a NYTimes article on resilience which lead me straight to what Two suggested. I've yet to figure how to link it directly to the research documentation, but at least I know the theories of research that corroborate my practice -- social theories of attachment, resiliency, change, responsiveness and flexibility. Oh yea!

ummm. They haven't proofed this pseudo final version and anyone who follows my blog knows that I may be of sound logic, even poetic, but I certainly can and do butcher the English language. Yup.

Art Foundations Teaching Philosophy

Mania of making, mania of the mind, both are worth harvesting, expanding, directing and releasing. As artist educator within foundations, my role in this process is to cultivate a sensitivity to listening. I see this listening as rather all encompassing and enabling of an awareness of self, others, materialities, processes and practice, traditions, physical, social and historical contexts, passions, subject matter, methodologies, and so on. This kind of perceptiveness requires me to equip students with a capacity to dwell inside and alongside of things and thinking so that making becomes a reflection of their listening. Access to the rhythms that come from deep listening allows what might otherwise remain submerged and unseen to manifest in ways that become meaningful. I have taught in the sciences, faith and the arts—each a creative endeavor and fundamentally parallel in the need for this sensitivity to listening, connecting, and acting upon.

Deep listening, connecting and making actually requires a high degree of risk taking, openness to critical feedback and dialog, as well as, exposure to failure. This artistic risky behavior, openness, and exposure are cultivated through a series of communal and curricular factors.

Beginning in the very first studio, it is critical to build in forms of interaction that emotionally tether the students to one another and to their sense of belonging within the program. A resiliency that allows the studio experience of experimentation, tight timelines, heavy workloads and critical dialogue to be pushed further than when students’ function as isolated agents is foster by the development of strong studio peer attachments. Attachments are initially accelerated when classroom norms are disrupted through a series of non-graded tasks that bring the students into opinionated mini monologues about the arts, extremely close physical proximity via a small team task, team performance of task, and laughter, followed with a larger group critical dialogue exploring the discrepancies between team intent and viewer perception. These forms of connections, teams, tasks, and dialogues set the stage to implement an intense curriculum and work practice that peaks curiosity, promotes artistic risk taking, critical dialogue, and physical engagement.

Built into the scope and sequence of the curriculum are the practices of successful artistic deep listening, connecting and making—research, idea development, capacity to harvest from personal passions, critical reflection and discourse, collaborative unpacking of discrepancies between intent and outcome, deconstruction and adaption of working processes, work ethic, time management, opportunities for multiple iterations of a single concept or materiality, attention to craftsmanship, and professional presentation of work. Traditional attention to design elements and principles and craft are attended to but in ways that supports and emphasizes the habits of perceptiveness and process.

These deep listening, connecting, and making habits are not only the key to successful art careers but they are highly portable and will transfer to other potential job/life activities that the artist may embrace to support their artistic practice.

the awkward stranger danger distancing

walking down the road
with my four legged shadow beast

as is becoming my norm
with more frequency
a truck slows
stops
this one a little nicer than the last
the occupant a smidge older
disposition and acutraments
hint of affluence
one I recognize
for its parallel with my past

as is my practice
I hold my Dopt
keep a safe distance
no Tom Bundys or
car flattened pup for me

a chat ensues
the previous a local
fishing for a name a number
must be the jeans
I give him my first
awkwardly stumble over my words
withhold the last
in its place I spit
oh I've been out her a year and a half

he makes me nervous
he senses it
his distraction with my jeans blinds him
to the fact that in terms of years
though just barely I tell myself
I could be his mom. yuck
he pulls away closing with
it is nice to meet you
kathy living out here a year and half

today more gentlemanly
the garb and mud covered truck
indicative of hunting
so I ask about such
no luck
he discloses it is loosing its appeal
a phase waning
we talk dogs
he seems lost, hints of sadness
he becomes awkward
no names exchange
too gentlemanly to infringe
to make me uncomfortable
clearly his stay and talk tug
I hold my distance
am attentive
he was acutely aware of a certain aloneness of his own
but stranger danger lurks in the back of my mind
I hold as not fishing for a name
he seeks a deeper connection

his sadness, my wary stillness
pulls him away
returning to his big city
he seemed a nice soul

the shadow beast
oblivious to human need
plunges joyfully into the cow tank
for her ritual swim
I blog on as she repeatedly nudges in reminder
to lift my head
my norm, our norm, repeats
with the frequency of the living

Saturday, November 03, 2012

8x8. ouchy on the 64 hand twisted securement

pilot holes drilled but my fingers are out of practice and now a bit tender as I prep to hang an older, bahahaaaa, lighter work in the BOX.

boards hung, installation begun. half way done.