A couple of Shows

I'll be attending the show in Miami.

Sunday at Unity

I stayed out late last night (4:30 am +-). When I got home the bed was full of papers I was working on and left there because I was late getting out, so it took another 30 minutes to get the bed ready and then the computer wanted attention and it became 5:30 am before my head hit the pillows. I was not sure I would make it to the 9:00 am service, but I did.

It only took the first song of the service, "Bridge Over Troubled Water", for me to realize how lucky I was to be at Unity and we had not started. Here are a couple of drawings from today's service.

The Rest of the Weekend

The rest of our weekend we were at Marco Island with family. It was a wonderful place full of nature for the kids to see and experience, tennis and golf. The little crab claws also help set up a croquet course. Here are some photos.

Poetry Friday - October 19, 2007

I have been meaning to tell you about my incredible weekend but I have no time and/or energy to post. So now I am forcing myself to do it for I do not want to loose the taste of the experience.

Friday night, it was humid and hot but we were there for the outdoor event. A poetry reading by the tiniest crab claw's class. Poems about us the parents and then poems from the parents about the children. It was beautiful. Here is the card I received after tiny crab claw did his reading, his poem and mine.

Fun Dad
by tiny crab claw

Dad you kept me safe from danger.

You have showed me the light that comes inside.

We have gone through the worst time and the best times.

As you mess up more than me I still love you gleaming shinning star.

And we know were like a vase that has to break.

Dear Tiny Crab Claw,

by Crab Claw

So, a poem about you

so many things to say

it should be an epic

from how fast you ride

the yellow bike

to how you reach over

and share appetizers & dessert.

The truth is

you are the little one

with a big heart.

It took weeks

for you to stop

Saying, "it isn't fair"

after seeing

"The Bicycle Thief"

I know you still

don't understand it

I am sitting outside

at your favorite spot

candles lit and wind chimes on

trying to remember

every time we walk

the dumpsters

where you found the candle holder

now in our yard.

I can always see it in your eyes

the treasure is in the next dumpster

Tattoo design for my back - August 2005

Friday Night

Good Morning!

Have a great week!!!!!!!!!!

The Morgue

This post should really be called

"Too Chicken to Post"

One of the the ideas when I started this blog was to share with the viewers many of the entries in my sketchbooks. Part of those entries are letters I write to Dear God, Dear Universe, Dear Humanity, Dear Energy and a couple of others that show up from time to time. I sometimes even write to myself, Dear Iggy, but I am doing that anyways if no one else sees the entries. The truth is I am way too scare to show something so private and revealing, not to mentioned that anyone that knows me will be able to figure out who I am going on about, falling in love with (that week) or many other little things I share with a select group of individuals, because I need their attention (Leo - August 18). Tonight I was looking at several sketch books thinking about posting a couple of entries and it ain't going to happen - not tonight - and maybe never.Above is the sketch for one of three paintings I have not worked on for several (six) months. They gave away to other things I am doing but I think I am about to go back to all three in November after the set for "The Servant of Two Masters" is done. The reason I chose this painting is that with it came a poem or better yet the poem came first then the sketch. So a way to not feel so bad about not sharing the deep personal stuff is to give you a poem. I think I have the final version of this poem at work so I may change the poem by tomorrow.

It is two for one

at the morgue

Golden Liquid?

"I'll take it"

10:47 and all the boys are here

looking pretty ass the absent girls

their hot topic darkness

not their own, borrowed

and i

Barton Fink on steroids

our touch of death

looks so different

no strength in it

a pale thin weakness

if we could see it

wrinkle, old, unforgiving

without the exuberance of heroin

weak and full of life

another contradiction

and here at the morgue

we are all looking

acceptance, love, affirmations

no one escapes the value

of being, a puzzle piece

so we dance

grasping the veil

of a fictitious underworld

accepting transparencies

Going Once - Going Twice

My "bestest best friend" (now) and fellow blogger Downtown Diva got me involved in "A Place to Call Home" (see card above). A great idea and an incredible show. I will do shows like these the rest of my life. I get to do what I love and give a little bit back. So, this afternoon I got the call, "One of YOUR works sold" and tonight the second shoe dropped. I got the email, "a second one sold".

After I stop doing a jig and singing "I am special...", I'll figure out which ones are gone.

THANKS DIVA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Words for New Works

Here are acouple of things I am playing with in hopes of making art?

The Servant of Two Masters

One of the projects I am working on is the set design for the play
"The Servant of Two Masters" by Carlos Goldoni.

Here are some drawings - the process and explanations come later.

Post it Sunday

More Crab Claws

I do it to myself

It is Sunday and all is not well but it is what I built.

Just by Radiohead

"You do it to yourself, you do

And that's what really hurts

Is that you do it to yourself

Just you, you and no-one else

You do it to yourself

You do it to yourself "

Friday night was the opening of "A Place to Call Home" and it was wonderful, friends came by to see the work and support the cause and driving home that night was the void at the pit of my stomach. It has not gone away it usually lingers for days the feeling of not belonging, not wanting to be a part of anything, longing to be alone. I was reminded the other day, when I mentioned my dream trip around the US in the Winnebago, that I have always been this way. Ready to leave the car by the side of the road and walk away from it all.

I gardened Saturday afternoon and it was nice to feel the earth in my hands and on my face. I think I could live there forever in the garden. How different from the boy leaving the car on the side of the road.

Saturday night I "met up" with a new friend and the void lingered and I was trying to not let it show but I am sure it did (in my mind). The setting was so nice and my new friend could not have been nicer but I was at that place, I built. Dreaming of the world where I do not need to interact, exchange or speak. I am sure there were two of me last night. One enjoying the pool, the rain, her perfume and the other pushing the insecurities and whispering in my ear all night. I have a friend that says you need to go by your gut. Well my gut was very annoying this weekend.


"You do it to yourself, you do
And that's what really hurts
Is that you do it to yourself
Just you, you and no-one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself"

Where am I and what do I do?

How long does it take a person who is scared to overcome fear? How long does it take for strength to reach the point where "I" is most important? How afraid does someone need to be before they stand and speak? I wish I knew.

(A friend I prayed with several weeks ago, said to me today that it was all inside me. That our prayer was me and things happened because of me.)

How long does it take to realize our own goodness even when it is flawed? If goodness can ever be flawed?

And then there is the problem of building a bridge for a second time with the tools and skills you used for the first one, enhanced skills and tools mind you but still the same ones. When do you loose the fear that this one will also fall while you are on it or below it? Bridges get built all the time and the only thing that stops them from being built is our ability to say "no". And the final question is - how long will it take to say "yes"?

"Would you rather be happy or right?"

This was a part of today's message by Rev. Chris Jackson at Unity on the Bay and i would rather be happy, but what got me was how both of these things are tied together. Equating happiness with being or doing right has been a part of my entire life. I constantly say to my students what criteria are you using in terms of your judgement, (something I learned from aesthetics). So what tied right and happiness together for me? It does not matter as long as they stop being attached to each other. Now my happiness can be about being happy not being right. It is funny how i complicate such simple things.

another gift from a friend

Subject: Coffee

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired. During their visit the conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in their work and lives. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen andreturned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups -porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the alumni had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "Notice that all the nice looking; expensive cups were taken up,leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup; but you consciously went for thebest cups ... and then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life. The type of cup one has does not define, nor change the quality of Life a person lives. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided us."

God makes the coffee, man chooses the cups. The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

Enjoy your coffee!

The Season in Hell is done

Here are the 12 drawings from "A Season in Hell". When i started this project i was not clear on where it would go and maybe i now know a little bit more. The poem that has been a great part of my life for 28 years is no longer the mantra it had become. It has transformed and with its transformation i accepted the change and now i have 12 places. They are the places where i go in my dreams of not being here, they are landscapes and forests. Enjoy them as i did for i had a wonderful time finding them

drawing 001

drawing 002

drawing 003

drawing 004

drawing 005

drawing 006

drawing 007

drawing 008

drawing 009

drawing 010

drawing 011

drawing 012