January 30, 2011: Winter Days

During these gray snowy days of winter, I'm reminded of my Great-Grandmother Morey, who wrote a letter to my grandmother in 1918 "that a wagon had passed by today." As I sit at my computer sending Facebook messages to my friends and family, I marvel at our communication technology. And yet, we still sit alone at our devices, much like great-grandma in her rural farmhouse in snow - drifted Central New York almost 100 years ago.    As a person devoted to creative activity, I have to be mindful of the present moment so I don't miss those perfect ideas. If I multi-task or fly off in too many directions, I miss that wagon passing by.   This graphite drawing is my great-grandmother Morey sitting on her porch on a summer day. I included activities of her life from my imagination using multiple images.

January 14, 2011: Dreams of Florida

How to prevent creative burn out? One way that works for me is my sandbox, where I try new techniques. No judging is allowed, only a carefree and open attitude will do. Out of this playtime, I've begun to make collages. I snip and paste text and imagery to my heart's content, and then in a mad scramble try to unify it all. I love combining drawing and painting with text images from my historic and family history treasure chest.   In these cold dark days of January, I am thinking of our 1960 trip to Florida to visit relatives. We travelled south - this was before interstates - in our new sleekly finned turquoise Plymouth station wagon. One of our stops was St. Petersburg, where my grandparents rented the back apartment of a little cottage. I created these collages about our trip to what I fondly now call "Old Florida," which still exists today in such places at Mt. Dora. Clayton Galleries in Tampa featured these collages in their holiday show.