October 31, 2011
Saw a SWAN at Fairmount Park today! They don’t migrate this far south so it must have escaped from some park/zoo that imported it. I always have my camera with me…but not today so I went home… it was well worth the trip back. This is the one and only time I saw her open her wings like this. A friend at the Press saw my posting on Facebook and they asked if they could use the picture in the PRESS Enterprise article.
October 2011
October 1 has arrived – the clock is ticking…730 days to go. The two year project kick-off coincided with the Getty inspired “Pacific Standard Time”. It has been a perfect first week…The Getty Gala with Jane…the Norton Simon Printmaking opening with Sharon and Terry. I am so excited…
August 17, 2011
I have never been able to keep a journal – EVER. I started again in 2009 with a little success…now I am recommitting! It is 410 days until my 60th b’day and I want & need to work through a few things by then. I’m going to write often on the bench at Fairmount Park. Good luck to me!
Cutest thing I ever saw…not afraid at all. A baby heron???
August 12, 2011
Been thinking, thinking, writing and thinking – I HAVE A GRAND PLAN…I’ve been wanting to do something artistically to coincide with my 60th (I turn 6-0 on 9/28/12) like I did when 50 was looming when I had a grand “fit by fifty” plan (I lost 30 ibs and got a new hairstyle) 
I started planning a sabbatical with a show at the end. As the idea evolved, I realized that I couldn’t complete my “GRAND ART PLAN” by my 60th. So, I decided to make it about what I accomplished during my 60th year…using my 59th to prepare. The idea is to take my 60th year off and have a self-directed year of study…primarily about art techniques and art history with secondary studies in literature/poetry and science/nature. I want the project to revolve around Fairmount Park and my home. I will use the 52 Montezuma Bald Cypress trees that ring my favorite part of the park as my inspiration.
My goals are simple but important to my future as an artist:
A show is required at the end of my “GRAND ART PLAN” to insure its completion. It has now evolved into a two room show. The first room will be “What I Did With 365 Days Off”. (working title) This show will give a glimpse inside my crazy, quirky brain. The second room will be my senior project “The Fingerprints Of Fairmount Park” (working title) depicting the 52 trees that will be my muses for the year.
This is ambitious and I am feeling equal amounts of eagerness and anxiety but I can totally visualize the entire year and show.
I decided I need to, first, get Zee’s buy-in. She has been incredibly supportive from the first moment. Then I wanted feedback from the most compulsively driven creative person I know…Doug McCulloh. Doug is a local photographer who has shown around the world who just happened to help us/RPS with our marketing the past 20 years. Doug and I have gotten to know each other well over the years and he is one of the few people who knew that this button downed business person had a crazy creative person inside.
Doug had such a positive reaction…he thought it was “a crazy good idea!” I had three questions
YES! YES! YES! I skipped all the way home 
Zee is on board! Doug McCulloh thought it was “a crazy good idea” and has agreed to be my lead advisor and curator. Beatriz Mejia Krumbein, the head of the art department at La Sierra University and Todd Wingate also agreed to play an advisory, curating role. Jan Harvey and Kathy DeAtley enthusiastically signed on as mentor artists. More on all of these special people later…
April 15, 2011
Had lunch with Andi Campognone today and talked about the set of crossroads ahead about being an artist. Need classes, practice, mistakes – what is my voice? How do you sustain after all your friends buy? It is a full time vocation – ideas, prototypes, acquiring materials, making, resolving, packaging, marketing, delivering, hanging, bookkeeping, maintaining a website, mailing list, resume and patrons….
What I have found is that art is starting to take over most of my thoughts. I don’t have time for RPS anymore. It’s making me crazy.
One thing that is helping with all my crazy thoughts and to do some clear thinking is my walks at Fairmount Park. This is an especially beautiful time of year.
April 11, 2011
I am taking the week off – staycation – no “HAVE TO’S” for a week. My only goal is to explore my mental state towards my artistic career. I’m going to do as much as I can to stimulate my creativity. I seem to have a mental block about making art. When I do it, I LOVE IT, and get satisfying results but without a class or deadline I won’t go into my studio and work. I do have the time! What gives? One thought is that I don’t have the discipline to take an idea and make it happen myself because I have spent years with a staff or with a nonprofit event staff and committee to carry out my idea. Art is a very isolating endeavor – you alone must do the work. This is something big for me to work through.
I do know there is an artist in me but do I have the drive and discipline to make this a reality? Andi Campognone once said to me… “you may find that you really are meant to be a patron of the arts.”
I’ll also get to spend some extra time with my babies…Ellie and Lola.
July 2010
I became an official artist as I sold my first piece to Bobbie Powell, former Executive Director at Riverside Art Museum. [8/11 update…I was at a party at Bobbie’s and was visiting with a friend and over her shoulder I saw my piece…it was a thrilling moment!]
The continued bad economy motivated me to take printmaking at RCC one last time. I so needed to accomplish something during this bleak economic time. It was such a therapeutic endeavor.
July 2009
2009 is the year I start a committed artistic journey. I made the commitment in writing on our RPS website when we unveiled the new site in October 2008 (our 30 year anniversary). In January, I took printmaking at RCC from Denise Kraemer and that triggered the desire for workspace at home. David had to cancel a February visit so I used the three days to set up a studio! In May, my first two “rock” pieces were hung at the community gallery and “Feeling Lost” is hanging in the Community Foundation’s boardroom. I’m back in the summer session of printmaking – learning linoleum cuts and collagraphs. It’s been a good 6 months with lot’s of progress – still a long way to go but I intend to enjoy every step of the journey.
I decided that I wanted to incorporate the rocks that I have been collecting, on the Central coast for the past 30 years, into my prints. I explained this to Denise, my instructor, and she would smile at me and nod. Every class period I would pour a pouch of my favorite rocks out on my work space to inspire me. One day I called Denise over to show her my first completed masterpiece, with a rock. She looked at me and said ….“Finally, I get it…I haven’t had a clue what you were talking about!”.
