V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!

...all I ever wanted!

I must say that mine has been treating me well. I have been in Rhode Island at the parental units for 3 days now and love having them make me dinner and pour me homemade eggnog as I finish my application to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As you have read in past posts, I am applying to SAIC this year. I visited the campus back in October and fell in love, after attending an Open House in Boston the Admissions Director as well as a painting faculty member encouraged me to apply this year. The school is tough to get in to, and painting and drawing is the toughest department to be admitted to within the school, due to the number of applications they receive each year. I am willing to do what it takes: I love Chicago, I love the museum, and I love the interdisciplinary approach of the school. It's tough going, but wish me luck!

On another note, I have been doing small drawings (a lot of which have been given as presents over the past few days) but have not had a chance to photograph them. So to satisfy the visual aspect of this post I will show you a few of the wonderful gifts my family bestowed on me as we celebrated yet another wonderful year.

First on the list is a Matthew Ritchie book I have been eyeing. It is a beautiful hardcover with wonderful visuals of his installations, drawings and paintings as well as text from Ritchie, friends and critics. I love reading about his work as much as I do looking at it! I relate to his work in the sense that he creates overwhelming spaces, something I am working to achieve. He has become very literal with his space and his scale only in that he is working with installation, again, something I hope to do one day (maybe while at my residency in Georgia?) I love that he maintains abstraction while creating forms we can relate to, and create a plethora of associations with.

An installation shot showing one of Ritchies installations a the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Reminds me a lot of Sarah Sze (who I blogged about here) in the way they play with and exaggerate space and in the lyrical lines that they both create.

Another wonderful gift that I recieved from my mother was a promise for the two of us to go see The Lion King on Broadway in New York!!! I love seeing musicals and plays, and Broadway is the place to do it! This has become somewhat of a tradition, since my mom brought me to see Sunday in the Park with George a while back, a play about the creation and story behind George Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.



I also received some beautiful paper from my father that I have never used before. It is called Wallis Paper and is supposed to be THE paper to use for pastel. It boasts being able to hold up to 25 layers of pastel, something almost all of my drawings have! Dad (and some of you) have listened to me complain about the point when the paper just can't take any more pastel and I have to relinquish control, so I am excited to use the paper and give it all I've got. My thoughtful brother and sister rounded out the day with a rice maker (from the brother who just returned from three years in Japan) and a beautiful journal of bound Tibetan papers (my sister will be doing an away rotation as part of medical school in Tibet next February.)

Hope you have had a good holiday season so far and that you too, have some time off! I'm hoping to get new work up soon, sit tight!

Dear Bea, why haven't you been posting?

Because I have been hibernating!! Sorry for the lapse in posts my friends, life is crazy with playing santa, relaxing, walking in snow and being with friends after a long, long, TOO long, travel season. Don't worry, today marks the first day of vacation for me, which means much more drawing and many more posts!

Hope the snow is treating you well!

The results are in...

...and they are that I will be spending five weeks in the mountains of Northern Georgia courtesy of the Hambidge Center!!! That's right folks, a dream come true! I found out on Friday that I had been accepted, and now having notified the boss, I can share it with the world!!! I will be leaving for Georgia on April 3rd and sh'ant return until May 9th! I am excited about this for so many reasons. First and foremost, I am looking forward to having five straight weeks to create work. For the past year I have felt on the verge of something new and haven't quite been able to reach it because "life gets in the way." Hambidge will allow me solitude and time! I am also excited because I have never been to Georgia before, and as you probably have gathered, I do enjoy new places.

I was originally drawn to this program because of the focus on nature and how it influences people's work and working habits. I spoke with the director today and she told me that I have been "assigned" the largest visual arts studio that they have to offer. All of the studios are cottages with a bed and a small kitchen, with the rest being the studio. I think this residency will be a lot different than when I attended the Vermont Studio Center last winter, mainly because of size. At any given time Hambidge has 8 artists while VSC has 50!

Well, that's my big news folks! I'll keep you updated as I find out more information!!

How Did I Forget to Mention...

...THAT I WENT TO THE MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE!?!

That's right, after 23 years of waking up and watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade on the teevee with my family (which really is just a lead up to the dog show, right?) I have now officially seen it in person!

Thanksgiving morning, my wonderful father and I walked from my brothers apartment at Union Square Park to 33rd street to watch the parade. It was amazing!! It was so surreal to be surrounded by a sea of people, and then have a 40 foot tall Pillsbury Dough Boy come lurking out from behind a building. It reminded me of that scene in Ghostbusters and of course the first Batman movie where the giant joker balloon comes floating down the streets of Gotham City. Just a lot less terrifying.

Below are a few photographs of the crowds and the balloons. This was one of the many activities I did this week in New York that made me really love this city. Enjoy!

We passed Gandhi on our way to the parade and stopped for a quick hello. I will be going back to NYC a lot now that I have a great place to rest my feet. Any suggestions for future visits? I love new restaurants and museums or galleries are that off the beaten track!!

Thanksgiving and New York CIty

Hi All,

Sorry for the lapse in posts, I have been spending a wonderful week in New York City. My job had me traveling around in New Jersey for the week before the holiday so it was very easy for me to make the trek to the Village, where my brother has a beautiful, if not small, studio apartment to spend Thanksgiving with my family. I won't bore you with the details of what happens when a family of five is occupying a one room apartment for five days, but I have done a lot of great things since being here. This has by far been my favorite trip to the city. I think it is because I had enough time to sit and relax between adventures, usually I feel very rushed to get everything crammed in to a day or two, which ends up leaving me grumpy or overwhelmed. Below are a few drawings I have done since being here.

These drawings range from 3" x 4" to 5" x 6" all are pen or graphite on Bristol Board. I haven't done as many drawings this week as I normally would but have been busy with many other wonderful things. Below are a few highlights including a Kandinsky Retrospective at the Guggenhiem Musuem, and a photo take of me on the High Line in Chelsea. I also had my first celebrity spotting ever! Will Ferrell pushing a baby carriage! Enjoy!

This last photo is text that I found on a wall in Chelsea, I'm trying to figure out what the order was that the words were altered....what do you think? Better History? Bitter History? Bitter Future? Better Future?

Just a Note: Within 24 hours of this post Ethan Berry informed me that "Better History" was an exhibition installed in a garage on 10th street, where this photo was taken. Thanks Ethan! More information here.

2009 Creative Massachusetts: Artists Congress

This is a belated post for this specific topic, so I apologize ahead. I wanted to let you all know that the 2009 Creative Massachusetts Artist Congress went great! I was honored to be asked to sit on a panel moderated by Ja-Nae Duane discussing "How to Create Community, Network and Networking Tools" due to my involvement in "This Collective Pull" The event was held at the beautiful Boston Public Library in one of the conference rooms. There was a great turnout and some wonderful questions were asked, unfortunantly I was unable to stay for the whole event since I needed to be in Rochester that same night. This is an annual event so I encourage you all to attend next year! It is free and open to artists working in all disciplines in Massachusetts. Thanks to Mary Bucci McCoy for the photo of the panel!

More Hotel Drawings

Well, because of a "miss-communication" between a teacher and me, I was out of work by 9:15 today...that means a lot of driving around Rochester until checking in to my hotel early at 11:00. Although frustrating, it was nice to get out so early because I had a lot of time to draw. Check out these new drawings. These are the most successful out of the many I did today, above is a photo to show a sense of scale. Enjoy!

All drawings are ink on Bristol Board, some with colored pencil. Feedback is welcome!