The Quirks

Today I'm inspired by a blog I read by artist Kelly Rae Roberts,  who is a guru and guide for creative souls like herself.  She offers an e-course and e-book about creativity and how to make a living as an artist.  The images on this blog are some of her sweet and colorful work.

In her About section, she has a list called "The Quirks": a slew of little-known facts about her.  It got me to thinking how I always love reading these lists about people, because it's what makes us unique, and hearing them really makes you feel as if you know a person.  So I thought go out on a limb and try one of my own...

The Quirks

• I like bagels with vegetable cream cheese and lettuce.  Yes, lettuce.  Preferably the curly kind.

• I would like to wear a uniform every day, if it didn't mean people would think I am certifiable.  A whole closet of the same shirt and jeans sounds like heaven to me.

• My recent self-imposed nickname is Get Outta My Rae.

• I never wear solid socks: polka dots, stripes, the louder the better.

• I am very shy.  The best I can do is be an introvert pretending to be an extrovert.

• I like to drink coffee in the shower.

• I can see most people's "colors". Weird, but true.

• I much prefer writing in pencil.

• I would eat sandwiches for every meal.

• I have a tattoo.  That's all I'll say about that.

• If I don't make something with my hands every day, I get really cranky.  Just ask my husband.

• I call my old red bike "My Trusty Steed".

• Just putting my hands in clay calms me down.

OK, now, I want to know...what are YOUR quirks?  You don't have to tell me, (though I'd LOVE it if you did,) but just making a mental list for yourself is guaranteed to make you smile!

Not a full blog posting today: just a little eye candy.  New York design studio KleinReid has been making fabulous porcelain vessels since 1993.  Their newest series is called Prime - a sexy, rounded set of vessels that sit on walnut pedestal bases.  They come in gorgeous curry yellow, cobalt blue and a subtle, hand-painted stripe.  In my pretend New York brownstone in my head, I have all the colors on a wall of chunky steel shelves.  Can you see them, too? (Just squint a little, my place is over on tiny Minetta Lane in Greenwich Village. Specific, I know. But if I dream it...)


To check out their website, just click here: www.kleinreid.com

RE:MEMBER

Family Grail, 2011, Rae Padulo

Memory is a tissue-thin enterprise at best.  And even though there are photos and newspapers and video and web pages to freeze our thoughts and feelings about people and places, it is never exactly as it happened or how we remembered it to happen.  It is filtered by our human-ness and consciousness and all the gathered experiences that we use to reference our memory. And it is because of this that there will always be a million interpretations of a single event.

There are few events in history that are as seminal or collective to United States history, certainly modern history, as those that occurred on September 11th, 2001.  Ask any American and they will tell you exactly where they were when they heard about the attack on the Twin Towers.  I bet right now you're placing yourself in that memory.  You know exactly where you were, what you were doing, who you were with.  I remember I was feeding our then 2 year old son breakfast.  I remember it was milk and cheerios and cantaloupe.  I remember we were moving to Princeton that day.  I remember there were boxes piled up everywhere and I was freaking out that we were totally unprepared for the movers, that I didn't know a soul in Princeton, that we couldn't afford the house we bought, etc, etc.  And I remember, after watching the Twin Towers fall into gigantic clouds of dust, thinking how small I was, how stupid my anxieties had been up to that moment, and how everything I knew to be true was changed.

All over the U.S. and abroad, there will be events marking this fateful day.  Princeton is sharing its thoughts through a yearlong collaborative investigation into the arts and cultural memory by partnering up with arts and cultural organizations throughout the Princeton community and University. This series of events is called Memory and the Work of Art, Remembering 9/11.

Re:Member opening, 9/10/11

Today opens a members' exhibit at the Arts Council of Princeton entitled Re:Member, one of the events in conjunction with Memory and the Work of Art.  There is some nice work here, worthy of a visit to the Arts Council's first floor gallery.  For more information go to www.artscouncilofprinceton.org  At the top of this post is my small contribution.

You can find out more about the schedule of exhibits, concerts, performances and lectures on the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001 at www.princeton.edu/memory