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  

New Work: Minus One Hurricane

hydrangea vase

Hurricane Irene may have raged this weekend, but her havoc still remains: four inches is too little water for the tub but too much for my studio! Since work is now taking place in my kitchen for a few days, it's the time for getting photos posted of new work.

So...without further ado...hot off the presses...er...kiln...it’s new work! All of these pieces are inspired by this summer: the sunsets on the Vineyard, the blueberries from Princeton’s Terhune Orchard, the hydrangeas that bloom in profusion at my front porch. Even though fall is my favorite season, there is no denying the gorgeous bounty that Nature provides. Minus one hurricane.

lotus candles

hydrangea candles

spinnaker vases

blueberry vases

My Blog iPod

Watching my kids in the pool is not exactly conducive to building a lamp or glazing a candle.  But it is the perfect time for catching up with my blog reading. I love my blog list - it's like my iPod for the writer/reader in me - a carefully curated collection of my little obsessions.  I am going to share, but I have to say, I feel a little as if you're peeking into my underwear drawer.  No, it's not like I subscribe to naughty lingerie sites or worse, blogs about mental health (ugh).  And though I write this blog (which I believe about 3 people read, my sister included.  Hi, Sar,) you get a little window into my private person.

But privacy be damned!!  Here are couple of my fave blogs that are too good not to be shared.  Just make sure your laptop doesn't get splashed.

Anna Betts at www.colourandsound.blogspot.com  I want her perfect, quiet but colorful life in the UK.

Heather Smith Jones at http://www.bluesparrowpress.com/journal/  This artist makes charming, small-batch letterpress goods on an antique press in Lawrence, Kansas.

Molly Wizenberg is a talented writer, photographer and cook and marries all three in a feast of a blog at www.orangette.blogspot.com

There is a reason that Poppytalk is as popular as it is. This lifestyle blog has a DIY bent, and is updated daily with something to make you smile.  www.poppytalk.blogspot.com

The Colorful Alison Shaw

I love good photography.  Probably because I am pretty horrible at it, or, rather, I just don't take many photographs.  I'm lazy.  I am always trying to be "in the moment," rather than trying to preserve it.  I'm laughing at the silly face that's being made, or sniffing the delicious banana bread, or admiring the pile of red, red radishes at the farmer's market, or following that red tail hawk as it finds its nest.  Photo, schmoto.

(Shout out to my husband: if it weren't for him, there would be NO evidence that our family ever existed.  Thanks, lovey. Just one of the many reasons...)

So when I see photography that captures those gorgeous fleeting moments - the ones I'm too busy enjoying as my camera hangs heavy and useless from the strap around my neck - not only do I admire the image, but I admire the photographer, for having the discipline and grace, to create a beautiful slice of time preserved.

Photographer Alison Shaw is as graceful a photographer as I've seen.  Her twenty-five years on Martha's Vineyard are reflected in her work - images that are saturated, vibrant, almost painterly.  Color, color, gorgeous color - especially that cobalt island blue.  (Please forgive the tiny size of these photos.  The quality of her photographs I could get my hands on are such that they cannot be blown up - rightly so - a girl's gotta make a living, but then another frustrated girl's gotta write a blog...)

Shaw's brand new self-titled gallery in Oak Bluffs, MA. 

She just opened up her own shop in Oak Bluffs, MA, in an old, one-engine fire house.  No surprise: she painted her gallery blue!  And if you can't get to the Vineyard at the moment, just visit www.alisonshaw.com to see Shaw's gorgeous color and black and white photography in its full-sized splendor, as it ought to be.  It's totally worth the click.

Cool Chick, Sheila Hicks

I'm grateful I don't have to hogtie my kid to go see great art.  He's packed his sketchbook, just like his mom, and with big green earphones plugged into his tunes, we're off to 118 36th Street in Philadelphia to the Institute for Contemporary Art, www.icaphila.org to see Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, a retrospective of the fiber artist, which runs until August 7th.

In 40 minutes, we are parked on the same block as ICA (auspicious) and into the elegant, light-and-air-filled space, for FREE (delicious.)  I'm afraid that the photos are from the web, as there is no picture-taking at the ICA, even without flash, as we were told by the (ahem) diligent guards there.  But you can get some idea of how vibrant and impressive this show was, even from these images.

May I Have This Dance? 2002-2003

May I Have This Dance, Exhibition Opening

All Hicks's work is hand-dyed, hand-tied, hand-wrapped - methodical, obsessive and large-scale.  It hung twenty feet and higher from the ceiling, draped on walls, nestled in boxes, piled in soft mounds on the gallery floor.  Usually it doesn't bother me not to be able to touch the art, but in this case, it was REALLY difficult.  The pieces were so soft and lush and colorful, like gigantic skeins of wool yarn in a store bin - how can you not stick your hand in that? (For the record, we did restrain ourselves.)

While the scale and color of Hicks's work certainly slap you upside the head, she isn't all about the big picture.  Her work is just as impactful up close as it is far way.  I was almost more taken with the textures of her pieces - so intricate and lush - like landscapes seen from an airplane.

For more on Sheila Hicks, check out her interview in Wallpaper Magazine: click here.