father's day

to all the dads out there, happy father's day. it takes a special person to be a daddy....and i think my boys scored on getting a good daddy. (i also scored on getting a good daddy).  so caleb and i put our heads together and made something pretty cool for both of them. i often roll out a a long piece of craft paper and let caleb scribble or paint on it. we've ended up with these accumulated drawings from over the last 10 months or so. my way of keeping them is to cut them down and scan them in so that when he grows up, he can see his little boy artwork.  i took several of his scanned scribblings, layered them in different transparencies in photoshop, and created a little abstract painting. i then printed them and mounted them on wood blocks for josh. so now josh has 3 small, original abstract paintings by our very own artist in residence. these were his father's day gifts:

{they look really handsome on wood!}

and to continue on with my recent obsession with using caleb's energetic scribblings as backgrounds, i made a digital collage for my own dad as well. this is the front facade of the home we are building, about which my dad has been very excited and supportive. 

thanks for being such great daddies!

i think he likes it!

recently i did a painting for my sister - a commission at that! it was fun to paint for someone so close to me and really try to channel her colors, her likes, her personality into the painting. if you haven't visited her blog, you ought to. her sense of design is flawless - almost perfect - very french and classic. mine, on the other hand, is colorful, eclectic, and definitely imperfect!

as i did the last little bits of the painting, caleb climbed up on it and explored some of the details. 

{a few closeups of details. linsey liked the little inset landscape as much or more than the big piece!}

the perils of too much, take two

last week my sister posted a blog with the same title. her's was more or less about paying for doing too much, but the title alone made me smile because i have so often been accused of being "too much." when i was little i was too emotional or too sensitive. people with cameras told me on many occasions, "a little less smile...it's a bit too much." in middle school one of my best buddies told me he couldn't be my friend anymore because i was "too happy and my clothes were too colorful." when it was cool to be dour and depressive i guess i couldn't muster enough of it. although at some point having my friends systematically dump me for too much of one thing or another, caused some sadness!
i remember after watching one of my favorite movies, the power of one, i proclaimed i wanted to save the world and my parents just laughed and said, "holly you are (you guessed it) too much." i have a lot of passion, and sometimes when i get on my soapbox or express how i feel i become too difficult. for so long i felt i was simply too much for the world. how could i fit? how would i find my very special one?
i often heard that i was too intense for boyfriends, that i needed to lighten up and i guess giggle girlishly a little more. i kid you not one guy i dated broke up with me with these parting words: "your eyes...your smile...it's all just too much." awesome.
when i was pregnant i apparently touched my belly too much and i am sure there are several who think i love my baby a bit too much. i could go on and on...so imagine how happy i must feel upon marrying a laid back, everything's cool kinda guy and my too much is just enough for him. sigh. finally! josh can play superman to my too muchness anytime!


i wonder if gladys here was too much for her time? i mean she's there in her sensible shoes, can't be much past the 1920's, reading a paper. women weren't exactly encouraged to read papers and stay informed during that time. i wonder if she even had opinions of her own...how daring! such a benign act to us now, so here's hoping that someday my too much will be just right!

naptime collages

when i lived in boston i used to raid all the great used book stores in davis square. i love books, but in this case i looked for books with old etchings or pen and ink illustrations or typeset to use in collages. oops...sorry to those of you who revere old books and may consider my "defacing" a kind of sacrilege! i just create my own little alters with them....a different kind of worship. anyhow, among the books i found is one called the heritage of cotton. it looks at the history of the cotton industry from the "primitive world" all the way to the southern states' creation of plantations. i never thought to read the book, but as i was cutting it up one day - happening to be in the south section - i skimmed it, and nowhere did it mention the social controversy of cotton plantations. in other words the advent of cotton plantations brought on the abysmal trade and trafficking of human beings as workers in them. i thought about the heritage of cotton in my own homeland and felt inspired to make a collage.


i think it seems kind of peppy on the surface - nice colors, no depiction of struggle - but then it has a kind of sinister undertone that sneaks up on you. well, i guess i am the artist, so that's what i see...i love that so often the meaning or story behind a piece becomes apparent after its completion. the process seems driven by its own accord. but i am wondering, what do you see? is there a story there? does it make you want to look again?
i am not usually political in my artwork as i enjoy creating personal little narratives, but this one tries to skip between the two. the man smoking a cigarette, by the way, lived in my heights bungalow in 1927 when it was first built. i found a scattering of pictures, check ledgers, and notes in the attic once while changing a lightbulb. for the sake of protecting his ghost, and therefore myself form any hauntings, i am not under the impression he was in the business of cotton, but rather a small food store of sorts. but he seemed the right actor for this part.
i'd love to hear what you think!

things to come

my dear friend turned me on to the strawberry swing video by coldplay. as a kid who did not grow up with cable, thus, sadly no addiction to MTV, music videos are still not part of my daily consciousness. yes i was a child of the 80's. yes i had short-lived experiments with blue eyeshadow and hairspray. but we missed thriller's debut, aha's take on me, madonna's material girl. my sister and i shared the one pair of parachute pants my mom agreed to buy, and we lip synced to madonna, michael jackson, and bruce springsteen. how we did all of these things without MTV but for the stolen glances at a neighbor's house, i do not know. the pop culture of the day managed to eek in through windowsills and into our realities even in our deprived state. thank god for you tube as we are currently playing catch up to all the videos we missed the first time around.
strawberry swing is one i am glad to have caught before i have to catch up on this decade's videos. it is both fanciful and sweet, smart and creative. it invokes the popularity of comic books and the recent trend of making movies from graphic novels. more than anything, however, it makes me think of my husband's story of his desire to be a superhero....so much so that his 7 year old boy self wore superman underoos beneath his clothing...just in case. it makes me smile to think of him as the superhero in striped socks and me as the princess trapped in the teacup. i'd like to think he would battle evil flying squirrels, hat wearing land fish, and toothy sea monsters to rescue me from a castle in the clouds. take a minute to let the video entrance you...



once i saw that video, i felt inspired to draw, which turned into a painting i did entitled things to come with lots of little boy toys and playful objects drawn into the background...thinking my own little guy may someday want to be the superhero his dad fancied himself. (don't tell him, but my husband really is a superhero of sorts to me!) my aunt actually owns this painting, and while i did not do it this week, i am still working on a series of similar but smaller pieces. this painting afforded me a little sigh of relief that i can still paint realistic objects when i want to!