Monday, January 17, 2011

Adventures in art and art classes • Other adventures in Northern California

I finally sent out my first email Newsletter last week. It was hard figuring it out but am pretty happy with it. Next I have to figure out how to do the join my newsletter button to put on here and my websites (www.mirareisberg.com and www.artspractice.com). I tried to make it as artful and heartful as possible, sharing art, and news, and info about my upcoming classes. Here's the header I designed and the info about the classes is on the right.
If you'd like to receive my next newsletter email me at miraguy@gmail.com  and I'll put you on the list.

Click on any image to enlarge

 
Other News
I'm so happy I've just about finished the full size sketches for an animal book I've been working on. Here's one of the funkier sketches that still has a good feeling about it. Below is a similar pic that I was fooling around with for ideas for my color sample. Today I looked again at hummingbirds and when their wings are up their tail feathers go down so will be tweaking that for the final. Oops.


text will remain a mystery for now


In the publishing world that uses 4 color process printing you're not supposed to use metallic colors as it's an extra ink run, but even without using metallic ink, I still think glitter looks great.


This lovely ceramic baby is going to my awesomely talented friends and former students Hugh D'Andrade www.hughillustration.com and Mati Rose McDonagh www.matirose.com whose work I both adore. Hugh was my teacher too when we were both teaching at UC Berkeley extension and I have him to thank for much of my web designing skills. I made the baby when I was  teaching in Illinois and learning ceramics was my big stress reliever. I learned to make the mold, which was ridiculously heavy and made 5 of these altogether. 2 have been completed and the other one below I'm either keeping or will be getting traded with another fabulous friend Maya Gonzalez, children's book author and illustrator extraordinaire http://www.mayagonzalez.com/html/books/books.html, fine artist and co-publisher of Reflection Press www.reflectionpress.org  Am looking forward to completing the other 3 but I don't think one of them will survive the firing process a 2nd time. Will see how it goes. The mold was accidentally thrown out so these are the only babies like this that will ever be made, I call them a limited, limited edition.



Speaking of teaching and learning Mati is starting an online art course with her friend Lisa Congdon www.lisacongdon.com that should be fabulous. It's called Get Your Paint On. Despite slim finances, I've signed up because I think it will be grand and will both help me continue growing as an artist and nurture me in other ways. It starts Jan 31st - Here's the link http://www.getyourpainton.typepad.com/

Cabin Fever and a trip to Locke
Whenever my husband spends too much time indoors he gets cabin fever, so we went off adventuring and exploring to the California Delta and Locke in particular. It was wonderful. It's an historic area that hasn't been gentrified or commodified - Wow!  It was designed and built in 1918 following a fire in nearby Walnut Grove by Chinese workers for their own community. Up until fairly recently it was an exclusively Chinese town which is pretty amazing. There are still some Chinese families there but not as many as in its heyday of 600 people. Now the population is pretty small, definitely some artists, eccentrics, and maybe some outlaw types living there. There are also LOTS of street cats, including some very handsome and friendly ones that I got to pet. This made me happy. Here are a couple of pictures from Guy's cell phone (I forgot my camera).







Not sure of the politics of this one above but it was fun to do. The buildings are just what they look like on the highway side.

My beautiful brother-in-law Bruce and his wife Bernadette. They were here from Brussels where Bruce is in a band, performs in films and theater, and translates with Bernadette. Bernadette is also an artist and a joy to be around. They were here for Xmas but have gone back now. I miss them.
One of my beautiful and talented students Lakshmi with her mother. I couldn't get mom to smile but I loved their presence together.

The pictures below are from burning 1990s tax records. It was wonderful.



1 comment:

Michelle A. McKenzie said...

Hello Mira,
I just discovered you via the Crocker studio class brochure. Love what you do, and hope to take the classes you'll be teaching at the Crocker!

Stop in to the Museum Store and say hi when you're around next. I'd love to meet you!

Michelle