Guido's reprieve

OK, I'm pathetic. After days of weeping we took Guido to be put down and he suddenly rallied wolfing down the food the vet put on the table for his final meal, acting all frisky. So, the vet presented us with the possibility of a few more years of Guidoness and we jumped on it. We spent $320 on tests, a hinie wipe, a nail clipping so that he can get more traction, and tomorrow we find out the results. Whatever happens we are happy to get at least another day with "the greatest kitty in the universe" (Guy's nickname for Guido).

Saying goodbye to Guido

Have made an appointment to put my nearly 20 year old cat Guido to sleep tomorrow. He's failing fast, falling over, just gone blind in one eye, not eating, skeletal, and yet his beautiful presence still shines through making it hard to let go. I named him Guido because the house I lived in at the time had once been an Italian boarding house and Guido means guide, which he has been in many ways in my life. I've known him since he was a little over a week old when I was visiting my neighbors Miya Masaoka and Jesse Drew in the Mission District. Guido climbed up my body and sat on my shoulder purring. I picked him up and he fell asleep in the palm of my hand. He became my cat. When I fell in love with Guy, Guido was not thrilled and expressed this clearly by jumping on the bed and sitting with his back towards us. After he got to know Guy, he fell in love with him too and up until a few days ago still rode around on Guy's shoulders pretending he was a parrot.  Guido along with his best friend Possum have appeared in many of my kid's books like Just Like Me where they are featured and then as random eccentric cats in other books and paintings. My heart hurts and am finding it hard to imagine life without him. Poor Possum and Guy will be devastated too.

Teaching children's book writing illustrating and publishing

Today was the first class in my second series of teaching in Sacramento and what a treat. My courses usually attract amazing students and we go on this journey together that is pretty mind blowing. I love the total unknowingness of - here's our starting point, here's what we are going to do, and all we know is that we are going to be in a very different place than where we started and have a fabulous time along the way. I often provide the bus analogy of - I'm the driver and we're all in this together going off on a big adventure. I have a deal with my students where if they get published, they take me out for a fancy dinner and give me a signed copy of their books. Today I upped the ante that if they sell millions of books they take me on a fabulous vacation. Not sure if this is ethical but it sounded good to all of us.

I love teaching this course and have taught it in San Francisco at UC Berkeley Extension, SF City College Extension, and Northern Illinois University. I taught a kid lit course at Washington State University but  the 2 university courses involved grading, accountability, standards, and all that stuff that makes it less of a free exploration/adventure. I've also taught 3 hr intensives at schools for teacher-in-services, which is also a blast. Now that 17 of my students have been published I feel like a proud mama. My area of research as a PhD student and professor was the intersection of race, place, and culture in children's picture books. I imagine that I am one of the few people who has illustrated, written, art directed, designed, researched, edited, published, presented on, and taught about children's picture books. I also have this amazing library (yes, kid lit is one of my major passions/obsessions).

After teaching my last course and assigning a text book, I realized that I was frustrated that some books had some info and others had other info but none of them combined all the info that I wanted to share with my students so, I wrote my own book. Because of copyright, I only included my own art from my kid's books and personal art, wrote accessible text to cover everything I believe is important, created my own exercises for writers and illustrators and wrote synopsis and  recommendations for kids books supporting the text. Am delighted to announce that it's now on my etsy site www.MiraArt.etsy.com as a downloadable pdf (or e-book) for $12. I hope this is reasonable for 20 plus years of experience and a lot of hard work, heart, and soul, but there are a few typos, which when time allows I will correct. Still, I think I like the idea of imperfection, like Turkish carpets where they pull a small thread because the only thing that should be perfect is God.

oops screwed up my treasury link

Here's the correct link http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c1bc3617b076d91dc9b0209/happy-b-day-etsy
and I forgot to mention Caroline who kindly put together the treasury.

Making the etsy treasury and painting bliss

One of my paintings "Happy Alligator" was featured in an etsy treasury today. Am so thrilled. Yay. Here's the link. It's kinda humbling to see how thrilled I was having someone I don't know recommend my painting. Somehow, am connecting this little external validation to Kelly Rae Roberts e-course which has been quite extra-ordinary and all the internal work I've been doing about clarifying who I want to be in the world of work, i.e someone whose happy and gives service or happiness to others.
I've also been painting up a storm the past 2 days and can't wait to finish and post some of the new paintings. I can tease you with the titles tho - "Sisterhood is powerful" is about my twin sister Leonie and I for her birthday pressie, "Here comes the sun" reflects how I feel coming out of this hibernation/gestation period of darkness, "Creation Myths or a Taxonomy of Things I Love" which is an homage to my friend Mati Rose whose work I also love and an homage to the turtles on top of turtles creation myth, and "Gestation, inspiration, contemplation, transformation" which is about all the things in the title. Sometimes naming paintings is a total struggle and sometimes the who and what they are is just totally evident. Today I am loving being an artist. Tomorrow I will be a children's picture book teacher and imagine that I will love that just as much.

The Shame of It and Where I've Been All These Months

OK I know the worst thing a blogger can do is be inconsistent and not blog regularly, but here I am returned from the dead (kind of). I managed to get a freak inner ear viral infection with extreme acute vertigo, so was flat on my back spinning out into the universe for a month then staggering around getting better bit by bit for around the same time. It really was the 7th circle of hell but that time of  incapacitation was also a gestational period so that even tho I couldn't write or read or make art, something was going on that is now beginning to bear fruit. I was in a place of deepest despair and now I've moved out of the winter of my discontent into a place of hope and blossoming.

I am developing a new transformative pedagogy that I'm very excited about, making art, reading terrific books, taking courses and workshops, participating in an amazing art therapy group with Majica Phillips of Midtown Art Therapy and a fabulous e-course with Kelly Rae Roberts focused on growing a creative business, writing and creating art for two books (one for adults and the other for kids) and feeling full of possibility and promise.

I have posted a special on my etsy site www.MiraArt.etsy.com reducing prints from $28.00 to $15, written and self-published a book teaching others how to write, illustrate, and publish children's picture books (also on my etsy shop as a downloadable pdf book) that while not perfect, I'm extremely proud of. Meanwhile am getting ready to teach two new courses at University Art in Sacramento and teach future teachers how to integrate art across the curriculum at Brandman University. One of the things I'm looking at is how to be less extreme with my time. This image, for educational purposes only, is about my relationship to time - either I'm late, I'm late doing way too many things, or I'm just this delighted sloth hanging around doing nothing. Hmmm. Oscar Wilde's line "moderation in all things, including moderation" used to be my motto, but now I'm just seeking simple moderation and balance.

Effie Yeaw Nature Center Fundraiser and Adventure California

Attended the Effie Yeaw fundraiser last night at the iMax downtown. Effie Yeaw is a nature center that cares for injured animals located in one of Sacramento's greatest jewels - Ancil Hoffman Park. The fundraiser had a screening of "Adventure California" which was pretty breathtaking in parts. They had aerial footage of air surfers (something that I hadn't heard of before) as well as some beautiful and moving footage of a woman scientist who helps endangered sea otter orphans return to the wild by modeling sea otter behavior with them. The narration spoke of California as a place of reinvention and innovation and it reinforced my awe and appreciation for this place. The nature center also had a King snake and a young orphaned possum for people to meet at the theater, and tho the snake didn't seem to mind, the possum wasn't exactly friendly. It was amazing looking tho. Very intense with a somewhat bizarre kind of beauty. Quite different to Australian possums which are much higher on the cuteness factor, tho this one in the picture above is pretty darn cute.

Powerful William Kentridge animation

William Kentridge is one of my favorite artists. His drawing skills, intellectual ideas, and aesthetic are inspiring. I saw this video at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art last year (or the year before)and watched it several times. It's "dark," powerful, and moving. Having made some short animations I am in awe of how much work went into this. Kentridge's work makes me reflect on the power and potential of art and the ways that artists use art for healing on personal and social/political levels. Makes me feel very humble. Here is the blurb from the YouTube video. "History of the Main Complaint is the sixth film in the series and is based on twenty-one drawings. It was made shortly after the establishment in South Africa of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission." You can find out lots more about him on the web if this piques your interest. Hope you enjoy.

A tale of a mouse, snail, and hamster and other workshop stories

No-one had signed up for a class I was teaching on felting totem animals. Perhaps it was the long weekend, perhaps it was that people here don't really know how wonderful felting is, perhaps it's Sacramento, or time, or the economy. So, I thought I was going to cancel it, which was also OK, when I got an email from 12 year old Julia saying she and her friend wanted to come. I was impressed by her initiative and that she really wanted to take the class. Plus there's something so magical about teaching friends and Julia's mum ended up coming too, which made it even more special. We talked a little about totem animals and they each chose an animal. I had them write some qualities that they either felt their animals had or that they themselves wanted. Interestingly, most of the qualities that they wrote were qualities that they already had themselves. Julia ~ Mouse: shy, intelligent, resourceful. Nina ~ Rabbit: curious, playful, cuddly, loveable. Anne ~ Cat: fun, athletic, lazy (which Anne loves to be when she can), independent. They all also had many other qualities such as ~ smart, amazing, and fabulous!
I showed them some of my animals, and then introduced them to the needle, the roving (wool) and its different qualities, and some techniques. We then spent 3 very focused hours together. I was very happy to be their teacher. Julia had the simplest animal, plus she was just really fast, so she ended up making her mouse, 2 snails, a hamster and a finger puppet. I was amazed at how experimental she was and delighted with the results.

Nina worked slower and more methodically, felting densely and securely to make a lovely bunny which she held tenderly.

 

 

 
Anne's was also impressive and she too had great focus. Together they made quite the menagerie.

 From left - my beginning baby abonimable sowman (not quite a totem animal) Nina's bunny (the photo doesn't do it justice), my little kitty, Anne's big kitty, Julia's 2 snails, mouse, finger puppet, and wee hamster.

Because Julia finished way before the rest of us, I asked her to write a story about her creations. She asked the name of my pig and I told her along with the story of what "treyf" means (forbidden or non-kosher). Here is her story.

One day, Piccolo the mouse, Humphrey the hamster, and Arnold the snail took a walk. They heard an odd noise coming from behind a bush. "What is it?" they cried. They had never heard anything like it before. "Help!" they heard a voice cry. They cautiously peeked around the bush. They saw a little pink pig stuck in the brush. "Oh no!" screeched Piccolo. "Please help me!" begged the pig. The threesome helped him out of the brush. The pig told them that his name was Treyf. They all became friends.

The End.

Moral: Don't play in bushes :)

Fabulous free blogging backgrounds

This woman, Itkupilli (she's Finnish) is wonderful. She has a bunch of free background patterns like the one I am using and of course you then wander over to her etsy shop where you can't help but buy a bunch of her fabulous vintage images for collage. Here's the free background link http://blo64rt.blogspot.com/

Here's her etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/Itkupilli. Above is one of the sample images from her shop for those of you who like vintage mermaids and octopii.