I just found out about this in the last ten minutes and totally just ordered my sketchbook!  I love projects like these.  I even spent the extra 20 to have my sketchbook digitized because that is too cool…I loathe scanning.  Zzzzz.  Mmmmm.  Check it out and participate.  Spread the word.  Sammi you deserve better than Ronnie.

Here are some of the paintings that went off to the Czech Republic and some that I just haven’t gotten around to adding them to my site yet.

I have soooo many more to add.  And my photoshop is ancient and slow and my mac mini is soooo tiny and microscopic.  Too many pots on the stove as usual.  Really thinking I just need a new oven.

In other news, I am house hunting, obsessing, thinking, sunbathing, swimming, spraying black widow egg sacs, going to the post office, hanging out with friends, seeing my lovely cat and taking her on long, lazy walks that more or less resemble long pauses and long sniffs at the inner crevices of unsuspecting plants.

My friend Tomoko has just opened up her own art studio, Bosatsu Factory, in Upland and has assembled a group of artists to teach various adult and children’s classes that begin in September!  I am one such lucky artist and will be teaching art to three age groups of students.  I will teach painting and drawing mostly, but maybe throw in some 3D stuff too.  Can’t wait!  I’ve always wanted to start my own studio gallery kind of thing, like a community art center with gallery and shop and classes et al, (could it possibly be because I worked at the Huntington Beach Art Center since I was 18?) but it is so cool to see someone just like me (with no heaps of money) just totally start something from scratch and go for it.  There have been a lot of people jumping in eager to help because Art is always something a community needs more of.

The disaster that is moving:

Well I never thought I could get that place empty, and I had to enlist a LOT of help because a 1444 square foot house is not easy.  In 100 degree weather.  Without a fun, new place to bring things.  (For the time being, I’m staying at the BF’s)  But really, everything went swimmingly and it did seem like the stars had been aligning for little old me.  I just need to keep positive and figure out how to be grounded in an utterly ungrounded situation.  That is where kid’s classes come in.  Kids, with all their mini melodramas and the funny things that they say, and their undeniable creativity, seem to bring a lightness and a quirkiness to the situation, especially when you only have them on loan for a few hours, and get to return to a quiet place afterwards.

These are some glimpses of the “Exquisite Corpse” project with the Huntington Beach Art Center’s Art Camp kids, which turned out amazingly awesome and I just had to take pictures.  I sure can’t wait til the day I can actually make art again!  Only the universe knows that answer.

Today, me and the BF are going to hit the OC Fair to see our friend’s band play, Hell and Half of Georgia, and also mosey on over to the Children’s Art Exhibition section where many of my students will have work on display from my “Drawing for Little Tots” drawing class.  Can’t wait to see and take pictures!!

Inland Empires

August 7-September 5

Galerie Califia

This exhibit compares two extremely different forms of “empire”: one land-locked area south-east of the Los Angeles metropolis, and one in the center of the Czech Republic, each registering about the same population. Students at the Art Department at the University of California at Riverside, and students at V.S.U.P. in Prague, will show works they have created in their homelands.  The “Inland Empire” name for the Riverside area of California, stems from the richness of the area in the late 19th century due to the citrus, dairy, and wine-making boom. The young czech students are dealing with an historical Empire, the Holy Roman, which to this day could have traces of ‘attitude’ in the culture. Guest artists are professors from UC Riverside and VSUP: Jill Giegerich, and Kurt Gebauer. Giegerich has exhibited internationally for over 3 decades, and shown in prestigious museums and galleries around the world.