Dina’s Blog

We’re home, and boy am I glad to have survived the Indian Wells Art Fest.  It was a weekend of highs and lows (both emotional and barometric!) so I’m glad it’s over.

We started off on a high note:  I was awarded a prize in the painting category, which is always nice. I’m a sucker for those fancy ribbons! The painting next to the ribbon is the one that was judged. It’s called One for the Road, and it’s a personal favorite of mine.

On Friday we dealt with high winds (up to 74 mph gusts and 40 mph sustained) that forced the early closure of the show. For a while we had FOUR people hanging on to our tent to keep it from blowing over, and that’s in addition to 120 lbs of weight and stakes driven into the ground!! It was scary! An artist friend lost $10,000 worth of inventory, and many people lost equipment.  I feel very fortunate that we did not have any major damage.  Below is a pic from the local paper showing what the winds did to some power lines in the area.

Saturday morning dawned with calm breezes and beautiful weather.  It was a nice surprise to find that the local newspaper was kind enough to print the photo below of some folks walking by one of my pieces,  Sea Glass Bay.

The weather for the rest of the show was spectacular…but that was the only good thing!!!! The “crowds” were nonexistent, as apparently the snowbirds had flown home earlier than usual.  Sales were truly dismal, not enough to even come close to paying our expenses for the show.  C’mon people, where are you???????? I know that your 401k’s have turned into 201k’s, but you can’t stop supporting the arts, and the artists…we don’t even have 1k’s!! It is a very bad time to be selling what many people consider a “luxury” item. The reality is, however, that art is not and will never be a luxury. It is a necessity,  ESPECIALLY when times are tough or things are “down”. The world would be a sad, dark place without art.

So if any of you out there reading this have been thinking about purchasing a painting or a giclee, or a lithograph, or even a box of note cards, NOW IS THE TIME.

OK, rant’s over…time for lunch. There’s not much some soup and a grilled cheese can’t fix (and maybe a mountain of chocolate and a bottle of red wine)!!!!

Hot off the easel!!!!

The image below was commissioned by a manufacturer of gift products (mugs, notepads, etc.) and I love how it turned out! The quail looks like he’s checking out the Kokopelli…

This painting has a lot of great texture that wraps around onto the sides, which doesn’t really show in the photo.

So you have to come see it in person…and take it home with you!

On that note, Indian Wells may be my last “Desert Area” show for quite a while. We have decided to move the bulk of our shows to Northern California and Wine Country for the near future. So for all you desert-lovers and desert-dwellers, this is your last chance to get one of my paintings with a desert theme!

Here’s a watercolor I just finished! It features an intricate Japanese basket, a pile of chili peppers, and an American Indian blanket as a backdrop. It was a ton of fun to paint, and looking at all those hot colors kept me warm here in the snow!

I’ll have it available at the Fountain Hills show this weekend, along with a whole bunch of other new pieces.  I hope to see you all there!

Here are a few paintings I’ve finished in the last week:

On the Left, just in time for Valentine’s Day, is an acrylic on canvas.  Entitled Holy Palmer’s Kiss, this painting has text that quotes from Romeo and Juliet.  The photo doesn’t capture the glints of metallic gold scattered throughout.

The other two pieces are watercolor studies.  I picked the apples in Tehachapi myself!

Well, the holidays have come and gone, along with lots and lots of family time, rest, relaxation and fun. December was a busy and exciting month!  We had several consecutive snowstorms that made for nice cozy hours by the fire, the second annual Gingerbread Smackdown (triumphant again! Mwaahahaa…), and a wonderful new addition to our family: our puppy Fozzie! Now I’m feeling thoroughly recharged and rarin’ to get back to the studio.  I’ve got a brand-new sketchbook (I start a fresh one every Jan.1st) and it’s already packed with new concepts I’m really excited about. Coming soon: photo’s of new work!

In other news:  fall/winter watercolor classes are just wrapping up- we had a good time and learned new things at the same time! Imagine that!  I’m hoping to start a spring session continuation sometime soon. In addition perhaps some classes and/or workshops at the Tehachapi Art Center.  Stay “tuned” for more info. We have no shows to deal with until the end of February, so I’m thrilled to have a big uninterrupted chunk of studio time. I’m also thrilled to be working on a fun commission for some lovely folks in L.A.  It’s a “window” painting, but with a twist… pix to follow soon!

Promises, promises…right? I guess I’d better get to work!

I’ve got a show coming up in San Pedro next week (as you know), and as I was trying to figure out what to display, I had a bit of an epiphany. Should I show the new Windows? Should I show the new Abstracts? I wonder what it would look like if I put them side-by-side? Eureka!!! It’s amazing how great they look in certain combinations…the whole is definitely greater than the sum of the parts! In just the right pairs, the paintings speak to the notion of right brain/left brain, or as it’s formally called, lateralization of brain function. It’s the notion that the two sides of our brains have two completely different modes of thinking. I’ve always known that these two styles of paintings came from two totally different places in me…now i have a chance to really explore this idea, and at the same time show all my new stuff!

The show will be at my sister-in-law’s great studio space in Old Town San Pedro, on Oct. 2nd. Check my “Upcoming Events” page for all the deets!

Just finished this one today:

It was influenced by the very dark, but awesome book Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy as well as the recent Olympic Games in Beijing.

I haven’t made up my mind on the title just yet. I’m thinking of calling it “Event Horizon”, a spacey sci-fi term that fits with the areas of the painting that look like deep blue night sky and stars. There are also lots of collaged bits from a Chinese newspaper in the piece, and to me “Event Horizon” suggests the possibilities of what the future holds for the U.S. and the world regarding the exponential growth of China, both economically and socio-politically. Whoa. Pretty deep for me…

Like most of my abstract pieces, it can be hung in all four orientations…in other words, every side is the “right” side up!

Well, just wrapped up Watercolor session numero uno, my first teaching experience here in our little community. It was fun, my students learned a least a little, and hopefully were inspired to continue on in their studies. To that end, I’m going to run three classes for the fall, starting 3rd week of September: Beginning Drawing, Intermediate Watercolor, and another session of Beginning Watercolor. I hope I can get enough people to fill all three…I guess we’ll see, won’t we!

In other news, I will be going to Las Vegas in Sept. for the big ArtExpo. This year will be a fact-finding mission (and an excuse to go to Vegas ) perhaps next year we’ll exhibit. It should be amusing, educational and hopefully inspiring. I’m also planning a show of new work in October, at Annie Appel’s studio in Old Town San Pedro. They do a fantastic “First Thursday” open studios event down there, and Annie has generously offered up her awesome storefront space for a show. The event draws loads of people to wander around the cute/funky little area, drink two-buck Chuck, and see all the great art. I’m planning on showing new abstracts and new windows, among other things. I’m expecting you all there, of course…

In my constant search for exciting painting subjects, I discovered a really great hidden gem near Tehachapi.

Called the Mountain Spirit Center, it’s a Korean Buddhist Monastery way up in the Tehachapi mountains. Apparently the location, in an area called Sand Canyon, has a very strong energy. They have an open house every Sunday, and when we were there a monk was leading a chanting/prayer session in the main temple. The monks meditate and chant pretty much all day, every day…wake up is at 3:40 am with the first meditation at 4:00! I guess that rules me out! The place is gorgeous and feels very spiritual. I can’t wait to go back in the winter and take pix of these amazing painted buildings in the snow. I’ve always wanted to travel to Tibet…I guess this’ll do until that time comes!

Just got back from our two-week long work/vacation whirlwind…boy, am I beat. I always need a vacation to recover from my vacations! First we went river rafting on the Kern river (class IV rapids, yikes!) which was terrifying and super fun. I’ll have pix from that soon. Then up to Los Altos for a show (which went well) and then a week in Berkeley and San Francisco. It was cold and foggy in San Fran., which was a weird contrast to the 90’s we’ve been having at home. We saw a Frida Kahlo exhibit at the SFMOMA…fantastic! She was a truly unique artist and quite an eccentric individual. Why she loved that disgusting toad Diego Rivera, I’ll never know. Here’s my favorite painting from the exhibit.

Not one of the self-portraits for which she’s known. I like those too, but this was so lovely in “real life”. It was painted near the end of her too-short life.

Also in San Francisco, in the Mission District, we went to an AMAZING store: Paxton Gate. They sell bizarre plants, natural objects like fossils, mounted insects and skeletons, antique scientific equipment and stuff like that. All very gothic and gorgeous, like a big Cabinet of Curiosities…love it, love it. I’m inspired to do a window painting with crumbly stone, a velvet curtain, a carnivorous pitcher plant, a beautiful beetle…I’ll post a pic when it’s further along.

Last. but not least we did the Menlo Park Connoisseur’s Marketplace. Great show, beautiful weather, nice crowd…sophisticated and educated. So next up: Malibu Arts Festival this weekend, and then home for a while, and maybe I can finally paint!