Busy busy

"Euphoria," 2009 by Lea Keohane. All Rights Reserved.

No excuses here, but normally I like to blog fairly regularly. The past week or so has just been to overwhelming for me to think about it, though. Some of it is really good, some is really bad, all of it adds to the busy-ness. Some times things just pile on and this is one of those times. So I haven't blogged, I've barely answered emails, and I've even laid off of twitter for a few days! In case you have been sitting around, waiting for my next entry, here's what has been going on:

First, I got a huge custom order in the middle of last week. Hooray! Hap-hap-happy dance!

Then, I found out a good friend of mine has stage 3 cancer. I spent a few hours with her when she told me, and now we're working on a project taking some photos before she goes through treatment.

The day after that, my phone fell out of my pocket and was promptly stolen.

Saturday, Rich and I got in his car to go replace my phone and his car wouldn't start. We went to my car, and when I put my key in the door it just spun around and around. So I can't lock my car anymore (which is fine, nothing valuable anyway, but now I have a big piece of red tape over the lock so I don't do it on accident and lock myself out!).

Got a new phone--yay! Then one of the cv joints went out in my car. Got that fixed while I spent a couple of hours volunteering in my daughter's classroom.

Yes, this is all within the past 7 days. I think now I will go take a nap.

Teaching Collage on Valentine's Day

Today I had the pleasure of going into Indigo's classroom for 2 hours to teach the kids some collage techniques. It was a great experience for me on so many levels!

First of all, kids are just plain awesome. Whenever I have a chance to be around lots of them I am amazed at the diversity of their genius. Some of the kids have an intuitive eye for composition and easily created gorgeous collages. Others came out a little rougher, but they had a great story to go along with it. All of them were so exited to go through my box of scrap paper and tear it up!

Secondly, I have been wanting to do some teaching for a long time. Not as a full time teacher, but little art workshops. For a number of reasons I had never really done it before, mostly some weird lack of self confidence which led to, well, terror. Ha! I was super nervous the past couple of days, but somehow today I was just fine. I felt calm going in there and had no trouble talking to the class, showing them my own artwork, talking to them about some different examples, and leading them through the project. It was a lot of fun!

I took tons of pictures, too! I can't believe these kids are only 8 and 9 years old. Here are some of my favorites:

Happy Birthday Dylan!

It's been about 30 years (*ahem*) since this photo was taken of my brother and I, and I can still remember that couch! It was in our living room until some time in high school when my mom finally replaced it. What I'm even more exited about is Dylan's (yes, he was named after Bob) little yellow shirt and those awesome plaid overalls. Aw!

Dylan and I were always close growing up and we usually got along really well. We played dress up and skate boarding, swung in the branches of the giant weeping willow in our back yard. Dylan would spend all of a Saturday morning setting his GI Joe's up just right in the living room, and my Barbie (who was of course riding a My Little Pony), would swing through and crush them. We built forts and played Atari, ate Pac Man cereal and went swimming all day. Being a little kid with Dylan was pretty awesome.

Now we both have our own kids, and he lives in Colorado while I live in Oregon. It makes me a little sad that we can't spend more time together and that our kids can't grow up together. I miss him a lot. But that just means a lot of extra fun every time we do see each other!

I love you Dylan! Happy Birthday!

Portland LOVE Show

It's time for the 4th Annual Portland Love Show! Featuring the work of over 200 artists, this is going to be one fantastic shindig. On Saturday I had the pleasure of volunteering to do art intake for a few hours, so I can tell you first hand that the quality and diversity of the art is truly stunning.

Opening night is Friday the 13th from 7pm until Midnight at the Olympic Mills on 107 SE Washington in Portland. Partial proceeds benefit the Oregon Food Bank and Buckman Arts Focus. Bring a can of food to donate! All ages!

The piece to the left is my entry, entitled, "In Love," 2009. Ink and acrylic on reclaimed wood.

First Thursday Fun!

So....the show was great last night! Here's a great big giant thank you to everyone that made it, not to mention the musicians, volunteers, and Melissa Sillitoe herself for hosting! Thank you! Here are a few photos from the evening:

This is the initial view of the gallery wall--the 1st 6 paintings are my new teeny-tiny 5" ones!


Peeps!

Heather & Elijah checking it out.

Luke Lefler & Melissa Sillitoe!

Singer/songwriter Laura Chase


People checking out the hip-hop stylings of Incre:mentals. The awesome painting on the middle post of the room was done by the spectacular Chris Haberman.

No art-show night is complete without John and Amy! Check out John's stunning photography this month at Urban Wine Works (407 NW 16th Ave, Portland, OR)!