- Andy Warhol

Photo:  by Me… Driftwood - Ohiopyle, PA.

I know I’m quoting Andy Warhol who happens to be one of the people on my least respected human list, but, not all things that come from any one person are negative.  As a result of personal things going on lately, I’ve been thinking alot about time… my time.  I’ve been considering the things I want to accomplish and why they aren’t happening for me.  I think that everyone experiences moments like this in their lifetime… everyone should, at least.  Everyone should come to a point in their life where they re-evaluate and re-direct themselves.  Well, I’m there.  Last night, as depressing as it was, I asked myself, “If I died next week, what things would I be sorry that I didn’t do?”  Then I got really sad from thinking all of that, picked up my sketchbook and doodled away with my new markers. 

It seems that drawing is an instant cure for all my emotional ailments.  Lately, I’ve had myself locked up in my studio with my sketchbook, pens and markers while watching the entire first (and only) season of Moonlight.  (I have an unhealthy obsession with vampires.) 

Speaking of change, though, I’ve decided to take this little blog of mine in a different direction.  There’s only one aspect of my life that I’ve been portraying here and it’s a completely unbalanced view of who I am.  Art is a huge part of me, but not everything.  Fashion is another love of mine.  Decorating, too.  But, I also love the outdoors… backpacking, snowboarding…  I love reading, I love the theater, I love cooking, and I love love love music.  Most of you probably don’t even know that I’ve been classicaly trained on the piano from the age of 7 or that I play the guitar and flute, too.  So, from this moment on, this blog isn’t just about my art.  It’s about me, all of me.  I’ll be doing some re-decorating here soon, as well, to more appropriately represent my style, my taste, my personality.  I’m going to start talking about everything that I love.

To start… I’ve gone a little Etsy crazy lately with ordering prints for my house.   Here are a few of the ones I have ordered so far:::

Waiting By The Sea - My Folk Lover

My Captain… We’ve Reached The End Of The World
Hidenseek

Both of these will be going in my bedroom.  For some reason I have a thing for girls with boats on their heads….!?  I honestly didn’t even realize I had done it until after I ordered them both.  Weird.

Anyway, off to work!  I hope everyone (in the States) had a wonderful holiday weekend.  I definitely did!

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Today marks 32 years of marriage for my parents.  The quote above totally embraces one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned from my parents and their marriage.  You need to be a team.  I’ve seen so many relationship fall apart because 2 people can’t look in the same direction together.  They fight against each other like enemies fighting a war until they completely destroy every connection that their souls had.  It’s quite sad.  Mom and Dad, though, I’ve seen them make it through some really tough times, hand in hand, never faltering.  If one falls, the other bends down to help them up.  They never let go of each other’s hands  through anything and because of that, I’m able to have a wonderful relationship with my husband now.  They’ve taught my more through their love for each other than I could have ever learned any other way.  I’ve also learned that no marriage will ever last without a sense of humor.  If you spent one day with my family, you’d realize that our sense of humor is what we thrive on.  If you can’t laugh at yourself, you’ll never survive. 

So thanks,  Dad and Mom, for loving each other so much that it poured out all over us kids and sent us off into our own lives covered in what you guys worked so hard to bestow upon us.  All of us kids are better people because of you.  We will always love you as deeply and completely as you have loved us all of our lives. (Mom, try not to be too upset that I put that picture up there.  You look beautiful.)

- Leonardo Da Vinci

At long last the hummingbird is finished and in the hands of it’s rightful owners.  My new sister-in-law requested a hummingbird illustration in blue and green. 

Pat and Jen were in Ohiopyle this weekend with some friends, so Mom, Dad and Tom and I drove down to spend Sunday with them.  The newlyweds surprised us a few weeks ago with the news that they are expecting!!  I’m going to be an aunt!  I’m so thrilled for them.  All of their friends were going rafting, but because of Jen’s… uh.. condition, they decided to stay back and hang out with us.  We hiked along the river for a while and then drove up to Kentuck Knob. 

Kentuck Knob is another of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpieces tucked into the hills of Pennsylvania.  The home was built for the Hagen ice cream family.  Needless to say, the house is beautiful.  It’s much more of a liveable space than Falling Water is.  I took a ton of pictures that I will post later.  Here is one of all of us on an overlook beside the falls at Ohiopyle.  It had to be the most beautiful day ever.  The only thing missing is Lindi and Ryen.  Boo. 

So says Tom Stoppard.  I think it’s only partially true.  I think that at times people have skill and choose to lay it at rest in order to have a more emotional reflection of themselves in their art.  Skill, to me, is like a stencil, a guideline at times.  There are alot of times when I’m glad I decided not to go to art school because my style wasn’t molded by those teaching me.  However, there are skills I wish I had learned from someone and that I am now looking for ways of learning it on my own. 

Anyway…. here’s an illustration I’m working on currently for myself.  Yep, that’s right.  FOR ME.  I’ll have prints made, but the original is staying put in my living room.  I really love drawing things just for no reason at all.  It’s very inspiring because I know I can make it whatever I want without worrying what someone else will think of it.  I feel those are the pieces that are the greatest… the ones without inhibition, the ones where desire crashes with imagination and creates something so uniquely defined by a person’s own perception.  This piece is the beginning of that for me.  Make of it what you wish…

So I’ve had zero time lately to do anything except work.  Work at work, work at home… just work work work.  I haven’t had any chance to get on Google Reader and read all the gazillion blogs that I’m addicted to.  I decided to pop in just now to check out one or two… well… the total number of blog entries I have unread on my reader…  342!!  I need to take a day off work just to read all the blogs I’m subscribed to.  I’m seriously so overwhelmed by it right now that I just had to close it.  It’s killing me because I want to read every single one of them at this very second!  Maybe tonight…  Anyway, expect some comments from me this week because I’m definiteliy going to catch up on my blog-reading. 

In the meantime… check out My Charlie Girl.  I’m in love with Bec’s drawings.  Not only is she a great artist, she’s such a nice person, too.  It’s too bad she lives in Australia.  Why can’t cool people like her live in Pittsburgh?

Right now, I’m absolutely obsessed with the illustrations of Yellena James.  I’m about to purchase at least one, but I can’t decide for the life of me which one I want!  They are all so beautiful.  The color composition entrances me.

I love the organic feel that her illustrations have and how each line on the page seems to be alive.  I am entirely to anxious to have one of these hanging on my wall.

said Abraham Lincoln

Friday night we added two new members to our family.

This is Meeksa. Meeksa means “little snot” in Greek. (I’ve spelled it as phonetically as I could because Greek isn’t exactly that easy to translate into english writing.) Meeksa definitely lives up to his name. He is for sure a little snot.

This is Skilo. (Pronounced Skee-Low.) Skilo means “Dog” in Greek. Skilo chews on my shoes, is scared of the vacuum and stares out the window of the car just like a dog. He is also a little rascal. We also think that Skilo was the runt of his litter. His legs are about an inch shorter than Meeksa’s, his tail is so short that it doesn’t touch the floor when he walks and his ears seem too tiny for his huge fluffy head.

The first day the spent at home with us they scaled our shower curtain, unrolled the entire roll of toilet paper in the bathroom and claimed every fabric surface in the house as their own personal jungle gym. Fortunately for us, they love their litter box. These two little angels are the best birthday gift! They are hours of endless entertainment and I’m so excited to watch them grow up into crazy little hunting cats.

- says Frank Lloyd Wright

Sunny Downtown Pittsburgh, PA - Photo by Me

Let’s talk for a minute about my wonderful Macbook, Blanche.  I sit down comfortably in my chair 2 nights ago with some hot chamomille mint tea, Blanche happily resting on my lap, a perfect evening as far as I was concerned.  Until I attempted to wake Blanche up.  I open her, press enter.  Nothing.  I push the power button.  Nothing.  I plug her, push the power button and to my surprise she wakes up and greets me cheerfully with her little chime.  I wait anxiously to see if I get some kind of crazy virus warning (I’ve never had issues with my Mac, so I don’t even know what it would look like if I did.)  Everything is perfect… everything except the microscopic black X covering the battery icon where the little lightning bolt should be.  Panic. 

Blanche?  Blanche what’s wrong with you?  I decided to let her rest, plugged in over night.  The next morning… nothing had changed.  The black X still plagued me like a splinter deep under the skin. 

I use the PC to get on Mac Support.  It seems this is a common issue because it’s under the FAQ on the support page.  I follow all 4 suggestions for healing my Blanche and nothing works.  Last resort… call Apple.

My wonderful husband takes the task upon himself.  Forty-five minutes later and lots of panic stricken faces made by him, causing minor anxiety attacks in my ignorant self, that problem is solved.

Turns out my battery was the member of a batch of faulty batteries.  Apple simply stated they would send me a new one.  Fortunately, Tom had researched before we called, reading a few message boards and that’s how he found out about the bad batteries.  I’m not entirely sure that they would have offered up that knowledge had Tom not asked about it.  However, I love Apple.  We were both very pleased with the way they handled our issue and I’d have no qualms about dealing with them when anything else goes wrong. 

The Doctor (Doctor Who)

Something I haven’t mentioned very much here is my pure obsession with science fiction.  It’s quite unhealthy, I think.  My DVR is full of Doctor Whos, Stargates, Sarah Janes…  Some might even call me a nerd.  I’m alright with that, though.  If science fiction shows don’t exercise my imagination, what the heck will? 

Anyway, I’m sitting here this evening, drinking red wine, catching up on all my DVR’d shows and working on my hummingbird wip that is long overdue.  I was afraid to move on with this illustration because I didn’t want to mess it up.  I do that, alot.  I start something, love the preliminary sketch so much, then I never touch it again because I don’t want to mess it up.  It’s terribly sad and I’m trying to overcome that horrible habit.  The result has been many destroyed drawings that I once adored.    However, for every great success, there must be sacrifice, right?

I’m very pleased with my hummingbird, though.  It’s turning out better than I planned.  Maybe my best work is done when I have a delicious bottle of pinot noir to help?  Or maybe it’s the sci-fi.  Who knows.  Whatever it is, I hope I can figure it out and channel it more often. 

This illustration is still unfinished…

-Mark Twain

Last night, my family decided to take my sister-in-law, Lindi, and me out for our birthdays.  They are still a few weeks away, but with them being in town, it seemed the perfect opportunity to party.

The evening began with The Melting Pot.  This was a first for me.  I’ve long been a devoted fan of fondue, but never made it a priority to go experience The Melting Pot.  It was incredible!  With 4 courses, 3 of them being different kinds of fondue, the evening left me stuffed, happy, and anxious to go home and try to mix my own cheddar cheese, beer, worcestershire sauce and garlic.

After we finished our amazing dinner we walked down to the river and watched the dancing water show for a while until the sun set and I was able to snap this amazing photo of this beautiful city that I live in.  Everytime I drive through the tunnels and they open up to downtown, it takes my breath away and I’m reminded of why I will never ever move from here again.