Collaboration with Hennie Mavis: Cardinal Dream

Hennie's lovely start
(First half)
(click this and all images to see larger)

Hennie's gorgeous painting is wonderfully balanced and has really nice composition and color.

my half of the collaboration
cardinals fly, by Mary Taitt

Unfortunately, when I started this painting, we company for dinner and I only had one of my small watercolor kits, it was the wrong one, and the colors didn't match.  Wrong reds and blues.  Of course, that wasn't the only flaw, I'm sorry to say.

full double-page spread
Cardinal Dream
collab Hennie Mavis and Mary Stebbins Taitt

The dream was Hennie's, a wonderful dream.

I have one solo piece and one first half collab for Mike left to do before I mail.  When I complete, I will be able to mark off one item in my ridiculous goals list in the previous post.

Mail Art: Dreaming Fish

Dreaming Fish Envelope
acrylics
Mary Stebbins Taitt

OK, here's the finished front of the envelope for the latest completed Moleskine.  I've continued the dream theme, with a dream, not a nightmare.  In this dream, I was talking to the fish who was dreaming the world.  (Maybe that is a nightmare?  It didn't seem like it, though.)  Fish dream with their eyes open!

I have an operation Thursday, and I may be in the hospital several days and then bedridden for a while--doc says I'll be incapacitated anywhere from 2-3 weeks to 2-3 months.  (?)  That's a pretty wide span.  Meanwhile, I am sick.

I have no idea how these will survive the journey through the mail.

New art and experiments in art with oil pastels

I have two pocket items for the first mole that comes my way.  The first one you've seen as a photo, but it's dry enough now to scan--It's the wandering minstrel, the Mandolin player, done in water soluble oils.

The Wandering Minstrel, The Mandolin Player
by Mary Stebbins Taitt
Water-soluble oils
for the first round 4 pocket.
size: I cut this exactly to fit the Mole pocket, hopefully.

The second pocket item is for fun.  It is a bit weird and silly.  I was playing with oil pastels.  My question was, how would they work on dark paper.  I actually went to the store and bought the paper just to experiment--I've got my teeth into exploring oil pastels at the moment.  I like them because they are bright and don't stink (like the fixative for soft pastels, chalk pastels.)  I had in mind sort making a mandala from a poppy.  When I was nearly finished, I tried to sand off on of the bumps that had formed and the layers of varnish and oil pastel delaminated.  This is something I'd been afraid of and had a series of other tests and had not managed to delaminate any of the tests--but this one did.  The peeled off pieces felt like flower petals so, for fun, I glued them on.

Poppy Mandala with Torn Petal
First Round 4 Pocket item
Mary Stebbins Taitt
oil pastels and acrylic varnish
Click to view larger.
8.5 x 11

 The next painting (drawing?) is another in my series of tests of oil pastels and acrylic varnish.  It's on one of my practice sketchbooks, an old one, painted (drawn?) over an old failed painting.  One thing oil pastels, I have not yet learned how to do detail.  Nor can I do it with a palette (painting) knife, as seen above.)  The oil pastels tend to shed little lumps of pastel material which then builds up with successive layers to make "pimples."  These pimples are weak spots from which delamination can begin.  I have no idea about the long-term survival of these pieces, but I think they will not delaminate in the short term, as they did in the poppy mandala above, unless they are subjected to undue stress, eg, sanding.

Ami, age 13
Mary Stebbins Taitt
oil pastels, acrylics and acrylic varnish
in multimedia sketchbook
9 x 12 (part is missing on right, as my scanner is smaller than the paper)

I am not sure how much longer I will continue experimenting with this media or whether I will use it in any serious art.  I will not use it in anyone's sketchbook (Mole) in the exchange unless someone gives me the go-ahead, since the archival nature of the medium is unknown (to me) at this time.  For some reason, I seem to be taken by the medium at the moment.  Trying to ascertain its possibilities.

Cover to my New Traveling Moleskine

Self Portrait with Biker Buddy
"tentative final"
click this and all images to view larger

Yesterday, my new Round 4 Moleskine arrived in the mail!  YAY!  I'm so excited.  Biker Buddy and I went out and took a self portrait photograph from which I painted the cover of my new Moleskine. Acrylics on gessoed Moleskine cover.  OH--I took pix of the stages again.  I will post them below.

These sketchbooks travel around the country, and sometimes around the wold, to other artists, collect art and return to me.  FUN!

I need to get back to work on my Fellowship application.  No more art until I hear that this round has officially started.

gesso and pencil sketch

blocking

underpainting and first coat

adding highlights and first details

The Goddess of Medium Things

The Goddess of Medium Things
by Mary Stebbins Taitt
while riding in car
click on image to view it MUCH larger

Friday January 4:  

Keith and I have arrived in Syracuse for Erin's wedding.  108 and 8 miles out, my son Graham's car broke down; he was traveling separately because he had to be back at college..  He got towed all the way from Batavia to Syracuse.  Tomorrow morning, my husband will examine the car to see if it can be saved, if he can repair it.

My daughter's wedding is tomorrow.

Today, Tuesday January 8:

We arrived safely home last night.  The wedding was wonderful, and I may post about it later.  We towed the Jetta, Graham’s car, to a friend’s house and rented a car.  Graham drove Keith’s car and we drove the rental.

We will be returning to Syracuse to repair the car.

The plain facts do not illustrate the difficulties involved, but I’m still too tired to review them.  (And no one probably wants to hear the unpleasant details.)  We are all OK and that’s what’s important. 

I thank the Goddess of Medium Things for keeping us all safe for the duration.

Self-portrait of the Artsit on a Diet II

Self-portrait of the Artsit on a Diet II, by Mary Stebbins Taitt.

I wish I'd put this on Imagik. And vice versa. BUT HEY, here it is.
Being on a diet is very depressing. My fear is that I will have to be
on one for the rest of my life.

Continuing Sketch of a tree

This is a tree in Liverpool, NY, at OLP--Onondaga Lake Park. I keep making sketches of it. For some reason, I really like it. Click image to view larger. for Steve at New Orleans Daily Photo even though it is not a dead tree.

Shoot me already

I have so much to do but I keep being distracted by what seems like a simple task but turns into a time sink and then because of insomnia etc, I screw up on top of that. This is the result, but NOT the intended result. OK, shoot me already. Now I have no time left to explain.

I saw on Coffeypot a meme which by the way was very funny the way he did it. One of the questions was, if you you could have one person in the world die, who would it be? I think it's an offensive question and I don't want to wish death on anyone. (I did that once and they actually died and I've been feeling guilty, though not regretful, ever since--and I had nothing to do with it.) However, if there WAS one person who I would ship off to another distant planet somewhere, one with air and food and water so they wouldn't die, but couldn't hurt anyone, it would be George Bush. I think he is doing more harm to the world than all the terrorists combined. Of course, if I was at the World Trade Center, or knew someone who was (I only knew people who knew people), maybe I wouldn't feel that way.

I would ship all the terrorists, rapists and abusers there too--anyone who abuses their wife, children, employees, friends or animals. All the thieves including corporate thieves. All the advisors to George Bush. The vice president. All the oil people in Iraq and elsewhere. Anyone who wants to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge. All the mean people. They would all have a good time together and probably totally ruin whatever poor planet they got sent to but this one could finally begin to heal. Oh wait, maybe that planet is more important than those evil people. I'll have to send along an army to keep the polluters in line. People who are mean and bossy and like enforcing rules.

I don't like to talk about politics on my blogs because I am afraid that 50% of the few readers and visitors I have will leave permanently and never come back. I hope if you are a bloggy friend, you will stay one and allow me that right to disagree with you and I will allow you the same.

I'm not doing the rest of the meme--I wasn't tagged anyway and I do not have time!

Well, I am still here so I might as well say part of what went wrong with that image I never intended to waste so much time on anyway--for one thing, I sandwiched several images, and one set has straight horizons and one didn't and that made everything off by just a little. Very annoying. And a waste time, but there it is. What a dunce. I hate it when I'm a dunce. I seem to be more and more often. This post is starting to sound like it should be on Unbearable Darkness instead of here. OK, gotta RUN! AK!

The yellow primrose stained glass Light-catcher

I had a dream about this last night (and wrote a poem based on the dream). Click image to view larger. (Art piece by me.)

In all the vastness of the Universe

In all the vastness of the Universe, it's amazing Keith and I met, and I am glad we did.

I am studying Adobe Illustrator and this is lesson 1: open a document, make a shape, fill it. Click image to view larger.

stocking up

I just hear the strangest thing on the radio--it was an advertisement encouraging people to stock up on apple pie for the 4th of July. I was confused. I thought apple pie was something you made, not something you "stocked up" on.

I guess I'm getting old. There are so many things about the new order I find upsetting, even such small things!

(Painting by me from an earlier photo, click to view larger. [The pie was by me, too, and tasty!])
--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary

Where are my Bread Crumbs?

SWITCHED! Finally!

I wrote a new poem this morning. It's probably not good enough to ever be posted to AMARYPOEM or Twelve. So I am posting it here.

I just got switched, finally, to the New Blogger, but that may mean everything is all messed up, and I don't have time to fix it. It will have to stay messed up for a while!

I tried publishing this by hitting publish but it only went in as a draft.

Where are my Bread Crumbs?

I thought I’d reached a place of serene understanding,
once for a few hours or days, a loving equilibrium,
at the center of the teeter totter at the peak of Everest,
with the Maiden Tsar and the Baba Yaga perfectly balanced,
floating, bare feet dangling above the sunlit snow.
It was high summer and below, hand in hand, Persephone
and Demeter walked through wheat fields half green
half gold. The sun smiled and I smiled back. No hurricanes
struck for a moment, no tsunamis or draughts or wildfires.
But in the next moment, or day or week, they all hit
at once, flinging me back into the briar patch
in the center of the dark forest with no trail or light
where I still remain, lost, scratched and stuck.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
1st, 4/20/07, 070420

click image to view larger (artwork by me)(I'm an orphan now, at 60!)(Wahn!)

OK, this is the THIRD time I have published this--let me know if you can finally see it!