Yesterday I made visit to a couple of open studios in Ojai. One of which was Dianne Bennett.

Dianne’s colorful paintings and assemblages are pure eye candy.

“In 2008 I began a series of retablos dedicated to species of birds, trees and plants
whose existence is threatened by loss of habitat and climate change.

The retablos are painted on salvaged metal, old advertising and traffic signs. Many of the series are on portions
of an old metal sign that had been used to advertise a housing development (on what had once been a meadow)
in Ojai of the 1960’s.”

Serious whimsey on various surfaces, made for a striking display in her meandering back yard. Paintings interact with plants, cacti and Ojai cobble. Chartreuse, fusia, cobalt blue, lavendar, canary yellow, and OOOrange, be still my eyes!

If you have been following along with my blog posts you know that I have been transitioning from one house to another for months now. Well, today marks the end of that, it is our final moving day. We hired a small crew to help with the remaining items in the garage. Once everything is in Ojai we are going to disseminate more of what we don’t need. The purging, the cleaning and the organizing is teaching me that I don’t want to go through this massive amount of effort ever again. My new motto, simplify simplify simplify. If and when we do add on or expand to the current home, I still want minimal furnishings. I have so much art that we will never need to buy another decoration. Anyway, the end is in sight! holy good gratefulness. Yesterday was a whirlwind of activity in Calabasas, with an electrician working on exterior lights, the living room being painted, the carpets being shampooed and a cleaning girl cleaning inside cabinets etc. We have encountered several black widows in the garage and some other eerie arachnids, erghhhhhhh. So we sprayed the garage and today need to wash and clean once its empty. I am anxious to get to work in Ojai, so I can get back to creativity. right now my little studio space has only a path in which to walk through because of so many boxes of art and supplies. I’m looking forward to making rocks and some busts, some hypertufa planters, some mosaic stepping stones and of course painting. My life will be busy with that and gardening, heaven on earth, Thanks for not abandoning my blog and I promise, there is eye candy forth coming.

There will be art. Soon. We are wrapping up the transition from one humble abode to another more humbler abode by the end of the month. Tenants will be in place and I will be free to pursue my painting and creating mania as per usual. Walks through the hood and photo documentation of life’s affirmations will continue as well.

For now, here is my dear Sassy, choosing garbage bag over carpet.

Work by talented Joe Sorren will be on exhibit at La Luz de Jesus beginning April 6th. This is a MUst see!

I received a wonderful work of art in the mail yesterday and MUST share it with you!

First I see this:

Cool, its a little Einstein head collage box. And I pull it out, and its just the sweetest box ever, with a message around the sides of the top:

How clever is that!
Turn it over and a message on the bottom

and on the square legs, E = MC2 !brilliant

Take the top off, the inside beautifully collaged.

As if the box weren’t enough, what! is that adorable little pouch!

Open it and see:

Little blocks Turn them over and put the puzzle together!

How fun was that!! Who created this clever, awesome object? the wonderful Karenann Young of course!

Megan Noel

The subject line is a blog prompt. I get so bored of my unimaginative, repetitive posts that I decided to look up some journal prompts and I will try to do one daily or a couple times a week, maybe . I hope it makes for a more interesting blog and helps me to think more expansively.

So today’s prompt obviously leads me to my college days at San Jose State University. I had two art professors who I feel sincerely grateful to have known, one is Sam Richardson my 3d art professor. I am not certain but I think I took about ten of his classes, some of them like his innovative thinking class “Color in Space” repeatedly. As a teacher, he had a way of not allowing his students to be passive, but pushed and pushed us (in a gentle way) to think outside of the box. I learned that art is the expression of ideas and is not limited to a certain medium. He insisted that the artist determine in what way the idea would best be expressed and not be locked into one medium. He encouraged performance art, and video and site specific installations, it was all very inspiring and forever changed my preconceived notions about what the heck ART is.

And secondly, Will Nelson, my painting professor whom I recently learned has passed away. I was very sad to read this, he was so vibrant and encouraging and active with a healthy sense of humor often reflected in his own art works.

This is Will in one of his painting classes.

And this is Will and I at an art reception:

I’m rocking an asymmetrical hairdo and a little plastic monster hanging from my ear. I’m still weird like that.

I don’t think there was a single professor in college that I did not like, and college days were some of the best years of my life.

Karenann has been sending me goodies in the mail for a couple of years now and her work always gives me a lift! every little thing she collages is so carefully and painstakingly done, such hand made treasures! And this exquisite little box is a treasure and will hold some treasures!

While cleaning my studio this week I re-discovered my Fred Babb book and recall what good advice it gives. Much needed advice since I have not painted in over three weeks. that is really odd for me.

I posted my piece here:

video from the opening