What a completely crazy day. July 3rd, 2009 was my opening reception for Crawlspaces. It is crazy like a wedding, double checking, last run through, making sure everything is just right, caterer, food, hair, makeup, clothes, camera, praying the rain will hold off, hoping you did not forget anything, realizing you did but even in the day and age of cell phones it is too late to do anything about it and reminding yourself no one knows your forgot the ...
Due to the July 4th Holiday the 464 Gallery has extended our time for our exhibition, which will be open during normal gallery hours until Thursday, July 9th, 2009. Our closing afternoon will be between 12-6pm on that day. What a nice present!
I got to see so many people and talk with everyone briefly. It is wonderful to have people interested in what occupies your time in the studio. I enjoy answering questions about my artwork. The last time I had an art exhibition is almost ten years ago. It meant the world to me to see anyone and everyone who could come.
My caterer is a great friend from high school and brought amazing culinary pastries that he is known for. We had a veggie platter with a wonderful ranch style dip. Also a fruit platter with a whipped light sweetness concoction that was divine. A kicking' punch was there to wet your whistle and to wash all the great food down to refresh yourself. And as I am aware of new things there will always be bottled water since my father's new kidney! I did not get to taste much of the food until the next morning for breakfast as most of my time was with my friends and family. This time I forgot to take a picture! *SIGH*
My fellow artist Heather brought in fresh flowers to add a splash of color around the gallery. Her 13 pieces of art were watercolor paintings of various sizes.
Let me tell you the strange story of Crawlspaces. Heather and I met on BSC campus in the early 90's. I was coming in and she was preparing to graduate. We spent lots of time working in those days in the quiet studios at Upton Hall. After she graduated I had submerges myself into my degrees and art. Life moves on. We lost touch for almost 10 years. Then one evening we got reacquainted at one of the local shops on Elmwood. We began to reconnect and begin our friendship all over again. This time with a new twist. See when you graduate life begins with work and everything else is scheduled in between. Neither one of us is working directly in the art field, so we became accountable to each for our artistic goals.
Hey did you meet that Friday deadline! I thought this new festival sounds cool, should we bring our art. When we started looking around at galleries to consider showing our artwork is when we started to organize our portfolios. We met with Marcus and Jill of 464. We brought in our portfolios. They were like these two bodies of work share the same theme and the idea of Crawlspaces was born.
We worked on our own themes separately. We were reconstructing the archetypes, mythos and philosophy that we believe. We were asking ourselves where did this idea come from? Why do I believe this way? What experiences created this perspective? Remembering the soul food of our youth! What is it that lives in the back of our brains that keeps us alive and functioning?
One of my guests was asking why I insisted on having everyone sign the guest book. I feel the need to express myself to everyone. When an artist has an idea it stays inside them for an incubation period, usually when the Muse kicks us in the derrière we begin bringing that idea to life using are skills as an artisan. Showing other people is a huge step. Letting our work speak for itself to the public. An exhibition is an artist soul on display for you to connect with or not. The guest book is the coming full circle and a participatory responsibility you have to the artist. Your comments and opinions allow an artist his or her growth. To rethink the deliveries of an idea come to life. An analogy most people can identify with is your High School Yearbook. You wanted everyone, even people you did not know to sign your yearbook and this repeated itself until the culmination of graduation when it was really the last time this would occur with these individuals. A Guest book is very like the experience you had in high school signing someone’s yearbook. You are telling us how what we created with our minds, hands, skills, training and hearts how it touched you. THAT experience that you are having is the closing of the artistic experience, so please do not be shy, please share it!
I do apologize that I have not learned and seem to be having technological difficlties with posting pictures to my journals. I would ask that if you are in the neighborhood, please stop in and see the show. Again it is up until this thursday and remember to please sign the guest book.

My co-teacher in my adult classes just called to tell me that we are canceling classes. I’m like ok why? She just found out she had pneumonia and just got home from the emergency room and getting her scripts filled. So we have to wait until she is not contagious. Everyone I know seems to be under the weather. So I just spent the rest of the time on the phone trying to reach my students on my class roster to cancel class. Now I am exhausted.

I was planning on a more interesting post, but now I am too pooped to continue. Maybe more tomorrow or Wednesday, I’m off to watch Medium and then straight to bed. Night all.

Hello All EPEEPS! I know it has been way too long since my last journal,but I wanted to invite you all to an Opening Reception to my Art Exhibtion called Crawlspaces with a fellow artist Heather Gillette. It is a free event with food and beverage until it runs out! This Friday July 3rd, 2009 from 6-9pm. The show is up an running from June 29th to July 6th. See www.mindweb.us for 464 gallery details. Here are the 464 Gallery hours: Tuesday through Friday 12 - 6pm; Saturday 11-6pm and Sunday 11-5pm. 464 Gallery is located at 464 Amherst Street Buffalo NY 14207 between Elmwood Avenue and Grant Street. Please remember to sign in the guestbook and give your opinion, I will especially look forward to reading it!

I do apologize for such a late notice. I am hoping the picture of the invitation will post.

Blessings to having a week off from one responsibility and then I discover that I am acting like I am completely stressed out. Can’t really figure it? I just wanted to shut off. No more efficacies. No more to do lists. No more things that need to be done. No more responsibilities. Then it hit me like a load of bricks. I do not want to do this right now. Of course the question was what do I want to do?

We get so loaded up with what we have to do that we forget that sometimes we have wants or needs. Sometimes I just need to sit and watch movies until my brain decides to start firing on its own. The realization occurs to you as you have discovered you really are addicted to spider solitaire. Long hours staring into space and then it hits you really hard.

Many years ago I had a really painful experience of falling down a flight of concrete stairs and knock out of whack 9 vertebrae of my spine. I went to my doctor to find out why I was having headaches and then backaches. Well, DUH! So I am now in physical therapy. I used to be an athlete. It’s like my brain is still wired to working out and I haven’t done it in years due to my other health problem. I’m in there and the competitive edges creeps up on me daring me to go harder, faster and then PAIN! Ouch!

I am constantly told that your young yet and you don’t know about pain. (Well, big fat raspberries to you, bucko!) Everyone has had a toothache at least once in your life. That dull throbbing ache that attacks one space in your mouth that you inspect with your tongue every thirty seconds. Hold that feeling in your mind. Take it out of your mouth and place it at the back of your skull. Your skull sucks it in like smelling roses and the scent wafts as it travels the length of your spine to where you sit, your tailbone. Remember that pain. Imagine it has traveled up and down your spine aching and throbbing until your muscles begin to tighten. Those muscles keep tightening and forget how to relax. Then you tell it to go to rehab!

Rehabilitation. Yes, I want to be able to move again without the pain. It’s amazing how the pain doesn’t leave. It’s ebb and flow does not coincide with my life or its routines. It doesn’t like to go away. This pain is like when you got left out in grammar school. Like when your school chums had to pick teams and you were the one left over that neither team wanted. It just wants you to want it to be there. Yet it does not realize that it is just a huge pain in the ass. Literally the pain that holds your sciatic nerve from stretching, that causes our fingers and toes to fall asleep just because you breathe. It does not matter what position you stand, sit or lay down and still body parts just up and take a vacation.

Spinal struggle. This internal tug of war is causing a stress that I do not know how to avoid and yet they tell there is light at the end of the tunnel. Stress causes more pain in my back. It is an endless evil struggle just to be sane. How do you turn off the trigger? How do I get better? I keep doing my homework. I keep going to rehab. I keep feeling the pain.

I am not sure if that is a threat or a promise. I have been offline for almost a year. Forgive my silence. So many things, so little time. My father got a kidney transplant. He is on the mend. Of course there is good days and bad days. Several more of my single friends have joined the copious groups of happily ever after entered into marriage and more on the way. Several children have entered the world and have been given a handmade baby blanket from yours truly. I am heading toward the finish line for my certification. Two more hurdles to go. Teaching and creating curriculum have taking over a great deal of what I write these days. I have recently realized that I have to make myself sit and journal. Very bizarre to read the last entry and barely remember why you wrote it. I have meet some really cool new people and am enjoying the process of getting to know them. I have recently found some new addictions that are relatively harmless to the public at large but put large dents into my pocket book and stress for space in my apartment. I am looking forward too many things on the calendar, but am desperately trying to stay caught up with everything. I really think I put too much on my plate. My eyes are bigger than my stomach. Trying to continue managing stress is always an interesting challenge in my life. Lately everyone I know is either really tired or physically ill, something about the progressive strains of the flu and other viruses. Since the writer’s strike I have gotten less interested in television and more interested in DVD’s and books.

Just thought I’d check in and let you all know I am alive.