Category: Thoughts

Things I’m learning in Artworld.

confessions of a Color Junkie, part 3

Purple, or “violet”, as it is more correctly called, is a color I haven’t liked very well most of my life. A few years ago, something changed, and I began to crave periwinkle, that almost blue shade of violet. Think lupine, brodeia, dutch iris. . . Someone told me that as we age, the cones in our eyes see purple better than when we were young. Oh-oh – is that the reason? (Brings to mind that poem “When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple”.) While on our photo trip over Yokohl, I was knitting a sweater in that wonderful bluey purple color; I actually asked Michael to stop next to a lupine so I could hold the sweater out the window and compare the colors. I was thrilled to see they were an exact match! (You just never know what will set off a color junkie.) I have found that to be a difficult color to mix, working only with the primaries, that has been a difficult color to mix. I finally asked Diana Moses Botkin about it, and she advised me just to buy a tube of violet! Wow – if she says it is okay, it must be! Just one other thing – I’ve noticed many men refer to burgundy or maroon as “purple”! I wonder why. . . can’t get a helpful explanation other than “It looks purple to me!”

Sweater colored lupine (ok, I might have messed around with the color in this photo!)

Periwinkle, the plant (also known as the dreaded invasive vinca major)

color obsession periwinkle

Goodbye, Virginia

Virginia May Botkin, 82, of Visalia passed away Sunday, March 14, 2010. She was born in Visalia on June 18, 1927 to Dorval Wallace and Versa May Beamish. Because her parents were both deaf-mute, she grew up communicating with American Sign Language. Virginia and her sister younger Rosalie (Shiffert) loved to sing, and often performed together in the Exeter Lions Club Follies. She graduated from Visalia Union High School and married the love of her life, William “Bill” Franklin Botkin, a union that lasted 53 years until Bill’s death in 2002. Bill and Virginia reared their three children in Exeter, and she was a homemaker who particularly loved family gatherings and time in Mineral King. She enjoyed the music of Tony Bennett, Judy Garland, and more recently Michael Buble’. Virginia was preceded in death by her parents, husband and sister, and is survived by son William C. “Billy” Botkin of Visalia, son Michael (Jana) Botkin of Three Rivers, and daughter Laurie Metz of South Lake Tahoe. In addition, she is survived by a few aunts and uncles, many nieces and one nephew. At her request there will be no services. Remembrances may be made to the Mineral King Preservation Society, P.O. Box 286, Exeter CA 93221 or other charity of choice.

for Cat People only

Here are my semi-wild cats, AKA The Brown Ears (to separate them from The Boys, Perkins and Zeke).

If their tails don’t show, I still can’t tell who is Butch and who is O’Reilly.

Cashmere has missed her second appointment to be spayed at the veterinarian’s office. If she has kittens, want one?

Now that Butch has watched me try to catch his Mom and put her in a box, i.e. try to murder her before his very eyes not once but twice, I doubt that I’ll ever get to touch him.

O’Reilly continues to be an utterly delightful little feline!

Artist Statement

This is one of the most dreaded, misunderstood and boring aspects of being an artist. We artists, in general, dislike writing about our work. Obviously this doesn’t apply to me! But while I love to write, the artist statement gets me bowed up. I don’t do well with Artspeak, and I hate pretentiousness. This a.m. I read an article in the business/art magazine Art Calendar about writing an artist statement and realized it was time to update mine (yet again!) I’m still not sure if it is supposed to be a personal history, a personal philosophy of art, or an explanation. Regardless, here is my current one:

Art has been my fulltime profession for 17 years. Pencil used to be all I’d consider – it was the best way I knew to get every single detail in excruciating perfection. As my drawing students and customers asked for color, I reluctantly entered the world of colored pencil to record life around me. It didn’t resonate with me the way graphite did (and still does!), so 4 years ago I began to oil paint. As my proficiency increases, I’m able to focus more on light and color, and less on minutia. Although my medium is different, my favorite subjects remain: giant Sequoias, Mineral King, citrus, and Three Rivers. Tulare County is my home and recording its beauty is my goal.

It will probably be rewritten many more times as I learn what this is supposed to be and do. Mostly it is a requirement for gallery entries or group shows. Since I tend to be a maverick (as my college photography teacher told me back in the late ’70s), I can usually avoid this part of an art career. Yea! So, have a look at what is almost finished for the Zonta show (and they invited me WITHOUT asking for an “artist statement”):

Great Winter

Because I am the daughter, granddaughter, niece and cousin of farmers, weather has always been an important part of my life. I was trained from an early age to stop talking (mid-sentence if necessary) whenever the weather came on the radio. Dad did call most of the weather guys “weather-guessers”, and I have noticed in the past few months that a prominent weather guy on a prominent localish radio station refers to himself as a “metorolist”. Perhaps he isn’t a real meteorologist, or perhaps he is just in a giant hurry or even has trouble pronouncing his profession. . . hard to say, but I digress. What I meant to say is have a look at a Mineral King cabin as of Sunday, February 7, 2010. (Thank you, Evan and Karl!)

Mineral King

A Random List

While away over the weekend, I learned many new things. Here they are as they pop into my head:

Google Maps can be used to see photos of the road and Carol showed me how!
Single plied yarn knits up visibly different from multiple plied yarn (I always thought I was doing something wrong but it was the yarn – thank you Mendocino Yarn Shop!)
Acrylic painting has many additives available to layer and mold and make relief type paintings. (How could I have never known this before? Because I am an OIL painter!)
Seaglass is much more abundant after a storm. I read this; now I know it experientially.
Finished seaglass is rounder and translucent; the differences are subtle but they matter to the collector.
Most hot tubs are set at 104 degrees but 100 is still comfortable.
My cell phone is capable of texting but it isn’t necessary nor convenient in my life.
There is a new kind of dimmer on light switches that is so tiny one can (and did) miss it!
A song I love, Gabriel’s Oboe, is from a movie called The Mission.
The center of California is delineated on Hwy. 99 (already knew this but now know how to find it!)
ALWAYS have a map with you when you are on a road trip because there might be a traffic problem that will negate your Google directions. I knew this but was ever so grateful to have followed this wisdom.
ALWAYS have simple knitting in the car with you, even when you are driving alone, because you never know when the freeway will transform itself into a parking lot.
NEVER drink too much coffee. (see #12) (I sure felt badly for the woman in the white sedan.)
There is a specific (and odd) way of walking to increase one’s speed; Carol and I got a great laugh out of experimenting with this (easier to do when in a place where no one knows you.)
Abstract art causes me to think of yarn. (Many things do this for me.)

Center of California Gabriel's Oboe knitting mendocino yarn shop

More on Mendocino

There is a popular book among artists called The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It recommends that artists take field trips to gather new inspiration. So, I took a field trip to Mendocino. I believe that we absorb much more visually that we realize, and although I might not have immediate plans to paint scenes of the North Coast (no outlet for selling them – gotta be practical here!), the beauty, the colors, something I saw in one of the galleries (or the yarn shop), something I saw or thought of while on my 9-1/2 hour drive could be the seed of a new idea. My friend is as obsessed with seaglass as I am with yarn, and since she lives in the Seattle area, we don’t get to spend much time together. I learned of Glass Beach in Ft. Bragg, and we decided to meet there. Although it was a stormy weekend, it was ideal. The best time to find seaglass is after a storm, and we were blessed with a sunny Saturday for our foraging.

The waves were awe inspiring.

This just cracks me up – Seattle girl soaking up Vitamin D on a California beach in January, BAREFOOT in a place called “Glass Beach” and with Starbuck’s coffee in her hand!

We had shoes on for this part.

It was definitely what John Eldredge refers to as a “rainbow day”. http://blog.ransomedheart.com/john/

Ft. Bragg Glass Beach John Eldredge mendocino

California Center

I took a road trip over the weekend. On Monday, I drove NINE AND ONE HALF hours to get home. (It was worth it.) I might tell you about the trip in another blog entry, but this entry is to tell you about a curious thing. On Highway 99, north of Fresno but south of Madera, in the median is something that marks the center of California. It is a palm tree on the south side and a pine tree on the north! Someone showed me this a few years ago and then I couldn’t find it again. (My husband thought I just dreamed it.) Yesterday I stopped at a Starbuck’s in Chowchilla (I was dying of boredom by that time) and the server was chatty and helpful and told me about this! She brought it up, not me! Isn’t that cool?? here is the very blurry photo I took while driving (I think the big rig on my six was a little irritated at me – I’m sorry, Mr. Peterbilt)

The pine isn’t very large and is behind the palm because we are heading north.

California center

Wild cats in my workshop

You may have discerned that I have a real weakness for cats. Back in 1987, there were some wild cats living underneath Thrifty Drug Store in downtown Visalia. I shared a parking lot with these cats and fell in love with one of the little ones. A man named George fed them regularly and helped me catch the long-haired one with Siamese coloring. Turns out this is a breed of cat called “American Ragdoll”. Of course I understand that my little cat was just a lucky accident of random breeding, but she most definitely had the characteristics of the Ragdoll breed. We had Fritzi for 13 years, and she was definitely the cat love of my life. After we lost her, I began looking for a baby Fritz. We had Wilson (aka Buster), Scout and Prudence, and then Zeke and Amos. The only survivor in this attempt so far is Zeke. He is definitely NOT of the American Ragdoll breed, although he does have the coloring and the size. Last fall, my friend from the Sequoia RV Ranch http://www.sequoiarvranch.com/ told me of a litter of cats underneath one of their storage mobile homes. When she described them, I knew I was a goner. Michael told me to just go get all three, and now for about 2 months we have had a mom (Cashmere) and her 2 little boy cats living in the workshop where I paint.

One of those little guys still won’t let us touch him. Look at him:

He has no tail and he hoppity-runs like a Manx. So far we have called him Hoppy, Cassidy, Butch, Manx, Dummy, and currently, Steely Dan. (He steals around? His eyes are steely blue?) How can one name a cat who won’t respond to any overtures in a positive manner? I could call him Scairdy or Chicken Little, but I like names with a little dignity for the cats in my life. By the way, Cashmere is reminding me an awful lot of my sweet Fritzi! Her son O’Reilly is just bold and fresh, and reminds me a bit of Buster. This guy? I dunno, I just dunno. Sigh.

American Ragdoll

The mind of one artist, final chapter

After I got to see the Palace of Fine Arts, I pulled out the map to pick a route back to the Dr.’s office. It felt far away, and it was around noon. Knowing I can walk a mile in 15 minutes, I figured I could get there by 1 p.m., and if not, I could call in to report my location. I chose a route that seemed direct but also took me back through the Presidio. As I walked, I kept revising the route to stay off the city streets for as long as possible. It was killing me to not be able to take photos of every beautiful site I passed, but the entire reason I was in San Francisco was to help D, not to build my photo library! (Besides, who in Three Rivers will want paintings of San Francisco??) Now this next part may seem like a bizarre digression, but stay with me. You may or may not know that I spent all of July 2007 in China. While there, I took photos of amusing signs, such as this one:

So there I was, striding for all I was worth, and suddenly there was a sign that made me laugh out loud and stop for one last photo:

‘Scuse me? Where I come from, we call them “speed bumps”. I got back to the Dr.’s office in plenty of time (it must have been my stride), saw that I walked 10 miles that morning, sat and knitted for another 1-1/2 hour, and finally D was ready to go. It was a long drive home, but D is recovering nicely and we had a great 2 days together. I can’t imagine just sitting in the Dr.’s office watching movies in San Francisco, and I don’t think it is being an artist that got me out. However, I do know way too many people would have been afraid to go exploring on their own and am deeply grateful that I am not one of that unhappy little club!