The Newtonian Principles of Love
Category: HERstory
Del Mar Fair 2022
Three of my paintings were selected to be exhibited at the 2022 Del Mar Fair and I also received two 3rd Place Ribbons and Prize Money. Life is Good!
Wedding Feast
Here is an Oldie, but still a Goodie! I created this painting in CELEBRATION of my sister’s wedding 28 years ago! It was a 4 day extravaganza and a super special funning- it event! I used to paint only the things that made me happy- friends, family, parties, babies, dogs- because I reasoned that there were enough images of pain and ugliness in the world that I didn’t need to add to all that unhappiness…. Now I may, occasionally, make a painting or series with a “unhappy” or critical intent, but my paintings always contain humor and a “f**k IT all” attitude, because you have to laugh, otherwise you will cry and cry! Anyways, I hope to be celebrating life with friends and family and just random people again! Let’s get this Pandemic in hand already! Life is a book and everyday is a new page, so just keep reading! 🙂
Girls’s Night Out
I created this painting about 26 years go, because I was so inspired by an amazing emotionally connected experience with humankind… 1994 Halloween in Oak Cliff, Texas. My friend Tony created a performance art tribute to “Pricilla Queen of the Desert.” We were 2 biological woman and 4 biological men dressed in drag having a super fun time celebrating life, art, and friendship. It was of the most absolutely fantabulous nights of my life! Sadly, I don’t have a better copy of the piece. I traded the painting in exchange for hair color/cuts with my friend Tony.
A Girl For All Seasons
When I was 22, attending college at Washington University in St. Louis, I took several photography classes. For my final Color Photography 2 course, I created a “Pin-Up Girl” calendar featuring myself! Ha! This was super difficult technically, because I was using a 35 mm Canon camera that I had to focus using formulaic calculations regarding the background and middle ground, and then set a timer, pose, and repeat– not knowing what I captured (if anything!!!) until I developed the film…. Super Old School! But also, as I have mentioned in previous HERstory posts, I already had an issue with the “actress/model type”, who are exactly the “sort” of women from which “Pin- Up Girl” calendars are made. So by placing my 5’3″, on the stocky/strong side- (certainly NOT the usual “Pin-Up Girl” type) – I was challenging what exactly it means to be a “Pin-Up Girl” or as I say, “A Girl For All Seasons”. This project was also inspired by Julie London’s album Calender Girl, and the photographer, Cindy Sherman’s amazing work as a self-portraitist…. Finally, there was one other ulterior motive for my creative project, and that was to convince a man (through art) to choose me instead of another woman… It is so messed up, but I was young and very much in love and also, as people like to point out, that I did “get my man”… AND, so it is true- my creative advertisement- worked, I did “get my man” for almost 22 years until… but, well that is another Fish Tale entirely!
Anyway, I made Christmas presents for my family and friends of my A Girl For All Seasons 1996 Calendar. It features 13 fabulous self-portraits of myself- complete with holiday accouterments, but also 2 poems (laminated in the finest plastic KINKO’S offers!), one by the poet/author Robert Graves, Uncalendered Love, and another, written by “Anonymous”, (spoiler alert: written by the man whom would become husband and the father of my 3 children), entitled Times’s Mistress… Calendars are really important to me – I like to keep several paper ones on hand, each dedicated to recording “time” based on different criteria that I have set… I like to cross off things and move forward in time… It’s a thing.
Children of the Artist
So there is a sizable time gap in my Exhibitions/ Education HERstory, but that is because I was a devoted mother and housewife for 20+ years…. These three are my ultimate creation investment, and will continue to be an artistic/creative focus for the entirety of my life. I am fully invested spiritually, artistically, genetically on what becomes of these three amazingnesses (sorry, there is no other word I can use to describe!) So… Well, an Artist’s life takes interesting turns and there will be gaps and relapses — but I confess that I am hopelessly forever involved with these three beings and I will always be their champion, cheerleader, sounding board, and scapegoat… whatever it takes to see them rise and shine. 48 x 36, Oil on Canvas, 2003.
Fish & Flower
Fish and Flower exhibited at the Del Mar State Fair… 1st painting on the left side when you walked into the Fine Art Exhibit Pavilion. It was the first Exhibition I had been featured in a very long time and it was a gloriously happy night, until it wasn’t, but that is another Fish Tale…. Fish and Women are a constant whiplash-like theme in my life…. Oh well— ya just gotta keep making art! Sink or Swim, Baby! Sink or SWIM.
30 x 40, Mixed Media on Canvas, 2019. $600
Fish and Flower also was juried into the #Obsessed Exhibition at Art on 30th, 2021.
The Book of Fish and Women
So there really is an actual Book of Fish and Women. It is an art concept book that I created in 1991 in response to the emotional chaos I was experiencing during my Freshman year in Art School. I was a sweet young thing who previously lived a very sheltered existence (though, I thought I was very bohemian compared to the country club and private school set I was raised with – I considered myself a real Miss Thang!) Anywho, I was living in the big city of Boston, taking the “T” daily from Back Bay to Roxbury, on the trains or buses packed with people of every variety ( I say that with love in my heart and the 49 year old version of myself considers that heaven! Sigh, if only youth wasn’t wasted on the young!), the 1st Iraq war had just broke out- I was really worried about my male friends- having grown up watching the multitude of movies created in the 80’s about the Vietnam War, also the Last Temptation of Christ novel by Paul Schrader and then the movie super impacted all my quasi-Luthern sensibilities- it was all eternal spiritual conflict Brah!…. BUT, mostly I was losing my shit, because my boyfriend, whom I loved most desperately and passionately, kept cheating on me, with females that I labeled, “the actress/ model type”, one of whom was my best friend…. So, in pathetic young angsty desperation, I bought Playboy magazines and collaged my way through all the heartache and disbelief of the Brave New World that I was living and as life would have it, continue to live….
Here are just a few excerpts from THE Book- they are yellowed and stained with age and the rubber cement shows through the images. Back in the day, as my pages increased, other people wished to contribute their art as well. The pages also included Art History references, experts from novels, song lyrics, and current events referenced throughout. It’s kinda of an interesting look at a person’s surrealist hell – all the lies, myths, misdirections and shattered expectations of youth and so forth, all told with images of fish and women….
Spoon Bender and the Virgin Queen
43 x 31, Oil Paint and Oil Pastel on Canvas, 2019. $800.00
Here are two lovely and extremely talented young women, both making their way in the world; both hard core, mule-headed, and insufferably – ‘My way or the Highway,’ kinda women. When they were girls and the very bestest of friends, they would play and sing together, for fun on a weekend night. My “Mother’s Day 2013” song, they recorded for me long ago, perfectly illustrates these two wildums’ fun and fierceness of spirit … I did the best I could to capture their essence. I loves them both and wish them them incredible joy and success in this world! Sing on ladies, both of yous! Sonja
The Book Of Fish and Women 