Mary Richmond Design

A Slow Return

I sort of disappeared there for awhile but all is well. I've just been super busy.

There was taking the kids I work with out looking for stranded sea turtles on this beach in Truro.

It was a cold, blustery afternoon but the light and the color were spectacular.

Sea turtles that have been feeding in Cape Cod Bay all summer sometimes overstay their welcome when the water remains warm. When the temperatures drop and the wind comes in from the north they sometimes become cold stunned and get washed in to the shore.

At high tide groups of volunteers comb the beaches looking for these unfortunate guys. So far I think about 19 have been found this season. We did not find any the days we went out.

Then there was Thanksgiving. I was determined to use all the lovely plates, glasses and silver our moms and grandmothers had used so washed, polished and got everything ready. It took a long time to get everything sparkly and lovely. And then there was all that cooking.

Then there was all that cleaning and putting away. I think I understand why my mother and his mother stopped using all the fancy glasses and silver. It's so much work and for just one meal! It was fun to see everything out looking so shiny and nice, though. I'll probably do it again.

This weekend I held a two day sale at my home. I sold off tiles, cards, prints and paintings at a heavy discount to get rid of some of the boxes that have been plaguing my home since I closed my shop. The heavy hitting shoppers came out and bought up tons of bargains and I made way more money than I had dared imagine so it was well worth the effort.

This week I am back at work, trying to figure out health insurance options. We have always been covered by my husband's work plan but as he takes a new job we are discovering we are losing the great insurance and benefits we sort of took for granted. What to do? I may have to give up the job I have, where I am contract staff and ineligible for benefits in order to find one that can give us what we need. This opportunity for him is not a big paying one but it offers so many other wonderful chances for him to do something he loves after years of being abused by a big, machine like company that it's worth the changes we have to make.

Life is always an adventure. I look forward to moments like these because it is my experience that something wonderful always comes out of what appears to be chaos. So what comes next? I look forward to finding out!

I've been doing lots of writing, lots of fun interviews, theater reviews and art pieces in addition to my usual nature columns. It's so much fun. I meet so many cool people! I've also been doing my creative every day pieces but haven't had time to photograph or post them. Hopefully before the end of the month which is.....tomorrow!

Sunsets and To Do Lists

This week has been the busiest I've had in a long time and the next few days are even busier. It is during times like these that I wonder what other people do to keep from getting overwhelmed. I feel I am definitely a person working harder not smarter these days and that I have taken on way too many commitments.

Earlier this week I had a minor medical procedure which threw my schedule (and my body!) off so that hasn't helped. I went to a play, wrote a review and turned in two columns. I have a third column due today. Everyone's on early deadline due to the holiday next week so as soon as I finish this week's I have to do next week's.

I said yes to a craft exhibit with the local chamber of commerce so had to take this afternoon off from my day job to do that and pull together all sorts of promotional materials that are still buried in moving boxes. Hopefully it will be worth the effort. I am also involved in an annual pottery show that opens this weekend and am hoping to have an open house at my home over Thanksgiving weekend. I'm stressed out over signing up for time to work at the pottery show since I have little available time and may have to cancel my own home show which makes way more money for me. Hopefully that will all work out. Right now I'm still planning to do both.

I have not done a thing for the Art Every Day challenge for the last day or two and haven't had time to post what I have done. I have no clue where my camera is. Speaking of cameras, I signed up for an all day workshop this Saturday to learn how to take better pictures of my work. I have so much to do that I am wondering why I signed up but am hoping that I learn enough to make the stress worthwhile. In many ways it will be an oasis in a crazy week.

Tomorrow I work all day, drive 40 miles to go to an art center to review a show and interview artists, get back in the car to go babysit for a friend and come home around 11 p.m. to smile at company that will have arrived sometime during the day. Saturday I'll be out all day at the workshop and Sunday we will be setting up the pottery show. Oh, and there's a tile order to do in there that has to be delivered on Monday. Did I mention I have a day job???? Oh, and company, too. Fortunately she's just camping out at my house and doesn't need my attention but really, a little time to visit would be nice!

Yes, I'm stressed. And I've done it all to myself by trying to say yes to good things. If I stop and remember to breathe I will be fine. Everything I am doing is something I really like to do. I like the people, I like the activities themselves, I like making a little money for holiday shopping. So why am I so stressed? It's too much in too little time. Every year I say I won't do this to myself and every year I find myself in a similar mess at this time of year.

I'm curious to know how other people handle their work related stress. I know I do this to myself.

On the up side, I walk in nature every day, I get to play with kids, I see my friends and family on a very regular basis and I love the people I work for and with. I get to write, paint, teach and walk in some of the most beautiful places in the world and get paid to do it. Sounds pretty good. Now, if I could just get myself to relax and enjoy it and be grateful instead of worrying what comes next and how will it all fall together......

Please feel free to share your tips and advice!

New Tile Photos

Every now and then I get an order that just goes wrong. This little bunny mural was one such order. The woman who ordered it originally ordered something totally different over a year ago. She decided she wanted bunnies instead of birds and even a different size mural. We agreed on a design and then everything started to go wrong.

The order got lost in my move. All sorts of other complications happened, including one mural getting lost in the mail. Anyway, it is done and shipped and hopefully she'll have it on Tuesday. Yes, I got insurance and tracking info.

Here's a close up of one of the bunnies. I don't know what it is about these little guys but everyone seems to love little rabbits. I have sold many, many cards and prints of these two little rabbits as well as many other rabbits. They're so appealing in an innocent, cute sort of way, I guess.

I also delivered this panel today, another piece that got put aside with all the hubbub going on. The kids came to my studio over a year ago and we did a kitchen design around some of the prints they made. These were the leftovers and the woman kept saying, "No hurry," which one should never say to me.....Anyway, she was very happy with these and while I was there I took pictures of the mural I did for her.

These flowers were taken from a fabric swatch she brought to my studio and they match the curtains across the room. She is thrilled with the tiles and it was fun to talk with her about her home and all the decorating she's been doing. This is their retirement home on the Cape and they are very excited and grateful to be here. It's nice to be a part of someone's excitement and gratitude.

Here's a close up of the mural.

It's great to be able to photograph my work with a digital camera and see what I've got right away. I used to agonize over taking these photos and then have to wait and hope and get copies and well, you know.....it was much harder!

Today I download them on the computer, upload them to the blog, to Flickr and have them immediately available to email to clients, etc. I love it!

I will post my Art Every Day efforts later tonight or tomorrow.

Day 7, Art Every Day

This little collage is my entry for Day 7. It is weaker than I would like it to be. It is something I've had rolling around in my mind for a long time and although I like the placement and scale of the people I think I would like them to be developed differently.

It's interesting gluing down these old photos because part of me has a little bit of panic about it. Oh no, I'm ruining this picture! But the truth is these pictures were all in a box of reject pictures, pictures that never made it into an album.

I love this little photo, even though it's sort of random at best. My grandmother took it and she was well known for missing the moment, cutting off people's heads or half their bodies in the picture plane. The focus of this picture, according to the writing on the back, was my mother opening a gift. What she got, of course, was my dad playing with us kids and the dog.

This photo was taken when I was 4 and my sister was 1. The dog is Liza, my first and most wonderful friend and companion. When I was around 8 she kept me from being hit by a car by stepping in front of me and pushing me back in the yard. My mother, who witnessed this, never got over it and Liza was a heroine for the rest of her days.

Here is a close up of one part of the collage and drawing.

I just realized as I was getting ready to post this that I am posting it on the anniversary of my parents' failed marriage oh so many years ago.

My parents were divorced (after several separations) when I was 10. Both went on to have long and successful second marriages.

Days 5 & 6, Art Every Day

This is the drawing I did for Day 5. It's very quiet and simple. I did up a bunch of these watercolor washes to work ink over, which is new for me and I sort of like the way it works together. I think I'll be playing with this idea some more. It seems like a nice way to pull the surity of the line together with the dreaminess of the wash.

This is yesterday's drawing with an old photo, not exactly a collage but the beginnings of an idea.

The photo is of my grandmother, great grandmother, mother and myself (at 2!) and the drawing is an idea I've had knocking around of using the faces I draw with a family tree branching out of a dream, integrated with actual photos.

It has a long way to go but then sketches are for working out ideas, yes?

Here's a close up of the photo, which is still pretty vague. I like that about it, though. It adds to the dreamy, uncertain quality of it.

Here is a close up of the drawing itself.

This project has been great so far. I am finally back in the studio every day and feeling excited about working again. It's also been great fun seeing what other people are doing. I'll be posting some more links here soon.

Day 4, Art Every Day

My grandmother kept wonderful scrapbooks and photo albums and had many from her teenage years and as a young adult. Her friends and family dominate the pages as do pictures of places she was lucky enough to visit. She was third generation Irish (her great grandmother came over on a boat during the potato famine) in McKeesport, PA. Her family was poor and her own mother gave her up to her sister and she was raised by her childless aunt and uncle. Her uncle/dad was a coal miner with a tendency to drink up his paycheck on Friday afternoons and it was her job to go fetch him from the bar and bring him home. He would loop one arm in hers and carry a bucket of beer in the other.

My grandmother told lots and lots of stories and I was lucky to have a long and wonderful relationship with her.

I love that this picture of her on the porch shows off her famous long legs. The story goes that she was walking down the hall at work (she was a secretary for the first radio station at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh!) when her husband to be looked up and said "Who do those beautiful legs belong to?"

Day 3, Art Every Day

This is the first collage I put together from the photos, scrap books and sheet music that I have from my mom and grandmother. I have enough material to cover a good part of the world in collages, by the way, but it seemed like a good way to begin the process by doing at least one a day for this month. Who knows where it will lead? I have had the idea for several years that I would like to use these materials in art work. There is too much to save as individual albums and boxes of articles, pictures, sheet music, etc. which are frail and yellowing.

My mother and grandmother kept lots of scrapbooks, many of movie stars and as I began this collage of my mother I found the sheet music to "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" and decided to use pictures of her intermingled with some of the movie star pictures.

In my mother's family she was the older, smart daughter who didn't get "the looks" and she was told all her life she needed to use her brains and personality to get along in the world. Her younger sister was beautiful and told she didn't need to develop her brains or personality since she didn't need to do anything but look pretty.....they both suffered from this as you might imagine.

Anyway, I'm using this sheet music to make some family based collages. I tried to post this on Saturday but lost power while trying to post. We just got power back this morning. I will post yesterday's and today's collages later today.

Making art always takes you funny places. I found this collage leading me to a statement on marriage, or the time's beliefs about marriage for a woman, and the written pieces illustrate that.

It's amazing how many women of this generation (my mom was born in 1932) made it through all their early brainwashing and conditioning to make good lives and careers for themselves. They raised their own daughters to be brave and strong and to go out into the world. Our own daugthers seem to take all their choices for granted.

When I look at all these old pictures it reminds me how far we've come but also how not so long ago this really was! I look forward to sharing the rest of this project!

Storm

It's a bleak, rainy, windy day here with the remnants of the hurricane that was so awful down south slamming our shore today. Winds are about 40-50 miles per hour right now and the power is a bit jittery. We are lucky to be on part of the grid that serves the hospital and often lose power only briefly. I understand much of the Cape is without power even as I write this. We've been getting some pretty impressive gusts.

Catching images of the rain is easier than catching images of the wind, especially since I'm not one to venture out while things are blowing around and branches are coming down.

There's something warm and compelling about indoors on a day like this. I find myself cleaning, catching up on email, phone calls and....collaging! I will post my efforts so far in the next post.

Stay warm and dry if you're in eastern Massachusetts this afternoon!

Art Every Day 2

Here's my second day's piece for Art Every Day Month. It is a simple ink drawing. I am calling it "They are all gone but they are all still here with me."

I have long had the idea I would like to use the old photos, sheet music, postcards, etc. that my grandmother saved to integrate into my art and this may be the time and opportunity to do just that, especially since so much of it is still sitting in boxes just outside my studio.

One of the things that has happened as I go through all these sentimental and memorial things my grandmother and mother kept is that I want to honor them in some way. We had to throw away a ton of stuff but I still managed to keep an awful lot of it. I have no place to store it and I think using it to make art would have pleased them on some level. 

I'll be posting the results here.

The link to the site hosting Art Every Day is Creative Every Day and you can link to it here to see who all is joining in this month of daily art making and fun. There is also a Flickr site set up here.

Art Every Day Month

This is the piece I did today for Art Every Day Month, an internet art group that I joined recently. Beginning today anyone who would like to create a drawing, write a song, do a little dance or knit a cool sweater is invited to share their daily work online.

I will add the links over the next few days but wanted to at least get my first piece up today.

I did this drawing off the top of my head and as song fragments came into my mind I added them along the hair lines. It takes me back to work I did when I was in school and was constantly adding song lyrics or lines of poetry to my work. Funny how what goes around comes around.

I'm looking forward to doing something creative each day. I'm not going to worry about making ART. I'm just going to have fun and do whatever comes up. Fun is the operative word here!