Here is a detail of part of the roof. The words and shapes are scratched and carved into the wood and plaster. I primarily use oil paint but have a whole array of sandpapers and scratching tools that allow me to wear down the layers exposing other colors from underneath. I apply the paint with paper towels, brushes and transfers.

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Here is a detail view of part of the roof… The words and some of the shapes are carved into the plaster and wood. The paint is all oil and is applied with paper towels, brushes and transfers. I use sandpaper and different kinds of abrasive materials to remove paint, exposing colors underneath on different layers.

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After I got the figure more defined I ran into a little problem with the hand held disc sander I started with..I couldn’t define any details and it wasn’t allowing me to carve as carefully as I needed. I called up Joe Brubaker Joe Brubaker – Sculpture a sculptor who also is in Donna Seager’s Gallery. His work is amazing and Joe is exceptionally nice. I went over to his studio – a fun space loaded with odd found objects of metal and wood. Remaindered parts of things, half started sculptures of heads and gorgeous miniature bronzes he has had cast of his work. He leant me some tools and told me what not to do and this made all the difference in the world. I especially loved painting the figure as suddenly I was back on familiar territory again, having never carved anything before. It is so fun to paint sculpture because no matter how you paint the form it will always resemble the figure. You are no longer trying to create an illusion with paint. The shape is fixed, but the color is not. I loved painting it. I wanted this figure, that is going to float above the Ritter Center House, to feel as is it is 100s of years old. Very primitive, simple and universal.

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It took longer than I thought it would which of course it always does

My neighbor gave me this huge chunk of mahogany. I cut out the general shape of the figure and now I am trying to refine it. It’s interesting to just be removing and not being able to add anything back on…sculpture is like that–just take away all the parts that don’t belong and then you will be left with what you imagined. Easier said then done. I think I will paint on this figure once he is finished. Maybe a dark color, a rich patina. He is going to float above the house like a weathervane on a roof. I will make it so he can move in the breeze.

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I am starting to scratch some of the sentences that I have pulled from peoples experiences of being homeless into the walls and roof of my house. So many homeless people talk about how hard it is not having anyone who knows or cares about them. This desire to be connected to people seems almost like a requirement of being human. That without other people in you life it is barely possible to exist. Like food or water. One thing I never thought about is that once you are on the streets there is a kind of loose community of people who are already there. Those people who, for whatever reason, haven’t been able to hang on to their homes, jobs, whatever…. What is incredibly moving to me is that these people tend to support each other. They all know that they each represent possibly the last chance of anyone showing up for one another. This one woman writes about this community and what it means to her: “They care about me and miss me if I don’t turn up and that makes me feel really special, well at least to someone.” I am using a sharp needle like tool to scratch through the paint to form these sentences. Like the dark lines going around the house these words will spiral up around the sides of the house. I still haven’t figured out how to carve the figure at the top.

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I am now working on a project that will benefit The Ritter Center. This is an organization located in San Rafael, California that serves low income families and the homeless. Link: The Ritter Center – Marin Homeless Safety Net – Home There are about 20 artists all making unique houses. When they are done they are going to be installed in public spaces and then auctioned off- all proceeds going to help The Ritter Center. My house is still being figured out but what I am doing so far is creating an upwards path going from the bottom of the house up to the roof. This line will metaphorically represent the long road both out and into homelessness. Like a weathervane floating above the house I am also going to create a figure in balance. Maybe this will be carved out of wood..not sure yet. Symbolizing the buoyancy of the human spirit to transcend but also the very real precarious reality of our lives. I have been reading several blogs on the web, all written by homeless people. It is quite extraordinary that now, not only can we read first hand what these people are going through but we can comment and have a dialogue by leaving comments. Us in our homes at our computers and them at pay per view internet cafes on the other side of the world. Here is a link to one that is really quite amazing. Link: The Adventures of Homeless Girl

I am taking some of words and ideas that seem to be occurring repeatedly in the stories of people who find themselves on the outside edges of society. Ideas such as feeling invisible, needing to be missed and the difficulty of living on the street and I am writing them into the surface of the walls of this house. Although the subject is a difficult one, I am focusing the look and feel of this house to be one of hope fullness. These pictures below are of the house in it’s beginning stages…..

In this painting I wanted to keep a very simple composition, but also to have a portion of the painting be detailed but quiet and subtle. Outside my living room window is a huge kiwi vine that I planted several years ago. The wind blows and the branches of this plant are always waving at me. When winter comes all the leaves die and blow, one by one, away.

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One of the hard parts, for me anyway, about being an artist is all the time alone. I can get busy and not leave the house for several days. Things start to become weird after about a day and a half… sooner if I don’t change out of my pajamas till lunch…but why bother dressing – no one is around. We live in a rural area, so apart from the dog, it can become pretty quiet. Then the dog barks and a truck pulls up. The crunch of gravel, a door slam and footsteps up to my door. Normally they just knock and leave it, but today I open it before he has a chance to knock. A UPS delivery person breathing hard from trudging up my driveway with a huge roll of paper ( we make art prints sometimes) is standing at my door. We talk – anything to have a conversation- a bit of news, a remark exchanged about a baseball game that I actually have not seen or particularly care about, but feign I do just to enjoy the banter on the subject. We talk for a few minutes then “See ya! “off he goes. Today I ran with three women friends and they all were talking about how the UPS drivers are really by FAR the most attractive of all the delivery guys because they wear those cute brown shorts. I wondered if UPS figured this dress code would increase their business with their women customers.

I have been making these tiny paper collages in preparation for doing 3 of them quite large on panel. These are about 3″ or 4″ I have so far made 10. These three seem to go together and are my favorite ones so far.

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