Paris, TX

I had spent years going around the loop of Paris, TX yet I had never gone to the beautiful downtown area. It was good to get off campus this day and relax and shoot. A place well worth going.

David Hockney photo merg

This assignment was interesting and actually a lot of fun. I guess I took over 300 photography to do this and quickly discovered I was doing the pictures to close and I could have saved myself some time. Taking all these photographys and putting them together like a jigsaw puzzle was fun though.

The many me's

maybe you should look again!!!!!

Self Portraits

This piece was a study in light and shadow after the works of Bill Brandt. Mr Brandt's works were done in black and white but I chose color for the texture of the hair and the yellow sunlight behind coming from the early morning sun through the curtains.

In this piece I wanted to capture the light and

shadows so many times that Imogen Cunningham captured.

Even though it again shows

the drudgery of my every day life I wanted the shadow to show me and not just a picture of me.

The shadow looming over an empty stove top with dinner time upon me is my piece named What do I do for dinner

shows the struggle once more between getting all

of my roles complete.

The two pieces here are done as a self image of my role as a woman and mother and also student.

Berenice Abbott seems to show her self

in the role of photographer in every self portrait she is in.

It is how she defines herself.

The two pictures I took

are in a boring square format on purpose because the everyday of my self can be boring

and there are so many other things I would

rather be doing.

The two pieces also show my ciaos I live in while I am trying to juggle

the life of a student, worker, and single mother.

I love the work of Richard Sexton because he has the ability to take something simple and to make it soft and mysterious.

The second piece is about my life between the dark and the light or the alter ego we all seem to struggle with between right/wrong.

The first photo is about me shutting down and closing out the world for a short time.
This picture is named my down time.

In one of Richard Sexton's photo's of a self portrait it's named My inner Edge he shows himself with a viking cap on with his head down. It seems to speak of his push to keep going forward.

Painting class at A&M

This semester is proving to be an interesting venture into our learning as artists. And I must say this is the first semester I have ever had where I have been given artistic freedom.

So many times you spend time trying to please the teacher or to figure out what will meet the course requirements or assignments that you lose your freedom and ability to think for yourself. This semester we have been set free to think and create. It's freeing and frightening at the same time for me. There is some comfort in having an assignment spelled out for you and all you have to do is get it done. But you do trade off you creativity freedom to some degree for that comfort.

Mr Miller's class this semester has been given the freedom to find a passion and venture out into it. It's big and bold and we will learn how to build and stretch our own canvases and then through a serious of pictures we will build an art show. We each will know at the end of this semester how to write an artist statement, get the invitations to the show done, framing, matting, and press releases. What we have here is a real world application to our art.

I would love for everyone to keep an eye out for up coming shows by the students around campus. Each one of us will have to find a place for our show and get it up.

Art Review New York Times

The mood is quiet, innocent, and honest beyond words.” Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard” runs through May 25 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org.

I remember thumbing through post cards as a child when we would travel to a place. What Walker Evans did over his life was to not only record history but he found his style in his photography.

This is an interesting article.

About my art

I have so many things that I do I often have trouble knowing where to find the time to do it.

I love photography most but I'm not interested in attempting to make a living at it. I love to paint and watercolors and colored pencils are my favorite things but I am coming to appreciate my ability to use the brush and move some paint around. I love drawing and at times I will go back to play with the charcoals.

I decided 4 years ago to go to college and get my degree in art and I am nearly finished. But then I have to do the Masters to go for a career as an Art Therapist.

My art was born out of a need to express myself when I could not find the words to explain how I felt about my past life of abuse and neglect. I just needed some way to tell someone what was happening to me and drawing and sculpting gave me that freedom. There are very few people in my present world that have seen my art from my early years. It was dark and sad and over my journey to find answers and change my future I found hope. And over time the hope became light and my art became light.

In the beginning my art was to express the anguish of child abuse but as time went on and I grew I began to find peace in my art. My art became a place where I could sluff off the day's worries and I could escape into a painting.

My photography started with a need to capture beauty and to see good in the world again.

As I changed my art changed and I grew in peace. I could go and sit on the shore of a lake and watch the sun rise or sit with the sky set on fire with color and I found my calm place.

My hope is that each of you find your own way to this place.

enjoy