The back of the show postcard lists this amazing group of photographers/urban explorers: Timothy Neesam, David Torke, Jeffery Cutler, MJ Worthington, Tammy Hoy and the incredibly talented Caroline Brockers. She's the one who brought us all together.
It's the Chinese Year of the Cow! In Flushing, New York the community is celebrating with a huge summer long festival. Crossing Art, a beautiful gallery in the neighborhood has a show called 'Oh Cow' featuring artwork in this theme. My large pastel & charcoal drawing is part of the exhibit. I am feeling very honored to be in this great space.
Over in Black Rock, in wooded areas off road by the railroad tracks, people have been dumping all kinds of things. This load of toys just seems like a hundred shades of wrong. The city has now blocked the access road. Thank you!
She's had a hard life. I have to take her home and clean her up. Actually after a few days in bleach water she ends up looking very good. She's going to be part of an art project that will show up on this blog next month.
Is it a sin to throw away Baby Jesus? He's all plastic, just with a few cracks. He could lay here for eternity.
This baby has been on the ground a long while. Grass is growing right in her plastic hair.
A stuffed rabbit peeks out from under the weeds - reminding me of all the rabbits created by artist, Al Volo. This cloth bunny is too far decomposed to save.
Hiking along railroad tracks near Military Road, we enter the woods and find a hobo encampment. It is laid out very well and obviously used for quite a while before being burned. There's lots of cans of food, crudely opened and cooked.
The bright blue teapot stands out in the rubble, looking ready to boil. Apparently there was a time during the depression when Buffalo was "overwhelmed" with homeless men - mostly migrant workers from the Lake freighters. We wonder what the story is of the people using this particular camp?
The fire doesn't seem to have damaged any of the trees around the camp but had a great effect on this metal shelving.
Another mysterious story. Someone had to drag this seat a good distance to place it in this particular spot.
Wandering down another narrow path, we suddenly come into a magical sunlight garden of wildflowers and sumac.
In this rust-belt city,
We are hiking around the Cargill Superior grain elevator, close to Tifft Farm. Abandoned since the 60's, it has many openings and is much more accessible than I would have imagined. It also has potholes, ditches and trash. Dangerous in so many ways.
We hear sounds as we enter the enormous interior space. This gang looks like menacing terrorists but they are actually a splat ball team. I think of all the history and uses of this building. These urban explorers are adding another layer to the long story.
On the river side of the Cargill is a ledge with massive iron forms. I imagine they were used to tie up the ships while their grain was unloaded. Moss and honeysuckle bushes now grow out of the concrete.
My latest series of large environmental drawings are all about water - particularly the Oceans. News reports about the North Pacific Gyre (also known as the Great Garbage Patch) get me very upset but also inspired to make images and get them out to the public. Whatever we can visualize, we can understand and we can change. I'm playing with ideas for a radical nomadic exhibit that could be easily set up in different locations. Please send me your ideas!
In April I went to visit my daughter, Eve, in LA. Sharing my interest in the environment, she suggests a field trip to "find" the LA River. She preps me with a great essay by nature writer, Jenny Price. Now we are all psyched up but finding the river is not easy! We drive around while checking over maps. Finally find a place to park. Getting to the actual water requires urban hiking of the roughest kind.
The LA river is many things: an example of bad urban planning, an outsize concrete sewer 51 miles long, a movie set (Terminator 2) and a surface for graffiti and murals. Although efforts are being made to revive it, "it's a miserable spot now, a trash-strewn wasteland of empty lots, steel fences and railroad tracks beneath a tangle of freeway overpasses." Most inhabitants of LA don't realize that it exists.
Looks quite pretty at this point. We tour the beautiful Aquarium of the Pacific located in Long Beach, California right where the LA River flows out into the Ocean
This exhibit shows how the LA River runs from the mountains down through the city and out to the Pacific. The Aquarium is right where the river meets the Ocean.
After LA, it's on to the East Coast. I bring my 91-year-old parents from their Florida home up to their summer home on the Cape. After a successful journey, I meet up with my husband, Hal. Here he is walking along the beach at South Yarmouth. The atmosphere is foggy, cool and beautiful.
As we walk the beach, we notice, even in this beautiful setting, the remains of balloons mixing with the seaweed
Here's another small moon painting. Eve had written a poem with the line "there's a moon in my mouth." Somehow it struck a chord and I had to draw it.
I've been working on two series of very large, environmental drawings but sometimes I need to just go back to the core and let out some small, intuitive images. This 8"x 10" pastel painting is about the female/monthly/moon relationship that's always there, whether we acknowledge it or not
How did this delicate little rag doll end up beside such a vast looming structure? Does anyone know what her name is?