Art Therapy Coaster

This is a tile mosaic coaster I made in the UCLA Occupational/Art Therapy program that psych patients there are allowed to participate in - when I was an inpatient there for 6 days in April. This is an excellent program run by an Occupational Therapist named Wendy...if you know UCLA psych you probably know the woman...she is the best hospital art therapist I have ever worked with. She taught me how to do tile mosaic - never done that before - always wanted to. This is my first effort. The second effort was sent to my mother as a mother's day present. I'm so into the tile mosaic thing now that I want to do a small table for my living room. This piece was organized on my first day prior to psych med withdrawl symtoms...the quality of my art organizational skills deteriorated significantly once withdrawl symptoms kicked in.

Another Art Therapy Artist

A therapist from Missouri happened upon my web page and e-mailed me a comment - He turned me on to this woman who cured her depression via being an artist. Here is a web page on her: http://www.ethicsofchoice.com/GaEL.html

I have to say it makes me feel great when people who don't know me at all happen upon the blog and like it. I know my friends like it...but I would expect that. Still, the more comments the better - I love comments on my art and my general blogging on my mental health.

My problem of late is lack of good solid sleep. I've been on Abilify for a month now and the insomnia side effect has really kicked in hard. I sometimes only get four hours of sleep...I'm lucky if I get a solid six. Never more than that in about a month. I feel like I'm very irritable due to the lack of sleep - not really due to mania, depression or psychosis. I took Lunesta for the first time last night...but still did not get a really great night of sleep. My psych MD is adding some Lamictal to my cocktail...that is the first anti-seizure mood stabilizing med I was ever on in 1998. Really, anything to make me sleep at this point!!

Blotchy Cards

These are a couple examples of the blotchy cards I've been making with the Strathmore Aquarius Paper in a Wet on Wet Style....They are simple. A child could make them. Some color combos are better than others. Just A FYI...

This and That...

I sent my friend Meg in Ohio one of the Chagall homework assignments today as a birthday gift. I don't think I should sell the Chagall/Daughterty copies since they are just that - copies. But if any friends or family really like one of the master copies, let me know - I'm willing to part with some of them.

I got a B for the semester at Fullerton College. I am fine with that. I put out the right amout of effort for a B in my opinion...I did miss some classes and composition studies and those were an important part of the grade. I will take the class in the Fall again and maybe I'll earn an A. Anything is possible.

I painted some greeting cards today that are splotchy wet on wet cut out and glued on the colored Target cards that come in a 12 pack...I really recommend those packs of blank cards...there are a million ways young and old can decorate them and they are not too expensive. They come in about a dozen blank colors. Next time that I make some, I'll post them so the public can see them...I'm using up my Strathmore Aquarius paper to make them since I'm not too fond of that paper....but it does make nice blotchy colorful cards.

Selling Paintings

I just sold "Smoggy Sunset #2" to my friends Lynne and Rob in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

After some discussion with my friend Dan Joyce who sells watercolors I've decided that the standard price for 8x10 paintings is $30. Prints off the computer are $15....This is what my friend charges. Cards are $10 a dozen, postcards are $10 for 24.

My goal here is just to pay for art supplies, not to make a killing on my art...yet...It makes me feel good that my friends and family will hang my paintings in their homes.

Oedipus Ascending, 1968

This excerpt on my most recent painting is from John Solum of the James Daugherty Archive: "The Daugherty work which you have copied is a pastel on paper, called Oedipus Ascending, 1968. It is currently in the inventory of a New York art dealer, Jane St. Lifer Art, Inc., and you may see this information first-hand by logging on to www.artnet.com and going to James Daugherty. There it is!"

Thanks John!!

Finished Daugherty Copy

Here is my final piece of Spring Semester 2006 at Fullerton College. It is a fairly good rendition of the James Daugherty abstraction. I'm glad class is over for the semester. I can't decide if I will take a summer class or take the summer off and go back in the fall. I bought the summer catalog and my registration time is next Tuesday and I really can't decide what to do. I really feel like it might be a mistake to slack off on the painting when I'm on a roll. Being in a class forces me to paint which is good for me.

James Daugherty Abstraction

Many of you know of my arts grant writing experience at Playhouse Square Center in Cleveland, Ohio...some of you do not. One of my big projects during the three years I worked at that Center (really a huge theater complex in the heart of the old part of Cleveland) was raising more than $200,000 from Federal and Private sources to restore "The Four Continents" murals by the great American artist James Daugherty. The murals I helped to restore were one of the artist's great works from the 1920s. James Daugherty went on to become an abstract painter working on smaller canvases later in his career. I decided for my final project in my Fullerton College art class to paint one of his late abstractions. I found this one on the internet and and do not know the exact title of the work, who owns it or what year it was painted. I am working on an 8x10 of the piece in the flat wash watercolor style. I'm fairly certain that the original is an oil...just knowing what I know about Daugherty. If anyone knows a bit more about this painting - the year painted, the title, the owner, etc. I would love to know. I really know so much about this artist at this point in my life that I have a bit of a love affair with his work and think if I was to pursue a PhD in Art History...which I do not plan to do...this is the artist who I would make the focus of my dissertation. He is a very popular artist on the East Coast...especially in Manhattan...but is less well-known on the West Coast.