My sister

This is my sister Julie.  She is my big sister.  I love her more than anyone or anything.  Here she is inside the Thorpedo Restaurant in Thorp, Wisconsin.

The Thorpedo Restaurant in Thorp, Wisconsin

My aunt and uncle used to own this place and it was their business.  Their names were Glen and Jenette Horn.  My sister and I have recently been on a roadtrip and we stopped here for lunch.  We never stopped here to eat when my aunt and uncle owned it (in our childhood) which is sad but we noted this and had a great time stopping in and dining together nonetheless!

I will be taking off on a little adventure on Saturday and away for a week or so...the timing is good!  Its time to get out of this place for a bit.  Stay tuned...  

Tulips

A day of love, filled with mutual love. Gifts, surprises, sweetness, much pleasure and laughter, I am greatly treasured and cherished.  I am known and accepted for who I truly am.  I am grateful for the passion that I experience with a special other that is dear to me.  To share such brief fleeting ethereal moments, the greatest delicacy of all...I so delight in the gift of flowers, thank you for the massive bunches of tulips!

Okie Dokie Artichokie

I love artichokes.  My room mate got me two yesterday.  I am very excited about preparing and eating them but mostly I love to marvel at their form, texture, color, how they grow, etc.  They remind me a little of sea creatures that somehow came to live on the land.  They also remind me of cacti which might be considered to be the opposite of a sea creature.  I can just look upon them and wonder for a long time with much pleasure.  

Plants invoke this in me, often.  I think that they really like to be looked at by us humans and, well, they are designed to attract in order to survive and multiply and I feel that call from them (maybe I was a bee in my previous life?).  I love to gaze upon plants more so than anything else in the world.  I think about nuzzling into flowers and falling asleep deep in there just like bees do sometimes in the hollyhocks.  I think that flowers exist partially so that us humans will look at them and adore them.  I can see them thriving on this kind of attention, often!  But they really like it when the bees and birds come into them, too.  For some reason I can just sense their incredible delight and its deeply voyeuristic of me, now isn't it?!

I remember eating artichokes with my friend Pam in Honolulu who turned me onto them.  We would have one for lunch, split it.  We would nibble our way down until we got to that buttery center that melted in your mouth and then we would split that, the grand finale.  It was a process and incorporated much interesting dialogue that was as compelling as the eating.  Even though Pam would roll her eyes and punch me if she read this, she really is a guru that I learned some really cool things from.  Including this whole artichoke business.

Its the end of another week.  I had an interesting conversation with my therapist yesterday about how my creative practice works to help me face denial and thus face the truth.  That the artist in me is literally a processor of reality, which I have always known to be true- it has never been something on the side or a satellite of myself, its the very core of who I am and how I exist.  I have never had any choice about having a creative practice.  It has and will always be essential to my existence just like breathing and thinking.  Its the only way I can see who I am and I very much need to and want to see who I am.

I am amazed to find out (throughout my life!) that many many people do not really wish to see who they are.  It simply never occurs to them.  Mind-boggling to me!

I volunteer at a youth drop-in center once a week across the street from where I work and every single kid who walks through that door (usually they are walking through the door because they are in need of a place where they feel accepted for who they are, a safe place) has an incredibly rich imagination and is working to develop a creative practice (in whatever form it may take) to cope with their lives.  And let me tell you, these kids are so knowledgeable about themselves and are so wise about themselves in the world- I was never that aware at that age and most adults I know do not know themselves like these kids do.  Its such an amazing experience that I feel grateful to witness.

Today, I taught silkscreen at the Wex

Very informal and messy.  "No questions are stupid and its impossible to make any mistakes" studio kind of class for anyone and everyone.  It was very fun and now I am exhausted.  We had over 1000 people come through in around 4 hours which is a lot for us.  Everyone wants to see Warhol before the show leaves.    We have had visitors from all over the United States who have come to see this show because the Wexner is the only US venue for it.  Its heavy with video and film which is challenging on a variety of fronts.  But this is also what makes it so unique.