PATTERNS AND TONES

Postcard Test No. 1   My lifelong facination with New England, and specifically Massachusetts, has lead me to my next art adventure. I  applied for and was granted an artist's resendency this July at the Nantucket Island School of Design and The Arts . I'm hoping the residency will help me explore my family history and to bring alive the many stories I've heard about summers on Nantucket.  As opposed to Ellis Island, my family came through Boston. They came from Morsasco , a small hillside town in the Province of Alessandria in the Italian Region of Piedmont, and settled in Cape Cod in 1914.   With such a short week long residency, I dedided to sketch landscapes and boats on postcard paper and send them to friends and family. The goal upon my return is to use these postcard sketches as a jumping point for making a series of 17 x 22"" gouache and graphite paintings. Here is a sample of a postcard sketch I made, inspired by Charles Green Shaw 's "Fi...

"Lounge Kat No. 1" Spending New Years Eve at Danny Elfman 's beach house in Malibu was a perfect way to start the New Century. I had recently relocated from Northern to Southern California and to spend such a pivotal moment in history there, was truly a gift after the rough year I had just gone through. My friend worked for Danny and had invited me as her guest to ring in the new millennium. The excitement of that monumental New Year's Eve filled the air. Danny even played a rare piece of music, just as the clock struck midnight, that my Grandmother Julia, a trained opera singer from Morsasco , used to sing. Synchronicity was in the air... It was a turning point in my life and I was determined to start a new photographic series based on whatever I shot on New Years Day 2000. New Life, New Year, New Century! Fortuitously, masks were strewn around the outdoor patio and as people began to wake from their slumber, they slowly entered the su...