PORTFOLIO - General

"Cowgirls on Vacation"



"Driven Mad By Love"



"The Artist"



"Valedictorian"



"The Writer"




"Vita.mn"



"Nice Girls"



"Wilson Quarterly"



"Farm"



"The Cold"


"Holiday Greetings"


"Thought Patterns"



"Out of the Cave"



"Devastating Charm"




"Beluga"



MN Medicine Magazine cover - July 2009
Featured articles: Annual Writing contest results



"Hotel Rapid Deterioration"



"Subtraction"



"The Road To Love"



"Dog Waiting for the Bus in Roswell, New Mexico"


"MN Medicine" Cover - May 2009 Feature Article:
"Integrative Medicine"


MN Medicine Cover - Dec. 2008 Feature Article:
"Burnout and the Bush Medical Fellowship"



MN Medicine Cover - September 2008 Feature Article:
"The Complexities of Getting Rid of Medical Trash"



MN Medicine Cover - July 2008 Feature Article:
"Word Power"



MN Medicine Cover - May 2008



Stanford Social Innovation Review feature article: "Corporate Lobbying for Good"



"The Outing"



"Foggy"


"That Hotel of Her Youthful Debaucheries"



"Save Me"



"Mask"



"Pink Slip"


"Blanket"


"Decoding"


"Routine"


"September"
TEXT: Bonny Belgum ©2008


"Never No Thoughts"
TEXT: Bonny Belgum ©2008


"Flags are Flying"
TEXT: Bonny Belgum ©2008


"Prescription Eyeglasses"
TEXT: Bonny Belgum ©2008


"Friends"


"Yesterday's Flower"


"Yesterday's Flower 2"

PORTFOLIO - Children

"Smell the Flowers"



"Carry Your Heart 2"



"He Rocked The World"



"Lila and Queenie"



"Top of the World"



"Princess"



"Air Show"



"Mushroom Girl"



"Flamingo Girl"



"It Could Be Me"



"Bird Songs"



"Stay"



"Rocket Boy"



"Rocket Girl"



"Carry Your Heart"



"She Loved to Travel"



"Chatter"

Bonny

I have to tell you about my friend Bonny Belgum. She just wrote a glowing review of my work in her blog www.bonnysamerica.com and flattered the living daylights out of me. My head swelled up til my headband nearly popped off.

Now I'm going to tell you about how fabulous she is, because if you don't read her columns, articles and latest book, Cut the Woman Some Slacks you are missing out! Bonny is a writer who sees the humor and absurdity of everyday events and conveys her vision in a manner that is absolutely hilarious. I met Bonny when I read her article in the Opinion section of my home town paper, The Star Tribune. It was an article about Keith Richards and her reaction to seeing a photograph of him. The odd thing is, I had the identical experience and reaction several years ago. But she described it in a way that made me laugh so hard that I had to stop and blow my nose and dab my eyes not once but numerous times. She's that funny! Here's the article - Bonny Belgum: Sympathy for ...

So I emailed her my appreciation for her outlook on life and our friendship began. I think a collaboration is in the works. Stay tuned!

Accordion Players

I've always wanted to do a collage inspired by the following line: (a quote from the book "Love in the Time of Cholera") ---all he wanted to do was "play the accordion and drink beer with the sailors, finishing the evening at the transient hotel". Can't you just SEE that? Well, don't worry if you can't. I can, and I'll soon create a collage so you can see it too!

I have a been looking everywhere for an old photo of an accordion player, and have been unsuccessful until just a few days ago. I was rummaging through a bin of old photos in an antique store, and these two lads popped up. It was meant to be, hallelujah!

PORTFOLIO- Fashion

"Dooley"



"Miss Fifi Poopoo"



"Girly Girl with Bluebird"



"Girly Girl with Red Bird"



"City Girl"



"Shy Girl"

ILLLUSTRATION FRIDAY - Foggy

It was a foggy day. His ship was around somewhere, he just wasn't quite sure where. But he certainly wasn't going to ask for directions. He was the captain, after all.

Your Day

I love this thought, from a traditional Nootka song. (The Nootka are Native American people of the western coast of Vancouver Island on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, U.S.) When I am out of sorts, I try to remember that this is MY day, and if I can't make it beautiful, who will? There is so much beauty to be found in one day, if you just know where to look.

Those Nootkas. They have their act together.

HAPPY 4th OF JULY!

What did I do for the 4th? I went to the lake, for Pete's sake...this is Minnesota, we "head for the lake" at the drop of a hat. Which one of these boats is mine? The big one in the middle, the bigger one on the end, or the little geezer? The correct answer is...

NONE of these, fooled ya!

(I am the only Minnesotan who does not own a boat. You can be poor, you can be living under a bridge, you can be facing bankruptcy, but if you live in Minnesota, you must own a boat. Or at least say you do. If you don't have a boat, you can say you own a cabin. Either statement qualifies you as a True Minnesotan. And the great thing is, neither has to be anywhere near you, so who's to know any different?)


Then I went for an ice cream cone.

It was a lovely day and I spent it filled with gratitude. (and chocolate raspberry ice cream.)

Hair

It's late, I must dash off to bed, but here's a thought for you: "You're only as good as your last haircut."
-Susan Lee

And tomorrow's another day, I might add....

1926 Class Photo

I came across this family photo and was amazed by the expressions on the children's faces. Ordinarily I hunt for vintage photos in thrift stores, and the ones I see are of carefully posed people in frozen moments. They have an otherworldly beauty, as if the photographer used his camera to create the image as a reflection of his own artistry. But in this 1926 photograph of a high school class, there is no posing. Well, there seems to be a lot of hamming it up, but for the most part, every child stared at the camera with his or her own moment of personality. No photographer told them how to look, they just seized the moment. Some where having fun, and some weren't. I'm amazed at the expressions on their faces and also at the various fashions. It was a wild mix of class - kids from the farm wearing overalls, city kids in their Sunday Best complete with ruffles or costume jewelry or neck ties. I'll post a few more tomorrow.

Maggie and Aphrodite

I sold my "Aphrodite Goes to the Mall of America" painting during my Art-a-Whirl studio sale last month. Maggie here is the delightful new owner. When I delivered the painting to her home, I was treated to a visual feast: her own paintings as well as others adorned the walls inside her home, and her garden outside was a magical world of artistic surprises!


I forgot my glasses, so I was staring into the camera blindly. Pardon my blurriness! I really loved Maggie's hat stand, a reindeer (or was it a carribou?) with huge antlers. Don't worry, the deer is made totally of fabric, and was acquired from a clothing store that was going out of business.


Now we are in the garden. Maggie stands under a crossroad sign, on the corner of "Liberty" and "River Road". She said it was symbolic of the day she quit her job.


Isn't this a lovely bouquet of bowling balls and pink flamingos? Perfect finishing touch for the garden that has everything. And it did too - a potting studio, a sunken bathtub filled with flowers, grapes growing over trellises, sculptures of every size and material in every location....it was so inspiring and magical!

New Cover

This magazine cover was fun fun fun to work on, although creating all the words required more discipline than what I normally can muster! The headline will be "Word Power" and announces the annual writing contest. It was to be made clear that it was the physicians who were submitting the articles. I decided not to change the face as much as I originally planned (see previous entry). Instead I just gave him different eyes and a pair of glasses for a totally new look.

Doctor's Bag

This is a component of the collage/illustration that I am working on. I couldn't find any photos or scraps of a doctor's bag that I could use, so I more or less made this up. If you look closely, you will see that it makes no sense at all - kind of like one of Escher's drawings that have steps going up when you look one moment, and then down when you look the next. How does this bag close? What is that strip at the top? Are they inside the bag or outside? But hey, I'm an artist and I have what's called "artistic license". Nobody will notice unless YOU blab. My favorite quote: "People notice only what you tell them to notice, and then only if you remind them". (Dr. Kornblum, renowned fictional magician in the novel, Kavalier and Clay.)

Two Heads Are Better

I'm working on a collage assignment, and thought you might like to see a transformation in progress. I want to alter the vintage photo on the left, so I borrowed a hairstyle, eyes and mouth from another vintage photo. If only plastic surgery could be so cheap, fast and painless! Although frankly, the results are not exactly Esquire standards!