Natsukashii

I like words.   I am especially fond of Japanese words, because so much can be said in small 'pictures'.  "Natsu" is the first part of the word and the kanji looks difficult, but in that first little block there are symbols that mean heart, pocket, bosom, breast, yearn, miss (someone), become attached to, curious, eager to know, dear, missed, desired...  

The English translation would probably be 'nostalgic', but the English word leaves me without pictures.  Pictures within words make the Japanese language so seductive... I just want to learn more so I can unfold the beauty of how they fit together so perfectly.

I spent this weekend with a student, who has become a friend.  She was here to make a sgraffito style city in fused glass, and brought with her some photos from her childhood home in Iceland.  I truly enjoyed listening to her stories and learning about how life was while she was growing up. I'm interested in knowing about these things; the natsukashii memories that we all carry.

Here is a photo of a small section of her glass city, she mastered faces in a hurry!  Each part of her city was tied to those natsukashii memories, and I am feeling pretty lucky to have heard the stories behind the artwork that she created.  Life is short.  Every piece of artwork carries a memory of sorts.  Spend the time to look for it and you'll see...

Painting 30 in 30? But I'm not a painter..

Well the new year has brought some great resolutions for 2013, and some fun challenges too!

I like to try new media here and there to jump start my creative side and throw me into the 'uncomfort zone'.  This year I signed up for a painting challenge, 30 small oil paintings in 30 days.  Crazy!
There are hundreds of people doing this, can you imagine 300 people doing 30 paintings?  That's potentially 9,000 paintings in only one month!

I always jump right into this kind of craziness thinking "I'm gonna do it!"  and also that miraculously I will be good at it.  Well, I can tell you it is going to be a long month.  I am a glass artist, not a painter and it shows.  LOL

Day One.
My husband suggested I paint a fire hydrant.  I said that a fire hydrant would be nice, but it would mean nothing to me.  He said "It would if you were on fire".  He is right, so here it is.

Day Two.
Learning about dealing with globs of paint and wet city streets.  

Check out some of the other artists' work at Leslie Saeta's blog:  http://www.lesliesaeta.blogspot.com.  This is the main site for the challenge, and we all admire her amazing paintings.

So far I've worked on 2 paintings, neither of them are great, and I am kind of disgusted at my lack of ability to handle oil paint (somehow it is everywhere, on every surface possible, and it looks like it's not going to be drying anytime soon)   However, I am determined to complete the challenge, and learn something with each attempt.  Follow along and see what happens!