art around adams ave.

come visit me june 7 from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m., see my newest art at the ladybug galley on adams ave. 4070 adams ave., also known as the artists forum.......
live music and all sorts of fun activities all day long all along adams and neighboring areas. i will be in great form - cuz i will have wine!
check it out!
art along adams...

EXCITING new publication....

this is my dad, max. the piece is called "house of Maxwell" kinda like Maxwell house...
anyway, my dad was a writer and a publisher of a weekly local newspaper for over 40 years. he died in 1998.
well, ten years later, i am stepping into his shoes. i am founder/owner of a new art magazine for San Diego. It is called "N magazine". it is a very classy, elite regional art magazine showcasing local artists, collectors and galleries and others who are contributors to the emergence and established art scene here.

(this in no way competes with the publication that i am already in called Somerset Studio, i hope to remain a contributory in SS forever).

This is a magazine about high end, fine art distributing 50,00 issues each month by subscription only. i am very proud of it. it is be about 150 pages with new york and Los Angeles art critics and writers. also it will feature its own juried shows; juried from selected quality jurors. the launch date is set for October 17 (yeah, i know, i will be in Italy then). i hope to be here for the unveiling occurring weeks before.

if you are interested in advertising or contributing in the kick-off issue of N Magazine, simply email me at lisabebiart@aol.com.


this is for you, daddy! i love you!

counter

hmmm, the counter doesn't seem to work unless it is on the current page....

joyce carol oates....

this is a photo of a strange character, author joyce carol oates. i'm nearly finished with the gravedigger's daughter -a very dense and long book. i'm at the exciting part, near the end....i hope to finish it tonight....but i also have a tooth ache that snuck up on me suddenly this afternoon with such penetrating pain, i can hardly stand it. i called my dentist, he is out of town until monday, but i will go in to have x-rays tomorrow to have handy for him on monday morning. damn dentist, why does he have to be on vacation anyway?
what does a sudden toothache and no dentist have in common with joyce carol oates....?
you tell me, all i know is.... for sure, i will have nightmares tonight.

brooke and NASA again!!

one more picture of my daughter who reported on the mars landing the other day from NASA's jet propulsion lab in pasadena. she told me she didn't like her new haircut. i think it looks great. and she does too. can't tell she is 31 now, can you?

doesn't she look as though she owns the place? if she were little again, i would worry that she would climb aboard the various space crafts.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and my daughter,Brooke

isn't she cute when she reports on our martain landing?

oh, she reports for SCPR, public radio. (los angeles)

AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW!!!!!!!

you will be my age..., 31*!




*i have been that age for years.

arc de troimphe

there is only one way to get this angel of the arc....that is, to stand in the middle of the street. luckily, this street does not appear to be too busy!

i know, i know, they didn't CROSS the street though. why? because they had read in the idiot's guide to paris; "DO NOT attempt crossing this street!"
the "they" i am referring to, is (are) my family! yeah, the attorney and the 8th grader. both argue rules by splitting hairs.
see previous post.

rosie and the arc de troimphe

i was looking through our photos from our vacation (and workshop) in paris when i came across this fresh faced lass atop the arc de triomphe. rosie and her dad visited the observation exterior of the trumph the day i taught the paintover workshop or maybe it was the day i helped renee richetts teach her workshop in metal book making, in any event, they ended up here. of course, they didn't get there the way i would have gone, they decided to dodge cars at the busy roundabout, a main and wild thoroughfare which is NOT recommended*, then took the 284 steps up to the top!!!
rosie didn't mind, but my husband was ready for wine and then a nap when they got back.
later, he declared that although the steps were many, it was NOT the same as the steps up the duomo in florence. i reminded him, there is no busy street near the duomo in florence though.
unfortunately i did the steps in the duomo with them on a stifling hot summer day, no air conditioning, of course, but no AIR at all. the endless steps to the top were narrow and the people coming down shared them with us. about halfway up i had a claustrophobic panic attack, but couldn't act on it since there was no where to turn. we were just being threaded tightly through the eye of needle sized stairwell to the top, which we finally reached truly out of breath, only to have our breath taken away again by the lovely spectacle of the town below!!!! it was worth it, and unforgettable.

*i just read this entry to my husband and he denies that they walked through he traffic to get to the arc. he laughed and said that would be like walking through a blender. i said, but you and rosie were laughing about standing in that traffic. he said, well, that was when we decided to get a better angle for a photograph. we stood in the traffic! rosie piped up just now and said, yeah, momma, we would have never tried to walk across the street, it even said in the idiot's guide to paris NOT TO ATTEMPT TO CROSS THE ROAD!!!!
yeah, i'm glad they read that first!

counter

hmmm, the counter doesn't seem to work unless it is on the current page....

fan club art........

do you remember from past posts, the two graces from england? well, this is the work of rona goodwin, my sister-in-law, but not my sister in law at the same time. she was married to my brother, now divorced.

to complicate matters, i was married to her uncle, but he passed away. so at one time, rona was my sister -in-law and my niece. and, of course a good friend. which she still is.
i may have posted her work before, she and her sister made so many, i lost track. enjoy!

fanmail art....

brenda robinson from Ohio sent me her lovely work to share. enjoy!

more bisquick technique samples....

here are a couple more.....



i'm done doing stuff in the kitchen,
now i need to get painting big on canvas for a show coming up early next month!

New technique-Bisquick batik

about a week ago, i declared that i was going to try a new technique, pancake batter batik. well, i fooled around and came up with a batik technique that involves Bisquick. i also have done some experimenting with flour as the base for batiking, but that is not new, as it is done by some tribes in africa.
to my knowledge however, i don't believe the africans are on to my Bisquick technique!

this technique and my samples will probably appear in the Somerset Studios issue nov./december 2008, just in time for the holidays. you might remember that i did a technique based article a couple of winters ago on milk as a resist.
so again, i found myself back in the kitchen cooking up art.
here a 3 first attempts.
also seen here is the use of my new transfer sheet (ETS, transfers with just water) used on cloth. i also mentioned this last week.
finally i put these cloth fragments together (sort of lesley riley style)with elements i enjoy using - one of my all time favorites (which shows up in my fine art all the time) is the various office stamps i buy from staples, etc.

these cloth fragments, heat set and ready to use in any quilting project or they can be sewn onto your favorite apparel.
i hope you like them.
again, its annoying, i still don't know how to crop my art. sorry.

may 17

so today is may 17 - my late husband's death day......over 20 years ago. not my current husband, gastone, he is here alive and doing very well. thank god.
funny how life goes on. i told my daughter rosie what this day meant to me. she looked long at me.....i know what she was thinking...she was trying to get her head around me, HER mom, actually having a life before she was born. yeah, of course she has always known my personal history, but today, age 131/2, i think this idea first hit her that it was not just some sort of made-up, make-believe fantasy, but it could possible be true, her parents, (at least her mom), were actually alive before she was born! and having some kind of life - without her.

this reminds me of something that went down into my own parents "family folklore"......they loved to tell the story that when i was about 6, i asked in all seriousness, if they were born old. like all kids, it is just so hard to fathom. (my parent had me when they were both in their early 40's, so, they were old parents).

i guess i never really got past it, the shock of it, because i have spent a lot of my life recounting their lives (my parents) before i was born in my art. my family album IS my favorite source of subject matter. it is of my parents lives in the 1940's and early 1950's- those black and white photos, that i totally adore.
all my life, i have spent countless quiet hours thumbing through the album. i especially love their honeymoon photos when they drove in my dad's awesome yellow convertible up highway 101, the scenic route, of the california coast. and they were smart to have such a honeymoon, the 101 is so beautiful and magnificent!
today, although it is overpopulated in places, it still is breathtaking.
so today, i am not depressed, no longer fixated on my late husband's death date, instead i have moved on to ponder life through the eyes of my youngest child.

feeling better....

thank you everyone who wrote me personally and wished me a rapid return to planet earth. i feel better, although a bit shaky.
a couple of things really helped.
1. pinpointing the problem (thank you, rona and brooke, for reminding me about my may blues) may was also the month, 5 years ago, that i suddenly fell ill with total kidney collapse - which was probably due, in part, to the may blues i get regarding my late husband's death date.
2. increasing my dosage of wellbutran, only up to what i ought to have been taking in the first place;
3. visiting my aunt lillian and cousin anita and her husband harold today. that visit was so long overdue, i'm ashamed of myself. they only live in san clemente, afterall. jeesha. but what a great visit. family is good.
4. spending a day, sorting out my feelings instead of wasting time being baffled and foggy about it. and now i'm ready to go on about my business, i think.\when i came home tonight after visiting my cousin, i must have looked happier as
i could see relief on my family's faces;
so, tomorrow, i will spend time getting ready to enter the "beyond the lense" show in escondido. also, i need to finish up my pancake batik story for the magazine and a few other things. friday i will spend the day with meredith - by then all will be back to normal.......

possible causes....

my daughter, brooke, reminded me today that i get depressed this time of year every year....around may 17. may 17, 1985 was the day my dear husband (her step father) , gerald, dropped dead from a blood clot in his heart. you would think i would remember that, but over the years, everything blends together....all the shock, pain and sorrow have become a part of me, nothing i could or would attribute to a single day.


gerald was working for scripps institute, a scientist, protein crystallographer, working to resolve a better, longer lived insulin for diabetics. an insulin with a protein attached would last much longer in the human system. i don't know if his theory of insulin with a protein attached was found to work and carried to completion or not. last i heard one of his colleagues in back in london was working to complete it.

the moment he died, he apparently was walking with a test tube in his hand, taking it to the microscope when suddenly, he just collapsed to the floor. instantly dead.
day after day, for months before,
he had complained of a pain in his calf .....and the day before his death he had turned to say to me, " that's funny, my leg doesn't hurt today." his autopsy showed, yes, it was a massive clot from his leg that traveled to his heart where there was a bit of occlusion in one ventricle. i forget exactly which ventricle now.
our son was only 13 months old and brooke nearly 8.
what followed were many years of heavy, hardship and weary existence for me, all the while trying to keep it together for my kids... i was swimming upstream all the time.

the shock of it, the sadness and the shear agony of losing my husband so young caused my hair to fall out and made me susceptible to panic attacks and other nervous disorders.
it took time, years, to stand steady again.
but, i still suffer some. forever, i suppose.
funny as this sounds, it is good to be reminded why i may be suffering right now of depression. at least NOW i don't feel so helpless about it. at least now, i can think where it may have come from.
and, i know, this, too, shall pass.

unexplained depression.......

perhaps it has something to do with mother's day although it was a fine day, maybe remembering my mom who has been dead now over 15 years, i don't know. maybe it has to do with a shifting in my art style, or my health or, perhaps some cosmic change, a strange alignment of the moon and stars, i really can't pinpoint it, but i do know, i am very depressed. unflinchingly depressed.
it happens sometimes, i am prone, i inherited it from my mom's side, my uncle was hospitalized more than once for long periods of unshakable depression. he had to go through some form of shock therapy. and grandpa too. i hope i don't, i shouldn't. have to be shocked.
so i called kaiser today to get an appointment in psychiatric as i have been through this so many times before, i know i can't overcome it by will alone. it is chemical, not a mere state of mind or bad mood. something triggers it. it could even be triggered by a happy event, but something happens that screws me up chemically and it takes medicine to set me straight again.
tonight my husband thought a large margarita would lessen it for me - but alas, that failed.
kaiser, those shits, gave me the soonest appointment for june something. june, can you believe it? thats a long way off when fighting depression tooth and nail every minute of every hour.
tomorrow i will stay home, inside the house in my PJs and paint all day - see if i can paint it away.
times like this, i am bad company.
i'm sorry chuck and toni.....i was bad company at lunch today. one thing is for sure, there will be better times ahead. i know because i have been through this cycle so many times.

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dear momma.......

....... to me you were always this lovely age no matter how old you became;   an age of purity, inner goodness, flawless skin and flawless soul, loving much more than feeling ill towards anyone.

your sense of adventure was to take it a little at a time, small bites, subtle doses....... but part of that adventure was to marry and have children.

then WE, danny and I, proved to be more adventure than you bargained for.....ever dreamed of....









ever imagined...ever thought you could tolerate, beyond your wildest dreams, sometimes nightmares...and it was too late, you didn't have your life anymore, that life had you.

but you did that well, with honesty, heart and soul, for the goodness of us all. you were never, ever regretful of the time we robbed of you forever...all those years and all the soul we drained from you and replaced it with our craziness that could not be made to be orderly, at least not for long.

and so you were wise,

you just enjoyed the ride.

a mother's joy ride. eternally.

i love you momma.

and momma,

i miss you everyday.

little native girl

oh to be young again....she is not quite a hippy, maybe a hippy remake or redo or something. i remember my early years as more of a flower child, than a hippy. but i did wear soft moccasins, jeans and peasant blouses that i created myself. my hair was long blonde and straight and yes, sometimes, i did put a garland of small daisies in it. i wore white lipstick, if any.

hmm, i wonder who sold white lipstick...Revlon?

i got my ear pierces so that i could wear large hoops. i would lock myself in my bedroom and paint listening over and over to The Doors album "light my fire". my paintings in those days were of far away dreamy places i would like to go. i also loved pen and india ink, drawing repetitive lines that developed into posters of stratas, flowers and orangic designs.

sometimes, even today, my doodles while on a frustrating phone call (like the phone call i just had with sprint about unlimited text messaging we thought we had and turns out rosie texted us nearly into the poor house last month) take on stratas and repetitives designs. you know what i mean?

so, thinking back, i suppose i did painting and drawing in my teen years as more of a form of expression, a way to escape and release tension in my developing brain. also looking back, there was so much to worry about besides just growing up. my brother, for instance was lucky, his lottery number for Vietnam was high, even though during those years he heckled me to death, i was totally relieved he didn't have to go. some of our friends weren't so lucky. our parents it seemed were from a total different planet from us. my brother and i began calling our parents by their first name instead of mom and dad. we felt that alienated. but we weren't alone, it seemed everyone our age had a huge chasm between them and their parents - it went deeper than that, it was a generation gap bigger than any other time in history. we didn't relate to newscasters, political figures, barely teachers (although they really tried hard), store clerks - anyone over the age of 25!!! we were an island of teenagers, understanding only ourselves. and we were frustrated, angry and stressed out. yet, we wanted peace not war. these different emotions alone can make one crazy. angry but wanting peace. i suppose some people kinda know what that is like now. - but i think today, people are so distracted with ipods, plasma TVs, other forms of personal entertainment, well, its just not the same level of despair.

am i imagining things, but were the tv news programs more explicit about the awfulness with the war. i remember the Vietnamese protester lighting himself on fire in the middle of a busy street. that was gruesome and amazing all at once. there were horrific shots of soldiers parts and dead babies and crazy-ass Vietnamese children fighting dirty in the war. their unreal behaviour made us sit up straight and be thankful we didn't have little kids like that here in the states.

oh, i will have to stop now as i have totally digressed this morning.

looking at the painting, i need to fix the misshapen circle above her head - and one day i will learn to crop the image so that that inside of my scanner doesn't show.

student's art

remember the 2 graces? my company from England last year? well, here is some of their art they left behind from a day's play. i love their colors.

i miss them.

(i don't really know how to crop the image properly, so ignore the white edges.) the top one (red) is kaye's and the other is rona's. they are sisters, can you see their similarities? both are great at creating juicy colors.

or should i say colours.

one more on cloth

as you may be able to tell, i need to get more ink today....but was too excited over my product discovery!

this is what it is:

i painted a painting on a small canvas.

i copied from my $89.00 copier the painting to my ETS (new product i'm developing) sheet ( a piece of paper).

got some cloth (bleached muslin here), placed it on a flat surface (my table), brushed water on the cloth with my paint brush, place the image side down on the cloth, burnished it with the side of a garlic salt container (it happened to be hanging around), peeled away the sheet of paper. then i ironed the cloth! that's it.

i could have put this image in the middle of a table cloth, in a finished quilt, on store bought clothes or wherever i feel like, i am not restricted to the size of the cloth as i would be if i ran my cloth through the computer as you can with some products.

i'm stoked!

water transfer sheets

i discovered tonight that my easy transfer sheets work on fabric. i tested them in the wash and the color stayed good. here are a couple of samples. i didn't put enough water on the fabric to make a good transfer on the colored one of the painting of my mom and therefore you will see some dry places, but overall you can see it works. the smaller pieces of my brother (black and white) worked better because i wet them better. they are on different types of cloth, one is linen (baby in the swing) and the others are on cotton,(polka dot fabric has a transfer of a small design in black on it) the painting of my mom was transferred on bleached muslin.

i'm very excited that puglovers productions and i have discovered this!!!! i hope that quilters and lovers of fiber art will love to play with these!

tutoring

i realize my blogging has been a lot about my business end of art instead of my current work and little family folklore as i like to write. the reason is because the business end of my art has gone into a tsunami rage of opportunities, juggling and deadlines. most of it is because, well, thanks to somerset studios for doing such a fine job promoting me and showcasing my work and including some of my philosophy. my recent workshops has sprung many new emails from new friends. another reason is because locally i have many positions in art associations (thankfully after two years, although it has been fun, i am bowing out) and because of this blog, i get lots of personal emails...and i love it.
one new thing that has been occurring is my teaching gone email and snail mail. i have been asked time and again for help, where students email me their image and i critique them. often this leads to them sending me their image and i suggest a correction or actually do the correction. i love this because i have always loved to teach and champion other artists work.
i put a picture of the bridge up as a symbol of this outreach.

another opportunity that has come up in another kind of outreach. at a embryonic stage now, i have formed a group of dynamic people to come to a "meeting of the minds" next week for a new project. these people have the same vision as i do about promoting the regional artists and connecting with serious collectors. i know this vision is not unique, in fact, this is the typical dream of all artists. but my vision is to provide an easy access for the collector to know who the true emerging artists are and therefore the best collectors opportunities. how will this be provided? by a high end, sophisticated quarterly art magazine targeted toward collectors and sophisticates.
don't worry somerset studios, i love you guys, this magazine will be in no way a competitor. it is a different sort of art read, not nearly as fun as your magazine.

artwise, what i am working on today? i am going to be working a new technique of batiking using pancake batter! anyone eve try this? wish me luck, if it works i will write an article in somerset studios about it.
meanwhile, my family just ignores me. they lift their heads when they hear spoon clinging against dish as i stir the batter hoping i am actually cooking something, but then realize, that's not going to be happening.

this makes me want to go again!!!!

i didn't realize renee and i were in the newspaper!!!!!!

the society section in the San Diego Times last feb. 2008!


French flair: Speaking of traveling, Renee Richetts and Lisa Bebi of the Escondido Arts Partnership are going the extra mile to offer a two-day workshop on metal-working and "paintover" collage making. Actually, they're going a lot of extra miles, since the workshop is in Paris.

Ten artists* signed up for the workshops and will depart next week for eight days in the City of Lights. They'll visit museums and gather materials for their workshop projects.

"We both do workshops in many places in the United States. We've done that for years," said Richetts. "We thought 'Why don't we go to Europe? People would probably like that.' "

The duo obtained a four-unit apartment where most of the artists will stay, and plan to show the group Paris "through an artist's eyes," said Richetts.


*more like 12 people

collage sheets for sale

you might think that because i have just had hand surgery, my life in the art world would slow down. well, i thought so. but turns out that i have a tons of irons in the fire. the most exciting new item is this: my friend, shelly, from puglovers productions and i have developed is a transfer sheet THAT WORKS SIMPLY WITH WATER ONLY. it is called the Easy Transfer Sheet (ETS). there is no need to use gel medium, chemicals, no heavy burnishing or rubbing off paper. the images simply releases from the sheet with water.

it is frickin' Martha Stewart simple!

it does away with the old fashion system of transfering images, not gel medium and scrubbing and scrubbing, no chemicals that are harmful to you and your lungs.

we have pulled together images from various places for ETSs; my family album, asian pictures and natuutical element, etc. these sheets work wonderfully with the paintover technique and collaging, and ATCs (artist trading cards).

we also sell them plain so that you can print your own through your cheapy-ass inkjet copier, plain ETSs doen't work with expensive laser printing.

the price for the Easy Transfer Paper is $10.00 for a package of 3 sheets,
8 1/2" x 11", plus a tester sheet. the ETS with our images on them are $5.00 a sheet, plus tester sheet and our collage kits are $15.00 each and include, a couple of collage sheets for ATCs, one ETS, and my paintover instructions and a tester sheet. i first introduced them at Artfest. they created a big BUZZ and they all sold well there.

Wholesale pricing available.

email mizbliz@cox.net or me at lisabebiart@aol.com for more info or a test package.
we are currently trying to get a website up to market them, but if you can't wait, just email us!
i was going to post the collage sheet here, but faileds to understand how to use a watermark. maybe later.