Lessons & Life by Lisa Bebi

my story. on video........

http://blog.crescendoh.com/art_saves/2010/09/lessons-life-by-lisa-bebi.html
sorry i drone on and on.

chicago - stay here

look at this lovely pool at the Intercontinental Hotel - where we stayed in chicago - right downtown.  it was very luxurious.  my daughter didn't swim here though - instead she found a national team and swam with them as their guest.  it was very fun for her. 

so the people of chicago - in my workshop and rosie's team asked us back - so we must go.

my biggest thanks truly goes to linda weber who put the workshop together and her neighbor, kim who allowed me to sleep over in her cute coach house during my stay in elmhurst.  (i never knew what a coach house was until now).

the telephone pole (reprint from pimp my spleen, feb. 2008)

the telephone pole has been intriguing me lately as an interesting element to include in my paintings. the telephone pole says a several things at once. its nostalgic, even though they are still around, aren't they?
are there many of the three tiered type around anymore?
they also represent to me, pre cell phones. an era almost totally forgotten. they were always consider a blight on the landscape, but they were everywhere, one in front of almost everyone's house.
remember green acres? oliver had to go up the telephone pole to make a phone call to his old employers back in new york? even lisa went up there once in awhile. silly.  course her conversations never made sense.  that was the best part.
there was this one telephone pole on my street that i past every morning on my way to school. it fascinated me.  it sweated tar that hardened like resin. we used to hang around it and pick off the bubbles. of course it had a whole history of romances carved into it too, and many libelous postings. mostly ugly stuff about other kids in school - regular name calling.
there was on nasty deep cut in the pole - i think it was a bike rider who crashed into it. i doubt someone actually took a hatchet to it.  a car crash would have brought the thing down.
we would use the pole as a meeting place after school as an identifiable place to just hang around and talk. "where are you going?' my dad would want to know...."oh, i'm just going to meet annie by the telephone pole and talk..." which translated to .....annie and i would really meet at the telephone pole and talk - yeah, we weren't ones to smoke or meet boys much.   we were always being limited on our phone use at home because someone important might be trying to call.  so we met outside, near the school and pondered the world. occasionally someone we knew would cycle by and hang out too.    we never knew who might come by.  we always hoped for a cute boy, but we never chased them. sometimes a neighbor would ride by on a horse.  we envied the horse owners. 

i think my friend janis and i actually tried to eat the bubbles of tar.  er, maybe that was only me. i think janis only like to poke them with a stick.

my husband grew up in new york city. there were no telephone poles where he grew up - everything was underground. this realization has made me feel sad for him. he doesn't know the true smell of a telephone pole. it is kinda like the smell of the piers at the ferry landing.  remember those ferry rides to coronado island? that's a memorable smell.  it combined nicely with the smell of salt water.  i miss that too.  no more ferry rides - just a fast couple of lanes over the bridge.  hardly the same.  i remember the ferry cashier would sometimes save the end rolls from his cash register tape and give them to me if i asked.  i would draw long pictures on them all day long.  all my friends would ask me where i got the long paper like that.  i said the ferryman.

anyway, rosie actually wanted me to post a photo of herself that she photoshoped, but i can't find it in the filing cabinet.....i will tell her in the morning about the telephone pole pic and she will roll her eyes at me for writing about something so boring.. .

glam paintover workshop

 

see  bravo school of art check my sidebar for schedule.

my daughter brooke, age 6....

 

i know i have been obnoxiously showing this photo around.  sorry if you have seen it on twitter, facebook, etc.....but i have been going through old photos lately (because i am putting together a video for jenny doh's crescendoh site) when i came upon some awesome photos of my family that i kinda forgot about.  this one of brooke is so true to her nature - it makes me so happy to see it and remember her as a child -such a joy - all her life.  she is now 33 and beautiful inside and out.  

brooke is always a happy, enthusiastic person.  she is always been eager to please and make sure everyone is comfortable.  even in the most fearsome of circumstances she is upbeat, unflappable.  which sometimes showed in her voice as a radio news announcer.  she had to learn to keep her voice downbeat for the more dire news. 

but she also very smart.  and funny.  she has given me such fulfillment all her life that i doubt i could find the right words.  people who know me know i am not maudlin or romantic-fantasy minded.  when i say she gave me (and still does) such great joy, i really mean it.

brooke and i moved to england when she was only 2 1/2.  i had divorced her dad and immediately  a hotly battled custody war began.  it was january 1980  the month that  "joint legal custody" became law in california.  lawyers were really flexing their stuff encouraging dads to take an active stand in the area of physical custody.  it was a noble idea and it worked well for many families but in the beginning the idea was sold idea to many dads when they heard they would not have to pay child support or at least a reduced child support if they shared physical custody. 

then what hatched were new accusations that fit the guidelines for the court to determine who had custody.  one such proposition is one party showing the other party is an unfit parent.  an unfit parent described by court as one who behaves improperly in front of the child (for one thing).  parents accused each other of child molestation, neglect, drug abuse or other totally outrageous or unseemly behavior in front of the child.  courts always want to split the baby; rule in the best interest of the child, not the parent. which makes for some real hysterical and desperate accusation to sprout out of the custody battle especially when one parent does not want to share the child with the other parent....  luckily we did not have such a nasty fight as this, but still it was pretty nasty.

it was also during the year of "kramer vs. kramer", the movie that brought me to tears in the early 1980's - in her case the issue was abandonment.  but in the end you can see that there is no real happy ending.

by the tie this photo was taken of broke she had a full middle class engish accent.  she was still dressing as an english school girl.  what brooke says about this photo?  she says she was pretending to be the queen of england.  

her other comment was - she thinks she was saying "five minutes to air".  radio news talk.

kalamazoo, here i come.......

 

photo of kalamazoo's fair.

september 18 and 19.  i am looking forward to going to kalamazoo to witness my little grand niece isabella's christening.  she will be wearing the heirloom gown that her mother and her grandmother wore for their respective christenings.  and to add to this line, my daughter rosamaria also wore it when she  was christened at 10 months old.
a baptism is a big deal for the italian side of the family.  my side of the family is pretty clueless.

a few days before the i will be teaching a workshop in chicago.  so excited.

workshop: ARTFEST 2011: boatload of techniques

www.teeshamoore.com

for full description go to teesha moore's website click artfest 2011.  i teahc the first day of artfest (scroll down on her site) and  also i teach "oversaturated polaroid look" on the last day of the retreat.