That I am in the "New Emerging Artist" group showing on www.OneKingsLane.com starting tomorrow NOV.1st at 8AM                                                                                 
I'm really, really excited about it. I'm sure if you were an artist you would be also. It's just so great when your art gets out there and people like it.

Artists all spend a lot of time in contemplation, and alone so when you have a show, or are published in some way it is such a great experience of a validation of your work.
I do believe though that art is a very selfish thing to do. It is an extremely self absorbed activity. You as the artist are focusing on your thoughts and feelings in regards to a certain concept, and how gratifying, demanding, self fulfilling is that? Then, just when you thought thats it....finished, you must let go of  this highly personal gut retching piece you've pulled from your soul out into the Universe.....aye yie yie....wow.  Maybe you sell it.....ouch, it's like biting on a canker sore, good and bad all at the same time. It's hard to let it go, and then by the way you might get paid for something you love!
 
It is my passion, my everything. It got me thru ICU for a month after my brain aneurysm. I owe art a lot in my life....Art, I love YOU! When the doctors said you will be in here hooked up to these machines and tubes for a month, I thought...oh no there is no way. But Art pulled me thru, art got my hand, head, and heart moving once again. It felt wierd, I had unbelievable patience, I recognized this. Maybe it is OCD, I don't know I don't care. Being wrapped tighly in my art moments enables me to go into my meditation of repetitions, a system I flow into. Meditators will understand, it comes on, envelopes you, gets a good hold of you and you are gone, floating close by, near enough, but light years away. It is that first cigarette with coffee in the morning, or grandmas cinnamon rolls. It's your first kiss, or your babies bath time gurgle....it's all that wrapped into one hunk of an amazing experience.....it is just the best thing ever.

Alright so this is my first Blog post on my new site. I'll start by telling you a bit about myself. My favorite number is 5.

I've been painting for a long, long, time. When I was little my Mom use to drag me out of the pool wet, green hair and all, to see important museum or gallery shows. I've been around art as long as I can remember.
 
When most kids were playing soccer, I was at art classes. My Mom an Dad recognized early on that I had a skill that needed to be nurtured. Everywhere we'd go she would always have a tablet and pencil, or crayons with her. On special art weekends I would always set up art shop on the Santa Monica bluffs park, and often take first place in the childrens division. I had a talent.

Art was a part of my DNA, but soon to find out, so was travel.

I attended Otis Art Institute, and Art Center, then ran away to Europe and fell in love. Rome, Paris, Florence, Copenhagen, Athens, Amsterdan, Vienna, Majorca, Berlin, London.......sleeping in abandoned hotels, arrested in Lugano, hopping trains, eating, eating, sleeping, dancing, and loving life, working in hotels for my stay, seeing ALL the art I had studied come alive right before my very eyes. This is what shaped my life.

Life was just beginning.....

I won't bore you with all the details, but the first time I saw my future husbands belly, it was love at first sight. I was visiting a friend, and he happened to own the apartment building she lived in, and had stopped by to see her. He had just come back from a surf trip to Hawaii, and had on trunks and an aloha shirt. He has always has had a habit of pulling up his shirt and patting his tummy. He went out to leave, I watched him get into a convertible burgundy VW bug with the top down and a surfboard sticking out the back.....he left a lasting 1 week picture in my mind.

I actually forgot about him until he came knocking at my door one morning. I stumbled out of bed, mumbled to come back for dinner, and went back to sleep. I was living in a small apt. my Auntie owned at the beach, and paid her $65 a month.....I know, crazy huh.

A week later Greg, my future everything, moved in....arrgghhhhhh we had to find a bigger place. The dog kept pooping in the shower, Asia was a golden retriever puppy,  one of the best dogs I've ever had, but needed her own yard. We moved into Santa Monica 4 blocks up from the ocean. We lived there for awhile, then decided it was time to sell everything we owned and move to Hawaii...... my love for the aloha spirit , the islands, and everything tropical began.

Life was paradise!