Beauty the bizarre

“Beauty is always bizarre…I mean that it always contains a little bit of bizarreness, a naive, unintentional strangeness,  and just this strangeness makes it  to be beauty”

Charles Baudelaire

new chicks!

It's been a busy week -getting the last of the art work finished and packed for my show in LA http://www.sletegallery.com/ ! And instead of resting up on Sunday we went to the Farmer's Market and later drove to our favorite poultry supplier http://portagebaygrange.vpweb.com/ to buy two more chicken girls for our flock . We named them May and Katie ( my daughter's choice) -I like the names a bit more 'cookie', like our older chickens: Fiebke ( for the Hamburg), Flottchen and Tamina. I love having a tiny barnyard !

My next Show

My show "Beauty the Brave" opens May 23rd at Slete Gallery in Los Angeles http://www.sletegallery.com/. Here are some of the faces you'll meet !

High Desert

I just spent 10 days in Bend,OR. What a gorgeous place. This is my 3rd visit out there. A place of deep quiet, of power trees and rock. I didn't get enough time to make mandalas or linger for long times as my hikes were with my mom, husband and daughter, but I got some tree hugging in , feeling the life of the tree feel me . I also had always time to sing a little song "I see you, I thank you" as all our relations, be they trees, rocks ,birds love to hear us acknowledge them.
I am reading Tom Harmer's 2nd book "What I've always known " http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3016186-what-i-ve-always-known which is mesmerizing and speaks to this communication with the natural world.

countdown

 

The countdown is on for my LA show. I think this painting above will be the last of eight new panels and eight new large drawings in my show at Obsolete http://www.obsoleteinc.com/  titled  "Beauty the Brave". Then I am onto working on my show for Gail Severn Gallery http://www.gailseverngallery.com/anne-siems.html  in June. I have not decided on a title yet.

Eggs !

There is so much peaceful joy in Easter egg painting ! There is no pressure -just make them colorful ( or not). As you can see,no ambition here, but I love that the eggs are from our favorite and littlest chicken Fiebke, who is a Hamburg.
Working with inks instead of watercolors gives a nice punch.
Paint some eggs, whether it's your Holiday or not!