July 20th, 2008 talkingfox
The nice folks at 1st Angel and Friends art site from the UK recently asked to interview me for their site.
You can check it here.
Liz, the site owner has cram packed her site with loads of interesting articles relating to the arts of all stripes.
Thanks Much!
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July 20th, 2008 talkingfox
Get rid of your television. We’ve got ours set up to watch movies only ( no cable or antenna) which means I have to plan to sit and watch a given film. If I want news, I hit it online.
It’s amazing just how much more time I have to produce.
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June 30th, 2008 talkingfox
I’ve finally gotten my office unpacked and functional after the move! This means as well as working I can get back to my blog. This should please you, oh my readers….both of y’all 😉
As I had mentioned in a previous blog, I am now writing down all of my GFCF recipes as well as devising new ones. My goal is for dishes that aren’t just “good for what it is” good but rather “OH MY GAWD that’s good” good. I did a ‘cheese’ sauce based Potatoes Au Gratin with Ham that fit the bill this last week. It made my gluten and casein consuming husband very very happy.
I’m not only transcribing existing recipes but devising new ones as well. The idea in my little brain is that since I cook all the time anyway, I might as well put it all together into a cookbook. If any of you have leads on publishers that would take such a manuscript I’d gladly accept any information.
My mom seems to think that I could do this with one frying pan tied behind my back. I’m not so sure.
My big issue so far has been which things to leave out. Only a bit over a week in and I’ve got 10 pages just on sauces, and I’ve only covered 2 of the French mother sauces and a few variations.
Iwillnotobsessiwillnotobsessiwillnotobsess
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June 16th, 2008 talkingfox
Well we’ve arrived back in Washington State, found a truly wonderful house with a truly wonderful landlady.
She has been foolish, er, KIND enough to let us paint the place in whatever colors we choose so long as we put it back to white when we leave. This is a very nifty thing for me as the place has very high ceilings and architecture of this sort tends to look a bit institutional if left all white, IMO. Well that and with my previous 6 winters in Alaska , I’ve seen about as much white as I care to , thanks very much.
I decided I wanted a deep red kitchen. Now deep red is a problematic color even with the best of paints, but more than a royal pain in the butt with Home Depots supposedly premium paint, Behr.
After the first coat my kitchen looked like the inside of an autopsy. I sort of expected this considering the walls are textured. Disturbing visually, yes. Unexpected, no.
After the second coat the walls looked like the floor of an abattoir. Wasn’t expecting this one
3 coats in and it started looking as I wanted it to, barring the need for a few bits of touch up even after that 3rd coat.
I’ll never buy Behr Paint again. It ran, lifted, sagged and streaked and is hard to clean up. So much for premium paint.
On the good paint side of things, the new VOC free FreshAire paints are awesome even if they take some getting used to in the handling. It’s sort of like painting with Elmers glue. BUT, no smell and awesome coverage even with extreme color changes. Cleans up super easy too.
Valspar from Lowes is absolutely phenomenal in coverage and handling. It’s not VOC-less unfortunately.
Can’t beat the price though!
Our furniture finally comes tomorrow (keep in mind we’ve been in state since the 28th of May) and I can then stop painting walls and get back to painting for real.
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May 20th, 2008 talkingfox
In 48 hours I’m moving away from Alaska.
Part of me is happy to be going to a place where it doesn’t get below 20F often and one doesn’t have to shovel out in the winter or worry about avalanches, volcanic eruptions, frozen pipes and automobiles or getting stomped on and/or mauled by wildlife.
Another part of me is sad to leave a place of such breathtaking beauty. This place fills up my soul through my eyes.
Living in Alaska pushed my work into areas that I said that I would never go, mainly into landscape.
I don’t know how I could have avoided landscape work living here. Every day brought a different and more intensely beautiful vista, even in the middle of town.
I think it’s all about the light. There is a color of light that’s pervasive here that is usually reserved for a few fleeting days in the very early spring in environments further south. It’s a sort of pinky- golden color and being as there are so many white barked birches , it’s reflected back everywhere. In the winter even snow dumps acquire alpine glow. Add to that the extended sunsets (hours and hours!) and well, even the big 64 box of crayons wouldn’t be sufficient to render it. The sky is always doing something utterly amazing.
One thing that I found impossible in working on the Northshore series was capturing the sheer magnitude of the larger views. Trying to catch color as it was ended up looking garish on the page. Seriously…the color is so very intense that even photography doesn’t seem to quite catch it or ends up looking less than, well, real.
There is not a film on the planet that can even approximate the living blue of glacial ice.
It seems that Alaska will not allow itself to be taken out of context.
In response to this I ended up focusing on small moments rather than the grand view.
This is an example of that and is the last piece in the Northshore Series:
Barnacles, Bladderwrack and Basalt
Mixed media on Paper 2008
Okay before you say “gee it looks just like a photograph” Look here:
Barnacles, Bladderwrack and Basalt detail
Mixed Media on Paper 2008
I’ve heard Alaska described as brutal, savage, and uncompromising. I think it’s more supremely indifferent. It has an extreme and vital sense to it that is separate from human doings. The place thunders under ones feet.
I’ll miss it….except for when the mercury hits -50.
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May 16th, 2008 talkingfox
I’ve had a web gallery on Imagekind for a little over a year now, as have countless thousands of others.
Imagekind does very high quality prints at reasonable price points. Gotta love that.
As of this morning I was chosen to be a featured artist! This is a big deal to me as there are so many very talented people with their stuff posted on Imagekind and very very few are selected to be Featured Artists.
You can check it here
woohoo!
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May 13th, 2008 talkingfox
I’m a total snob when it comes to my ice cream. Even more so now that I’ve gone GFCF.
Most of the rice and soy creams out there are pretty rank. It seems that if one doesn’t eat dairy one requires copious amounts of sugar.
Not so with Good Karma desserts, which I glibly call my favorite Rice Cream. It’s smooth and has the unctuous mouth feel of full fat dairy ice cream. It’s not too sweet. It has add ins like chocolate cookies…..
AND it’s organic, gfcf and works for sustainable farming practices.
What’s not to like?
You can access the company’s website here for more information about their products
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May 2nd, 2008 talkingfox
When I was in college my art professor suggested that there needed to be 2 people working on any given painting. One to paint the thing and another to stand over the artists shoulder and smack him or her repeatedly with a stick at the appropriate moment screaming: It’s done It’s done It’s done DON’T TOUCH IT! 😉
I always have to fight the urge to judge my past work by current standards and the subsequent urge to rework a piece. Repeatedly. To the death.
The question is, is it ever appropriate to do so?
I have to be very careful about allowing myself that liberty. It IS however, at least in my world, OCCASIONALLY warranted.
I’ve just completely reworked a piece that I had deemed finished in 2005. Why?
Well after spending 6 months closely observing the Northern Lights I felt I could do the subject more justice without ruining the feeling of ‘wildness’ of the piece. In short, without overworking and waxing too technical, reworking with restraint. HA! No sticks or shouting required.
If you’re interested in taking a look, the piece has been posted here
I welcome your comments and opinions. Feedback helps me to be a better artist!
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April 24th, 2008 talkingfox
Why on earth would I write publicly about something as deeply personal and potentially socially stigmatizing as being autistic you might ask?
1. Because there is no possible way that I can separate my artistic process from my autistic function. Believe me, I’ve tried and tried again. In order to begin to explain my work in any kind of real fashion I must address the autism and visa versa.
2. Blogging gives me an avenue to actually express where I am in either process in a manner that is less socially awkward and potentially alienating i.e. the ability to edit. It’s also helpful the the reader decides when they’ve heard enough 😉
My work is an area where I apparently have a really difficult time interacting like a civilized human being. This forum also gives me a place where I can send people that are interested in what’s happening in that area of my life without having to traverse that slippery social slope.
If I perseverate, (an action I once had a friend call “arting in my face”) the reader can opt out on their terms, no harm, no foul.
3. I hope that I can, in some small way, dispel some myths and stereotypes that surround Adult Autistics and Apergers folks from all areas of the spectrum.
I don’t claim to be any kind of expert on the subjects that I am putting forward for public perusal.
All I can do is share my personal experience.
As far as the potential social stigma? Well, I’m capable of committing social suicide all by my lonesome. This blog isn’t going to make a whit of a difference there…..
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April 16th, 2008 talkingfox
Another huge influence on my art has been music. I can’t work without it.
Each piece that I start is worked on to the same music, much to the consternation of room mates and spouses. Apparently, each painting has its own soundtrack.
It seems that an internal routine gets set with the music and I have an almost impossible time re-finding the mindset that I was working from when I stop working. I hate it when my my train of thought derails! Music serves me by blotting out external stimuli, which I have a hard time filtering.
Music also acts as a sort of emotional/ intellectual mnemonic device for me. It helps in keeping my work from becoming overly preoccupied with detail and stiff. In short, I can set aside technical aspects of art and ride on an emotional stream pouring out of the speakers.
A wall of sound protects me from the outside world and allows me to put my brain on artistic/autistic autopilot. This frees me to work as I see and at hand rather than dealing with niggling mental subroutines.
I tend to get utterly immersed when listening to music anyways, working or no. Sometimes my eyes roll back in my head and I cry unconsciously.
When I’m perusing new cd’s to purchase, one of the biggest criteria is “Can I work to it?”
which is , btw, one of the greatest compliments that I can pay any given album.
Currently in heavy rotation are:
Afro-Celt Sound System: Anatomic
Sound Track: Tout Les Matins du Monde Crappy film, GREAT performance by Jordi Savall
Bjork: Post
Tanzwut – Ihr wolltet Spaß Tanzwut are the boys from Corvus Corax plugged in
Gjallerhorn All albums. An awesome group of Swedes residing in Finland. As a didg player as well as visual artist, this stuff makes me crazy
In Extremo All albums. Another Mittelaltel Metal band from Germany, similar to Tanzwut
Mozart: Requiem Mass performed by the Wiener Philharmoniker
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