I'm sure by now you've seen and heard about the devastation that Helene left in the mountains of North Carolina. While Durham, my hometown, was relatively unscathed, the destruction felt very close to home. mountains have been etched into my heart. In the short three years we've lived in Durham, we've visited Asheville, Hendersonville, Boone, Beech Mountain, Banner Elk, Black Mountain, Canton, Lake Lure and Chimney Rock. We've sent our oldest to camp just west of Asheville, north of route 40. We've ventured out for weekend trips for our son's mountain biking competitions with NCNICA, I've been out in the Black Mountain area for an artist retreat, and most recently took my first camping trip to Catawba Falls with my son.  None have been tremendously long stays, but the landscape in WNC is so vastly different from the Poconos of my youth. It's breathtaking in a way that jolts you - it's dramatic, steep, and surprising. It's a place we long to go - especially living in the heat of Durham - to get cooler temperatures and landscapes vastly different from the Piedmont where we live. 

Now, it's changed. Chimney Rock is mostly gone. Lake Lure is filled with debris. The Lake Lure Flowering Bridge has been hugely compromised. The campground that I stayed at with my son was highly devastated.  People are still cut off and isolated, without power, and basic needs. Many are without homes, and many have lost loved ones. I've been watching artists with total losses of studio space and decades of work. And, there's so much more. 

I've already made a small donation to the NC Artists Disaster Relief Fund, but have been watching to see how else and to whom I'd like to support. The trouble is there is so much need, and my family right now is not in a position financially to support, nor can we spend time volunteering at the moment. So without further delaying, I have two ways I can help through TraillWorks:

1. Extended through October, 25% of any sales of my artwork or classes through TraillWorks will go to relief efforts. I'm going to split the donations to the NC Artists Disaster Relief Fund and Triangle Mutual Aid. 
2. If you are looking for reliable resources to donate directly to - please visit this live GoogleSheet. I discovered this last week on a reliable group (though I can't recall where) and have seen many of these organizations mentioned. It's very comprehensive, and is constantly being updated.

Why NC Artists Disaster Relief Fund? Artists have been highly impacted, both in Asheville specific and surrounding towns. NC Artists Disaster Relief is an independent charity that spun off from a support group for the NC Arts Council in 2022. According to their site, . . . "the Arts Council remains an important partner, our administrative costs are not funded with state or federal grants, and we collaborate with many organizations and individuals that help us achieve our mission." Very early on, NC Artists Disaster Relief mobilized to start a fund for Helene. 

I also chose Triangle Mutual Aid because of their early support with boots on the ground gathering of supplies in the Triangle area. They are an approved organization and are still actively gathering donations and have the support of many local businesses as donation points including ArtPost in Durham, and Maverick's Smokehouse in partnership with Triangle Mutual Aid is now actively seeking clothing donations for the cold weather impending on the region.  

There are three tiers with multiple contribution amounts which will fund various aspects of the trip. If you are so moved to fund the entire balance, as a Trip Angel, you will receive a custom painting - your choice of subject, valued at $800 (including shipping). All contributions between $250 - $120 will receive a matted and signed print of my watercolor of fall trees in Durham. If you contribute $20, you will get a frameable note card of the same painting.

Everyone who contributes will have an opportunity to join a live Zoom recap of the conference, with my takeaways. AND, if I'm lucky enough to earn more than what I need, this will be a great moment to use the extra contributions to support many needs in my studio - web site update/migration, new headshots, much-needed studio shelving and organization. The list is not quite endless. 
​

FIRST TIER
TRIP ANGEL 👼: Fund the full amount ($800) and I will honor the gift with a commissioned painting or completed available painting in kind. This could be a dog portrait, home portrait, or wedding cake portrait. Equivalent to an 11" x 14" oil painting, shipping included. ​

SECOND TIER
(all contributors will receive a hand-signed, matted print of a recent watercolor, painted during the fall in Durham)

FOOD ANGEL: Fund the cost of my meals with a $250 contribution. 
TRAVEL ANGEL: Fund the cost of my rental car with a $220 contribution. 
HOTEL ANGEL: Fund the cost of one night's stay with a $200 contribution. ​
SCHOLARSHIP ANGEL: Fund the cost of my meals with a $120 contribution. 

THIRD TIER

$10 Angel: Every little bit helps. I'll send you a hand-signed note card of the fall Durham watercolor. ​

In an effort to build consistency in making and open up some playful exploration I've decided to dedicate a newly gifted sketchbook to 10-minute daily sketches. It’s a beautifully constructed book by SugarBoo & Co., comprised of handmade paper signatures, bound with leather and embossed with a quote by E.B. White. 

The quote by E.B. White reads: “I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.” If you know me, this is fitting at times, and aspirational. 

I felt it too important not to waste the book, despite having other sketchbooks in progress, to set it aside until the others were full. I’m allowing this book to be a place of openness and play, not restricting media or subjects, to see what emerges. I'm finding some surprises and challenges with the paper, but it was the perfect blank slate from which to begin this practice.

The sketches began in pencil, and once I landed on the 10-minute framework, I quickly jumped from observational to a journaling, memory style sketch. I was enjoying this but also frustrated with how much the graphite was smudging, so it pushed me into trying different media, including wet media. 

You can see some of the ghost marks of the smeared graphite above. I actually do like to smear and shade my work, but in these drawings I was finding it frustrating. 

So this day I worked in watersoluble crayon and some colored pencil. It's definitely not mixed media paper, so I again felt somewhat frustrated, but equally enjoying brushing the medium on the paper. Additionally, the 10-minute time frame I used as a minimal guideline, so when I'm tired it feels achievable. ​In this case, I went over the limit. 

So I shifted again and worked in pigmented pen, ballpoint pen and marker. I'm just allowing the subject matter to shift with what's coming up for me when I sit down to draw.

I was tired and uncertain what to draw. I grabbed some swatches from a bedroom painting project and collaged them onto the surface, also noticing the marker seeping through the front and allowing the drawing to work with that as a palimpsest. 

And then I found my way back to landscape of North Carolina, along with the markers, the pens, the colored pencils and my brushes. And then the chair returned, which is the focus of the first painting above. 

While my first reaction to the paper was frustration, I think due to the learning curve on a new surface, I quickly adapted and have found that I love the feeling of the dampened paper, heavily worked and showing through the backside. Those impressions are adding texture and depth to the drawings in a way I hadn't considered. I'm due for day 16 already - I started on the 2nd of January and I did allow for a missed day, so long as I picked it back up again. 

Curious to see more? Follow along on Threads, or in my stories on Instagram.
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September is a very full month if you're a parent with kids on a traditional school year calendar. This September was especially full, given two new schools for my 5th and 9th grade sons. As an artist mother, I was embarking on the decision whether to participate in the Thrive Together Network's bi-annual virtual artist residency, I was fearful it would be too much. 

I ultimately decided to throw my hat in the ring, because the accountability is beneficial and I thought I'd be better off. The beauty of this residency is it's do it your way. It turned out favorable, despite several derailments including illnesses and family needs. 

The Thrive Together Network sets you up for success, especially if you follow their guidance and formula. They've broken down the residency into small steps,  making SMART goals. It forced me to prep my materials and organize my sources. So, because my focus for the residency was to expand on ideas developed in a sketchbook last February, I decided to print out copies of images from my sketchbook. It's very hard for my brain to flip through the sketchbook and gain a holistic understanding of what I was developing. Printing everything out and taping it to my floating wall, pushed me into the creative process. 

Once the sketches were done, after I had selected which idea to pursue, I could begin my painting. I haven't bought new materials in a while, and decided to source from what was already in my studio. I found a stained, stretched linen surface that had never been used and thought it was perfect for the painting. And, the golden yellow stain was useful as a ground. 

I haven't painted on linen in awhile, as I've been focusing more on panels, so this took some patience. I also don't use turps in my studio, or odorless for that matter, so my initial layers are dry-brushed, scumbled. I use M. Graham oils, and while they are super buttery and easy out of the tube, this was a frustrating process on the linen that didn't yield the pleasure of brushing a thinned oil with turpentine on the surface. But, I got through it. 

Gosh - so much to tell, and that I'm still thinking about. This is part of my Take a Seat series which has been in development for a few years, a sub-series of my TeaScapes. However, this painting does not include transfers of tea packages. What went into that decision? Purely wanting to be more productive this month. I didn't want to take up so much time layering in the image transfers, and I didn't feel the linen was the right surface for them. 

This is the second painting in which a chair is suspended over the landscape, and in this one, tethers are holding it. I'm not sure if it's dropping or lifting. I think that's the beauty of the idea. I'm considering both comfort and instability in the placement of the chair in the trees. We find the desire to take a seat in a chair, especially one like the Womb Chair, designed by Eero Saarinen to embrace us as we were in utero. As with the challenges of life, we are often left ungrounded, uncertain, and unsteady. When we sit in that discomfort, we can find security. The hovering chair symbolizes that duality. 

These works come out of a growing meditation practice, and a need to confront my own anxiety. Pema Chodron says, as quoted in the blog, Always Well Within, “Wanting situations and relationships to be solid, permanent, and graspable obscures the pith of the matter, which is that things are fundamentally groundless.” 

The painting is not finished as hoped, but well on it's way and more resolved than the last photo above. If you'd like to be notified upon the completion of the painting, you can subscribe to my VIP newsletter, where I first share new work, and information about upcoming opportunities. I'm going to let you sit with this, and maybe you'll come up with a question about the painting or the process, or about my membership in the Thrive Together Network, in the comments below. 

I'm thrilled to announce that I'm opening up dog portrait commissions again and supporting the Animal Protection Society of Durham during the month of August. In reviewing my history of making dog portraits, I recognized that I was building momentum in creating more portraits just prior to the Pandemic. With my relocation to NC, I've completed a couple, but haven't been able to promote them. My studio is almost 100% finished (enough that it is operable) and the renovations in our home are complete. Now, as we move into the Dog Days of Summer, I'm ready to officially open them up and donate 10% of the profits of all booked portraits to APS. 

I've been making dog portraits since we rescued our first dog, Ringo, back in 2007. It started with just an oil pastel of him, roughly drawn on cardboard. I adore that drawing and have a dedicated spot in our powder room. At some point when I ran my studio/gallery in Newton, NJ, I began accepting dog portrait commissions, with one of the first subjects coming in for a photo shoot:​

Since then I've completed several oil paintings in full color, mostly from reference photos sent to me via email. Each dog's personality is important to me - I love to play with color juxtapositions and patterns that offset the dog's fur and liven up the dog. Owners often tell me something significant about their dog that becomes integral to the painting - a portrait I completed last year incorporated petunias that Finnigan often frolicked in. Sadly, Finnigan passed away during the painting of his portrait and my customer wanted to wait to tell me until it was completed. She sent me a photo of her crying and texted, "These are happy tears! I’m feeling so emotional 💗 Finnigan is home….the painting is more than I could have hoped for! It is everything!!!" I've heard similarly emotional feedback from countless dog portrait recipients that I've painted.

You can see a complete portfolio of my dog portraits on my commissions page, and from there visit the store page to see the standard sizes available. For more custom sizes and needs, please contact me directly to tell me more about your ideas. 

Just prior to the pandemic I started doing live dog portraits at our local farmer's market in NJ. As it turned out, many of the dogs just wouldn't sit still (I know, the expectation was a bit wild) and I ended up taking them back to my studio to complete. The intent was for me to complete the drawings in 15 minutes, but once in my studio, I began to develop them into much more refined drawings. Thus the mini studio dog portraits emerged.

These are all drawn now in graphite on cream archival drawing paper, sized at 5" x 7", and mounted in an archival double mat, ready for an 8" x 10" frame, priced at $95. They make easy gifts for dog lovers, and the black and white medium allows for focus on the dogs' textures and most often the faces of the dogs. Below, the dog in the middle was the only one drawn from life, keeping the 15-minute time constraint.​

I take the honor of creating a forever memory of your furry family member very seriously, but I deeply enjoy the process and have fun while painting or drawing them. It would be my absolute pleasure to complete a commissioned portrait of your pet - whether still alive or passed. I've been told by some gift-givers of portraits that the painting of the family dog might even be more treasured than the kids (you decide)! 

Please consider booking a portrait or seeing how you can support a rescue or shelter in your own community. ​