Back to Juilliard

Daya was in Vancouver for three weeks dancing, and she landed yesterday after a very long voyage.
We went to Target to get stuff for her dorm room- she has a single this year. It's nice, and I hope she is happy and comfortable there. It's her senior year already!

She got me a present in Vancouver.

Wow!

She: I have to declare it at customs.
Me: is it... CHEESE???
She: No! I'm not carrying around stinky cheese for 24 hours!

Me: Not all cheeses are stinky....

She got me a wonderful handmade soap and honeys specifically made to pair with different teas!

How perfect is that!

I said to Daya... the jars can also be used for egg tempera pigments...

She said yeah, I thought of that too!

!!!!!

I'm surprised she thought of it to be honest... I'll have to tell Doug!

Here are some Juilliard dorm pics... I was not allowed to take a pic of her room.

The dorms are very nice. There is a double room in her suite that is REALLY nice- way nicer than the other doubles she has been in. Her single room is small but nice, it's laid out in a good way.

1.50 to wash! WOW!

I have these same washers in my building but it costs 2.90 to wash and 2.90 to dry.
This is the ONLY thing at Juilliard that is less expensive.

Nice common area:

A Box of Magic Wands!

Most of my favorite plein air oil brushes are dead.

All of my egg tempera brushes are dead.

I will only use Rosemary red dot synthetic rounds for egg tempera.

Nothing else holds up--- I have tried.

The store at the league carries a small selection of Rosemarys, but their stock is hit or miss.... and mostly miss.

I'll be going back to class in October, so I figured I'd order from Rosemary directly and just replenish everything. I'm also switching out my small brushes from Princetons to Rosemarys. I really go through them, and tiny Rosemary Ivories will definitely last longer.

I use the Ultimates and Ivories for oils.

My order was supposed to arrive Wednesday, but when I got home from camping, they were waiting for me!  In the box of magic wands was a handwritten note, a free brush, and brush cleaner!

What a nice homecoming, and such a lovely experience.

I haven't ordered from them in many years- because I could get them locally in-store.

I'm SO EXCITED and I cannot wait to paint again!

Blue Dot

The egg tempera class show was tonight!

The weather was kind of cold, I didn't think as cold as they were forecasting but it was enough to scare people off of coming- this opening was much less crowded than last year. Plus, there was a last-minute date change. Thanks, League!

However- I perhaps single-handedly managed to fill a lot of the room with ...... of course, The Downtown Boathouse.

Boathouse People everywhere!

And Sharon, Catherine, and Palma also showed up!

It is amazing to me to experience such a showing of support.

I appreciate it so deeply.

I'm always a bit hesitant to promote myself like this but then I thought, people like being invited to stuff.

So I invited a bunch of people and almost all of them actually showed up!

Here are some of the pictures.

Most of the boathouse people aren't pictured.

These were just the ones who stayed until the very end.

Me and Jenny...

Me, Kedrin, Jenny, and Bitz

Me and Aimee....

My Lippi painting got a blue dot!

Red dots are best in show, blue dots are honorable mention runners-up.

Here is a picture of Doug taking a picture of my paintings.

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While I was on the train to get to the show, Daya sent me a video update.

I can't deal with it tonight, I'll deal with it tomorrow.

I'm not going to let anything mess up this evening!

5 Noteworthy Things

Thing One: SNOW!

We got snow!!

Today was not a good day to be out painting though, plus I had places to be.

Thing Two: THIS TRUCK!!

This truck is hilarious, but if you're not in NYC you probably won't get it.

I can't believe someone spent money decorating their truck like this, but it's still great.

Thing Three: HAMMERHEAD SHARKS!

This is the best bit of art from all of 19th century Japan.

Note the adorable teeth.

Thanks Dru!

Thing Four: HANGING THE SHOW

I dropped off my three paintings for the show.

Our class is SO, SO GOOD... it's really special to see everyone's work together.

It really is an exceptional class.

I made sure to show Doug (and several other people- whoever would look, actually) the Japanese hammerhead sharks.

They were universally adored.

Thing 5: TEN MINUTES!

I had no idea I could jump for 10 minutes straight until I did it... it wasn't intentional, I just kept going.

Hanging out with Fra Filippo Lippi

I like to do a master copy every year in egg tempera class.

The medium suits master copies, plus Doug is there to talk me off my many inevitable ledges of artistic despair. And tell me what my issues are and how to fix them. And I had much despair and many issues while painting this.

This year I scrambled my head with the famous Madonna painting by Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469).

I wanted to do a long portrait, slow, very opposite of all my plein air work.  It's good balance.

So, I started this at the beginning of October and thought I'd work with it and finish sometime in Jan-Feb.

Nope, Doug announced our class show hangs on Jan 17th for the opening on Jan 20th!

So I got all stressed out and thought I'd have to work on her at home... but it turns out I ended up finishing her last week in class. Phew!

Yesterday she got framed. She looks good.

I learned a lot from doing this painting.

There is something about doing master copies that puts you in a different mindset, a journey through someone else's process. It's very intimate. I absorbed- downloaded- a lot, but I'm not sure how to put it into words.

In class we have unofficial spots where we always sit.

I like to sit right next to Karen because she's amazing and a much better painter than I am, so I suck up her painting vibes. She has plenty of those to spare.

9x12 egg tempera and metal leaf on Ampersand Claybord, about 25-30 hours.

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Here are some progress shots:

Rockaway Wave Study

Today is my last egg tempera class until september.  

Last week I was ready to start something new, but I didn't want to do a long painting so I pulled reference from Far Rockaway from last September and did this little wave study.

Doug gave excellent advice and I learned a lot.

5x7 egg tempera, features a lot of cobalt green.

Cheese Portrait #1: Colby Jack

I am doing a short series of Cheese Portraits in egg tempera.

They are from life, so need to be finished in one session.

Today I did Colby Jack.

This is not a good photo and I haven't posted these to socials, because I want to do it as a whole group.

It might get more work too, I don't know yet.

I brought a block of cheese to class and made this thing, because I had no idea what I was doing.

This was actually a very difficult painting, more than I realized when I started it.

That yellow-orange color is hard to work with value-wise, plus the marbling.

It might have been easier in oil because the palette can be pre-mixed and stay open, unlike egg tempera.

And it had to be done alla prima.

I'm still not sure if I quite "got it", but whatever, it's good practice.

It's 4x4, mini.

More cheese next week.

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I feel like I am very all-over-the-place artistically.

It's a little overwhelming but at the same time I'm doing it to myself so there must be a reason...

I'm now all over the place with my plein air palette right after deciding to stick to ONE standard palette...

Just in the last few months I have gone from all sorts of plein air to cat fur to topiary cats to 1400s virgins to Beelzebub to anglerfish and now... cheese.

I said to Doug, I am all over the place.

This is worrying; maybe I am lacking consistency.

Doug said it's ok and a good thing and fine, and I'm exploring my world artistically and not something to worry about and to just be myself. And then he told a story about Picasso which was relevant and encouraging even though I hate Picasso.

While I trust Doug and he will give critique, he's also one of the most positive and supportive people I have ever met so maybe he's too positive- leaning?

I don't know.

Maybe I'm just having too many dark thoughts about Life in General, which I'll write about later.

Anglerfish of Doom

Today I finished my Anglerfish of Doom.

He took 5 weeks in class, somewhere between 15-20 hours painting time, and so many layers!

Doug gave excellent wisdom and guidance, and the painting is better than it would have been otherwise because of him.

8x10 egg tempera on Ampersand Claybord

I got to use this silver pigment, which I like:

And of course many cobalts and other blues...

And here are some progress shots:

And the reference, which is that anglerfish who washed up earlier this year and made the news:

ASL Show

Tonight was the egg tempera class show at the League.
It was a nice time.

Daya came for a few minutes, and so did Grace, Hannah, and Janae.

Me and Doug, who is one of the best teachers and also one of the most amazing humans I have ever known.

Doug said some really nice things to me at the show, which ... coming from someone like him... really mean the world to me.

He says I have a ton of ability and also vision.

He says he can the teach technical stuff but not vision.

That actually is true; I can do that.

I can just pull images into my head out of nowhere, but one also needs the technical ability to do it properly. I do feel I fall a bit short technically, or I look too much at others' technical work and feel lacking.

But it was really good to hear that from Doug as I value his perspective so highly.

He's one of those ultra-evolved humans and I feel so fortunate to have his influence in my life.

Aside from the fact that I do keep up with my art and learning and practice, I feel like it mostly amounts to nothing other than I do it. 

And that is hard. 

I would like it to spread farther than it does, to be out in the world more than it is.  There are a lot of technically proficient painters out there who also have somehow managed to figure out the professional business of it.

My life has just never been set up for that to happen, and I don't have all that behind-the-scenes support that people have. 

I don't have the supportive family that seems to make everything possible for so many others.

I need my full time corporate job. 

There is so much that goes into people who actually make something of themselves other than being good (and sometimes not even that) at something.

Central Park Reservoir & My Pigment Library & Irrational Processing

I have had a very difficult week but I forced myself to go out and paint this morning.

It's been a while since I went up to the reservoir in Central Park to paint, so I did that.

8x10 oil

Then I took the bus down 5th Ave and got James Gurney's new book at Barnes and Noble.

(It's wonderful)

Then I went home for a little while, and went out again to the League to drop off paintings for our show which opens on Monday.

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I have had a terrible week.

Actually, all of 2025 has been kind of awful.

I really have had a particularly intense 6 weeks or so (including almost dying TWICE), even though everything is ok.

Last Sunday I must have been trying to feel a little better, and I went on a bit of a spontaneous decluttering frenzy.

And I threw out something that (probably should have been thrown out to be honest) I regretted....too late and after putting the trash out.

I had no idea it would hit me so hard.

I didn't know..... I'm just as surprised as anyone would be!

I think it was just a small thing that can tip an already-wobbly person over the edge.

AND ALSO as I realized... it all happened in those few days leading up to starting my cycle, which definitely makes everything worse.

I threw out a 25-year old garment that I literally haven't seen or thought about for YEARS- it was hiding in the bottom of a drawer. And I clearly remember what went through my mind..."wow I remember this!" you know that flash of old familiarity? and then "I do NOT need this 25-year old thing that I will never wear and haven't even thought about for more than 5 years..." and out it went.

AND I didn't take the trash out until the next day and I still didn't have a reaction.

And then it hit. 

And it hit HARD.

Of course it's impossible to not turn to the internets for processing advice, and it actually did help.

The most important thing I read from decluttering regrets is that usually when something like this happens, it's something about ourselves we need to grieve.

And that absolutely hits home and makes sense.

And while it is true that the garment probably needed to go, it's also true if I could go back in time and keep it I would.  For the sole reason that the timing of it was wrong.  I just didn't need yet something else to have to process. It's highly likely that if I discarded it at a time when I was doing a little better mentally, I wouldn't have cared.

And I didn't care about anything else I threw out.  Just this one small stupid thing.

And if I kept it I would have just forgotten about it again, guaranteed!

The mind is very irrational and it's so important to be gentle internally, and remember that what might seem small and stupid is actually something much larger and deeper.

It's actually a form of dissociation, which I am excellent at. (I'm a fawn-freeze trauma reaction person)

I do have a lot of trauma, and I dissociate.  This is something I have known about myself for a long time.

I just wish the timing of this was better.

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This week I cleaned out my bookcases, which I have been meaning to do for YEARS.

I knew I would find some interesting stuff in them, and I did, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I really only found one thing (from forever ago) that was very intense.... it was something I wrote (probably also about 25 years ago) about my mother and the time she put her hands around my throat and tried to choke me.

So yeah, I have some stuff coming up.

In addition to the current stuff with my mother, which I do not have an update for since I last wrote about it.

And maybe throwing that garment out was necessary in order for me to bring this stuff up and grieve for a certain part of my life and just get this stuff out. So I'm looking at it from many angles.

It's really hard to go through, but I do think I have good internal-processing skills & self care, and I know this, too, shall pass. It just hurts.

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I made a pigment library in my library with the extra space!

Here is the mess I made.... books for the trash, and books for The Strand!

I am not upset about any of this stuff-clearing, which is odd as I have always loved my books but I don't love any of these or it is time for them to move on.

I will be going to The Strand a lot; I think they'll likely take about 60-70 % of these books.