five senses

SEE
- a woman with a compass tattooed to her back, between her shoulder blades
- a woman wearing a beautiful beaded necklace that looks like a breastplate from a museum
- people sampling fruit at the farmer's market
- a girl in a patterned spring time dress -- it's a white cotton dress covered in a pattern of ladybugs the size of quarters
- a woman who I thought looked perfect! She was just so cute and put together in a fun and casual way that I looked at her and wished I could look that cute and easy-breezy. She wore faded jeans cuffed to mid-calf, a grey shirt dress, pink and white striped tennis shoes, and she wore pink sunglasses on her head. She was seen walking and carrying a dark charcoal grey bike helmet. Her hair was cut in a really cute short pixie cut with little wisps of curls framing her face. Her makeup was minimal but striking as she wore thick eyeliner like a 50's barbie doll, pale pink blush and very natural looking light pink lips. 

HEAR
- crowds of people talking and socializing
- car horns
- the neighbor yelling at another neighbor about her dogs barking every single night for at least 10 minutes straight before the woman quiets them

TASTE
- flank steak sandwich on grilled sourdough with gorgonzola cheese, balsamic vinegar and spring greens with a roasted beet salad that has feta cheese and plums mixed in

 SMELL
- fresh basil
- fresh lavender
- croissants
- coffee roasting

 FEEL
- awake and aware
- close to God
- happy

art is everywhere...

I took a stroll down Balmy Alley and Clarion Alley today with my friends who are visiting from out of town. Vibrant colors, various styles of painting. Beauty everywhere.

creativity abounds

HBTV: MADE - Typographic Ballet featuring Ebon Heath & Talib Kweli from HBTV on Vimeo.

I found myself really inspired by this. It also made me want to go to Berlin...

the farmer's market

I took my friends to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building today. They are visiting from Buffalo, New York so this oasis of fresh food made them giddy and overwhelmed with pleasure. It's easy to take for granted just how many varieties of food are grown here in California...
Gosh - we had such a good time hanging out near the Bay and wandering around. The weather was perfect - sunny and warm (unusual for a summer in SF) and we had so much to see, taste, hear, smell and touch! What a sensory explosion!

beautiful living things...

When was the last time you did something new - or gone someplace you'd never been?
Today I went with some friends to a nursery I'd wanted to check out for a while. It was amazing - absolutely beautiful and in the most unexpected place in San Francisco.
I'd heard about Flora Grubb for a few years and today I finally got a chance to stroll around and see it for myself. I could not believe that it was right off Third Street on a very low key street filled with auto dismantler businesses. I plan to go back soon and take my mother with me. She will love it!

five senses

SEE - a bumper sticker that says 'grace happens'
- a woman construction worker smiling and dancing in the dirt
- a massive traffic jam
- a beautiful black woman with a face full of freckles
- a house burned so badly that the wood looks like charcoal
- a man in a Giants jacket falling asleep on the bus while standing up

HEAR
- morning news (call me ignorant but I avoid the morning and late night news because it is never good news and not a way that I want to start or end my day)
- two bus drivers talking about how a fellow driver got choked by a passenger when he pressed the guy about being 25 cents short on his fare. I smiled when one of the drivers said, "I'm not about to get assaulted for this job. Fare or no fare, you can ride because I want to go home to my kids at the end of the day."
- homeless people in a cluster sharing the latest places they have been squatting (living) around the city
- this talk about race in America as more states want to pass 'stop and frisk' laws

TASTE
- my mom's chocolate cake from her birthday
- pork show mein
- baked chips seasoned with sea salt

 FEEL
- tears welling up in my eyes as I listen to Nina Simone
- bored and a little lost - emotionally drained
- excited that my sculpture will once again be a part of the live auction for a fundraiser to raise money for AIDS research. They only select 25 artists for the live auction out of 150...

SMELL
- a whiff of a sewage smell as I walk along the streets downtown. I see that the streets are wet even though the sun is out so I wonder if there was some sort of broken pipe of something.
- the obnoxious smell of flavored sunflower seeds coupled with the smacking coming from the guy eating them while sitting next to me on the bus

on display...

My work is in the windows again! 275 Sacramento Street (Front & Sacramento) There are three windows, two on Sacramento Street and one on Front Street... This sculpture pictured is new. It's called 'The Help'. I paired it with a tea pot and tea cup I created.

A little bit of summer...

Funny how the weather is so different depending on where you are in the bay area. I have been at my friend April's house in San Jose since friday, hanging out in weather that is warm and sunny, in the high 80s. I had to abandon my sweaters and today it was so warm that we went into a store where I purchased a lightweight top because what I was wearing was too warm. The weekend has included movies, tear inducing laughter, music, wine, a mariachi band singing happy birthday to me(although my birthday is next April), the cheesecake factory, family time, coffee, lots of conversations with April and her friends, naps,and sunshine. It's been a good time and it has also reminded me of who I used to be, of who I am, as glimpses of the girl I am comes out. Do you ever recognize parts of yourself that must be essences of who you innately are, parts of your personality that you know have been the same since childhood? When I see these parts, I feel comforted because sometimes I think I'm uncovering parts of myself that have been hidden for a few years. I just think- it's nice to just be who I am, just me. (I don't know if that makes any sense).

collaborative spirits...

Brooklyn Boheme left me inspired and wistful. I wished I could have been a part of this creative group. At the same time, I often find myself thinking - hmmm… I wonder out of the group of artists I know, which ones of us will 'make' it in a way that has a lasting legacy. I hope to be one of them since I already know quite a few people who are definitely leaving a mark on the world.

divine inspiration and the subconscious...

For quite a while now I have been aware of how the subconscious works in my life. Whenever I am at an opening and people ask me how I create my sculptures I try to explain my creative process and  the concept of the subconscious almost always gets touched upon. Sometimes people understand what I am talking about and others give me a look that makes me wonder if they think I am shining them on or avoiding answers to their questions. In any case, I know it's a reality and it's been fun discovering interviews in which other creative people (spanning across various mediums) explain how the subconscious comes into play in their creative process.

Here are a few things Lenny Kravitz had to say about it:

How do songs come together during the creation of an album?

"I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head." 

I've woken up from dreams and the whole song is there. I'm listening to it in my dreams. I consciously have to wake myself up and get a tape recorder because I hear it like a record. 

The songs just came. I don't really know how they come. This might sound a little odd but after a song is finished, I can think about it a few days later and I don't really realize, 'how did that happen?'. You know, I woke up. I had a song in my head. I went to the tape recorder. I put a piece down. Then I went into the studio and I started cutting it and doing overdubs, next thing it went this direction and I did this, and arranged it put horns and strings and synthesizers and oh percussion and then it grows and grows --- and background vocals…

And all of a sudden it becomes this thing that's really put together and when I'm in the process (because I'm doing most of it myself if not all of it) I'm too busy to think. I'm jumping from one instrument to the next and just trying to keep the flow going. So when it's all done, I just think,"Where did that come from?" I'm kind of in a frenzy when I'm doing it. - Lenny Kravitz

greatness...

Surround yourself with inspiring people.

pep talk...

a dozen quotes to motivate the weary dreamer…

When your mind says give up, hope whispers one more try. - Oprah Winfrey

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." — Aristotle, a Greek philosopher.

You can't run your race watching everyone else run theirs! Keep your eyes on the finish line & just grind! - Tony A. Gaskins Jr.

We should never let anyone else’s perceived inability to evolve slow down our own development. - Russell Simmons

Please hold onto your hope. It is in such limited supply around  the world these days. Hold onto it and be proud that you are one of the ones that does. - Tyler Knott Gregson

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle. - Steve Jobs

Don't feel stupid if you don't like what everyone else pretends to love. - Emma Watson

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant. - Robert Louis Stevenson

If you live in a world where you are the smartest person in the room, where everybody is pulling at you, everybody is drawing from you, everybody is nursing from the milk of your wisdom.. You are in the wrong room. You need to go into another room that makes you think again, that makes you read again, that makes you reignite your passion. You need to be around people who make deposits not just withdraws into your destiny. - Bishop T.D. Jakes

An artist’s life is an unconventional life. It leads away from the example of the past. It struggles painfully against its own conditioning. It appears to rebel but in reality it is an inspired way of life. - Agnes Martin

Change is the essence of life; be willing to surrender who  you are for what you could become.  - unknown

Prayer is the greatest of all forces, because it honors God and brings him into active aid. - E.M. Bounds