June 18th, 2019

cmsa; this one(Beware the Crone's Embrace) joins a private collection and will keep "Alt Jesus" company...I am grateful to this remarkable collector; Paul Houson ...heaven sent and supports many of us here at the brewery!!!!This is my happy face, to have found a collector who follows his heart, not the latest art star! many thanks to paul and his partner nelson.

June 14th, 2019

cmsa; Artist Chuck Connelly made me laugh today with this painting (bird and cat); It's exactly the story of my life; i too have a cage of my own design and that is self-limiting, but i stay in there because it'd be too scary to be out there with the cat!.....bravo friend! Here's two versions of my own, both called "A Cage of Her Own Design"

June 12th, 2019 →

cmsa; here we go with artist Chuck Connelly ; he ventures out when it warms up in one my favorite cities in the whole world (phila.), and paints one of the most animated bushes and houses i have ever seen...love it!

June 11th, 2019

cmsa; bravo cmsa alum, Maurice , who holds down a job, and all the time consuming responsibilities of regular life, yet always finds the energy for art loving and art making...I think he finds a harmonic balance this way....thank you Maurice

June 6th, 2019 →

cmsa; unbelievable; humanitarian aid is a crime now.....i picked up a young "son in art" just north of Ajo after he had been abandoned and wandered alone for four days in the desert. Things are getting so bad we might all have to risk our liberty as our govt becomes more fascist and nationalistic.

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May 18th, 2019 →

Cmsa: the best ideas are the simplest ideas; when I look at an artwork and hear that little voice in my head hiss at me “why didn’t you think of that?” , I know I really loved it! And the medium is sand!!!!thats gotta b hard.

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May 13th, 2019 →

cmsa; swung by home depot to find a handyman to help with stuff i needed done. Found one named Francisco; he came to my place and when he saw it was a studio he kept saying "i'm an artists model" i thought it was a joke until he whipped out his phone and showed me his portrait done by this artist John Sonsini....small world at the home depot parking lot.


May 6th, 2019 →

cmsa; thank god for Planned Parenthood...Unplanned pregnancy rarely a good thing for any young artist's career, it's already hard enough....

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April 28th, 2019 →

cmsa; you gotta love creative people, they always have a lot of whimsey, never color within the lines, never do what they're told, never see the thing the way it was intended. Sometimes a square stops even trying to fit into the round hole

April 4th, 2019 →

cmsa; my painting got to go to TRAC, she's hanging somewhere there; "Beware the Crone's Embrace" cynda valle

This post inspired by the comment of one TRAC attendee;

"so maybe your work is good illustration, or design, but how is it reaching for other qualities (especially in the historical model of 'painting')? (Sorry to be such a fuss, but maybe you can explain?)"

In an attempt to answer this question, which annoyed the heck out of me:

dear carol, the paintng is about a race ( a granny race) i heard about in england , in a small village; once a year the strongest young men each carry an old woman piggy back, and they race through town, the crone shouts "encouragement" while the villagers cheer them on. I ussed myself as the model for the crone, and i now know the crone dominates the runner, the tireder the runner gets the lower he'll carry the crone on his back and the more her hands pull at his neck. Crones are usually the least empowered physically, so it was great for me to see that reversed from this position. i couldn't resist adding a susrreal twist (in my granny race she's riding the young man through the night sky of a big city)..So i would not expect too many people to have heard of the granny race specifically, but i do hope that the sense of the riders empowerment over the young man comes across, and maybe brings light to the subject of how older women seem to be invisible in our society
regarding the formal painting stuff; From an art historical pov i work with traditional underpainting with glazes in oil , as will as more "wet into wet " oil techniques that leave a visible brush stroke (hair, fur, and crones hands) ... i generally like skies, lit areas and light sources to be glazed, i use the more brushy wet into wet in areas of texture. I'm also fond of a process i think i first saw in rembrandt's self portraits; using thin glazes in areas of shadow and bright, and thicker more opaque paint applied wet into wet in the lightest areas..