Due to trouble with spam comments on this site I have packed up and moved to: http://janemhoughton.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much for those of you who have emailed to ask where I am…I had no idea so many of you cared!

In the words of my favorite actress, Sally Field: “You like me, you really like me!”

I have been thinking for a long time of starting to collect photographs of various colors I see along my paths. I was grazing through some of my favorite blogs this evening and came across Misty Mawns blog: http://mistymawn.typepad.com/ where she is suggesting to her blog viewers that they post monochromatic pages…so here are my blues so far: 

Jornal page - January 9, 2009

I have a confession to make: I haven’t been completly truthful to my blog viewers (are you out there?). The truth is that although my blog entries sometimes seem a bit whiney and negative I really try to reign it in, assuming noone wants to read a blog that brings you down, right? But, the truth is: it’s been a rough year and one with many distractions and moments - no, hours - of soul searching and angst. My work is mostly filled with happy and silly things. The center of my donut of a soul really is filled with jelly most of the time and that gets reflected in my work (if I’m lucky). But, my work has taken on another meaning for me these past 9 months or so…it represents more of what I want to be again. My goal this coming year is to get back to that clearer-thinking, positive and spirit-filled place. I want to get back to what makes me feel grounded and empowered. It may mean the color relationships I see in my own backyard or some freedom that gets sparked by looking at others’ art. I want to feel inspired and honored to be in my life again.

I am starting with my journal which I have been avoiding these past months. I hope to rethink my relationship with the blank page and embrace it daily in the way that has always brought me back to who I am and what matters.

Over the holidays I was fortunate enough to spend time with family and friends that mean so much to me and have made me who I am. After spending time with these certain special people in my life I am always left with feeling like my roots have just been watered - I am more grounded and at-ease somehow. One such person in my life is my “cousin” (by close family bonds not my blood), Lane Myer (no, not the Lane Myer from Better Off Dead but actually named for this Lane Myer - the screen play was written by his close college friend and loosely based on observations Steve made of the Myer family - but that’s a story for another day…) You can see the hero-worship in my face as I listen to yet another of Lane’s unforgettable descriptions of a job he is working on. Lane went to RISD in the late 70’s and I thought he was (well, still do) a genius! The projects he did in highschool and while at RISD fascinated and inspired me in ways my own private art classes and watercolor set never could. His stories brought home and shared of his experiences at RISD at our annual Christmas parties were for me the highlight of the season. Those same stories - of girls who danced with trees and men who died their hair easter egg colors were the very reason my parents would not allow me to apply to RISD when it came time for me to look at art schools. It’s something I will regret until I die. I have a feeling, that every once in awhile I allow myself to believe, that if I had gone to RISD I would be a successful illustrator beyond my wildest dreams now. Lane now teaches part time at RISD and I still want to soak up every last morsal of his stories - now based more from his perspective as professor marveling at the creative genius of the younger generation.  No regrets here - just so grateful to have this force in my life even for just a few short moments a year.

“Olive”   12″x12″ acrylic and mixed media on wood

I am reading a book called, “The History of Love” by Nicole Krauss - I like this excerpt:

“…Once Uncle Julian told me how the sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti said that sometimes just to paint a head you have to give up the whole figure. To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you’re limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter-of-an-inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky.”

I think in this new year I will try to remain focused on the simple and eat the elephant one bite at a time rather than try to do it all at once. I hope to hang on to something powerful and true for me this way. We’ll see.

It’s been awhile I know - I’ve survived an ice storm with a seven-day power outage, workmen doing various bits of damage and improvements around our home  and the holiday season…

in the midst of all of this I have managed to do a bit of work and hand make 100+ Christmas cards.

I was able to complete the “Space Boy” commission:

 side view with relative’s names

…although I had to wait to get heat back to spray it with acrylic fixative…and wait for power to post it here! Oh the things we take for granted as modern artists!

“Neighbors” 12′x12″ acrylic and mixed media on wood

I know I’ve been pretty MIA lately….along with my brain! We are having some major renovation work done on our house at the moment and my brain and life look and feel like scrambled eggs! I am trying to finish three pieces at the moment: a commission and two pieces for a small show I am part of at the Sturbridge Coffee House this month. “Neighbors” is one of the pieces that I will be finishing the sides of today. I do love jumping into a piece that is completely my own free will once in a while in contrast to the fun I have with commissions which is more a colaboration with the patron.

Had someone refer to my work as “cute” today. How does this make me feel? Well, I guess if cute means that it brings her some sort of pleasure than that can’t be a bad thing, right? I hear “happy” alot - that’s good. I describe my work as whimsical and sometimes I say “funky” . I’m working on the adjectives to describe what I do when people ask, “What sort of work do you do?” because I am always uncomfortable with my answer. I need a one sentance pop in the kisser answer that will leave them curious enough to want to see it, want to find out what this chick is on about…But I’m still working on it. I’m pretty sure I will never describe it as cute. I hope it’s a bit deeper than that but maybe for some people it just isn’t and I need to rest in the knowledge that I can’t control someone else’s expereince with my work…or can I?

Here is some of the work of an artist a friend sent me the link to today.

It always makes me feel instantly contected to another artist when I see similar imagery in their work as is in my own: wheels in the sky, wheelbarrows, houses on a horizon line…

His name is Donald Saaf and he shows at the Clark Gallery in Lincoln, MA: http://www.clarkgallery.com/?page=artist&guid=45848B59-6BBB-4501-8ABC-F088CE178D12

     I wonder if he struggles to describe his work to the lady he meets over the produce in the grocery store? I wonder if anyone has ever called his work, “cute” or “nice”. Hope not.

This a “working sketch” for my latest commission piece. This piece will be for a four year old who is crazy about space and all things cosmic. His father is french - thus, the nod to the french coast line there on the horizon. His grandfather gave birth to the Mandelbrot set and the conception of fractals….my art brain can just barely reach around the general idea but LOVES the graphic result of such a concept~ see - http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MandelbrotSet.html  for more information. The graphic of a fractal looks  like this:

                                                              …..Cosmic man……………………..

illustration #2 for “Daddy’s Boat Grace”

does anyone have information about getting permission to use images from Disney, Dr. Seuss and Lego Star Wars??? It has been pointed out to me that the images in this illustration may pose a problem when published.

I’m new at this and all part of the learning curve I suposse.

Can’t we all just get along?

…a detail