Blind Woman Praying 1994

I've been working as a professional artist for over thirty years, and it never ceases to amaze me at what transpires before I start. Here's how it always goes:

 1.  excitement about getting started
 2.  buying lots of materials I don't really need
 3.  putting off getting started
 4.  more putting off getting started
 5.  getting anxious
 6.  getting depressed
 7.  wondering what the purpose of my art making is all about anyway
 8.  coming up with reasons not to start
 9.  coming up with reasons not to be an artist
10.  crying and making my husband worry about my mental health
11.  getting started

It's such a leap of faith.  For one thing, I have no conscious idea of where I'm going, what I will be doing, or what I will end up with.  I have lots of ideas that I've gathered since the last time I worked, and it comforts me to collect those ideas and write them down, to assure myself that I do have some direction and  purpose( of course, 99% of those ideas will fall by the wayside once I get started).  All of this obfuscating is a pathetic attempt on my part not to have to go into the fire, not to have to struggle and be lost, not to have to feel chaotic and confused.  But mostly it's about not wanting to surrender, to turn myself over to that power that I don't have any control over.  And even though  I always know that this force, when I finally give over to it, allows me be the very best I can be, I still have a terrible time letting go.  It finally just boils down to faith, and trusting that once I get started, all will be okay.

Basket 2013, Benefit "Picnic for the Planet"

Pieces for the cover

Paper Mache eggs after being painted and crackled

Lid after being crackled

Prepping the basket

"Bad" eggs

Inside cover

Outside of basket

I recently received a request to donate a piece for a benefit to be held for the Nature Conservancy and the Farmer's Market, organized by Patina Gallery in Santa Fe.  I was to create something based on a picnic basket which the Nature Conservancy would provide.  The name of the benefit was Picnic for the Planet, .

I don't like doing benefits, and I don't like doing auctions.  As artists, we are constantly being asked to donate work for  causes, good and not so good.  We receive nothing in return, usually not even the name of the person who bought our piece for the benefit, and when there are rules and  limits attached, I get even more annoyed.  That being said, I decided to say no, which of course didn't take into account  my creative self.   That creative self was intrigued: a basket, eggs, a bird.  Hmmmmm.  Interesting.  And so I was hooked.  I planned most of it, which is something I almost never do, and I was pleased that I could actually kind of call the shots.  The "eggs" are paper mache rocks made by my good friend and artist Laurie Tumer, http://www.laurietumer.com/ given to me years ago when Laurie was getting rid of stuff.  The bird was loosely based on another image I had done called "Bad Eggs" http://hollyrobertsonepaintingatatime.blogspot.com/2012/01/bad-eggs-2009.html. It seemed right for this cause and this particular picnic basket.

Man Being Chased 1991

In Chicago from 1991-1992, I tried to run for exercise on a regular basis.  We lived about six blocks from Lake Michigan, so that was my course; over to the lake, then along the shore for a mile or so, then back. On one of my runs two men sped by me.  I thought to myself, "How great, they're racing each other".  Well of course, this wasn't the case.  The leading man had stolen the chasing man's wallet and and the chasing man was trying to retrieve it.  I came home from my run to paint this painting.

Mexican Folk Artist, Anonymous 2012

No Te Rindas en La Primer Caida: Don't give up in the first fall.

In December of this year I was invited to give a workshop in Oaxaca, Mexico at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACO).  I hadn't been to Mexico in years, and was reminded how much I loved the Mexican people-their warmth, their humor and their openness.  I was also reminded of how much I have been influenced by Mexican Folk Art.

In Oaxaca I found a number of  little paintings on aluminum  and bought seven($6 each).  Based very loosely on the Mexican Retablo, a Latin American devotional painting, they are humorous, often sexual, and truly wonderful, all six inches by five inches, hung with a piece of heavy thread from a small nail hole in the metal. They are where I want to go with my own work:  essential, honest, and simply painted with no fuss or muss.  I love the loosely painted yellow background on the slick metal surface with the overpainting of the bossy little skeleton wrestler .  Red, black, and white-how much simpler can you get? In real life, the Mexican wrestlers wear masks much like the one our little skeleton is wearing, so he is able to be both a "real" skeleton and a "real" wrestler at the same time. And finally, what a great life message, "don't give up in the first fall".  Truly words to live by.

Sphinx 2011

A sphinx (Greek: Σφίγξ /sphinx, Bœotian: Φίξ /Phix) is a mythical creature with, as a minimum, the body of a lion and the head of a human or a cat.
In Greek tradition, it has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless. Those who cannot answer her riddle suffer a fate typical in such mythological stories, as they are killed and eaten by this ravenous monster.... a unique demon of destruction and bad luck. Wikepedia, the free encyclopedia.

Its been a tough year.  December particularly rocky:  two days after the death of my father, 27 people were gunned down in Newton, Connecticut, 20 of them young children, only days after a mall shooting in Portland and four months after the Aurora Theater shootings(I thought of my father wondering at the sudden onslaught of young souls). This fall, Sandy made us all aware of the destructive side of global warming. When I opened my Internet browser yesterday, one of the headlines told of the rape and murder of a young Indian woman, a medical student on a bus on her way home from a movie with a male friend. The crime stood out because it was so horrific, not because its unusual for women to be raped and beaten to death.  On a more personal note, I've just "unfriended" a  personable and attractive young relative whose posts are filled with hated and vitriol against President Obama.  Global warming, gun violence,  the abuse of women and political dissonance are all things we have lived with for years, it's just that this year all seem bigger, heavier and more out of control than in years past.

I wonder what our riddle is?  Is it something like, "What has two legs, walks upright and ruins everything it touches?", or perhaps a little more in keeping with the original, "what walks on four legs at dawn, two legs during the day, three legs at dusk and can't seem to understand that its days are limited if it doesn't start behaving in a responsible way?"

Woman with Wolf Dress 2011

Self Portrait:  a portrait of oneself done by oneself http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-portrait

Today, the day after my 61st birthday, I wanted to use an image that would best describe me as I am now.  This image, done over a year ago, combines many things:  a self portrait after applying facial cream taken when I was in my late twenties; the side profile of one of my daughter's high school boyfriends; and the fur and paw from a dead coyote that my daughter Teal photographed.  The images were printed on ink jet transparencies which allowed the surface under the photo to come through.  In this case, the painting was a crackled surface using two different colors as the crackle contrast--subtle but effective in dividing the little painting in half. The cooler side contains the young man's face looking down, eyes almost closed.

The painting is about aging--drying up, cracking, and finally blowing away, fine dust in the harsh spring winds. 

Man with Child Inside 1994

On Wednesday, my father died.  He was 86 and had recently suffered a fall, cracking three ribs in the process.  He was ill for about six weeks, and finally, I think, had enough and asked to be taken off  life support.  He died within about 24 hours of his request. 

Man with Child Inside was based on a multiple photographic panel of my husband and our daughter Ramey when she was still quite young.  In this image, the father figure nests the child inside himself.  The child is calm and peaceful.  Content, she knows she is cherished.