Fly Fishing in Syracuse

2011-03-07T17:51:00.000-08:00

The book surgeon. This is someone Peter V. at SU told me about some time ago." I'd like to see these sometime, should the opportunity present itself.

2011-01-22T16:28:00.001-08:00

Thinking more about collaborations after working so much with other artists. Now in San Francisco working with patients and with poets. Working with patients is amazing. The infinite possibilities of language continue to astonish me. On Wednesday when I was listening to the people participating in my workshop, I could not stop smiling. It was stunning to witness their creativity.

The reading I've done in preparation for these classes has led me to discover great new poems, and on-line resources about poetry and collaborations with poets. It makes me thing of my book arts days and the hilarious days of working with Irving Feldman, how we giggled like kids at words that came our way, gurggled up almost incomprehensibly through laughter and beyond.

This collaboration between quilters and poets is also interesting: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5946

2011-01-20T18:37:00.000-08:00

Ruth Asawa and her views on art in education: She's spot on. There's a documentary showing at the deYoung museum that I'd like to see.

2010-11-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

ood-ymph-cellulose goes to Golisano Children's Hospital. Here are a few pictures of the installation and some of our young contributors:

2010-09-29T06:49:00.000-07:00

Charles Burchfield's Painting the Sphynx. He captures the energy of life.

2010-06-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

I'm back to working on the doll series. The show I have lined up is coming right up. Today I enlisted Calvin and Isabel in taking some shots in the backyard. It changes everything when you can see people in the pictures with the dolls. It becomes less about the dolls themselves and more about how we use them. Still, dolls speak to the imagination. There's no avoiding it.

The converstion to black and white was really to better examine the exposure of the photo and the tonal range, but I ended up rather liking it without the garish blue color of Isabel's pants. Black and white though would take me down another road and I feel distracted as it is. I'll have to think about it more before doing more pictures like this.

2010-06-11T14:38:00.000-07:00

These are some of the books that Shander Bawden and Rachel May made for the Play With Your Book exhibition, now slated to go to Bird Library and Golisano Children's Hospital. More images will be added in the next few weeks. Keep on eye out.

2010-06-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

ood –ymph–

(Hemlock, Sycamore, and Paper)

Artist Statement

This work explores the relationship between written language used to codify nature and the usage of natural resources to imbue it. The concept of a lexis embedded into nature prior to our formulation of it impels us to reinvest in our understanding of this developmental process.

This work also grew out of the concept of mending or healing damaged structures by making something new from what might otherwise be discarded. Any fractured structure has embedded within it the potential to be joined from its fragments into something novel and complex.

Artists Biographies

Sarah Averill was born in Bangor Maine and grew up in Upstate New York. She received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, an MA from the University of Iowa, and an M.D. from SUNY Upstate in 2010. Her photographic work is currently featured on SUNY Upstate’s Center for Bioethics and Humanities website. Her artwork has been published in the Healing Muse and exhibited at the Johnson Art Center in Vermont, the Pfeifer Theatre in Buffalo, and Miss Mary’s Art Space in Albany.

Sarah Averill can be contacted at sarah.averill@gmail.com

Mark Povinelli was born in Buffalo New York and grew up in Louisiana. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Houston and his masters’ degree from Syracuse University in 1989. He is a founding member of the art collective FAST. His artwork has been exhibited at the Barnwell Art Center, Louisiana State Exhibit Museum, University of Houston, Syracuse University, The Floating Gallery and the Gear Factory. He was an artist in residence at Syracuse University in 2006-2007 where he installed an interactive sculpture exploring the relationship between the forces of nature and the senses. He has collaborated on several large installations including a kinetic illuminated sculpture at Syracuse University, which explored the physical representation of the mathematics of electromagnetic theory. His most recent exhibit at the Craft Chemistry gallery explored image as verse in a matrix of drawings.

Mark Povinelli can be contacted at mjpovine@AOL.com

2010-05-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

Secret Cervix

I made a collage with Jesus's heart cut out and gave him a replacement cervix. Late at night, when Dave saw it he couldn't help making the awful pun, Jesus and his secret cervix. I've sent this off for MarionWilson to consider for a show titled Toxic Pink. That, and a pie server that's been woven through with this pink silk ribbon.

2010-05-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

I'm still trying to sort out the transitional objects and phenomenon concepts from DW Winicott. It may take me the rest of my life. So what, right? At any rate, I'm playing with a new lens that I got at M and Q camera. Joe McCarthy's a great teacher about photography and also very good at negotiating personal space. I think he should teach medical students how to interact with patients, the way the Tappet brother's can teach them how to take a good history. Cars, Cameras, People--it's about interactions and exchange.

2010-05-26T14:34:00.000-07:00

The stuff in my black bag. This is what I found in my little blag bag, the big one--never mind that one. Two picture Ids one of a friend and her money, one mine. I was holding it on graduation. I won't tell you where she put her car keys because she asked me not to. Paper, lots of little pieces of paper that I carry compulsively while I am trying to use my time efficiently to make Kasutama. Back up battery for my point and shoot camera. Video recorder. Spare cell phone. Twenty dollars. Milton Rogovin post card. Ipod, flashcards with contact informatioin on friends and conservationist with book guillotine to cut paper from books. pen and drawing pencil. Model for origami rocket, first of a thousand I plan to make next year. And a little pocket change. I think that's all other than a little dust. This is not a survival kit for a desert island, but it represents a good bit of what makes my life worth living: art, music and friends.

2010-05-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

The branch and book project evolving. This project will be getting installed at the SUNY Upstate Medical Library this week. The project has been a collaboration between myself and three other artists. I've been organizing the collaboration and actively working on it. Most of the work represented here is mine with a few exception of folded books that were made by my two of my neighbors. Stay tuned for more details as the project goes up. The branches are a bit slippery and getting them to stay in place will be the biggest challenge other than just getting the branches over there and into the library.

2010-05-06T19:45:00.000-07:00

New Orleans Photos: I fell in love with this curtain.

2010-05-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

I took the kids to Saratoga to See the Fred Tomaselli show. They climbed some trees in full bloom afterwards. Then we went up to the Adks where Dave harvested and I peeled some hemlocks for the upcoming project with Mark. There were some great clouds rolling over the mountains.

2010-05-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

Pictures from Chicago and Iowa

I had a great time in the midwest. I met Lindsay Obermeyer and also reconnected with some of the art faculty in Iowa. I'm not sure I'll have time to complete the MFA I started so long ago, but I'd sure like to.

2010-05-01T00:57:00.000-07:00

I just had a great week in Iowa where I reconnected with my former faculty at the University of Iowa Dept of Art and Art History, including David Dunlap and Laurel Ferrin, among others. I sat in on a drawing and painting critique and also went to the annual Arts Fest, where I met Robert Glasgow and met some of his graduate students.

I'm hoping to complete the MFA I started over ten years ago. There will be some logistical issues for sure but the fact that my program director at the UIHC is supportive of this makes them seems surmountable by comparison. The support just floors me--in a good way. I am still breathing. No need to put those ACLS skills to work just yet. Save that for when I actually have the MD and the MFA.

Also I learned about artist Daniel Hayman from novelist Nick Flynn, one of the authors at the conference who is doing incredible work on issues of torture. He's promised some guidance organizing collaborations with artists and writers. Daniel Hayman links to the Philigrafika blog, a show I saw this Spring when I was in Philadelphia taking the second part of my national boards.

Sometimes you just have to dream big. Here is one of my recently altered prints. It's a small monoprint that has little slits cut into it so the light bleeds through. The squiggly line is actually the shadow of the yarn that is woven into the print. I love that the cuts, the light coming through them, and the shadow cast by the thread pulled intermittently to fill them each makes a different expressive mark.

2010-03-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

Julia Barello is an artist I came across while looking up an old drawing professor from Las Cruces, Jacklyn ST Aubyn, who makes paintings of dolls. Barello makes beautiful installations from old x-ray and MRI films. I could see making something like this given the materials. I'll have to see what I can get from the radiology dept in Iowa once I get there.

2010-03-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

New doll photos from this week.

2010-03-18T22:49:00.000-07:00

Working on images with wounds using silk yarns and knitting ribbons. The operating metaphor is still healing. I have been sorting through books for good images to work with and even using some of my old drawings and prints as backdrops. Here are pictures of the flat images.

2010-03-07T18:37:00.001-08:00

Healing metaphors

One of the things I learned in medical school that struck me to the core was the difference between healing and regeneration. Regeneration is when your body returns seamlessly to its preinjury state. By just looking at someone you can't tell anything happened. A bit of skin scraped off your knee will regenerate. But scar formation is another matter. Scars are a new tissue formed when injury is too substantial for regeneration. Another fact: scars require constant energy and nutrients to be maintained. This explains why Vitamin C deficiency causes old wounds to open up. At sea without fresh food the wounds of sailors would open up and terrify the afflicted as well as those who watched. It must have seemed a judgement from on high--a living hell revisiting all old wounds at once.

The images here are about healing, how we might think about creating something new to fill in an injured place. They are about making do and celebrating what is. They are about what Rumi says in his poem, Childhood Friends:
"Don't turn your head. Keep looking
at the bandaged place. That's were
the light enters you."

2010-03-07T16:32:00.000-08:00

I have started writing on the walls of my house. Because the pipe burst over Christmas and the wallpaper had to be stripped, I thought it might be time to experiment on the walls. The contractor is mostly finished preping to paint, and now I've put him off so that I can play for a week. Here's a couple of pictures from the hallway going up to the attic. I just know he's going to hate me when he sees what I've done. I just couldn't help myself. The plaster that he's put down and partially sanded is so smooth, it's lovely to write on it. I haven't used charcoal in ages. It was Irving's poem from our book, And Beyond Laughter, that I wrote on the wall. Then I put up blurry pictures form my mother's photo box of her and Peter, and me, blurry too, in my pink tutu and my green skating outfit. Maine, Monterrey, Houston. Now, here, Syraucuse. The span of time. It's accelerating.

2010-02-18T15:46:00.001-08:00

Southside photos for talk at Delevan. I'm working on my photography for the Delevan Gallery talk. Here are two pictures I took a couple of years ago when I first upgraded to a good digital camera and a tripod. After I started carrying a tripod people thought I was a photographer and sometimes, like these folks, they asked me to take their picture. I tried to find them, but so far, no luck. I really like the hands in the first photo, the blur of motion.

2010-02-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

More books.
http://richardbbc.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/small-folded-books-jo-ainley-1.jpg
and more and more from Lil Fish Studio News

2010-02-16T06:20:00.000-08:00

Linsey Obermeyer work has been an inspiration for some time. Her newest project is based on attachment. Check out the very interesting articles of clothing in the photos and how they demonstrate this concept. Very fun and honest too. It's not always easy being attached. http://www.lbostudio.com/attach/index.html

2010-02-11T21:21:00.000-08:00

Purkinje Fibers. Of all the neurons these have my favorite shape. This image is on wikipedia from the meseo Cajal.

2010-02-07T11:31:00.000-08:00

Even more amazing books. Lucile Moroni and Nicholas Jones, book sculptor. Mr. Jones has also done some folding, but I think his sculpted books offer another way to alter books.

2010-02-05T19:43:00.000-08:00

More collages in process.

2010-02-05T19:40:00.000-08:00

Working on Calvin's Quilt

2010-02-02T14:30:00.000-08:00

Elijah Gowin's photos of this Maggie. I love these paper orbs that she plays with her in her backyard. Link to artist statement.

2010-02-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

More ideas for collage with the old medical school text books. The background images are from a pair of texts, one on endocrinology and one on obstetrics.

2010-02-01T20:30:00.000-08:00

New Pictures of Blue man and Little Asian Blue Man. The wooden-block cell phone by kids. Whose? Mine, maybe. Someone elseses, maybe. Never will know. Love it, either way.

2010-02-01T19:39:00.001-08:00

Here's a book I'm working on with some objects inserted, including a wishbone--for my friend Jess, who doesn't know what to wish for, but one day will. And here's a view of another one that I'm making out of a coffee table book of National Geographic nature illustrations. It makes for a colorful display.

2010-02-01T19:32:00.000-08:00

More amazing books. The one in the glass jar is by Georgia Russell. The wall of books is by..The diamond back one came from this website. The box of books came from here. I love these and can't wait to do the installation in June at the Upstate Library.

2010-01-30T06:51:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Steinkamp: Dervish, 2004, 2005 This is the artist whose work I first saw at the Cleveland Clinic on interview day. It's really stunning. Unfortunately the architecture at the Clinic is so large scale it doesn't have inviting spaces to sit, rest and take in the art they have displayed. But from wherever you are looking at this, I bet you can appreciate how beautiful the pieces are to watch.

2010-01-28T11:08:00.001-08:00

Here is a new collage I'm working on. This is a combination of three picture, one of the Syracuse sky, one an angiogram of the kidney, and the third a reflected branch on the pond in the Adirondacks. I like the distinct frames which feel like words in a sentence.

2009-11-27T14:59:00.000-08:00

Family portraiture has not really been my thing over the years. But I took a stab at it last summer after seeing the photos of Doug Dubois, a famous local photographer who took up photographing his family in the 1990's. I also like the photos of Sally Mann or http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/mann/index.html Here is a photograph of my cousin Margaret that I had fun taking when last she visited.

2009-08-21T17:14:00.000-07:00

I finally got a mac and now have to figure it out. It's a bit of a challenge getting up to date on technology, but what the heck, if I can do med school I ought to be able to figure this out. I just had my first photo accepted for publication, one of the interiors from the abandoned house she crawled into a bit recklessly with help from cousin Margaret.

With one picture accepted, though I'm excited to keep trying. I've got to get back at it now that there's a little break in my schedule between finishing up ob with the baby, baby, baby business, and starting away electives at Dartmouth and Brown.

The sky around here is still absolutely spectacular, but I haven't yet figured out how to take good pictures, so I'm just taking what I can get. You get the general idea.

It's going to be an interesting fall...

2009-05-14T19:56:00.001-07:00

More Pictures from the South and Northsides. This picture with the dog is intriguing because the dog is stock still except that he's barking his head off, which makes him look like he has two mouths. This was an interesting garage. They were rebuilding an old Ford inside, putting a new engine it so it would go fast, but rebuilding the body to look as close to original as possible. They let us take pictures, but you could tell we made them a bit uncomfortable.

2009-05-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

Photoshoot with David Perlman, my photography mentor from Lightwork. Sadly he's heading back to Calfornia in a week. I think he's got a bright future in photography. He's an excellent instructor and I will miss him. We had avery good time taking picures inside this abandoned house. The light on that day was stunning, and for the first time I came close to understanding Edward Hopper's obsession with light falling on/in buildings. I enjoyed showing David P. around the neighborhood where I'd been taking pictures for the last year . I also intriduced him to the Jerk Hut, best Carribean food in town and one of Syracuse's best kep secrets.

2009-05-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

Pictures from Blodget's photography and healthy schools/peaceful schools project. I had a very good time with the kids there and getting to know Aduke Branch and Jackie Saddler was very fun too. I still don't know what will come of the school and the beautiful library they put in. It would be sad if it got torn down, although given the state of the rest of the school, I would not be surprised. Every time I go over to the west side I learn so much about the community. I still believe that there's no way to make the world a better place without making connections at the individual level. Those are the tiles lining the hallway outside the library. The buildling just accross the street is very nicely boarded up. In fact, I've never seen a house boarded up so carefully with the boards painted such pristine white. It makes it look like an oversized doll house, a very strange image indeed, especilly in the context of the neighborhood overall.

2009-05-14T19:19:00.000-07:00

The winter landscape far before the introduction of anything other than shades of white and grey remains astonishingly beautiful. Here are some photos from the snowshoeing trip we did in late March. Dave went out on too, although it was probably not a good idea so soon after the ACL surgery. He managed not to rip the good surgeon's work to shreds for now.

2009-03-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

A couple of pictures of dolls and doll dreses

2009-02-17T06:17:00.000-08:00

Photoshop is still my nemesis. In the back--or not so far back-- of my head I keep thinking that if I can do biochemistry I ought to be able to learn photoshop. It's just a matter of finding the right textbook and the right person/s to help. It's that, all over again, feeling of being a stranger in a strange land, a new language to learn. And I've got to be that little engine that could, pulling out the mantra, "I think I can. I think I can."

Here's a couple of new photos--unpolished by any computer program, just raw as is, including some of my own shadows.

2009-02-01T21:03:00.000-08:00

Met Ellen Garvens at opening at Light Works Photography Studio January 29th. Great photos with mixed media. her crumpled photos with mirror images suggestive of the classic Rorschach Blots. The work I saw is not represented on the website below, but the quality of work is same. She has connections to other artists making work related to health work. Must follow up with her.

http://www.ellengarvens.com/

2009-01-29T13:46:00.000-08:00

Eric Avery Here is an interesting fellow doctor that makes art, including large scale prints about medical/ethical issues. His 2007 World AIDS day project I found particularly intersting. See links below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVXszcKyEzA
http://www.docart.com/index.html

2009-01-26T17:29:00.000-08:00

Some of my photos from the summer2008 : Dolls and west side houses

2009-01-26T16:58:00.000-08:00

This is about the power of art to tell a story that cannot be told any other way. This is art that everyone who has suffered through a loved one with illness will understand and be released by. This is art that should be seen in hospitals--not out in lobby's or in waiting rooms but where those who are in the inner circle of suffering, and also is chapels. This is each mother's son dying crucified on the limits of our knowledge. This is the love of heaven on earth of mother for child, and the hellish darkness that mocks her making shadows of her love.

www.sacbee.com/static/newsroom/swf/april07/byer/
http://www.sacbee.com/static/newsroom/swf/april07/mother/

2008-11-18T09:44:00.000-08:00

http://www.artnet.com/artwork/424304500/153/bunny-harvey-winters-arc.html

I just looked up this artist, Buny Harvey, whose landscapes I have always admired. I first saw her drawings at RISD in Providence. Some of the way she animates the landscape reminds me of Burchfield's paintings in Buffalo. I especially like her black and whites.

2008-04-16T14:57:00.001-07:00

I'ts been almost a year since I've posted a blog to my own page. Somehow second year of medical school plus the kids didn't leave much time. Then my mothers Glioblastoma reared its ugly head. I'm not sure I remember how to breathe. At least that happens without my having to think about it. The good news is that second year is almost over and my Step One is less than two months away. I can't wait to put it behind me so that I have a little time to delve back into creative endeavors before hitting the floors in July. I wanted to share some of my recent photos with you. They will be used as part of multi media presentation on cultural awareness in health care. When the CD comes out I'll post a link to it.

2007-08-09T08:53:00.001-07:00

My week at the women's studio workshop gave rise to some new imagery and processes. I hope I might show some of this work over the next year--

2007-08-09T08:37:00.000-07:00

Lindsay Obermeyer's work is also an inspiration. I like her use of materials--beads, sequins, yarn, old texts, her own image.

http://www.lbostudio.com/gallery/spill-study-4.html

2007-07-24T12:31:00.000-07:00

Roni Horns work hmm. Worth looking at more. She uses sparse language, some combinations of text and image, but mostly image. I particularly like the series of 100 photos she takes of Margret which she calls "You are the Weather." There is something compellilng abou the title and the insistent repetition of the same face, with ever so slightly changes of expression.

2007-07-23T20:22:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we organized a malaria clinic for refugees from Burundi.

It was held at Catholic Charities on N. Salina Street. The Clinic was unusual because treatment was ordered by the CDC. The urgent nature of the situation led University Hospital to organize a mobile clinic which got everyone out of their usual routine. We saw 50 patients in a couple of hours by cutting through most of the usual bureaucratic red tape. Dr. Cronkright, our boss for the summer was amazed at how much for efficiently we were able to take care of this situation than in a normal clinic setting where even the organization of space prevents one translator from attending to more than one person at a time. In this setting we saw entire families at the same time, the translator could be called from table to table when he was needed--which was constantly as we only had two people who could go between Kirundi and English. Most of these Burundians, unlike Rwandans, do not speak French either, which made it very difficult to find translators.

We had lots of French speakers, but of the 50 refugees only 6 spoke any French.

This little girl is from Somalia, I think. She was at the Catholic Charities building participating in another program. The features of people form Northern Africa are slightly different. They remind me of my friend Woinam who was born in Ethiopia. According to the people working for refugee services in the City many more refugees from Africa will be arriving in the fall and winter. I think I'd rather arrive in the summer. From Africa to snow is too much to expect.

2007-07-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

The quilt I'm working on for my sister--with left over bits from quilts I've made, take off in part from the older Nancy Crow stuff. And other art musings... collages from medical text, James Audubon, Gustov Klimt and some of my own imagination. I kept Isabel up late painting light switch covers in the new attick studio space. She was so happy, I couldn't put her to bed. I said it wasn't good of me to be teaching her my bad habit of staying up until the middle of the night painting. She said, " you know I would have anyway." So much for being a good influence.

2007-07-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

Alice Neel. The Pregnant Woman468 x 310 - 96k - gifwww.uam.ucsb.edu
Alice Neel. The Family (John Gruen, ...274 x 310 - 65k - gifwww.uam.ucsb.edu
Alice Neel Self-Portrait420 x 560 - 152k - jpgwww.npr.org
Alice Neel's daring portraits of ...400 x 548 - 63k - jpgwww.tfaoi.com

Alice Neel will be accompanied by a ...397 x 701 - 72k - jpgwww.tfaoi.com
Alice Neel, "John Perreault," 1972.612 x 360 - 48k - jpgjohnperreault.com

I first learned about Alice Neel when Isabel and I were at the Philadelphia Museum of fine art a couple of Thanksgivings ago. I bought a couple of post cards of her paintings: Harley on a Rocking Horse (1943) and two of her male nudes, Joe Gould(1933) which has no fewer than four penises, and John Perrault (1972) with only one. They are interesting nudes because they do not glorify the male figure, but they are beautifully painted.

I read some of her biography in Alice Neel by Ann Temkin. I was strangely relieved to learn that she had troubles worse than I do. She married a Cuban and had a daughter Isabetta, who ended up being raised in Cuba mostly by their aunts. She divorced then had two more sons nearly ten years later. It made me thankfull that I am not separated from my children. I thinkt hat would make me mad. She did try to kill herself and was hospitalized for depression at the Philadelphia General Hospital. She made a paintingof herself there in 1931. In the end she was quite successfull, so she recovered herself enough to go on into old age. There is even a photograph of her by Mapplethorpe in 1984, the same year she was on the Johnny Carson Show. How things turn out from such rough beginnings cannot be predicted.

Picked up a book of poems by Michael Chitwood From Whence. Liked Luke's Mom, Skinning, The Seaons Come and the Seasons Keep Coming.

2007-07-11T17:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.artnet.com/awc/Click on graphic to view a larger image.
Click on graphic to view a larger image.
nancy-spero.html

http://www.varoregistry.com/spero/

Spero and her husband Leon Golub did an interesting exhibition together called War and Memory. The catalog printed in 1994 has some of my favorite work by these artists. It seems particulary apropo in light of the war in Iraq and the torture at Abu Grabe prison. Spreo's use of an old typewriter to incorporate text into her prints is interesting as is her use of images from the Etruscans. I'm trying to decide if I want to incorporate text from my writing into my collages.

2007-07-10T07:28:00.000-07:00

Gee Bend Quilts. Wow!


Gee's Bend Quilts 400 x 492 - 30k - jpg www.elizabethleach.com	Gee's Bend Prints 400 x 459 - 47k - jpg www.elizabethleach.com	Gee's Bend Quilts 365 x 501 - 24k - jpg theothermother.typepad.com	gee's bend 560 x 413 - 36k - jpg greenespace.blogspot.com

		Quilts of Gee's Bend 280 x 383 - 55k - jpg www.madison.k12.wi.us		The Quilts of Gee’s Bend 188 x 242 - 18k - jpg dcartnews.blogspot.com

New Gee's Bend Book 500 x 500 - 45k - jpg www.deepfriedkudzu.com		The Quilts of Gee's Bend 407 x 340 - 60k - jpg www.threeonefive.com	Gee's Bend: The Women and Their ... 411 x 475 - 32k - jpg planetpatchwork.com	... Quilts of Gee's Bend Exhibition ... 257 x 450 - 78k - jpg www.arts.state.al.us

	... 60 quilts from Gee's Bend, ... 500 x 375 - 235k - jpg www.craftzine.com	... of Gee's Bend Exhibition at San ... 432 x 538 - 47k - jpg www.purlbee.com	... "Medallion Quilt," Gee's Bend, ... 250 x 297 - 27k - jpg www.mfa.org	... at the quilts of Gee's Bend, ... 600 x 450 - 190k - jpg www.ladysmaidjewels.com

2007-07-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

Enrique Chagoya is another great artists. He's more directly political. His codex is also very interesting

2007-07-10T06:27:00.000-07:00


These photos by Sally Mann are mostly from her Immediate Family series, which apparently was controvercial because she was photographig her own kids and some thought it was on the line with pornography in some instances.	... they see a Sally Mann photo. 650 x 535 - 227k web.uni-frankfurt.de	Jun 8 2007 3:47A Ciao ciao, 399 x 330 - 43k - jpg profile.myspace.com	Sally Mann (born 1951) American 900 x 723 - 57k - jpeg www.arthistory.sbc.edu	Sally Mann 350 x 277 - 20k - jpg www.undo.net

Sally Mann, The Perfect Tomato 354 x 280 - 17k - jpg www.mtholyoke.edu	Sally Mann. Yard Eggs 500 x 418 - 31k - jpg www.mtholyoke.edu	Sally Mann creates beautiful ... 350 x 277 - 21k - jpg jerryandmartha.com	Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) 400 x 330 - 37k - jpg www.corcoran.org	Naptime, 1989 by Sally Mann 600 x 473 - 56k - jpg blogs.indiewire.com

2007-07-10T06:23:00.000-07:00

Terry Winters is amazing. I had forgotten about him, then I was trying to remember his hame. My printmaking professor Adele Henderson, originally t old me about him. I really like his use of shapes and colors.
Terry Winters Point 1985
oil on linen, 102-1/8 by 69 inches
Courtesy Matthew Marks

Terry Winters
Tokyo Notes, 2004
Lithograph
22 1/2 x 30 1/4 inches
No. 4 From a Portfolio of Eleven Lithographs
Ed: 30
Sold as a portfolio only

2007-07-07T21:29:00.001-07:00

2007-03-24T16:05:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from Guatemala where I did a 10 day tour of duty with Mary Clark, an amazing Family Nurse Practinioner/Nurse Midwife. She has been working in Guatemala and Central American on and off for the last 15 years. Last year she started a project working with farm workers who migrate within Guatemala and Honduras to pick coffee during the winter months. I visited several locations, and helped her run clinics in three villages in Chanmagua: Rincon de Cafetales, Zarsal and Las Sopas. Each village had between 25 and 50 families. Among other things, I learned that I can sleep on the floor with an 1" cushion, survive cold showers, and make Guatemalans laugh at me and themselves. I listened to enough lungs and looked in enough ears and throats that I started to be able to tell what sick people sound and look like. I was shocked at how many people don't know how to read and how many little kids drink coffee. I was inspired by Mary Clark's dedication, kindness, and sense of humor. I have a bit of a stomache ache left over from food poinsoning my last night in Guatemala City. I'm hoping it will fade without further medical attention. Here are some pictures from the trip:

One of the families that hosted the clinics invited us for a day trip to Copan Ruins just accross the border in Hondura where there was a 700 year dynasty.

Above is a Mayan priestest that was performing a ceremony in the chapel in Esquipulas. The site has a long history of ceremonial use by the Maya. The Spaniards built a church on the site, which is a popular pilgrimage site for Central Americans. .

Mary and I made a house visit to this little baby, only two months old. He was in good shape and soaking up all the love his adoring big sister could dish out. It continues to amaze me how much these kids love thier baby brothers and sisters.

Here I am standing in the school house in Rincon de Cafetales. They closed school on the day we came because it was the only public space to hold the clinic. Here I am looking for some medicine int he "pharmacy" we brought with us. Then there is the Starbucks bag that served as our examining table.

This is one of the old adobe houses in Chanmagua. These are typical, althoughmost are faced and painted. It is increasingly common to see newer concrete block structures, many two stories high, all built with money from relatives working in the Untied States. One woman we spoke with said that half the men of Chanmague are working in the U.S. This is common for many Towns and Villages in Guatemala. In fact, the largest source on income for the country is remittances from the U.S., followed by tourism and coffee/drugs. The family that we stayed with in Chanmagua consisted of a grandmother with two young children. Both parents were working in the U.S.
Here they are getting reading to go to school. Next is a picture of an Adobe oven in one family's back yard.

This young man gave me a tour of the coffee cooperative and showed me what high quality coffee looks and smells like. Here he is showing off the Starbucks label on their bags.

Here I am in my mosquito net after being awoken by a symphony of roosters.

These kids took me to the local store, a locked cupbord in their mother's kitchen, where she kept strawberry soda, coke, and cookies. I was thirsty and starving so I bought two sodas and two packages of crackers to get me through the morning.

Here is Maria taking care of a woman's hand in Cafetales. She was trampled by a horse a week ago and was very lucky no to have broken her hip. Her hand was badly bruised and cut, but was healing nicely .

This is one of the kids that came in with a cold. He was incredibly good natured about me looking in his ears.

The yard outside the kitchen, with coffee drying.

These women cooked us lunch when we were in the Rincon de Cafetales. The woman on the far right had returned from the U.S. where she and her husband worked for several years. Her husband was shot in an mysterious (to us) accident shortly after they returned to Guatemala.

2007-01-08T10:55:00.000-08:00

I've been reading and writing a lot recently about inequality and how it impacts health. Apparently, according to Richard Wilkinson, humans evolved in groups where there was realtive equality. There have always been those relatively better and worse off, but now that gap is much greater and, it turns out it's bad for your health, even if you are on the wealthy end of the spectrum. One of the interesting aspects of this inequality is that is undermined participation in social and political groups. Perhaps the lower voter turn out over the last 50 years can be attributed to the risising income inequality in this country. As a way of exploring inequality in Syracuse, I've been going to some of the poorer neighborhoods, talking to people who live there, and taking pictures of the neighborhood and the many abandoned houses.

2006-11-01T19:19:00.000-08:00

This is me and my grandmother at the Virginia Teall House on Salina Street in Syracuse, where I am now a first year medical student busy contemplating dropping out like all other medical students, As Dr. Reider says, "whether they will admit it or not." I find that the challenge so far exceeds my coping mechanisms and I spend a lot of time crying. This was not one of those days. I was simply too tired from taking my exam to cry and I decided to visit grandma instead. I took her for a walk around the park and found a small bindweed flower to clip in her hair. She agreed, grugingly to let one of hte employees take our picutre together. When I visited this place, I was remined of how dreary health care facilities can be. I always wonder how art might change the experince of the elderly who may not have much reason to respond to the plain environment that they are in. I remember how my great grandmother used the word "fresh" to describe the bland food in the hospital. It was flavorless to her--as it is to many of us with younger tastebuds. Fresh now makes sense, like a baby is fresh or a new house that is undecorated is fresh. We tend to think of freshness as a good thing is relation to food. or a bad thing in relation to a tennagers attitude towards parental discipline, but not all freshness is good she reminded me. SO now, my grandmother, my greatgrandmother's daughter is in this "fresh" environment, it is altogether bland. According to some of these healthcare organizations, art might go a long way towards making a difference in their lives.
Society of Arts in Healthcare,www.theSAH.org
http://www.artforhealingfoundation.org/

Project ArtUniversity of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics200 Hawkins Drive 8023 John Colloton PavilionIowa City, Iowa 52242-1009
phone: (319)353-6417fax: (319)384-8141email: uihc-projectart@uiowa.edu

2006-09-07T15:03:00.000-07:00

Childhood Obesity is on the rise and they are still feeding kids garbage in the schools. A recent article in _The Nation_ on September 11, 2006 has an interview by Anna Lappe of Diet for A Small Planet fame with Ann Cooper, a woman who with the help of a handful of thoughtful people, changed school lunch for the kids of Berkley, CA for the low, low, price of 18 cents a day per child. And that was for a locally grown and organic food supply. WOW! You mean, we could actually provide a healthy lunch for nearly the same price? Why, then, are we feeding our kids garbage? I think it's time we changed this and I hope you can all send me examples of good things schools are doing to change what kids are being fed for the better.

2006-06-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

In this week's (June 5, 2006) U.S. News and World Report there is an interesting article, "The Fine Art of Healing the Sick," which I'd like to follow up on. It mentions several research projects that indicate that music, art, and writing all can play an important role in healing, and that there is scientific evidence that it helps patients. moreover, it may reduce costs in certain instances--so hospitals shouldn't be cutting it out of their budgets. Of particular interest: Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine (Joanne Loewy director). Ms. Loewy has documented how singing lullabies helps babies to rest and be calm before EEG's.

Mark Jude Tramo, director of the Institute for Music and Brain Science, and
Daniel Monti, director of Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center for Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University, looked at 111 women with cancer who did a range of art and writing projects and found that they did better in a wide range of measures. He has recieved an NIH grant to do a 5-year study on an additioanl 300 women.

I'll be curious to see what kinds of programs like this, if any, are going on in Syracuse.

2006-05-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

Julie Heffernan is an artist that I've recently rediscovered, whose work I find very inspiring. I like the way she makes reference to classical paintings, particularly the landscapes and the luscious fruits and flowers that remind me of Dutch paintings. http://www.ppowgallery.com/artists/JulieHeffernan/, I also found a description of how her images come to her that is the best description of what happens in my mind when I am in a creative period. See below from the following link: http://www.montclair.edu/pages/insight/Insight09-23-02/onthejob.html
On the Job with Julie Heffernan
Julie Heffernan
Born: Peoria, Ill.
Raised:Northern California
Currently resides:Brooklyn, N.Y.
Education:B.F.A., University of California at Santa Cruz; M.F.A., painting, Yale School of Art
Family: Husband, Jonathan Kalb, chair of the Theater Department at Hunter College and theater critic for The New York Times; sons, Oliver, age 10 and Sam, age 6
Favorite painters: Rubens for his rich and sensuous worlds and Velazquez for his psychologically penetrating portraits
A source of inspiration: I was hugely influenced by snorkeling in the Yucatan. The water is gorgeous. You duck your head below and suddenly you're in this deep internal space where there's coral and colorful fish. It is exquisite.
Favorite Activities: Hiking and body surfing

Her paintings have been described as "downright haunting," "enchanting but eerie" and having an "offbeat punch." And while Julie Heffernan of Art and Design agrees, she says she never strives for those results."Haunting and enchanting and eerie are wonderful words for getting a sense of how my paintings affect other people," she said, "but I don't drive or steer the work to any particular outcome. For me, it's about tracking these pictures in my head that I derive out of a process called image streaming."

This unique approach is how Julie begins work on all her paintings, and something she is trying to teach her students. "Before I'm actually sleeping, as I relax and get out of the conscious mind, pictures will flood into my head, kind of like a movie," she said. "It's not like daydreaming or remembering. They're spontaneous pictures that I just sit back and watch. And then I'll fall asleep. When I wake up, it's at that point where the images start to stream in, and out of those I'll usually 'see' something."

Julie's interest in art began at an early age, although she didn't know it would be her true calling until later in life. "I made my first painting at 10. It was just an awful little painting of lemons. It didn't show any degree of anything. Somebody like Picasso showed genius at a young age. I do not think my paintings showed any genius," she said with a chuckle. "It was after graduate school that I became an obsessed painter, and through that obsession I came to understand some things about subject matter and how to bring that subject matter to life through paint."

One of Julie's paintings (pictured left) appeared in the June 3, 2002 issue of The New Yorker, accompanying a story, "The Thing in the Forest," by A.S. Byatt. "The people at The New Yorker have printed smaller reproductions of my work before in the Galleries section. When this story came in, they thought it seemed to be just made for me," she said. "I was so ecstatic when I read it because I felt like this was the verbal equivalent of everything I'm trying to paint. The story is about two little girls who are evacuated to the outskirts of London in wartime England and when they're gallivanting in this forest, a lumbering creature oozes by. It's that idea of the gorgeous and the hideous mixed together, gamboling in a space that's both paradisiacal and also terrifying, that I'm interested in."

Balancing her painting, teaching and personal life is a challenge, but it's a task to which she is dedicated. "If I have any success at all it's because I have incredibly good work habits. I give it my all, wherever I am. When I'm with my children; I'm really with my children, when I'm in my studio, I'm really in my studio, and when I'm teaching, I'm really teaching."

Julie came to Montclair State from Penn State four years ago, and continues to lecture throughout the country. It is here, she says, she is most comfortable. "There tends to be an arrogance in students at Ivy League schools," she said. "I firmly believe in state schools. Students at state schools are hungry."

So Julie is feeding her students with the knowledge of her unique image streaming approach to painting, in the hopes that they will be open to learning how to be introspective. "Anybody can teach technique, and I do want to teach it because I think learning this magic is really fun," she said. "But it's how to help people get in touch with their subject, their story, their uniqueness. That's worth teaching."

In return, Julie believes her students are giving her a unique opportunity as well. "Before I realized I was going to be a painter I wanted to be a psychotherapist. I was interested in how people's minds work, and I love to ask questions. So having students painting in front of me and having the opportunity to suss out how this is the sum total of everything that they are at the moment is just fascinating. It's like honing in on a soul."Over the past year, Julie has found that one experience has caused her to do her own soul searching—the tragic events of Sept. 11. Living in Brooklyn, Julie and her husband witnessed the attack on the second tower from their rooftop. "It was so weird because it rammed into the building and there was no sound from Brooklyn but it was all the visuals. It was surrealism come to life.

"I'm very interested in surrealism as an art form because it engages the idea of 'unheimlich,' which is the uncanny, the idea of the familiar with the unfamiliar. And here's this familiar plane and this familiar building doing this unfamiliar thing, colliding."Then one day Julie found herself creating a building in one of her paintings. "The building kept needing to be higher and suddenly it was going off the edge of the canvas, and I realized that this was my way of working through the trauma of having seen that."

2006-04-26T09:26:00.000-07:00

Love at Goon Park, a book about Harry Harlowe's surrogate mother experiments in the 50's and 60's, is one of the most revealing books on the history of psychology and science. It's amazing to realize how much his work has influenced the way we think about parenting, the importance of siblings, the importance of physical affection. It's amazing too, that there are still remnants of the ideas that predated him, on not picking children up when they cry for attention, as if attention were somehow different from other basic needs in childhood, such as food, clothing and shelter. I understand the historical roots of the Feber vs. Sears and Sears parenting style also now. I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in understanding how relationships shape who we become.

2006-04-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is the most recent painting that I completed. I've been using pictures from my family. This is one of me and my brother. I'm not really sure where we were when it ws taken. I incorporated imagery from Mexico, including cards from a board game. The dots and mariachi figures are from printed fabrics that I have collected.

2006-04-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

The owner of Davey Jones Fish Locker on Delaware is interested in buying one of my paintings. I talked to him today about it. It is one of the ones I did after the last show I had at Miss Mary's Art on New Scotland.

2006-04-03T11:56:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking again about art and wondering how to incorporate it into medical school. It is still such a major interest. I spent some time looking at Eva Hesse's work today and Kiki Smith, who was one of my favorites ten years ago when I was making a lot of prints in Buffalo. Her work resonates even more strongly with me now. I just ordered a book from Moma with prints and drawings. http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2003/kikismith/ I need to start keeping a notebook and have it on hand all the time. Looking at her work has made me even more excited about taking Gross Anotomy.

My mother called last night, she has an enlarged ovary, which could be a very bad thing. We will know more on Thusday this week. For sure, she will have it removed and be in the hosptial for at least four days. This will make our already scheduled vaccation something of a working vacation. I am glad that we are going to be there for her, but worried too.

2006-04-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

I had Paul Goebel, his girlfriend Carrie and Professor Hirsch over for a Salmon dinner and surprise mini birthday bash at our house. Isabel liked the cake I made with a Drosophila on it. She ate one of the Red eyes. Calvin ate the other. Then they did Karate demonstrations for us. Calvin delivered a a very enthusiastic if nothing else "Kiai" from atom the coffee table in the living room.

2006-03-30T12:12:00.000-08:00

Anticipating the move to Syracuse, I've been feeling sad, anxious and excited. My feelings are kind of mixed up these days. But, I'm moving through them as mostly everything continues to seem positive. I visited Isabel's new school, Ed Smith, and Calvin's potential daycare, the JCC of Syracuse, and drove by our house, which I think is going to be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to planting a sour cherry tree, strawberries and asparagus. Here's a picture of Calvin and Isabel with Annie and Megan in the back of the moving truck. We took a first load of stuff to put in the attic last weekend. That's when everything started to seem very real.

2006-02-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

More hormone disruptors, this time ones that may cause type II diabetes. What do you think of them apples?? This article is from Science News

Diabetes from a Plastic? Estrogen mimic provokes insulin resistance
Ben Harder
Exposure to small amounts of an ingredient in polycarbonate plastic may increase a person's risk of diabetes, according to a new study in mice.
The synthetic chemical called bisphenol-A is used to make dental sealants, sturdy microwavable plastics, linings for metal food-and-beverage containers, baby bottles, and numerous other products. When consumed, the chemical can mimic the effects of estrogen. Previous tests had found that bisphenol-A can leach into food and water and that it's widely prevalent in human blood.
The newfound contribution of the chemical to insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes, might partially explain the global epidemic of that disease, says Angel Nadal of Miguel Hernández University of Elche in Spain, who led the new study.
The finding is a "wake-up call" for public health researchers who are concerned by the prevalence of diabetes, comments developmental biologist Frederick vom Saal of the University of Missouri–Columbia.
Earlier test-tube studies had suggested that bisphenol-A makes pancreatic cells secrete the glucose-regulating hormone insulin. To investigate this effect in live animals, Nadal and his colleagues injected adult male mice with pure corn oil or with oil containing either bisphenol-A or an equal amount of the natural female sex hormone estradiol. Animals received as many as eight shots over 4 days.
Within 30 minutes of an injection, animals receiving either the sex hormone or bisphenol-A had abnormally low concentrations of glucose in their blood, Nadal's team reports in the January Environmental Health Perspectives. The chemicals acted on recently discovered estrogen receptors on pancreatic cells' surfaces to boost the cells' secretion of insulin, the researchers determined.
Repeated exposure to either bisphenol-A or the natural estrogen over several days produced insulin resistance, a pre-diabetic state in which tissues lose their sensitivity to normal concentrations of insulin, Nadal's group says. Estrogen receptors in the pancreatic-cell nucleus appear to contribute to this gradual effect.
So, receptors both in the cell nucleus and on the surface could contribute to insulin resistance and diabetes, Nadal says.
This risk could add to or elucidate already documented health effects of bisphenol-A. Animal studies have suggested that exposure to the chemical early in life causes obesity, says Ana M. Soto of Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.
Furthermore, bisphenol-A exposure might contribute to gestational diabetes in women, in whom insulin resistance often increases during pregnancy, says Jerry Heindel of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
Inside cells' nuclei, bisphenol-A is less potent than the natural sex hormone, says vom Saal. But the new work shows that at the surface of pancreatic cells, the compounds have the same potency, he notes. Doses of bisphenol-A considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to have no adverse effect led to insulin resistance in the mouse study.
If you have a comment on this article that you would like considered for publication in Science News, send it to editors@sciencenews.org. Please include your name and location.
To subscribe to Science News (print), go to https://www.kable.com/pub/scnw/ subServices.asp.
To sign up for the free weekly e-LETTER from Science News, go to http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/subscribe_form.asp.
References:
Alonso-Magdalena, P. . . . and A. Nadal. 2006. The estrogenic effect of bisphenol A disrupts pancreatic b-cell function in vivo and induces insulin resistance. Environmental Health Perspectives 114(January):106-112. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.8451.
Further Readings:
Morgan, K. 2003. Wrong number: Plastic ingredient spurs chromosomal defects. Science News 163(April 5):213. Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030405/fob6.asp.
Raloff, J. 2004. This pollutant fights lupus. Science News 165(Jan. 17):45. Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040117/note12.asp.
______. 2003. Reused paper can be polluted. Science News 163(May 24):334. Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030524/note14.asp.
Sources:
Jerry HeindelNational Institute of Environmental Health SciencesP.O. Box 12233 (EC 21)Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
Angel NadalInstituto de BioingenieríaUniversidad Miguel Hernández de ElcheCarretera Alicante–Valencia Km 87Sant Joan d’Alacant03550 AlicanteSpain
Ana M. SotoDepartment of Anatomy and Cellular BiologyTufts University School of Medicine136 Harrison AvenueBoston, MA 02111
Frederick vom SaalUniversity of Missouri, ColumbiaDivision of Biological Sciences105 Lefevre HallColumbia, MO 65211
From Science News, Vol. 169, No. 3, Jan. 21, 2006, p. 36.

2005-11-21T08:07:00.000-08:00

Stress, poverty and disease are tightly linked according to Robert Sapolsky. His article in the December 2005 issue of Scientific American substantiates that there is a 10 fold increase risk for some diseases that can be attributed to the stress of being poor. That stress, apparently is exacerbated by the perception of poverty that is heightened in societies with wide income gaps, such as the U.S.. Studies cited (Michael G. Marmot of the University College London) in the text of the article debunk the idea that its simply lack of access to care and unhealthy lifestyles that are at the root of the disparities in health.

Interesting reading material suggested by the article include the following:
Mind the Gap: Hierarchies, Health and Human Evolution by Richard Wilkinson, Wiedenfeld and Nicolson 2000.
The Health of Nations: Why Inequality is Harmful to Your Health. Ichiro Kawachi and Bruce P. Kennedy 2002.
The Status Sydrome by Michael Marmot 2004.
Why Zebras Don't get Ulcers: A Guide to Stress-Related Diseases and Coping. Robert Sapolsky, 2004.

2005-10-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

We've been doing experiments with depleted Uranium at the lab and I've beens surprised at how little is known about it, especially as a toxic chemical. I wrote the following letter to Science News in response to a recent article on the low-level of radiological risk of the material.

Editor, Science News
1719 N Street, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20036

Your article on the hazards of depleted Uranium (SN: 8/13/05, p.110) should not lull us into believing that depleted Uranium is a low risk material, especially for children who may later play on the battlefields of the current war. While, I applaud Mr. Marshall for using scenarios such as that of children playing in and around vehicles destroyed by depleted-uranium munitions in his radiological risk analysis, he, and others, fails to consider potential chemical effects that uranium may share with other heavy metals, such as lead. There is a rich body of literature documenting the deleterious effects (e.g. lowering IQ) of lead on children, even at doses below those considered acceptable by CDC guidelines. Little if anything, however, is known about the effects of uranium on the developing nervous system, leaving open the question of whether or not it affects children who might inhale uranium-contaminated dust or be exposed to it in food or water. Given the state of our ignorance it is important for uranium to be evaluated beyond its radiological effects as “a major player, in causing health effects,” especially where the well-being of children is concerned.

2005-10-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

Here is my studio in progess. I recently repainted the wall and now I want to make some book shelves, but this gives you a sense of what it looks like in the tiny space I dedicate to painting.

My most recently completed painting is titled,
"The shape they should have been." The drawings of the rib cages were taken from a health text that I was recently given by relatives in Vermont. My great grandmother Shanley was a nurse, and her daughter Mary graduated from UVM medical school in 1938, the only woman in her class. The other, more abstract shape, is taken from a fabric collage I made while I was in graduate school in Iowa.

2005-10-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy month, with interviews accross the state from Buffalo to Rochester, and then Vermont. This has not left much free time for painting or writing blogs. While in Vermont, I stayed at Anne Rowley's house, where her sons still run a dairy farm with about 400 holsteins according to Margaret. Margaret and Anne let me sort throughthe old books that were taken from the Milton farm, that so far no one else has wanted. The books included Helen Shanley's nursing books from the turn of the century, including histology, and a slim volume from the late 1800's on writing prescriptions in Latin--Humpf! No more.

The most precious text though was on the subject of law. The title was Roman Civil law, and the date printed in Roman numerals is 1724. The typeface has "s"'s that look like f's to me. It is very old. I have been looking at these books, and already have taken images from one book: pair of pictures of ribcages, and placed it in a new painting. One set of ribs is of a woman whose ribs were deformed by the use of laces and some sort of corset; the other set is normal. What a contrast. The descriptions of what happens to the internal organs is rather graphic and discourages such practices. Now, if we could just free our minds from the assault of modern advertisements that teach us to loath the natural shape of our bodies, we might terminate the practices that enslave our bodies and our pocketbooks for all time.

I was struck recently by a magazine article that I read on tummy tucks while getting my hair cut. Not being used to reading such magazines, I felt rather shocked by it--I know I'm out of touch with the popular culture by and large, but still.... It's awful to think that people today are still spending vast sums of money to make themselves over physically in to conform to popular notions of beauty. We haven't learned much of anything it seems in the last 200 years.

2005-09-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

Isabel and her Kindergarten artwork inspired this painting. Isabel did a series of pencil drawings in Kindergarten, which I absolutely loved, and made into a small book over the summer. I traced some of the words and images into this painting and juktaposed an pictures of her from June when she was picking cherries in the back yard. Isabel says she looks sick in it, but I imagine when she's older, she may grow to like it. Or, perhaps she'll be an accomplished portrait artist and decide to burn it. I don't know how many more paintings I'll do with figures; they are a special challenge for someone who has mostly worked with abstractions.

2005-09-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

The Virgin of the Flies, another painting inspired by Drosophila Melanogaster and my childhood in Mexico, where the Virgin of Guadalupe is a virtual obsession. Forgive my indiscretion with your Madonna, she just had to be in this painting. This painting was inspired by images of the fruitfly embryogenesis, which has some unique features. One interesting thing is that the embryo has a stage in which the nuclei divide, but the cells do not differentiate until there have been 8 or more divisions. Thus the embryo has a distinctive appearance. The adult flies in this painting are shown going through several of the stages of Drosophila courtship, which include a period when the adult male sings to his prospective partner while holding one of his wings out to the side.

2005-08-30T17:21:00.000-07:00

I'm in Buffalo with Celia While, my poet friend and I'm having a really good time catching up with her. It's been two years since I've seen her, since Calvin was born. Tonight is my first night away from him, and I thought I would feel really strange, but what I feel is really free. I hope Dave is having an o.k. time. Dave will have his turn this weekend when he goes to Adam's batchelor's party at Cold River. At any rate, I am surprised at how good it feels to be in Buffalo. I could totally see myself here living in a house near Elmwood. We'd have a great time. So, here's hoping it's an option.

More later...

2005-08-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

The Sunflowers are now bloomming like crazy. Some are over ten feel tall and have the tomatoes and bean twisting up with them reaching up towards the sky.

2005-08-11T07:52:00.000-07:00

The Thousand Word Version of the "Describe Yourself"

My name is Sarah Averill. I am thirty-four years old. I am married and have two children: Isabel Aster Ella and Calvin Merriwether. We live in Albany New York where we keep a house with a crazy overgrown garden where the kids can pick strawberries, snow peas, and black raspberries in season. The neighbor kids sometimes cut through and help themselves. That’s why we planted so many. I like this urban life with corners that keep me connected to my family’s more rural roots.

I was born in Bangor, Maine to the son of a paper-mill hand, and the daughter of a failed Vermont dairy farmer turned apple peddler. Both of my parents became professionals, my mother a doctor and my father a lawyer. Both remained connected to their more humble origins, and taught me to respect people no matter what their social class or financial means.

These values were reinforced by my education at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and by my experience living at Telluride House, an eccentric institution that offered room and board scholarships to students dedicated to democratic values. While at Cornell I was influenced by the writings of John Rawls, particularly his book A Theory of Justice.

I have an older brother named Patrick and a younger sister named Leah. When she was little she was my tagalong. Excepting the senior prom, she went everywhere with me. At the time I thought nothing of it; it didn’t occur to me to resent it, and now I wonder if it may have kept me out of trouble as a teenager. We lived in Mexico from the time I was in first grade until fourth grade, so I learned to read and write in Spanish. This put something of a crimp in my education: I never did learn to spell English very well, and I have a terrible weakness for Mexican Mariachi music.

I like to sing with my husband and now we are teaching the children traditional songs and sea shanties. He comes from a long line of landlubbers so I don’t know why he so loves the music of the sea. As far as I can tell the only thing he shares with sailors is a certain trepidation about swimming. I, on the other hand, come from a long line of swimmers, but I don’t know of any sailors in my family tree either. I sing along just to keep him company. And it’s such fun to hear Isabel and Calvin piping in too. What will they become when they grow up?

If you were to ask me what I felt my greatest accomplishment in life was so far, I’d have to say being happily married for going on ten years. After that I would add that I’ve found a community and become part of it by participating in the local organizations from the neighborhood association to the school PTA. These are not things that I can put on a resume, but for me this community is what has made other accomplishments possible.

My greatest fear is of dying without getting to finish raising my children. They are my greatest love and my greatest inspiration in this life so far. When I tell people I am going to medical school they have one or two reactions: “Go for it!” and/or, “Who will raise your children?”

My answer is that, just as I do now, I will continue raising them with help from my husband and the community that I have been fortunate to find and build on over the last few years here in Albany. I know I will have less time to paint, and write, and garden, and sing. I know I may miss some of the major events of my children’s lives. This is the compromise that I’ve made in order to follow my path and usher them along theirs

My greatest hope is that I will leave the world a better place for my children and those that come after them. For me becoming a physician is a way of making this hope a reality. I know intimately that the world is in terrible trouble and that there are a lot of reasons to despair. Refraining from cynicism is as close to a religious practice as I have.

2005-08-11T07:48:00.000-07:00

June 15, 2005

Dear Margaret,

It pleased me; the way you appeared, as if from nowhere, quietly at my back door, like an old friend just stopping in from down the street. How I wish you lived closer and could do just that. You are like a sister to me now; a chain to the past and other half of the stories that I grew up on; a rope that pulls me into the future, more whole and more sane than I’d be without you. And, in some ways, you are a mirror, too, telling me who I am. In the reflection from the gnarled surface of the family that stayed in place, I am becoming more solid. There is substance where once I felt only the wind, the hollow vacuum of un-belonging to place, to community, to family, to history. I am putting down roots in this new place, where I am finally becoming, and becoming, and becoming…

I have pictures of you in the yard, perched on Calvin’s Little Tykes chair, like a farmer on a three-legged stool, with the foxgloves just beginning to bloom behind you. You are lovely, and at home, on my small fifty-by-thirty-foot plot, peeling apples from the hand-made ash basket you brought from Westfield. There are still a few apples in the basket, which now sits on the floor in my kitchen, next to the refrigerator. They have been kept too warm by the heat it gives off this time of year, and have begun to take on the sweet, waxyness of apples in autumn. It is the odor of your Uncle Patrick’s (my grandfather’s) truck, the smell of my murky childhood. I will always associate that smell with him and the mysteries of our family’s schism from the Vermont Rowley clan.

How strange and wonderful that we should have become friends these fifty-odd years after his exile. I have such a hard time attending to the demands of my immediate family, complicated by the alienation, passed on generation-to-generation, stemming from Pat’s irreverant, innatention to the collective family aspirations. What they were, we keep wondering, and characterizing, even scoffing in our ignorance, even as it diminishes with added details. Did they really want a dairy farming empire in Milton? What really drove them? How much did the girls really contribute to the farmland purchases for the men? Were there others who wanted to get out from under the matriarch? Did they get out, get away from the dominion of Helen Rowley, or did she continue to dominate them even from the grave? And what about him, Helen’s husband, Pat’s father? Who was he other than a state senator? How shamed was he by his son’s record of mischievous misdeeds, and then unfortunate transaction, that landed him in jail, with a cold shoulder from the exhasperated family? What did grandpa Pat’s father think? I never hear about him.
How much/many of the truth/s will come out? Does it even matter anymore? Somehow, I keep wanting to pry open the past, even as I find the present unbearable—Pat’s trangression’s did not stop when he left Vermont, collecting his children and wife from the places they sheltered during his stint in jail for selling the cows. Things may have been easier if his story had stopped there, but it was just the beginning of a series of dislocating events. Now, I wonder if any of it matters. It does. It does, I know, but I’d like sometimes to think that it might not.

When I was a kid, I loved climbing up into the attic at 618 S, Beech Street, where Pat and his wife, Mazel, my mother’s mother, ended up living when my mother headed off to medical school in Mexico, aspiring to physicianhood, like the children of aunt’s and uncles that remained true to the clan. When Mazel’s mother moved in with her from Vermont, after her husband Ralph died, there were lots of boxes of old things, china, cufflinks, hatpins, stacked, and sorted, then as the years passed, picked over, and disorganized-- probably nothing valuable, but they had a certain allure, just because they were old, and they were in the attic, where the light is strange, and even the dust is romantic.

Now, I don’t think I’d think much of the odd assortment, just the sorts of things you’d see at any ordinary rummage sale. Everything valuable had long since been sold. I wonder, if the whole mess with Pat will seem like that in a few years, as the last of the siblings involved in the conflict pass away, and only the cousins remain—1st and 1st, once removed; will it all seem dusty and boring, even downright plebian, like a tired Sunday diatribe—just another American family with an old horse to beat.

Perhaps we can open our mouths in merriment and let the flood of emotion pent up too long run like the spring snow melt, clear over the cobbles, just smoothing them a bit in gentle eddies of song and scented seasons.
Love,

2005-07-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

In May I submitted a letter to the editor to the Times Union about walking vs. driving Isabel to school. It was a very interesting experience for me to have my neighbors read it, comment to me about it, and even read it at the PTA meeting in my absence. I later learned that by writing this letter some people had actually changed their behavior; they decided to walk their kids to school from the neighborhood, or if they were coming from farther away, to get out of their cars and walk their kids inside the school to greet the teacher in the classroom. This is, I hope, the first of many such efforts.

2005-07-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

Black Eyed Susans In Full Bloom July 14. The milkweed was still blooming as was Yarrow and some white Asters.

2005-07-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

Tree climbing with Daddy-o Last weekend Dave began teaching Isabel how to climb trees. She has learned to hang on tight and hold the branches close to the tree. Calvin, not to be outdone, also made his first foray into the branches of this hemlock.

2005-07-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

The milkweed was just getting ready to bloom on the weekend of July 4th. I can still remember the first time I noticed milkweed as a flower. It was the summer I turned 12. I was taken by how sweet it smells. And then I noticed the intricate blooms. This particular plant had a nice bend in the stem, lending additional grace to the plant.

2005-07-12T11:19:00.000-07:00

This painting was inspired by research on Drosophila melanogaster at SUNY Albany as well as some interesting images from Hindu religious artwork. The media is egg tempera on a wood panel prepared with gesso. I use water-dispersed pigments, egg yolks and water to prepare my paints.

2005-07-11T21:07:00.000-07:00

For this I believe

I believe in kitchen-table democracy. I believe in small “d” democracy, the kind where parents sit around the table and argue with each other about which candidate they should vote for, the kind when mothers gripe together about the schools not being good enough and plot to start new ones, or they talk to their kids about the Constitution and what it means. I believe in small “d” democratic institutions: PTA's, school boards, neighborhood associations, and the League of Women Voters. I believe in the kind of democracy you can take out on the street, the kind that gets you talking to your neighbors up and down the block and strangers across town too, the kind that gets kids excited and involved enough to get into the voting booth with you and learn to pull the lever.

Last night I attended the last PTA meeting of the year at my daughter’s elementary school, the Albany School of Humanities, on Whitehall Road in Albany, New York. At that meeting, I spoke on the need to allow the child acting as master of ceremonies at the end-of-year variety show to say, “Them was good,” without having her grammar “corrected” by the adults coordinating the program. Another parent at the PTA, felt that such ungrammatical speech was a poor reflection on the child, the school, and the PTA, which sponsored the program. Certainly, I argued, there is a place for proper, grammatical, speech, but so too is there a need to create a place for speech that reflects ethnic background, the popular culture, the culture of youth, and creative use of language, especially in a school community that is diverse, with children from over a dozen countries. Discussion ensued for some time, and ultimately, there was general agreement that children need to learn both, and to distinguish when to use each kind of speech to best effect.

Walking home from the meeting, hanging onto my two-year-old son, with my husband, carrying our five year-old daughter, soon to be Kindergarten graduate, on his shoulders. I felt like a true member of a community, with valuable democratic institutions. The PTA is not democracy with a big “D”, but with a small “d”, the kind I’d learned about as a teenager from parents who took the time to involve me and my peers in public meetings on educational issues that affected us.

One woman, Alison Des Forges, who has since gone on to receive a McArthur genius award for her work with Africa Watch, stands out in my mind. Her high-profile efforts at the UN have been recognized, but perhaps she should also know about the impact she had on those of us she taught the lessons of democracy with a little “d." Alison Des Forges helped me and a group of my peers, when we were just high-school freshmen, to attend a public hearing on an effort to ban several books from the Buffalo School district library.

I don’t remember the details of the objections to the book. They don’t matter now. What matters is that she initiated us into the realm of public participation in decision-making. She led us, with the U.S. Constitution as a backdrop, into the practical realm where decisions are made. She facilitated an opportunity for us to speak in public, be heard in our own communities, and then beyond when our speeches were published in the Humanist Magazine. While we may not have influenced the outcome of the meeting, she gave us our first glimpse at the inner workings of decision-making institutions at the community level, where decisions are made that impact our daily lives and the lives of our children. She showed us that to care is to be involved.

This was a critical rite of passage for me. As a parent now, taking my five-year-old daughter to public meetings, and into the voting booth with me, I realize the significance of being involved from childhood in democratic decision making. She laid the foundation for me to find a voice, the courage to speak, and the practical know-how of getting involved.

Until the meeting last night, I hadn’t reflected much on where I’d learned to speak out and express my opinions at a public meeting. I became even more grateful to Alison Des Forges' kitchen table, a neighborhood meeting place, a small “d” democratic institution, where I learned about little “d” democracy. We must each, when it is our turn, take it out into the world, but I believe –- as Alison showed me -- that democracy begins at home.

2005-07-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

Recent photos from this year's garden. On the left is a bleeding heart in May. I particularly liked that you could see this flower from both the front and the side at the same time because of the way the three are pivoting in space.

On the left is a lily that is mixed in with the leaves of several other plants that have contrasting textures" Bee Balm, vetch and the lily leaves themselves. There is a house (?) fly on one of the petals that was walking back and forth along the flower for some minutes.