Building Community-Degrees of Separation

Purrrrrrrrrrr! Because of the fantastic job that Cathy Kimball is doing at the SJICA, my life has been enriched and expanded. Cathy is the director of the Institute and does an amazing job. She has a warm personality and is quite the Firecracker! Anyway, Cathy and her fabulous staff put on a lecture series, called Talking Art every month. Currently,they are on hiatus until February. If you are an artist anywhere near San Jose, you should go to these lectures! The ones I've attended have all been amazing. I am grateful to Sue Taves, sculptor now living on Whidbey for turning me onto this series. Anyway this is a long winded way of telling you, that because of Cathy, this week I met with Brooke Jones of the San Jose Public Art Program. She was so kind, going over my portfolio with me, and helping me with my proposal for the Hayes Mansion.

I had two lovely collectors visit my studio this past week, because I put a small artpiece in the ICA auction, and last week I visited several galleries at 49 and 77 Geary in SF. I visited Art Exchange Gallery, because I had heard the owner speak, an absolutely charming intelligent and quick witted woman. I asked her if she had any works by my "boyfriend" El Lissitsky. Her quick response, "You've had another life!"

Yet another amazing connection, is that artist extraordinaire, and wonderful person Fanny Retsek works at the Institute as their Program and Gallery Manager. How many Retseks could their be in the world? Turns out, I worked with her Art Director father John, on a huge project at KCET many years ago. An entire cyclorama for a sound stage fabricated of 10,000 yards of burlap for a show called 28 tonite! I had 8 burly stage hands weaving for me 7 days a week for 3 weeks to complete this project. 200 Running feet of Burlap, 22 feet high.

Here I am, dwarfed by my KCET project.That is a whole other story, and slide show, coming soon to a blogspot near you.

Today I received a wonderful email from my NATURA pals Greg and Jacki up in Sequim. I met them years ago at the Portland Art Festival. Thanks Greg.Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr !