It’s been a while…

It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve posted on my website, and in online terms the two years since my last post almost qualifies.

In January of 2023, I decided to take a step back from being a full time artist in the pursuit of more financial stability and an attempt at what felt like a chance to get some things in order by taking a “proper” job. That could not have been a worse decision. Full stop.

Not only did the job I took not end up being better financially, it was emotionally/physically exhausting and left me so much worse off. So much so that it spilled over and was bad for my kid, too. So I did the only thing I could reasonably do and I resigned from that job, and have gone back to my old life, or at least something resembling it. There’s less money, but I can be there for my kid and for myself and that is far more important. I’m 47, single mom to my very favorite newly-minted teenager, and ever more self-assured that my raison d’être is to be an artist.

Something that I have incredibly hesitant to really accept all these years is that there is a certain amount of running-a-business involved with being an artist, at least if you ever hope to make any money at it, and since I’m not anywhere close to being independently wealthy, if I want to be able to spend my time making art, then I need to think about it like a business. I come from a long line of entrepreneurs and have had a number of businesses of my own over the years. I’ve had a construction company, owned an award winning restaurant, ran a children’s consignment shop amongst other things, all the while making art.

About 8 or 9 years ago, I decided that this “side gig” of making art was actually what I should be putting the bulk of my time and effort into. The difference it made in my work and in my heart was amazing when I let myself be “an artist”. I think that was when I finally let go of the idea that I was supposed to be an architect (a near-fatal accident put an end to that in 1999) who was just doing other things instead. I still love architecture, but looking back at it all, I’m glad that my foray into the world of architecture was short lived. I’m far happier making art than I would ever have been designing buildings. I’d still love the chance to design a bridge someday.

So now I’m back here, to being me, to being creative (there’s almost nothing worse for a creative person than to be too tired to create) and so I’m going to be making work, being the best mamma I can be, and trying to live my life the best way I can. I do love to write, so it’s silly that I’ve done such a lousy job of writing on my website. There has already been so much less of me on social media in the last couple of years, and I’m okay with that. So going forward, I’ll be here much more often on my website sharing my work and my writing with you. Thanks for following along on this thing called life…

Much love,

Angel

Poetry reading at Coalition Art Gallery

Tonight is the opening of Re-Thinking Trash, an exhibition of works entirely made from discarded materials and is my first showing of non-photographic work. I'm so very pleased with my 5 works that will be on display, and for sale, at Coalition and I hope you can make it by to see these and the other artists’ work.

For me, the big surprise is that the gallery owner was so in love with the titles to my pieces that he asked me if I would read some of my poetry at the opening this evening. Now, I've been writing poetry since I was a young girl of 8 or 9, but it was only recently that I have had my poetry published (thanks Jenny at Mountain Bluebird!), and I have never read my work in public. So this is a momentous occasion for me, hopefully one that I can get through without too much nervousness. I certainly don't have my poems memorized, but perhaps I know them well enough to get through without stumbling too much.

I would be ever grateful if your presence was a possibility this evening. If location or other things keeps you away, please send me good vibes at 5:30pm… Maybe someone will video it and I can share!

Be seeing you! 🧡

Angel is a covergirl...

I am feeling incredibly blessed these days. Last month, my work was featured in Mountain Bluebird Magazine and now Analog Forever Magazine has announced that they have chosen my piece entitled “Perfect” for the cover of Issue 7 that comes out in November. This piece is a photo transfer on chipboard that was the culmination of a whole series of utter failures and I was so very happy when this was finished and I loved it. When it came time to name it, I was at a loss so I asked my boyfriend at the time and he said it was perfect and that that should be the title. The nature of the dichotomy between actual perfection and things that are imperfectly perfect has always been a fascination of mine, so I was quite happy with his suggestion. This piece was part of the PDX30 exhibition at Lightbox Photographic Gallery in 2018 and sold on opening night. It now lives in Montana. So many thanks to Lisa Toboz and everyone else at Analog Forever for this honor!

Angel is a (Mountain Birdbird Magazine) center-fold...

When I was in high school, I had a boyfriend that was a bit too old for me and he always joked that “our song” was Angel is a Centerfold by the J. Giles Band. It’s got a pretty catchy tune and I liked it (years later I would reconsider it all when I really thought about the lyrics and my own context). Of course, the song was talking about centerfolds in relation to skin mags meant entirely for titillation and sexual gratification, neither of which has ever been an interest of mine in my work with nudity. But it does bring me a great deal of satisfaction that Jenny Forrester (endless gratitude to this woman for always supporting and encouraging me over the years), editor of Mountain Bluebird magazine chose my photomontage taste the universe, unfolding for the centerfold of the magazine’s inaugural issue. So now, I can say with immense pride that Angel really is a centerfold, and a published poet.

touch this flame
to your lips,
and taste
the universe,
unfolding

Please check out Mountain Bluebird, it is a delight of literary and visual art that is full of so much goodness! Mountain Bluebird Magazine click here to subscribe or to see what it’s all about…

un-pretty boys

this town is filled
with un-pretty boys
that see Don Juan looking
back from their shaving mirrors,
their yo-yos, made lovingly
from many broken hearts
collected by swiping
right & before long
dressing up
like Casper...
the pretty boys
don’t play that game,
theirs involves unlimited
players and unlimited lives,
it’s ethical, so no one worries
these boys, the pretty and the un-
pretty, might grow up someday
just to find that they can still
marry a pretty young thing,
and hear that pitter-patter,
yet those other pretty,
young things, naive
(lonely?) enough to play
those games, now with too
many birthdays behind them
find they didn’t need the games
or those boys, pretty or otherwise,
there is now a beauty staring
back from their mirrors,
telling them that they
are the fairest of all,
that there
*never* was
a competition
with anyone else

burnt rice paper

Reaching across the table, for the little wooden salt shaker that once belonged to an old neighbor, felt at once like a reminder, an admittance of all the many failures in my life, yet also a salve to the sorrows in my heart. In reaching out, my hand within centimeters of yours, I could feel the warmth of your skin and remember all the many times we had lain next to each other, so closely that any other species would have mistaken us for a single eight legged, two headed creature with four breasts and a large pink splotch filling one side of our collective stomach, circling round to an unseen back of this unique creature. I could feel that pink skin with my mind, remember the way it was ever so slightly more textured than the rest of your body. When we first met, were first discovering each others outsides while coyly denying the other our insides, I remember your hesitations each time I touched you there, your body slightly stiffening as your fingers on me would freeze. Apologies would tumble from your lips and it felt then as though in the flash of an instant, you might flee my bed, and my life, but you stayed, you listened when I'd tell you I thought you were beautiful, pink splotch and all. Eventually you believed it too, or at least believed that I believed it enough to let the thought take up residence inside you, even if it was just a month to month tenancy. The years of exploring each others bodies did give way to us each letting bits and pieces of our insides spill out until some point at which there was no difference between our insides and our outsides, we had become a togetherness wherein our words and laughter would sometimes fill the air and at other times we would just move about the day, not needing to speak at all, each knowing what the other was thinking, feeling, wanting. And then last week when my head hurt and work had been a disaster and I came home and the furnace had resoundingly quit without notice, and the dog ate the beat up old couch pillow that my grandfather's mother had cross stitched when she was eight and you said something to me, I don't even recollect what it was anymore, I screamed at you, with a voice that welled up from inside as though I had been hiding it for a thousand years. And you stopped speaking to me. Not a word has fallen from your tongue since. My apologies, my begging, my pleas have all been met with a stare so icy it bested the frozen fjords of Skarsvåg. This emptiness now makes my skin feel as though it were made of burnt rice paper and that in even a slight breeze, I could shatter, being lost to the four winds. Each time the sun sets, we silently get into bed, you firmly planted on your side and me longing with every pore of my body to reach out and have your hand meet mine.