Tuesday, November 26, 2013

grateful


today:
roof over my head
a home full of laughter
marriage vows even on days when we aren't each others favorite person
the sound of kids playing
my favorite scarf
our down comforter
a washer and dryer
food in my kitchen
a tribe of people that know me at my best & worst
coffee when i wake up
reminders of God in the sunrise
paint
cochlear implants
not having to race out of the house
old friends
ruby's snuggles
m's imagination
my husband's ideals
the feeling of a job well done
creativity
blasts from the past in the form of pictures from high school posted on facebook
funny text messages
sparkling water
annual traditions
(+ building completely new ones)
my studio
clean sheets
inside jokes
magazines in the mail
time to blog

to be continued...
(what are you thankful for today?)

Friday, November 22, 2013

rain, wind, sesame street & girls

suddenly it feels like we are knee deep in fall!
(i know, i know, it's the end of november. 
but i live in oakland, people. we barely have seasons!)

this week it rained (and poured)
and the wind came and pounded our little house-
we lost power last night for hours and hours.
that work i had to do?
well, i just couldn't do it in the pitch darkness.
so off to bed i tumbled!
(and it was a good thing because i'm feeling that other very autumnal thing descending upon me- an achy, icky head cold!)

oh, and the girls' preschool was closed today because a power line was knocked down in the wind and landed on the school!

ruby and i logged the morning on the couch, snuggling, lounging, and watching sesame street on my computer.

it's funny how the unexpected- feeling under the weather or weather itself can derail your efficient plans and set you up for something that was perhaps even better- like going to bed on time, and then spending the morning cuddling with one of your favorite little people.

happy friday!
also?
have you seen this?
my friend sent me a link to this a year or so ago when it was just in development and not available for sale.
it's awesome.
hooray for GIRLS!
(ps my girls watched this clip with me the other day and loved it)

Thursday, November 21, 2013

don't miss this deliciousness


tonight is our neighborhood thanksgiving potluck and food drive.
it is one of my favorite neighborhood activities, and since it is thanksgiving i am (of course) making my mom's stuffing. 
it is delicious -
and yes, i am biased, 
but if you are going to eat highly caloric carb-y goodness, this is your dish.

if you are not into sausage or are a vegetarian, use sauteed mushrooms instead, 
and substitute veggie broth for the chicken.

you can easily double or triple this for loads of guests.

cornelia's stuffing
(you can adjust ratios to taste- 
ie, add more liquid to make stuffing more moist or 
add more sausage because it is more delicious)
  • 1 1/2 loaves white or wheat bread (i buy the cheapest store brand bread)
  • one onion, chopped
  • 5-7 stalks of celery, chopped
  • 1 pound mild italian sausage 
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1 TBS Bells poultry seasoning
  • 2-3 bouillon cube dissolved in 1 cup warm water OR same amount chicken broth 
  • cooking spray 
directions:
  • cube bread into large bowl
  • saute onion & celery and set aside (or dump over cubed bread)
  • remove sausage from casing unless bulk sausage & saute/crumble
  • add crumbled sausage to bread, onion and celery
  • combine 1 cup milk, egg & poultry seasoning. pour over stuffing and mix until well distributed 
  • pour broth or bouillon/water mixture over stuffing. (add water or more broth if desired to make more moist)
  • Put in greased baking pan or stuff into a turkey. if in a pan, bake at 350 for 20 minutes covered, then bake 20 more minutes uncovered.
Yum! Enjoy! 
Best with gravy and shared around a table

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

this week (mostly)

work
holiday card samples
niece sadie is four!
cousins
my sweet nephew sporting a mohawk
pinata!
facepaint action
celebrating kindergarten birthday friends & pinata loot
my little kitty cat
backyard chalking
watching our friend's daughter perform in fantastic high school play 
sisters in the leaves
proud after soccer
celebrating a dear friend's 40th
sharing my studio
preschool play
trophies!
digging
cake
kindergarten
ice cream playdates
not pictured: some major tears, late nights, lots of laughter, scrambling to get out the door, puffy eyes, deadlines, dropping the car at the shop, some more backyard demolition & oh so much more including our first of the season rain drops!

happy tuesday!

Thursday, November 14, 2013

identity

the first boy i kissed (not counting the boy i kissed under the table in kindergarten!) was andrew. our families were friends and we went to the same youth group at church, and we were crushing hard on each other in a write-notes-to-and-about-each-other-and-talk-through-your-friends-kind-of-way. i thought he was misunderstood in his angst-y moodiness, and that he was so cute with swoopy skater bangs. he loved the band erasure, and taped me copies of every one of their albums, with each song carefully written on the cassette liner. we wrote each other poems and so many notes on torn out spiral bound paper. did i mention that i thought he was just so cute? 

he had been born in southeast asia, and adopted by his parents when he was really young. his parents were white, and he was definitely not. his skin was the color of milk chocolate, and his eyes were deep brown, almost black. some kids at school called me "chink lover" (which was the first time i think i'd ever heard that word before) or used their fingers to stretch their eyes into slits. it hurt so much, and it was embarrassing, so i never said anything to him about it.

he was wrestling a lot with being different - different ethnicity from almost everyone in his world,  and different way of coming to his family through adoption. as much i as could understand having identity issues as an 8th grade girl (without knowing what to call them), i knew he had them. i think i probably liked the drama of it all, but even deeper, i was worried that he felt so adrift. it made me sad. i knew he felt on the outside of most everything. he kept trying to figure out who he was and where he belonged. there were plenty of times that i felt different, from the rules my parents made for me, to my clothes, to my body type, to my janky haircut in 7th grade, to always being the new kid at schools. but andrew's issues of feeling other were so much more at the root of who he was at birth. 

it stuck with me, those conversations- that which was said and unsaid. it shaped my awareness and sensitivity to otherness. i am a white, college educated, middle class american female. for as many identity issues as i've had? i'm pretty firmly in majority culture by the nature of the parents to whom i was born. 

then, i had a deaf baby in april 2008. a beautiful, perfect, deaf baby girl. 

from the first time we heard profound hearing loss and cochlear implant i began to think about identity. how would getting implants shape her identity? should we talk about her deafness? her implants? her otherness? or not? i imagined her coming to be at 18 and saying, "you never accepted me as being Deaf. i didn't want implants and i'm going to stop wearing them." or "i was always the only deaf person. why didn't you make sure i had deaf friends? or friends with implants? all i ever wanted was to be like someone else." who knows, maybe we will hear those words one day.

but i couldn't get andrew (and many other scenarios since) out of my head. 

i decided i had to just talk about identity from day one. 

embrace deafness, embrace implants, embrace all the other parts that make my child who she is. but i had to talk about her being deaf. with pride, in offhand comments, with joy, with matter-of-factness. 

i make it a point to have playdates with her friends from deaf school even though we've all scattered to more local schools. i make a big deal about when we hang out with her friends who have hearing loss, so that she knows that if she wants them to be an important part of her life that they can be. 

i show m videos that show up in my facebook feed of another kid with implants or of justin, the designer on project runway who is deaf with implants. 

i made her a book about her hearing loss journey with pictures from her surgery and her deaf school and her hearing aids when she was itty bitty.

i talk to her a lot about her teacher of the deaf and her therapist and her audiologist to make it simultaneously normal and special.

maybe i post about it a lot on social media like instagram or facebook or my blog. maybe i talk about it too much. sometimes i wonder. maybe vocalizing it is overkill. after all, she is so so much more than deaf. but it is also impossible for me to separate the fact that she also is deaf, even though she talks and sings and shouts and presents as a hearing child.

am i doing it "right"? who knows. but for now, i err on the side of talking about identity early and often. on celebrating the way god created my daughter and letting her know that i love her just the way she is.

i posted this on facebook, but i was amazed at what m came up with for her weekly writing assignment last week for kindergarten. they can write stories and pick from topics. i read through a bunch of them, and then she said "i want to write about 'what i like about me'!" then she drew this self portrait with one of her implants and dictated the following to me:
"I like having cochlear implants. Everybody's different. I have a magnet in my head which is special. When I was born I had a big surgery. First I was deaf when I was born. First they said I couldn't have a surgery then they said I could and that made daddy very excited. I'm born deaf and you're just the way you're supposedly to be. I like being deaf and my implants." 

wow. that's all. wow.

last year i went to an alumni panel from m's deaf school. an 11 year old deaf, bilaterally implanted little girl was talking about herself and life, and it was all very normal- school, sports, family, friends. she is completely mainstreamed in her classroom and thriving. and then at one point she said, "but i'm deaf on the inside." 

hoping my girl can know who she is inside and out, and that matt and i can know how to celebrate and support her as she figures that all out. isn't that what we all need to have a strong identity? validation that it's ok to be who we are from the top layer al the way down?

Monday, November 11, 2013

how is it november again?

so here i was, blogging like a mad woman, 
when suddenly 800 deadlines plus an online class descended on me and
(yep!) radio silence.
so hello, how are you?
remember me?
i used to frequent this web address.

to be fair to myself, there is only so much you can get done in 24 hours.
as matt can attest, i've been pushing it for the last two months with going to bed at 2, 3 and 4 am. i'm not going to say i've been the most stellar parent of late, 
but it is amazing what caffeine (and a lot of help from my husband) can do!

so, the deadlines: i am working on a project i can't quite talk about yet, but it involves 10 cards that will roll out all at once, and potentially 5 pieces of wall art on canvas. i was working like crazy on that in august and september, and now i'm waiting on final tweaks from my art director.
plus, some papyrus work: christmas cards, valentine's day card, with a bit of mother's day thrown in.

enter the 5 week class i signed up for in the summer (before i'd gotten all of these deadlines):
i've been doing freelance greeting cards for ten years now, and love the flexibility and freedom it gives me to be with my kids and work on my paintings. i thought it might be a good idea to take a crash course in some other illustration markets through a big artists' agent. little did i know how intense (and amazing) this 5 week "make art that sells" class through lilla rogers studio school would be!
i learned *so* much- and fumbled through learning photoshop at the same time.

here are my five projects, some which i only did using paint and paper and others which i used some digital processes too:

week 1. bolt fabric- bolt fabric is used for all sorts of things- quilting, curtains, dishtowels, etc...our theme was to include vintage pyrex and berries in some way; now that i've learned some photoshop and a bit of illustrator i would rework this. i did love the cute little pyrex!

week 2. home decor
i kind of loved these plates! this week was the hardest for me since i know NOTHING about photoshop, so i don't know how many hours i poured into this project.

week 3. children's book illustration. we had to illustrate a cover or double page spread for a russian folk tale called "the language of the birds" 

i loved this one, and would love to illustrate a kid's book someday! 

week 4. wall art.
this felt like a weird hybrid between my paintings and my illustrations, but to use collage (which i never do) and play around was so fun! we had to include some kind of text and something floral, and our colors were chosen for us. my palette was limited to red and blue plus neutrals:
i ended up submitting the first one - which one do you prefer?

week 5. gift. our assignment was a zipper pouch incorporating some sort of personal collection, so i used the only thing i collect (besides kid's toys and gray hair), succulents! this one i used photos of my succulents, plus paintings and drawings that i scanned in. thanks to help from my brother, i was able to rock the photoshop and come up with this!

my class is now over, and wow: i learned so much. the funny thing is that my two favorite projects are the ones in which i used both digital and hand painted elements. they were also the biggest challenge for me, but they showed me how i could incorporate my handmade elements with digital in a way that felt authentic to me. now i am taking a breather (for which my husband is rejoicing), but i now want to learn photoshop and illustrator and use them with how i typically work. it was really pretty amazing to learn so much  in such a short amount of time.

i loved the culture of the class- there were some very accomplished artists in the class and yet it felt so supportive and noncompetitive! so refreshing! that is not what my mfa or undergrad experience was like: critiques could be brutal, and although i had supportive peers, the overall culture felt a little more cutthroat!

so nice to be back in this space and share what i've been working on!
happy monday!