View From the EDGE 2012 is a group show at the Edmonds Conference Center (201 4th Ave. N, Edmonds, WA). Our artist reception is on Thursday, April 19 from 5pm to 8pm. Would love to see you there!

I’m completing a fantastic intensive workshop called EDGE: Professional Development for Visual Artists. My final projects are: 1) a presentation about how I create my art; 2) a completed portfolio; and 3) a group show.

In creating my presentation (in which each artist is allotted no more than 5 minutes!), I pulled together a video that brings my process to life.

It is now posted on YouTube at: http://youtu.be/BLTDrU84bh0. Or you can see it here:

For more information about the EDGE program, check out: EDGE for Visual Artists

This year sees me stepping into the unknown with the creation of a new painting series about my family as we revolved around my mother. The series is tentatively called “Dark Energy: The Force of One Woman on Her Family”.  These are my notes about dark energy:

Cosmologists don’t really understand dark energy. They know this:

• 70% of the entire universe is made up of dark energy.
• Dark energy can’t be seen, only measured by its effect on other things, like galaxies.
• Dark energy is the reverse of gravity – it doesn’t pull things together, instead dark energy pushes things away.
• Repulsive is the cosmologist’s word used for dark energy.

 One theory stated that, as dark energy grows stronger, it will strip away all gravity in the universe, creating “The Big Rip”. In the end, nothing will hold together.

 But now cosmologists believe that dark energy is constant – it hasn’t weakened or gotten stronger. Instead of eventually ripping the universe apart, dark energy continues to push galaxies apart until nothing will be seen from our Milky Way Galaxy. Other galaxies will just fade from our view, like a memory forgotten.

 So what will remain if what grounds us is gone from sight?

This painting of my mother is actually the next to the last in the series, but I’ve completed it first.

A Mother

Sketchbook Project 2012 Tour Dates

[For viewing locations, go to http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject2012]

• Brooklyn, NY – Apr. 14-30
• Chicago, IL – May 3-5
• Portland, OR – May 11-13
• Vancouver, Canada – May 15-16
• Los Angeles, CA – May 24-26
• San Francisco – June 2 -23
• Greater Boston Area – July 6-8
• Portland, ME – July 11-14
• Toronto, Canada – July 18-22
• Philadelphia, PA – Aug. 23-25
• Atlanta, GA – Aug. 29-Sept. 1
• Austin, TX – Sept. 8-16

These are the words that I placed on the pages midway through my sketchbook. The remainder of my sketchbook, I hope, will be completed as it tours the country… [The list of tour dates follows this entry]

I was not able to complete this sketchbook. Over the past couple months, two other paths have diverged into mine. As I write these words, I am a shadow walking behind them.

The first path -

Dorothy is a beautiful, gentle 92-year-old lady who has attended my craft classes at a local retirement community without fail for the past few years. She has a wonderful sense of humor and deeply-felt spirituality.

She is now ending her decades-long battle with cancer.

The second path -

Debbie is a beautiful, gentle 50-something lady who I met back in 2004, a year or so after the death of her only son whom she had raised alone since his birth. She has been a good friend to me and a wonderful aunt to my son.

She has been diagnosed with Stage 3c cancer and will enter radiation/chemotherapy for the next few months before surgery.

I cannot follow Dorothy past the end of her path – although I hope to continue to feel her spirit in everything I see.

I will follow Debbie and pray that her path continues at least as long as Dorothy’s.

This sketchbook is dedicated to them.

I ask you, the reader, to leave an uplifting thought for someone who may be going down their own challenging path. Please write it on one of the following blank pages.

Let your thought be a guiding light. Let the spirit of your love surround and support them.

We never know how our individual path will lead or end – all we can do is walk it.