A Day in Pictures

A Mid Winter Nights Musings

That is the title of the next show I am entering it is a mixed media event at the Girdwood Center for the Visual Arts. It is going to be an encaustic, oil, with an old window frame, bark, likken, twigs and such. I have got so many projects going at one time and so many creative ideas that my head is spinning. The need to be more organized and make lists is so important, I am working hard on making better work habits, becoming a better artist, and not becoming so overwhelemed. Remember this is supposed to be fun.
Right brained people unite! We need all the help we can get.

I painted this pomegranite the other night with oil sticks and my fingers it was fun to do. It looks juicy and delicious. The scan is a little dark but who cares at this point. What do you think?

The Black Madonna & Obama

Title:The Black Madonna and Obama
Artist: Judy Vars
Medium: OilSize: 16" X 20"
Price: 500.00
With some Grandmother energy in the Whitehouse this icon takes on a whole new layer.

My next veneration/icon is going to be for St Jude the patron saint of desperate and hopeless cases. This saint interceeded for me once-upon-a-time, but that makes another story.

I am reeling from some sad news about a friend 54 years old a hospice nurse and a wonderful and compassionate human being. Her and her partners cabin style house house caught on fire while the other was at work. She was burned externally and internally in addition to smoke inhalation, and was in critical condition the life flighted her to Seattle where she died shortly thereafter. That same week two little boys were home alone while mom was working and their house caught fire. Two men passing by saved one boy the other brother was killed.
Tragic.

It is so easy to have a house fire in the winter months when the temperature is -20 and so devastating to the families and friends of its victims. Please check the smoke detectors, lint in the dryer, be careful with those fireplaces, wood stoves and candles.

Dar we love you! this community has lost a beautiful soul. All of us your friends, family and especially your partner we will miss you till the end of our days.

My computer crashed again.... so what else is new

i'm still wating for more ram or another hardrive. I have many art opportunites in the fire, and cannot produce fast enough, right now i am concentrating on getting my house in order 15 minutes at a time with the Fly Lady. I got a Wii fit but have not gottin on it for 2 days and its going to bitch at me when i do, measuring my body fat telling me im old and fat.

If i get organized, fit and famous then what?

Isn't it a wonderful system where we can oust our leader every 4 or 8 years.
It's a wonderful country that can vote for our first black president on his merits.
I have not felt so hopeful and inspired by a new president since I was a little girl and John F. Kennedy was our president.

I will do my part to help our country and it's citizens realize our new beginning. I am willing to pick myself up and dust myself off, be green, volunteer, choose to communicate and respect all people. I will not give up turn back or falter.
What a wonderful and frightening time to be alive.
Did I overuse the word wonderful?

Another Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood of Good and Evil

Theory of Hate
Medium: Encaustic Wax Collage
Size: 20" H x 20" W and 4" deep
Artist:Judy Vars
NFS
This is the piece I did for Bryan and Josh, they are my computer techies, and have a heavy metal band; Theory of Hate http://www.myspace.com/theoryofhate This macabe piece was way fun to create. Sometimes people wonder where these sick ideas come from and why?
I don't know. I do like to be scared; but by things like vampires, ghouls, ghosts, monsters, from lore and imagination. On the other hand I hate movies that are too frightening like; Silence of the Lambs, SAW, the kind of movies with henious things done to other human beings, bizarre psychological thrillers, plots like hunting people, eating people, dismembering and the like. I Hate those kind of movies, with the exception of Sweeny Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Jonny Depp is sooooo sexy and the movie is too cool. I'll pay when those images get stuck in my head and sub-conscious and occasionally unearth themselves popping up in a nightmare. To create this work of art, I just went to a dark place that i hate and let my dark muse Lilith take over.
Currently reading: Stiff - The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
excerpt page 47: Robert...took me for the first time to the dissecting room...at the sight of that terrible charnel-house-fragments of limbs, the grinning heads and gaping skulls, the bloody quagmire underfoot and the atrocious smell it gave off, the swarms of sparrows wrangling over scraps of ling, the rats in their corner gnawing the bleeding vertebrae-such a feeling of revulsion possessed me that I lept through the window of the dissecting room and fled for home as though Death and all his hideous train were at my heels.

This cold January moon looms so close to the earth lately that I can feel her gravity and icy core.

There are record sub-zero temperatures but that hasn't stopped me from getting out and having some fun! Just the G-kids and I went to the Anchorage the Arts Gone Wild, they sang Karioke, went to a instrument petting zoo and poetry slam cool. Later Sharen Harris and I went to Greg Gusse One Man Show at the Madd Matters Gallery in Downtown Palmer it was enjoyable to hop nob a little but with the artist types, it was a very good time and the show was fabuloso, check him out http://www.axua.com/ a true renaissance man. Today I stayed home all day making stew and finishing a encaustic commission or trade for my new web site which should be up sooner or later, I promise.

These are sand dunes in Alaska at Kobuk Valley National park by Greg Gusse. Forgive the shadow.

Today I left the house after more than a week of minus 20 temperatures.

I am the peoples choice for January at the Firefly Gallery, 419 L Street in Anchorage. this means I get the front porch for my very own display for a month.
So I drove in to Anchor Town and put up, ta, ta, ta, taaaaa drum roll please.
Oprah As The Black Madonna and Obama or the Shrine of the Black Madonna.This section of town is becoming a real art district like So-Ho Anchorage style, hip cool people living and working downtown and frequenting hip cool establishments like the Firefly Gallery and the Snow City Cafe. The people when they walk past will see this Icon staring back at them. It's timely with the inauguration coming up this month and changes afoot. This display might be somewhat controversial (I hope).
I've seen some peoples reactions to what they perceive to be religious and political and irreverent all at once. I hope this icon gets lots of attention, hee hee hee.

Go See It In Person; @ the Firefly Gallery 419 L Street across from the Simon and Seaforts and the Arctic Rose.

An opportunity to manifest hope through your art http://www.manifesthope.com/contest.html