Author: gatorgirlart

This is a very happy day for teachers and people related to teachers, the holiday begins! Good morning and Happy Saturday. The fabulous Dorka of Dorka Photography took my most recent pictures. I hear that they are in the mail at this moment. I will be able to share  what I have been painting right after Christmas.

Today, I just finished embellishing some chairs. When I washed the 50 years of dinner guest magic off of them, the finish came off, too. I am thinking the previous owner, who has passed on, is thrilled with their reincarnation. I can still feel her lovely spirit when I look at them.

I painted this chair eggplant purple. I thought an elephant would fit perfectly into the  scroll top of the chair. I had this purple and gold material from making my daughter, Angie, some pants to wear in Turkey. One good thing about creating what you love is you have the materials around because you love them. I also had exactly enough gold fringe.

The next chair I embellished is a little Frieda Kahlo altar. Miss Freida has been my main inspiration for my painting. I love her work and I also love her drive and determination to continue painting even when in great emotional and physical pain. If you have had relationships with other human beings, you can understand her emotional pain, but she was also hit by a bus!

Mini Mags helped me with this next chair. I painted the chair blue and put the cool material on it. Then I painted lips and mustaches on the chair back. I didn’t like it and painted the mustaches away with my trusty white paint. Maggie and I decided on black and pinkish. (She always says pink.) While I was explaining that we needed to do something that would go with the material, she walked over to my shelves and picked up 3 clay pieces that my sister, Jan, just sent to me in our Christmas box. I didn’t even know MMMM looked on the shelves. They were perfect. Now I love the chair.

For this last chair, I picked the paint first. I love green. Then I decided on a subtle Mardi Gras theme. My sister sent me a clay fleur de lis that looked great. Then I put a trading card that Jan also made for me on the top. It has her moto on the card, “Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place–Rumi“. On the card is also my King Gator, who is saying, “Wager it all”. This chair to me is New Orleans, but also my sister. Green is her favorite color, too.

If you think someone might like my blog, please ask them to follow me.

Until next week, sending you all of my love with an unreasonably open heart, Gator Girl

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Starting at 6 pm

to celebrate the launch of Gator Girl Art

2317 General Pershing St.

New Orleans, LA 70115

This is like my reverse retirement party. There will be food, drinks and mingling.

We hope to see you!

I painted light and dark areas, blending into the medium areas. I didn’t worry if the lights were too light or that I can still see the words loving and loyal.

A little more finished here, but looking too sad in her eye and pale.

Here she is almost done. I like the light in her eye, but her tongue is too large and the light on her nose is too white. I painted white over some of her tongue and blended it into the background to sort of start over.

After this picture, I just did a little touch up like they do with models and made the space where there is no tooth a little smaller. I think she was a little vain and would appreciate the illusion of better teeth.

Miss you, Brook.

Have you ever had a wild dream?
Something that was stirring in your heart that you felt you just had to do?
A vision that to others sounded crazy?

Well I am here to tell you the legend of my wild dream.
As I write this I am in my art studio on General Pershing Street in the Milan
neighborhood of New Orleans. But just four months ago I was on
Winham Street in Salinas, California. Different life. Here’s what can happen
if you dare the dream.

It all started with listening to a part of myself that began to speak to me,
a part of me, I now affectionately call Gator Girl. Gator Girl had her
beginnings on a blank canvas. I was looking for an art class in Monterey County in California. I didn’t find any classes offered by artists or at the junior colleges. That is strange, given where I was living. My sister sent me an email about an artist she saw in Mendocino, Shiloh Sophia McCloud. She mesmerized me and Googled her.

I started my journey by driving to Healdsberg for a weekend workshop. Shiloh showed our group how to write and illustrate a business plan. My plan included retiring in 3 years at 55, moving with my husband and grown children and their families to New Orleans, paint full-time and have Brad and Angelina buy one of my paintings. I think right now I will amend that to include Sandra Bullock also buying a painting.

So far, everything has gone as planned. I am just now putting my paintings on the web, so the Pitt/Bullock thing hasn’t happened yet.

My oldest daughter, her husband and 2 little children live 2 doors down, which is very close, because there are no side yards on our side of the street. My youngest daughter moved  to New Orleans, fell in love on the Internet and moved to Los Angeles. I have a house picked out for her next door for when she wants to move here.

My husband, David, is a teacher at Harriett Tubman Elementary School across the Mississippi Bridge in New Orleans. They are busy changing the face of education, changing lives and changing the world.

New Orleans is our journey and our destination. The city fits all of us to a T. For me, I like the artistic bohemia of the city from alligators to angels. My husband loves the music. My son-in-law wants to rebuild (literally) New Orleans.

This is a beginning; the beginning 0f our uptown life and the beginning of the blog. Stay tuned.