People Eating People

Today, I emailed off the album art for the infinitely talented Nouela Johnston's solo project, People Eating People. The album comes out November 3rd. You can check out some of the tunes on myspace.
This is the cover, the image and name were created using Corel Painter X. The texture was added in Photoshop.

Enjoy!

A review from the Fremont exhibit!

While at the opening for my exhibit at Fremont coffee I met Anthony, a local art blogger, and his daughter, Natalie. He wrote up an excellent review of the show. I am reposting a snippet below.

"Do you remember horror movies before the in-your-face death and destruction and bloodletting that began with Alien, perhaps, or maybe Halloween? The horror then was psychological, and always perceived, than shoved in your face.

That is the type of art Christen brings us. There is no way to label her work other than dark. Dark, is a given. But the questions that her work poses - what is going on here? - are much more potent and thought provoking than what lies on the surface...."

You can visit his blog by clicking the title of this post to read the whole review. If you are a fan of local art, enjoy Seattle's frequent artwalks and/or just want to know what's happening in the art world, I recommend his blog. It's both informative and all encompassing.

Artwork is Going Up!

So the crazy heatwave that hit Seattle has passed. I survived, barely, and it is mercifully cool and overcast. Perfect weather for hanging some art!

I will be at Fremont coffee this evening hanging a selection of paintings - some from the Fear & Phobia and the Age of Innocence series, a few of my older works and a brand new painting, not yet posted to my online gallery!!

The art opening happens Friday, August 7th from 6-9pm in conjunction with the Fremont First Friday Artwalk (follow this link for a map of participating galleries: http://directionsfff.blogspot.com/ ).

Please come on out, say hello and enjoy booze, coffee, snacks and art!!

Goodbye Capitol Hill... Hello Fremont

It's about time to take the paintings down from Bauhaus Coffee... they will be up through July 30th, so if you want to get a look before they go, best high-tail it over there. I will be taking everything down around 5pm on the 31st if anyone wants to stop by to heckle me.

So, goodbye Capitol Hill... hello Fremont!!

New Paintings will be up!
August 6th through September 2nd
@
Fremont Coffee
459 N 36th St
Seattle, WA 98103

Reception on Friday, August 7th from 6-9pm
Meet the artist and enjoy booze, coffee and snacks!

After the Blitz

Gone is the Unicorn... the Tiger, Zebra and Deer still await loving homes. They are available for the low adoption fee of $45 each. Stop by Bauhaus Books & Coffee to see if one or all would be a good match for you!
Last night was good fun, thanks to all for making it out and then staying up way too late drinking at Linda's to benefit VERA Project and the kids and the future of rock n'roll.

Tonight, off to VERA to watch Black Houses and Schoolyard Heroes tear it up.

Tonight is Capitol Hill Artwalk, aka Blitz!

Okay, so tonight its the Capitol Hill Blitz (of course the Hill couldn't be satisfied with just calling it artwalk... oh Capitol Hill).
I am planning to check out the other artworks and to hang at Bauhaus Coffee, where my paintings are currently up for critique and for the buying... as if I haven't mentioned that enough times in the last few weeks.
I hope to be there from around 6:30-9 tonight and encourage all you Seattle folk to come on out! Click this blog's title for a map to all the venues.

Art is Officially up at Bauhaus

Paintings are officially hung and available for viewing (and purchasing if the mood strikes) at Bauhaus Books & Coffee. This is the first time I have ever hung on a bookcase... very odd, but kind of cool... the Fear, Phobia paintings are hanging upstairs... sorry, no pic, you'll just have to go see for yourself!!

They will be up through July 31st, and Bauhaus will be participating in Capitol Hill Art Blitz (2nd Thursday of the month).

Nursery Rhymes = Somewhat Creepy

Bye, baby bunting
Daddy's gone a hunting
To get a little rabbit skin
To wrap his baby bunting in

Lazy Sunday

Another Sunday! My second mama has come to visit from the scorching hell pit known as Phoenix. Went out for Bloody Marys this morning and then off to the Ballard Farmer's Market,  got some beautiful flowers and homemade toffee.  Then to the pet store for dog cookies and new stuffy toys. Roland gutted his in about five minutes and is now lying around looking depressed about it. The poor dog is a study in neurosis. He is 50% national geographic, a 125 pound wild and unpredictable fuzz-ball, and 50% giant puppy who wants to lay in your lap and cries when the squeaker stops squeaking.

Almost finished with another painting. Will post once the final touches are done. For now, back to my lazy Sunday!

Black Houses

I have new paintings in the works! Nothing I am ready to show yet, but maybe soon... the series will be called "Secret Animals" and I am pretty stoked about it so far. It is going to be a little lighter than my usual fare, a little softer.

I will also be hanging artwork from the "Age of Innocence" and "Fear, Phobia & Pharma" next week. They will be up at Bauhaus Books and Coffee throughout July, so please stop by and check it out next time you find yourself on the Hill.

In the meantime, I thought I would share some artwork I did a while back for a band called Black Houses (the title links to their site if you wanna check it out!). Hope you enjoy!!

Frankenstein's Monsters

Ah, Sunday... the last day of freedom before it's back to work. Today was a day of household projects, laundry and hanging with the wolves. I had an old dresser I found that I've been meaning to paint for what feels like forever. I finally got around to it today... and voila, the Frankenstein themed dresser!

New Painting!

Today I finished a new painting for the Fear, Phobia & Pharma series! 

And, as promised, the Ouija board coffee table...

That's it for now, got to run!

Crows, Crackheads and Cigarettes

It's been a while since I've added to the blog... I've been busy, busy, busy, but yesterday was just so strange I feel like sharing.

It stared at 6:30 AM when I decided to flat iron my hair before having the obligatory cup of coffee. Needless to say, I burned the shit out of myself in a sleep addled haze. By 7:10 I was out the door and walking to work. All was going well, I had "In Utero" cranked in my headphones, the weather was great, things were looking up.

I decided to take a shortcut through the parking lot of a church when a giant, black beast of a crow dive-bombed my head. Then there were three crows, all flying at me. I ran two blocks Tippi Hedron style to the safety of a friend's house (P.S. Hitchcock's "The Birds" terrified me as a child, so this was especially horrifying for me). Though I kind of wished I could have watched from a distance, I bet it looked hilarious!

Anyway, after calming down a bit and making sure those bastard crows were gone, I was off to work where I kept my head down and hoped for the best. I made it through work disaster free and left early for a haircut appointment downtown. To get there from my job, I had to take either the 3 or the 4 bus - for non-Seattlelites, these are the buses that run between First Hill and Downtown, past the county hospital, the jail and courthouse, the homeless shelter and a rehab clinic. The 3 got there first so I hopped on; it was filled to capacity, so I stayed in the front.

We made it three blocks when the people in the back started screaming and yelling for the driver to stop the bus. Apparently, a cracked out dude had decided to projectile vomit all over the back of the crowded bus then crawl into the stairwell to continue puking in relative privacy. We all had to evacuate. The plus of this story, I was in front and did not get barfed on, the negative side, I was late for my haircut.

I hauled ass downtown by foot, got my haircut, which was fabulous... there's nothing like changing your hair to make you feel new again... then scrambled to find and catch a bus to Queen Anne to meet up with friends and have a much needed drink or two. While waiting on the street for said bus, a homeless man (missing teeth, open sores on his face, smelled like rotten death) who had clearly just pissed himself walked up and, in complete sincerity, gave me shit for smoking in his general vicinity because of the "secondhand smoke"... what is the world coming to?

Alas... so far today has been much less painful. I finished a coffee table I was painting, it is now a fully functional black cat Ouija Board (I will post pics when I get home), and I have several canvases prepped and ready to go, which means time to paint, and that makes me one happy girl.

For now, back to work!

The past is never dead...

Ever have one of those days where things just seem off? You put on your favorite t-shirt and it fits funny, your shoes feel too big, you struggle with your hair and it just won't sit right, you knock over everything you touch... the kind of day where the only thing you can do is say screw it...

So, screw it.


This is an older painting, the only one from a batch I did in 2005-2006 that I haven't sold. I don't know why. I just like it. There's something magical about poppies, they make me happy.

Quote for today: The past is never dead. It's not even past. -- William Faulkner

Shiny, Happy Seattle

This weather is ridiculous! It's pushing 80 degrees, the sky is clear and blue and we have had an uninterrupted week of sunshine. I have been cranking through boxes of dog treats, Billie and Roland refuse to come inside without a bribe (I don't blame them, I would prefer to lay in the grass and bask in the sun all day, too). Every morning I have to remind myself that I'm still in the Pacific Northwest and not SoCal. ... where is the rain and the oppressive blanket of clouds? I think I might be suffering from a vitamin D overload!

But there's nothing like sunshine to get the synapses firing and the creative juices flowing - I prepped four new canvasses yesterday and have a pile of sketches ready to be transformed into paintings. I have been having dreams about a young girl and her travels through a post-apocalyptic world and I am itching to put that strange scenery to canvas.


In other news, I have a show lined up for July at Bauhaus on Capitol Hill. I will post all the details in a couple weeks. Who knows, given this creative burst I might have a few surprise new paintings ready to hang by then!

Strange Dreams

When I was a kid, I used to have this recurring dream about tornadoes. It was always the same, I would be sitting in the frame of a house, just a ceiling, floors and beams, like the place was only half built, in the middle of a huge field of tall brown grass. There were no mountains or buildings anywhere in sight, and I could see from one horizon to the other. The sky was always cloudy and purple, the air perfectly still. A funnel would form from those purple clouds, touch the ground and head towards me and my frame of a house.
These dreams were never frightening; instead, I was always filled with a sense of calm and would wake up well rested and at peace. I'm not sure what any of it means, but ever since, I have been obsessed with tornadoes.
This piece was originally called Elizabeth's Dream... below it is my photo muse.

Clarabelle's Secret

I love raccoons. Something about their cunning intelligence, their bright eyes shining mischievously through their dark masks. In pictures, they look so cute and cuddly, in reality, they are huge and can be completely evil.

I thought they would make a perfect backdrop for Clarabelle, the perfect guardians of her nasty little secret. Included is the daguerreotype photo that served as inspiration for the painting. Surly, pensive, just a hint of anger... I wonder what this little girl's secret could be?

Cotard's Syndrome

The Cotard delusion or Cotard's syndrome, also known as nihilistic or negation delusion, is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that he or she is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or has lost his/her blood or internal organs. Rarely, it can include delusions of immortality...

...it's just one of those days...

Bummer Cloud

We had an absolutely beautiful weekend up here in Seattle - warm and sunny, flowers blooming and all that, plus I had three whole days off in a row, whoohoo! So I got up this morning feeling slightly bummed that I had to go back to work, but the sun was peeking out and I decided to wear a cute summer dress (as opposed to my usual black on black pants and t-shirt uniform) to make myself feel better. I get about six blocks from home and the sun is suddenly swallowed up by a blanket of gray. Then the wind picks up and it drops about 10 degrees, so I get more bummed.

I get to work and have about a hundred unread emails to deal with, a stack of invoices to create and send, a million things to do that I have little to no energy for, and a cracked out customer calls me pathectic and disgraceful before dropping the "N" bomb on me via the handy Live Chat feature at my job, simply because I cannot magically make a particular medication he wants materialize at his feet right this second - now I am super bummed.

So, I decide the thing to do is eat two bite sized candy bars and drink a can of Mountain Dew (P.S. I have had absolutely no high fructose corn syrup in over a month) which I just discovered delivers and almost instantaneous, sticky-sweet migraine... on the upside, venting has made me feel a little bit better, a weather obsessed co-worker has informed me the sun will be back tomorrow and the work day is close to over.

So, in the ever inspirational words of Little Orphan Annie, "The sun'll come out, tomorrow, so you gotta hang on til tomorrow, come what may..."

The Cabinet of Curiosities

I found an old cabinet in a free pile down the street from my house the other day. It was filthy, covered in plaster and caulk and painted a chipped and disgusting primer grey. It had clearly been being used as a work cupboard in someone's garage. On the upside, it was on wheels for easy transport, has doors that latch to keep the dogs out and is the perfect size and shape to house a stereo and records.

I spent most of yeste

rday and a good chunk of this morning sanding it down, painting it and sealing it with a coat of polyurethane. I decided to go with a carnival/freakshow kind of theme, and the Cabinet of Curiosities was created.

Apparently, Billie thinks it would also make a nice, new dog house. My next domestic project will be to refinish the dinner table and chairs.

I have also had an idea for a new series of paintings rattling around in my head. The images are becoming clearer in my mind every day, and I think soon they will start calling to be put to canvas. 

In the meantime, I am working on finishing up a couple more paintings from the Fear, Phobia & Pharma series. I will post as they are completed. Click the title of this post to go to my gallery and check out the ones that are done.

That's it for now... time to go out and enjoy some sunshine!

No Satan

As promised, the secret room... 

Chris and I noticed a window on the outside of the back wall of our new house. Weird thing was, you couldn't see it from the inside. Then we noticed that the third bedroom ended about three feet short of the outside wall... we looked closer and found a spot where a piece of drywall had been screwed into place and painted over, weirder still. Given the facts, we figured we were dealing with a sealed off secret room!

So of course, my brain goes crazy, what could be back there? Obviously, it could only be two things - a million dollars in hidden treasure or a pile of dead bodies. Our realtor told us an old man had lived here on his own for 50 years before presumably kicking it (hopefully not in the house and definitely not in my bedroom). Clearly, this old man was either a serial killer or living in exclusion to hide his misbegotten fortune.

Given my usual luck and pessimistic outlook, I vote for serial killer, although I secretly hope for the million dollars in treasure... really, who wouldn't, right? So, last Saturday we decided to

open the room. We managed to hunt down two screwdrivers and proceeded to remove the piece of dry wall. We had to get out a chisel to pry the damn thing out of the wall, but we managed. Feeling like the dudes that discovered King Tut's tomb, we pulled back the section of drywall and behind it...

...Oh my god! Not a million dollars, that's for damn sure. Our little, hidden room looks like a set from the Blair Witch Project. It is covered in mold and the creepiest drawings ever produced by a child. Chris, ever chivalrous, tells me to go in first. I swear I felt like the floor was caving under me. I had a moment where I thought I was going to fall straight through the floorboards before adjusting to the room's oppressive vibe. My heart raced, I felt dizzy and nauseous, and I had to get my camera - for posterity, of course.

Below are a few pictures of the drawings that graced the walls in the room. There were also odd mathematical formulas on the west wall, fishing wire run in a web across the ceiling, and the name Eric Ross penciled slightly higher than the pictures. And yes, I am pretty sure this is how a six year old thought satan was spelled...

These are the least evil of the pictures... the rest had fangs and claws and were downright uncomfortable to look at.  I am wondering if, in the last image posted, the things on the front are boobs or arms... any thoughts? Needless to say, we sealed the room back up, shoved the heaviest piece of furniture we own in front of it and vowed to never speak of it again. If anyone has information about a missing child by the name Eric Ross, contact me... seriously.

Oh, life

So, before launching into current events or a rant about yesterday or my feelings about being trapped in an office when it is sunny and beautiful out, I feel obligated to provide a little information about myself, back story, if you will.

I was raised in the metro Phoenix area of Arizona, a vapid suburban wasteland where strip malls and planned communities spread across the desert like the plague and beige is the only color paint ever invented. I moved as soon as I possibly could - up to Seattle, down to Los Angeles, back up to Seattle. I joined a band, spent three years touring this land we call America, the band broke up, started another band, went back out on tour, ended up at an ER in Kansas City after a sweltering show and an all night afterparty, found out I wasn't just hot and drunk, but seriously ill, was told I needed surgery, left Missouri for the east coast with an arsenal of pain killers in my suitcase, got lost in Central Park, finished the tour, had afore mentioned surgery at a county hospital in Phoenix, found out I needed a second surgery, had said second surgery, adopted a starved, neglected, emotionally damaged wolfdog puppy, agreed to marry Christiaan, the love of my life (still working on setting a date), moved back to Seattle.

That is pretty much my twenty-somethings in a nutshell. Currently, I am working on a new band and trying to become more ambitious about getting my art out into the world. I recently started working with oil paints (I was always an acrylics kind of lady, but I seem to be getting more patient with age) and am entirely stoked about the results. I will be posting these paintings as the mood strikes me and/or as the new ones are completed. Roland, my damaged desert puppy, has grown into a 125lb neurotic hairball - we can't take him anywhere, he is afraid of bicycles, backpacks, sliding doors, telephone poles, people; you name it, he fears it - and for his birthday last December we adopted Billie, quite possibly the cutest puppy on this here planet. She is all love and kisses, and is slowly teaching Roland to be more comfortable with himself and the world.

I just moved into a house with my fiance and the two dogs, the first place I've lived with no roommates since I was 18. Finally having some space and privacy is fabulous and I am amped to use all my new-found alone time to paint and write and focus on making a future for myself that I can be happy with, because, I have to face it, I have never been a good drone, the daily 9 to 5 routine makes me crazy, and I am only truly at peace with myself when doing something creative. The new house is full of quirks, including a secret room that was sealed off from the rest of the house, but I will save that for the next post... for now, back to life as a drone... break time is over, there are customers to serve, reports to write and spreadsheets to create... sigh.

Dear Blog, It's Me Margaret...

So, everyone (and by everyone, I mean a few friends and strangely, my mom) keep telling me I need to get on top of this not-so-new-anymore blog craze. My reaction, obviously, is who, besides said select friends and my mother, would want to read about my life, thoughts and/or random daily events? So, true to form, I put off starting this thing for oh, well over a year.

Today was an uneventful day at work, and I ran out of youtube videos to watch and websites to visit. I am broke, so can do no online shopping. Out of pure, bored desperation, I decided that today would be the day I check out this whole "blog" thing. Being technologically challenged, I have no idea how it works or what happens once these words are published to the good old interweb... can words collect dust out there in the technological wastelands? Do those spiders that comb the web ever stop to build their own webs? Will this blog be covered in cobwebs one day, skeletal words propped in a make believe closet? Only time will tell...

And today, time is up... freedom is calling. Time to clock out and go home to feed the wolves. I will leave you ponder whether that is figurative or literal.