Come the Rain

The rain visited briefly last night. I held my breath for a few seconds when I heard it tip-tap its greeting on the glass of the atrium roof.

So long since I’ve heard that sound, it took me a bit to figure out what it might be. Tip tap plop, tap. Five minutes and then she was gone.

I spent a while wondering where my rain boots are, and then imagining how I will step into this new-est season.

What’s in a Name?

I’ve always been pretty happy with my name, though I have to confess that I’ve never used my full given name in a day-to-day way. Elizabeth. It always felt so formal, kind of like a Victorian dining room in a large house with wainscoting and lots of crystal and starched lace curtains and the side board loaded down with a full china tea service.

I’ve pretty much always been a Liz. I did try on Beth for a brief period around the age of 9, but that didn’t stick, I just so wasn’t a Beth, and it never felt right.

I find it fascinating how we live inside our names with ease or with discomfort. I’m comfortable in my name, but then, Elizabeth has something like 27 diminutives, so I had a lot of nick names to try on before feeling like there was a good fit. I know quite a few people that don’t like the name they were given by their parents, they had a name that didn’t feel like who they were, it never fit right, kind of like uncomfortable shoes. So they changed their name to something that felt totally right, a name that had meaning for them, a name that they could answer to.

We are all (in our own ways) looking for who we are, where our place is in this world, who our people are and having the name that you feel is just right, just you, can go a long way to making the journey more manageable, more agreeable, more “right”. Because when you’re stepping forward to say: “Hi, my name is . . .”  it wants to feel true, it wants to feel like you’re already telling a part of your story, in a name.

How do you feel about your name?

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Dance because it’s Spring

The first hints of spring seem to bring out the extrovert in me, does it in you too? Don't you just feel like dancing in the warming air, shaking your hips, and raising your arms to the blue blue sky? Happy almost spring!

Visit the artists and photographers and their wonderful dancers, here.

Second Annual Squam Art Show .:. A Vision of Squam

 

Hello!

Yes, it’s really true, the second annual Squam Art Show is coming to you soon! The link below is to the 2010 Squam Art Show Prospectus. Please download for details, dates and other important information about submitting your work for the show.

Download 2010 Squam Art prospectus

Most everything is the same as last year: this show is about your experience at the 2009 Squam Art Workshops. Whether you attended in June or September, you are eligible to submit work for the show if you taught, attended, or volunteered.

I am also thrilled to announce that the one major and quite lovely difference this year is the location. Sandwich Artisans Guild will be hosting the show in their new space in downtown Sandwich. What does this mean? Well, for those who attend the September 2010 Squam Art Workshops, you will be able to visit the show. In fact, Saturday afternoon the 18th, there are no classes offered, and you will all be invited to attend an Artist’s Gathering at the Sandwich Artisans Guild gallery.

The show will open on the 8th of August – the height of tourist season –  just in time for Sandwich’s Old Home Week, when tourists a-plenty will arrive and your work will be showing for folks who have travelled from NYC, Boston, Philly and etc. to celebrate and do some shopping. The show will close on Sunday the 19th of September. 

 

Here are some important points that are not listed on the prospectus that is attached, but ones that I think are much more important than how you wire the back of your painting, or label your work.

• If you are feeling unsure about submitting, but a little voice inside is whispering quietly “do it”, please listen to that precious voice.

• If you have never shown your work before or have never participated in a group show, and are feeling unsure, but there is a nervous and excited feeling in your tummy, then know you are on the right track.

• If you had an inkling that you might want to paint or sketch or create, and your experience at Squam in 2009 made that inkling a certainty, then please, please submit.

• If you are a working and showing artist, and not sure if you fit in to the mix here, please know that you do, we all fit in here.

 

If you have any questions, you can comment here, or you can send an e-mail to squamart@gmail.com, or e-mail me personally at liz.kalloch@gmail.com

Happy Creating!

Liz