Happy New Year!!!

2010 is finally here! So where is all the cool sci-fi stuff I was expecting to see in our everyday lives? Where are our hovercrafts? The robotic maids like Rosie from "The Jetson's"? Space travel to far off planets? Sheesh...what happened?

Actually this 45 year old is really impressed with cell phones, DVD players, the Prius and other hybrid cars, digital cameras, Facebook, internet googling, and BLOGGING!

Not bad, not bad...so welcome 2010! I for one am glad to see you arrive!

Dec. 2009 Newman News

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our friends and family! We hope past year was good for everyone. Our family has definitely had a blessed & busy 2009. Left picture: Lily and her Aunt Ruth, summer 2009.

Jeff’s mother moved to Texas in Nov. 2008 to live with us while she dealt with breast cancer. She responded well to daily chemo pills that shrunk her tumors and continues to keep their growth under control. Hooray! She sold her home in Panama City, FL and rented an apartment near us in June. A month later she adopted Miss Scarlett, a delightful, bouncy Shih-tzu puppy. She’s a real cutie-pie with a spunky and active disposition that makes us laugh all the time.

Jeff was offered a job last summer with a company called NEI and he jumped at the opportunity. He had worked with them when he was with Aculab and developed friendships with many of the people. The company is five minutes from our home (NO COMMUTING!), he often comes home to eat lunch with me, they have awesome employee benefits (incredible in these days), and he LOVES his work!

Our daughter Lily is 19 and attends college full time. After receiving a scholarship for the academic year, she quit her coffee shop job to take more classes in hope of graduating by spring of 2011 with an Associate’s Degree in Game Arts and Animation. Lily is adding several extra art classes and it’s been exciting to watch her develop her creative gifts by learning new skills. She created the little bunny silk screen image to the left. Lily has a new boyfriend, a delightful young man by the name of Andrew Lindwall. He attends UTD where he is working on a degree in Criminal Justice. He and Lily share lots of common interests and get along really well.

My sister Ruth lived in San Antonio, TX for much of the year, the closest she has lived near me since she was 9 years old! We were able to enjoy long visits, go sight-seeing, and just hang out. It was awesome! I adore my little sister and felt so fortunate to have the opportunity to bond and create memories with her of our time together in Texas. Now she is in Boise, Idaho where our brother Eric lives. She is considering buying a home in the Boise area. Eric plans to attend the University of Idaho in January where he will work towards his Master’s in Biology. Our Mom is doing well in Riverton, Wyoming. Mom & I are good friends who enjoy daily talks on the phone with each other. I do plan to get up to see her in the coming year.

Me? Well I’m still the Storyteller in Residence for the Dallas Museum of Art, where I also teach several workshops & camps for both adults and children, and act as a creative consultant for their Community Outreach Education Dept. In March, I‘ll be their Artist of the Month. During this time, I’ll develop projects that merge storytelling with multimedia to create performance art works that involve the interaction & cooperation of the public. I am SUPER excited about this opportunity!

May the New Year bring you & yours many blessings and joy. ~ Jeff , Ann & Lily

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Sculpture Mania!

My camp "Sculpture Mania!" at the Dallas Museum of Art in August was a BLAST to facilitate! I had wonderful kids, a perfect environment and accomplished my main goals. Here are a few of the kids in front of the plaster hands they had painted. What made these plaster hands unique is that they were created by pouring plaster into rubber gloves, sealing them and having them firm up. Kids were able to see how liquid plaster can take the form of a mold (rubber gloves) and become a solid shape. The kids were able to feel the plaster harden through the plastic gloves without all the mess too.

My favorite project was creating a three-dimensional work of art inspired by Jackson Pollock's two-dimensional painting titled, Cathedral. Here we are creating squiggly lines with art wire and "floating" them on thin fishing line woven within an open-sided box.

What made this project so much more meaningful and educational was having the real deal, Jackson's Cathedral right there with us in the gallery for inspiration!

The more lines that were added the better it got. The piece now sits in my dining room. I have some ideas on how to recreate a similar yet more stable, reuseable frame that can have light added as an option for added effect.

More Photos of Sculpture Mania!

This photo is from the first day. We discussed classical sculptures like the marble Roman woman in the backbround and compared it to this plaster Henry Moore piece, "Reclining Mother and Child". It's surface LOOKED like marble, but it wasn't and the mother & her baby's features were much less defined & obvious.

I try to fill every moment with opportunities for learning. Here we are riding one of the museum's huge elevators while also discussing a creative project.

Moving 4-5 year old children through a large museum without mishap can sometimes be a challenge, but with this particulr class it was always a breeze. They were a truly wonderful group of kids, real sweethearts!

Look at us we are living sculptures!

Discovering tinfoil's sculpture making qualities.

I ALWAYS feel so alive and in harmony with the universe when I am exploring the creative worlds of visual art, storytelling and performance art with children AND adults. It is my definition of bliss.

Recent Explorations in Art

I used an old album, newspaper print and phonebook pages with this work I call "Static". It's ugly, but by golly, it's unique! It was inspired by Mark Grotjahn's works like his Big, Big, Big, Big Nose on view at the Dallas Museum of Art's, Private Universes Exhibit.

This is "Transformation...It's Time". The flowers were painted on canvas, cut out and put on this canvas. I have a real clock piece inserted on the hands. This piece is all about allowing oneself to be transformed through the use of one's inner creativity and then bringing that transformation out into the world. My inspiration was from my own creative need to continue to grow and explore my life through the art I make.

Hidden in the depths of this painting are $500.00 bills of play money. If you look closely you can see the money peeking through. I have happy face stickers popping out over them. Traced with a fine pen and requiring the viewer to come in close to read are the words, "Then I'll Be Happy". This work is inspired by Richard Price's Check Painting on view now at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Tell Me A Story is inspired by Christopher Wool and his works where he breaks up words sporadically on huge canvases. I have this one hanging by my desk now. It was fun to make.

I had trouble photographing some of my work. I keep getting a glare. This image is not flattering to the real piece. I collected old bottle caps for the leaves, used copper strips to create the trunk and have old book pages for the background. The frame I picked up at a yard sale for $5!!! It is over one hundred years old and in gorgeous condition. I named this work Discarded Life for it's made from things once valued, if even for a few moments, in a person's life. I love using bottle caps and have several more ideas for their use in future artwork. Now, all I need is time to MAKE it. >sigh<

Rag Bags by Me!

I saw a picture of a bag in a catalogue for $298.00! The bag was "unique" and I thought it was a creative use of material. I said, "I can make one for a lot less." So I promptly made three using 'like new' purses and left over fabric scraps. Here is the first one.

Up close view.

The second one. It looks kind of sad hanging there on the fence.

This one is my favorite!

I was thinking of naming these purses, "Raggedy Purses by Raggedy Ann!" Hah, but I don't want to think of myself as being raggedy...so...I'm still brainstorming... At any rate, I have been using the top purse for two days while running errands and have had lots of feedback. I do believe these bags are marketable and so I may make a few for sale.

My Chicken Chairs

A short time ago, I came upon a yard sale where a guy was selling four chairs. He was selling them for a total of $20.00. They were very study, but the seats had a bit of wear to them. No problem! I happily handed over a twenty dollar bill and brought the four chairs home.

Here is a before picture of one of the chairs. They were all identical. Using recycled wool sweaters that I first felted, I created 'chicken' chairs. This is HENrietta.

This is megHEN.

This is StepHENie.

And this is gretcHEN. She's my favorite. Shhhh...don't tell the others.