Home

Home is available as a print on ETSY.

I don't know if it's because my son weaned himself this week after a nasty cold made it so he couldn't breathe and nurse at the same time. Or because we're nearing our six month milestone in Israel. Or because I'm starting to plan our trip to America in the summer and wondering how on earth we will see everyone we want to see and what it will feel like to be there. Or maybe because I keep fast forwarding ten years and my oldest is entering the army. All of it together has me feeling a little vulnerable.  I keep coming back to the idea of home. Where is it? What is home? What will it be for my kids. Is it worth fighting for? Is it worth dying for? Or is it just a place, like any other.

Mr. Rosen and I have spent a lot of time thinking about where we want to make our home and whether or not there is a perfect place for us and our family. We don't have the answer yet but we're getting closer. We might be over thinking it. It might be exactly where we are now. It might not be a place at all, but a connection we have to each other, tethering us to the present.

Song of Solomon

Behold, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of singing is come,
and the voice of the turtle dove
is heard throughout the land.

Song of Solomon 2:11-12


ps. the painting to the left of Crawly McHands Off is available now as a print on ETSY.

In bloom

I unpacked the acrylics the other day and while Hot Cheeks McSnotface slept, I had some time to paint. I've become obsessed with weeds since Spring arrived and let me tell you there are some wild zingers over here. As beautiful as they are prickly. Not unlike Israeli women.*

* this does not apply to all of my exceptionally wonderful Israeli women friends.

Animal stack

 

They were all waiting to see if Yertle would show up. 

The suspense was killing them.

We have a bin full of plastic animals that my son used to play with but instead of having them roar at each other and flying them around the house making monkey noises like most kids, he used to try to stack them like blocks. Except they don't exactly stack. He'd have to balance each one on top of the other very carefully.  He figured out that he always had to start with the lion and then the hippo and then it was enough support to hold the cow, a kangaroo and sometimes the lamb on top. It was pretty incredible to watch.

These animals were inspired by our recent trip to the Jerusalem Zoo. It threatened to be a rainy and disgusting day so no one was there. Just us. Really. Maybe one other family. In the whole friggin zoo. The guy at the front let us in for half price explaining that half the animals would be inside because of the rain. In fact, it didn't rain. It was a gorgeous day. Most of the animals were out. And some of them were even stacked. OK, only the mosaic sculpture ones in the children's petting area. But pretty impressive nonetheless.

Pay it forward

In these last few weeks I have been especially enamored by the view over here - miles of terraced olive groves with their short stone retaining walls and the picturesque hillside villages they surround. But views here are often colored by the conflict. I try not to think about it too much.

Next week is Tu B'Shvat, a minor Jewish holiday to celebrate the trees and we've been gearing up by eating a lot of dried fruit and reading the Lorax. This new painting, called Fruitful, was inspired by a little passage from the Talmud (that has made its way into the Jewish summer camp storytelling canon. I don't actually read the Talmud regularly. Or ever, come to think of it). Has me thinking about the kind of legacy I want to leave for my own kids. Heavy stuff.

Once, while the sage, Honi, was walking along a road, he saw an old man planting a carob tree. Honi asked him: “How many years will it take for this tree to give forth its fruit?” The man answered that it would require 70 years. Honi asked: “Are you so healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?” The man answered: “I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planted it for me. So, too, will I plant for my children.” (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 23a)

Available here.

Wiser for the journey

Seven years ago I tried my hand at the National Stationery Show in New York. I had never been and I was five months pregnant and I had decided I would just wing it with my own line of cards. I did very little research, spent a few thousand dollars on the booth and a curtain and renting a table, plane tickets for my Mr. Rosen and my mom and I, and off we went flying by the seat of our pants. And I remember one night before going to bed saying to Mr. Rosen, what if I don't bring enough brochures or what if I can't fulfill all of my (zillions of) orders. Brother. 

We got there and I felt completely overwhelmed. People had shipped or ordered whole store fronts. Everything in my booth we packed in our suitcases. I remember renting a car and driving to the IKEA first out in Jersey and then on Long Island looking for stuff to make our booth a little more substantial. We only had a day. We stayed with friends in Soho and used some of their furniture. And friends in New York stopped by the booth. It was cute in the end. But I remember feeling mostly dejected by the whole thing. Everyone had the same kind of stationery - little icons of purses and heels in pinks and greens, all preppy throw-back. Some of it was exquisite - the Hello! Lucky stuff and other letter press creations. But that cutesy stuff was selling well. Hardly anyone stopped in my booth. I had to kind of lure them in and puff out my belly so they'd think I was kind of cutesy. In the end it wasn't a complete bust. I got five contracts and one was even from Whole Foods in NYC. But still, altogether they maybe amounted to about $1000. Not exactly what I was expecting.

I sold that collection (it was the inner toddler stuff) for another few years, here and there. Some on ETSY and some to shops. When I was on maternity leave with number two I had renewed energy and actually reached out to some blogs. I even got some coverage on Cool Mom Picks and Design Mom. It was fun. But the sales weren't exactly pouring in. So I stopped. I mean, I was also working full time and raising these two kids. It was more than I could manage.

And then after taking some time off I got a second wind. Started my blog. Started reading other blogs. Got inspired by what some other self-taught artists were doing and started painting again. Different stuff. Started developing my own style. Started getting into ketubahs and Judaica and sort of found a little niche for myself. And here we are. Seven years later.

Two weeks ago one of my images debuted at the National Stationery Show with a company called Calypso. Not a whole collection, mind you. Just the one. But I didn't have to fly my pregnant self there and spend a week and a small fortune getting it seen. I just got an email one day in March that said they wanted to use an image. We agreed on licensing terms. And here we are. Ironically it's a "congratulations on your move" card. I have a stack of them at home now so when someone does decide to buy our house, I am well equipped to congratulate them.

Funny how sometimes the choices we make lead us back to the start - wiser for the journey.

Finnished

Bridge Ketubah

It's not a title typo. I actually completed a ketubah a few weeks ago that was half in the traditional Aramaic and half in Finnish! Soon after I did a name print for someone in Hebrew, English and SANSKRIT which required an act of God, Vishnu and Buddha to get the font to work on my Mac.  And my most recent multi-cultural expression was this Turkish/American ketubah, complete with a New York skyline, the wooden fence along the Jersey shore, Libra scales, the bridge over the Bosphorus or the San Francisco Bay or the East River (take your pick), the Sultan's signature, the Turkish flag, three evil eyes, an Istanbul skyline and a plethora of pomegranates (the name, in Turkish, of the groom's ancestral home). They've actually asked to change the sky to more of a periwinkle, which, thanks to the Photoshop magic wand, I can probably do. And then I'll finally be finnished too and ready to welcome a baby into this vibrant, connected world we've created.

Underwater

It's a race now to finish up on these last orders and commissions before I can breathe a little easier and relax a little until junior arrives. I'm almost done with a commission from the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. They had purchased twelve of my animal prints a while back which now hang in the Bass Center for Childhood Cancers and Blood Diseases. And about a month ago they called again to commission fifteen sea creatures for their pediatric surgery waiting room. FIFTEEN NEW ANIMALS. So you can image I've been feeling a little underwater, but nothing like the home stretch of pregnancy to light a fire under your tush (that might also be the hemorrhoids burning). So I cranked these little guys out over the weekend and now I'm in the process of preparing them for print.

Two commissions down and one to go. The third is an original ketubah design for an American bride and a Turkish groom. Lots of interesting symbolism. We even incorporated the Sultan's signature! That's a first.

From my tabernacle to yours

In the middle of all of our house and life chaos I was asked to create the artwork for the To Life Festival. The one I participated in for the first time last October. The one where my husband built a TABERNACLE in the middle of California Avenue in Palo Alto. That one. They had seen this piece in process (the second one) on the blog and wanted something similar that REEKED of Jewish life, music, culture and celebration. They didn't specifically say they wanted a ram at the top of the tree, but what's a Jewish celebration without a sacrificial ram? Am I right?

Admittedly, there's a lot going on here. Maybe too much. Perhaps a reflection of my own current state. Hopefully they will love it and it will draw people from all over the world to Palo Alto on September 18, 2011 to eat falafel, hear klezmer music and buy Jewish art. And now that we're staying in town a while longer, they can even buy my Jewish art. Straight from my tabernacle.

Giveaway

Just a quick note to let you know that Liv over at Choosing Beauty is hosting a giveaway - up to $40 for the print of your choice from my ETSY shop. You have to leave a comment with the name of your favorite print (and there are ways to be entered more than once to increase your odds). The giveaway ends tonight. Go comment! I once commented and won two beautiful prints by this lovely artist and friend.

Also, Liv has launched a terrific website called Feel Good Deal of the Day with all kinds of great deals on stuff you love anyway. I just got 40% off my order from Esprit.com and one of the things I ordered is stretchy enough to fit me even now! That's some stretchy-ass material!

What else? My pal Aimee is teaching in what looks to be a fantastic e-course where 21 artists share their techniques. You listen and learn at your own pace and it runs from April through August so you have plenty of time to soak it all up.

A few months ago my mom unearthed a series of emails I had sent ten years ago while Mr. Rosen and I were traveling the world. I think I will post a few in a "Ten Years Ago Today" series. Can you remember what you were doing ten years ago? I hardly remember what I did yesterday. Thank goodness for the digital paper trail.

And last, thanks to everyone for your support as we navigate this period of mondo-transition. It is enormously comforting to hear your stories too.

Studio Tour

Remember when Mr. Rosen and I were working on turning our garage/office/guest room into more of a studio? And he wanted to kill me for just moving ahead willy nilly? And I wanted to kill him for not understanding my vision and sense of urgency? Yes. Good times.

I never did post any pictures of the final product. Including the best part - THE MURPHY BED. Hand-built by Mr. Rosen himself. Well I have some shots now but only because I cheated. We just had our house staged, as in we paid a guy to bring in a crap load of attractive furniture and make our house look appealing to the masses. Such silliness. But apparently this practice pays you back in spades. My mother-in-law sent me this recent NY Times article about staging and that's why I went out and bought $1200 worth of Italian shoes. To trick someone into buying my fabulous house and fabulous lifestyle. Right.

Anyway, they also staged the studio, though happily everyone was fine with me keeping my corner as is (albeit tidied up) and all of my production supplies available so I could keep working while we show the house. Mr. Rosen was not so lucky and all of his crap, including his desk and shelves, went into storage. So really it does look very close to the real thing except now instead of two desk areas, there's only one and a little "reading nook". The funniest part is that the stager, a lovely gay man from San Francisco, grabbed two books from my closet to display. "Creating a Life Worth Living" and "What to Expect the First Year". Maybe he thought they were both about making and raising babies. Or maybe he thought they were both about starting your own business. Titles can be deceiving. And so can studio tours. Enjoy!

Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis on Day 1

There is much to say about the three days I just spent painting with Jesse Reno at An Artful Journey retreat in Los Gatos. While I did meet some lovely women and wonderful artists, some of whom I'd already come across on ETSY, my experience was not the life-changing, soul-sister bonding, love fest that I think many people experience. This was mainly because I have too much other stuff going on, I elected to stay at home rather than the dorm and unfortunately my daughter had a 105 fever last night which landed us in the ER until 2am (we got her fever down but she's not out of the woods).

That said, something in me cracked open in these three days and I discovered a new way to make art and love making art. We approached each painting in exactly the opposite manner that I usually go at it. I normally have in my head exactly what I want to paint and then I sketch it several times and then I trace it onto the final watercolor paper and outline it in black ink. Then I fill it with color. Except I can go for weeks and weeks with nothing I wan to paint.

With Jesse we painted only with our fingers for the entire first day. We created what he calls the grounds. A rich and layered background with no subject or expectation. Then we spent the next day reducing the chaos of the grounds into an image or a collection of images. In some cases, when nothing appeared, we went in and drew a figure or a posture on top of everything and blocked out the rest. This was HARD. In this particular piece I only really saw the bird head thing in the upper right corner, which was originally the lower right corner. So I made a big figure and blocked out the rest.

 

 Metamorphosis on day 2

We worked on three or four paintings at a time wiping excess paint from one piece onto another one. Finally we tied our pieces down with some detail elements. In some cases we wrecked half the painting before we could go back in to resurrect it some other form. No attachment.

We worked mainly on 18x24 Bristol paper but some folks brought in wood. I tried a piece on wood at the end and really liked the feel. My hands were covered in paint the entire time. And Jesse was a riot. I am exhausted now. And need to pack up the rest of the house before the painters arrive tomorrow morning. Hopefully my daughter will be well enough for the drive south to Grandma's. I'll share my other four paintings over the next few days.

Metamorphosis on day 3

"She surrendered to the magic."

Thar She Blows

I'm getting large. And, trust me, I am profoundly aware of my size. So when I say that I'm five and a half months along, do me a favor and say this exact phrase: Gee, you look great.

Do not veer from the phrase. Clever add-ons like "for a whale" or "Any day now right?" should be avoided. And I don't need to know about how you looked like I do now when you were on your way to the hospital. Or how I must be having twins. Good one. Original.

But speaking of whales, and originals, this chunky little original acrylic is today's Daily Deal. Thar she blows.

Daily Deal

 

As part of the GREAT PURGE OF 2011 to prepare our home for sale, I am selling a whole bunch of my work, that is otherwise not available, at lower than wholesale prices before it gets hauled off to Public Storage, including:

• Framed prints 
• Matted prints
• Originals

These are pieces that I prepared for shows or fairs or whatever. All in perfect condition. I'll post one item a day in the DAILY DEAL section of my ETSY shop and if you get to it before anyone else, it's yours. If it says only one left, there is really only one. When I have multiples, I will list them all. Shipping remains $5 except for framed stuff which is more like $8 or $10 depending on how big it is.

Today's item (a framed one of the pic above) is up!

Daily Schedule Derailed by Astrological Shift

If I was still a Virgo I'm sure that I'd have been able to keep to my new daily schedule and I'd have four or five new paintings by now. I'd get through each day in my usual focused fashion and move from slot to slot like the obsessive pedantic creature that I thought I was. But it turns out I am a LEO. A LEO,  people? For the love of ginger! This makes no sense. It's a whole new world order. No wonder I have been so self absorbed lately. And luxuriating in my bed despite the repeated reminders by my 6am alarm. I'm a lion! I don't have time for schedules. I'm too busy ruling the jungle.

Nonetheless, I did manage to finally get started on a suite of paintings that celebrate the sabbath. Which reminds me. Time for a cat nap.

Did your zodiac sign change? I'm not sure what to make of it. Except that maybe it's time to ditch moody, organized and judgmental in favor of enterprising, courageous and confident. Plus affectionate. Prrrrrr.....

Third time's the charm

While I could very well blame this extended belly on the number of fried donuts and potato latkes I have consumed over the last five days - indeed there was never a more enthusiastic Hanukkah celebrant - in fact I am pregnant and the baby is due at the end of May. (The belly is not actually as large as it would appear in this dramatized photo, but still - third pregnancy starts showing at about four weeks and a day. Delightful.).

And my many feelings on the subject range from relief and joy to anxiety and terror. So that's been fun. Very relaxing. It may also explain why I haven't been able to do much of anything besides eat chicken apple sausage. But the nausea seems to have ended and I'm not quite as exhausted (as in I'm not falling asleep in the middle of a titillating game of Zingo, although admittedly this has also happened while not pregnant).

I also bought an iphone.

Which reminds me of the scene from Fiddler on the Roof when someone runs in and says "she's here! she's here!" and we're meant to believe that Tseidel had her baby and then it cuts to the scene where Motel the tailor is using a peddle sewing machine and Tseidel has already had the baby which is not nearly as exciting news as the arrival of the new foot-powered sewing machine.

To celebrate this news with you (the baby, not the iphone) I am hosting a sale in the shop through this Friday, December 10th. Since every third child knows the third time's the charm, use the code CHARM3 and get 30% off your order. All orders will go out by December 17 and then the shop closes down for some holiday travel and merry making.

Happy shopping! xo

Handmade Hanukkah

Friends of mine are hosting an intimate Handmade Hanukkah open house on November 14 from 11-3 in Sunnyvale, CA so if you live in the South Bay I encourage you to come and get some holiday shopping out of the way. I am selling my matted prints for 20% off. Such a deal!

See you tomorrow for List It Tuesday.

Forgiving

In an effort to get myself out of my raggedy funk and to half-assed participate in the Art Every Day Month, I went to Michael's last night and bought some acrylic paints. I have two very small chunky canvases that I bought years ago thinking I would love to be able to paint with acrylics on these little fatty canvases and pop them on the wall without the torment of framing. The thing is I don't really know how to paint in acrylic. Some initial observations:

1. Adding a new acrylic color on top of an old acrylic color makes it the new color and not a neat hybrid of both. 
2. Must mix on the pallet and not really on the canvas. Not so with watercolor. 
3. Adding water does not solve any problems and only thins the paint and makes it yucky.
4. Accidentally putting my quilted paper towel on the wet paint makes for a cool texture.
5. I have no control with acrylic. 
6. I don't know how to add text to a canvas. Initial attempts were not pretty.

So this is a little whale. He's part of a series I am thinking about that incorporate some of the quotes I use in my name prints for kids. I want to add a quote to this guy and I'm not sure how to do it. Or maybe I should just leave him be. The nice thing about acrylic, I'm discovering, is that I can screw up plenty and cover my tracks with more paint. Watercolor is not so forgiving.

To Life

I am fall over and die exhausted. I did my first big show this weekend in Palo Alto. The kind where everyone has a tent. And you pay money to do it. And there's food and music and lots of people walking around. I decided to do it last April and thought oh I have plenty of time to psych myself up and get myself ready and prepare inventory. And yet I didn't want to get too psyched about it for fear I would completely fall on my face. You see, I have done small holiday boutiques for schools and synagogues and the damn Junior League. And all sucked. But something told me that this show would be different. Namely because it's a Jewish cultural street fair and a lot of my work is culturally Jewish.  Good match, me thinks. But the fee to participate was $200 which I thought was A TON for a six hour stint. And I knew that preparing for this event would mean a lot of hours of printing and matting and framing and organizing. Plus I don't own the kind of stuff one needs to attend these kinds of shows. The only tent we own says REI on it. And no walls or grids to hang art.

But my husband, engineering genius that he is, after seeing some of the pictures from the Sawdust Festival this summer, came up with the idea that we could use our sukkah (temporary dwelling we build in our yard every fall to celebrate Sukkot). And I thought, that is the best friggin idea I have ever heard. We were planning to build it anyway and sukkot would be over the 29th of September so that would give us another full week to play around with how to show art inside. We borrowed some bamboo siding from another friend's sukkah and Mr. Rosen fashioned a few beams in which to drill screws for displaying framed art. I bought some fabric from IKEA to hang as the roof. We borrowed tables, grabbed some of our own furniture, a few tschachkes of the middle eastern variety and created a place I can only describe as a desert oasis in a sea of white tenty sameness.

Mr. Rosen has built this structure many times. We've had it for three years now and he has labeled all of the wood for quick construction. But it's still construction. Unlike those little EZ-Up tents this thing requires a drill. And a contractor's license. So we got there plenty early. Within forty minutes I was able to get inside and start merchandising the art. (I actually videotaped the whole thing but we'll see if I can edit it into fast motion. Stay tuned).

Now I don't know if it was the sukkah or the fact that no one who comes to this show has seen my work or that my quota for crappy shows was fulfilled, but this show kicked ass on every level. I felt great about my space. My husband and I were in total teamwork mode. I spent the day working with my mom who is a saleswoman par none and was great about getting email addresses for the mailing list. The weather was beautiful. I met a lovely Yemenite Israeli retired professor who now makes spectacularly intricate filigree jewelry. And I made my booth space investment back five fold. Plus my husband and I got to bask in the eight hours we actually owned real estate in Palo Alto where, on any other day, our 100 square foot jewel would go for 1.2 million.

A few lessons learned:

1. Having a flip bin is key. People spent several minutes engaged in flipping through $30 prints and many bought. They were a bargain compared to the framed art. 
2. Next time have a $50 bin also.
3. No one buys after they "think about it".
4. 80 degrees feels like 95 when you're wearing jeans.

Having my cake and sharing it too

 

I woke up this morning to a beautiful and tasty breakfast of fried eggs on toast, chopped salad and chocolate. Because today is no ordinary day friends. Today is MY BIRTHDAY. And, since I lowered my expectations for my birthday by several orders of magnitude based on last year's fiasco, SO FAR SO GOOD. 

And coincidentally this year my birthday is also the birthday of the WORLD. It's Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starting this evening. Some of you may know that I have a thing about sharing my birthday. I don't like to share. Thank god I'm not a twin. But then I had to go and marry someone whose birthday is five days after mine and he has a brother with a birthday a week after that and now suddenly all of my birthdays are shared occasions. Which I hate have come to accept. But this year is especially communal because this year I have to share my birthday with the WORLD. And that's also why I shared my birthday with son's kindergarten class. 

I went in after recess to do a little Rosh Hashanah presentation for the kids and it was a AWESOME. I am now Miss Susie, loved and revered by 26 five-year-olds. Most importantly, I even managed to blow the ceremonial shofar which is like blowing a trumpet except it's the horn of a ram. Seriously. And we all had apples dipped in honey to signify a sweet new year but only after I made the kids sing happy birthday to me. And then I asked if any one had any questions and several kids raised their hands to tell me when their birthdays would be and one kid told me his grandma was 87. Love kindergartners.

On tap for the rest of this wonderful day:

1. Make dinner for mine and my brother's family.

2. Drink latte.

3. Revel in my facebook birthday wishes. 

4. Go to post office.

5. Buy heavy cream so my husband can make me a cake tonight.

ALSO, in the spirit of sharing my birthday, I'm offering BUY ONE GET ONE FREE (of equal or lesser value) through the end of the day tomorrow midnight (pacific time) on all items in my ETSY shop (except ketubahs - why would you need more than one ketubah?) Write BIRTHDAY in the message to seller and I'll reimburse you via paypal for the second item.

Happy Day everyone!