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Follows my family's journey from a small town in upstate New York, to a city in South America,( Bariloche, Argentina), and our adjustment back to the United States, in San Diego California
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By:
Carolyn Watson Dubisch,
on 1/26/2016
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This week I've been sick. Really miserable actually....
On Friday Phoebe was the MC for her school's talent show, and I was so out of it, we wound up being late and missing her intro. In my jacket pocket, in my sweaty palm, was our camera. In my delirium I managed to grip it tightly all night yet never once thought to take it out and snap a single photo of the show! She did great however, from what I remember, though it's all a bit blurry.
Today I packed up these three masks for my biggest order to date, to a buyer in Pennsylvania. Tomorrow I'll ship them as well as a drawing by Mike that was sold to a buyer in Queensland, Australia.
It's time for building my mutant piñata. I'm creating this guy, and his name will be "Kissy Fishy"and he will be very big I'm sure. Construction begins this week!!
In other news I've submitted to my first chalk festival for this year-Wish me luck!!
By:
Carolyn Watson Dubisch,
on 1/15/2016
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I'm so very excited! Photographer, Sharon Covert purchased two of my masks and shared these incredible photos of them with me!!
More of her photos are
here!
These are the masks she purchased...
It's great to see what she did with them. She just bought another one today!!
Anyway Christmas break has come and gone, while it was happening we did manage to get out to the museum for a visit.
The art museum here in Phoenix is the largest in the southwest.
The exhibits change over every few months.
It had been a while since we'd been there so a lot of it was new.
They had a special white shirt exhibit on display.
Unfortunately my camera makes them all look like glowing blobs.
The red dress were easier to photograph.
The circle of animals display was beautiful.
The golden statues.
The pig head.
A magnificent Calder sculpture.
Anyway, my letters for the
Eduardo Munez film have arrived in England. I look forward to seeing them in the film! Happy 2016!
By:
Carolyn Watson Dubisch,
on 12/29/2015
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Christmas has come and gone and so has Chloe. Gone to winter camp in the California Mountains, I mean....
Here's Mike and Chloe waiting in the cold wind for the ride in downtown Phoenix. While they loaded the luggage a schizophrenic man that was wandering by in the street came over and loaded his imaginary suitcase, then he ran off chasing an invisible dog. (At least I think he was schizophrenic, perhaps he was a prankster). Anyway, she'll be back by New Years, the same day Phoebe leaves for encampment with her Girl Scout troop.
In the mean time I've been busy making masks like this one....
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| https://www.etsy.com/listing/261735195/owl-half-mask?ref=shop_home_active_1 |
And I just sold it from my shop!
I've also been designing letters for a film called " Eduardo Munez" a dark comedy being filmed in the U.K. They need numerous interesting letters for use as props in the film.....
outside
inside
outside
inside
outside
inside
Anyway it's been a lot of fun making these!
We finally went out to the theater and caught the new Star Wars movie 2 nights ago. My kids had a good time and so did we! Have an excellent 2017.
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| Merry Christmas from Arizona |
Today we're shopping, wrapping and my kids are still asleep at 11:00am (it's great having teenagers!)
By:
Carolyn Watson Dubisch,
on 12/15/2015
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It's winter in the valley, which means our oranges are ready for picking, if only I could reach them! They hang precariously over the courtyard so it's a bit challenging. Our days are full of driving in circles. Getting the kids to school, driving to the store, to teach, and all over town for my kids' very busy schedules.
Chloe was fabulous in her school's production "Midsummer/Jersey" a few weeks ago. In fact all the kids were great! It was marred by an unfortunate incident though. It was produced by the theater department at her school, but performed across town in the Phoenix Little Theatre (not at the school). Halfway through the second performance someone who works in the office at the school messaged the theatre teacher and director to say that this list of girls in the show will be dress coded if they don't change their tops! The whole show takes place on a beach on the Jersey Shore and some girls wore bikini tops. It was rather extreme to do this and stress all the actors out. I also feel that this kind of thing is out of place in an art school. In the visual arts department they have a nude figure drawing class. In the dance department all the kids wear leotards and tights and perform in skin tight outfits. This isn't a business school.
Hanukah is over and Christmas is coming up fast. Really, really fast. How does time just slip away so quickly? Anyway I'm teaching and selling art online. I have a new etsy shop to sell my masks:
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https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtisanMasks
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I've been making a lot of them to stock my store and I've already made some sales (WhoHOO!)
This one just shipped to Minneapolis
And this one is getting shared and liked all over the etsy website!
Anyway Mike is finishing up his semester and grading finals as well as working on a new comic project called "I am The Barbarian". He has opened up a store for 2 of his most popular paintings....
And his other spoof of SpongeBob (which was featured on MTV's website for a while)....
Anyway now these are on t-shirts and posters and other products that may be of interest!!
I hope everyone has a great holiday or at least pulls through in one piece. Peace, Joy and Namaste.
So... This awesome package came in the mail from my publisher....
YES!! My new book is out!!! If by any chance you contributed to my publisher's kickstarter and didn't get your copies, go to the site and fill out the survey so they can ship to a confirmed address.
Also this week was Phoebe's birthday, who is now an awesome 14 years old. Here she is the night of her birthday onstage (yes, she performed that night!).
She also made us all an amazing Tiramisu cake for that night after her show.
It was excellent (she's a really good cook).
The next night Phoebe went with her friends to the opening of Mockingjay 2, while they were out Naomi made her another great cake... Happy Birthday Phoebe!
I'm still making hand turkeys each day this month.
On Friday morning Mike and Beatrice Moore, (one of the directors of the Grand Avenue festival) and Berto (a friend), and I managed to string up my two 4 ft long glow worms to a tree on Grand Avenue.
It was a perfect day to hang giant bugs.
I also wrapped the tree in glow webbing from Halloween.
The green one peered down at people passing by.
They are a bit creepy, but in a good way.
Anyway, yesterday was the big festival day. We came in the evening when the Papa parade had started...
People on stilts. (Sorry my camera hates the dark!)
A kung fu group.
The strange white aliens.
The street was decorated for many blocks. This is a knitted tree.
A garden of oddities (well, that's what I'm calling it, Beatrice Moore is the creator and I think she has a name for it.)
Her garden is full of strange creatures.
I could have studied at it all night!
There were bands playing.
This neon car.
This woven fence display!
And my glow worms.
Which unfortunately weren't glowing (they had too much direct light). Oh well, they did spend almost 2 months glowing in my bedroom each night, so I know they DO glow if it's dark enough.
Anyway we had a good night, and here's a picture of Phoebe, because she's awesome.
On a side note, I'm still doing hand turkeys each day thru November. Here's my Star Wars one from today. To see my daily turkeys, check out my
art blog! Have an excellent week!
This past weekend Mike headed down to Tucson comic con. It was a pretty good event, with the exception having to deal with the crazy guy searching his bags at the Greyhound station.
Since I had to teach on Saturday he went alone. Instead I went to Chloe's art opening at her school, since many of her pieces were chosen for the exhibit.
Chloe with her cut paper piece.
This one is her monoprint. Her print making teacher gave me a hug at the show and said she was amazed by how great Chloe has gotten this year!
And this is one of her life drawings. Chloe in fact had quite the weekend. On Saturday she got a letter from Hollins University in Virginia offering her a $108,000 scholarship for 4 years! This is her first big offer. She was offered a couple really small scholarships to other schools, but this one means she may actually be able to go to college next year, with some additional loans and grants of course.
Saturday was the first day of a new session of my painting class. We did circle designs inspired by Atsuko Tanaka, a Japanese painter.
In other news...It's Thanksgiving time and I'm doing hand turkeys again!
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Halloween is over!
|
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Bacterial Hand Turkey
|
To keep up my daily hand turkeys you can check them out on my
art blog here!
By:
Carolyn Watson Dubisch,
on 10/30/2015
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Last Sunday we headed to Mesa to check out the big Dia De Los Muertos Festival.
It was a perfect overcast day (any day in Phoenix that's overcast is perfect).
Some amazing sculptures by a local artist.
An interesting if bizarre sculpture.
The stilt walkers.
Mike and Oscar by the winning alter of the alter contest, which happens to be by my friend Kylian Maney and her amazing students.
Oscar enjoying the music. It was really a great outing, and Oscar was quite well behaved.
Last week my show at the Central Gallery came down. I sent all my sculptures to their new homes with the exception of this one.
I packed him up in two big boxes (one is inside the other ) and got an estimate to ship it to the buyer in Amsterdam. It would cost $879.00.... Which means this sculpture is still sitting in my living room. I'm pretty sure he's not leaving any time soon.
By:
Carolyn Watson Dubisch,
on 10/13/2015
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The Bad:
- Today I woke up and vomited, but I still managed to hold down a cup of coffee and drag my queasy self in to teach my class. I hope I wasn't contagious.
- My dog needs an operation I can't afford. At least it's not that urgent, so maybe next month.
- Brought my 2 youngest kids to a "real" haunted house since they're now old enough. It was a disaster. Naomi dropped her phone in a corn maze in a panicked attempt to outrun the "zombies". I went wandering back to find it, and started asking people if they'd seen it. Had a chat with a "zombie" which killed the scary effect, then Naomi found it. We continued on through the maze and a monster/zombie jumped at Mike and Naomi. Naomi pushed towards Mike and they both fell over a log. Mike injured his arm. We spent the rest of the evening getting checked by a medic and waiting for a refund.
The Good:
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| Chloe and her Aunt Kristin |
- Chloe returned home from an excellent visit to Seattle to see her Aunt Kristin and Uncle Duncan.
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| Chloe at the Space Needle |
- She also landed a huge role in her schools fall play!
- I dropped off my duplicate bird at his new home (the other one is still on display at the gallery).
- The same client has commissioned me to make another version of this sculpture which sold out of my show.
- Phoebe and her theatre group put on an amazing improv show last week that had us all rolling in the aisles!
The In Between:
- My show comes down at the end of next weekend, so I have to coordinate getting art to buyers and repairing any damages to the work from being on display.
By:
Carolyn Watson Dubisch,
on 10/7/2015
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Friday morning after dropping the kids at school Mike and I flew out of Phoenix and headed to Portland for the H.P. Lovecraft festival. It's been 5 years since I flew anywhere so it was all a bit disorienting. Coach has clearly lost another inch and a half of leg room (inches that I didn't think were there to eliminate). Also it was strange to sit at our gate for Salt Lake City, when the gate next to us was leaving for Paris, (not sure when they put domestic flights in the same branch of the airport as international flights). This is a photo from the window as we flew over Utah.
Flying over Mount Hood.
Arriving in Portland was fantastic. When we left Phoenix it was over 100ºF and the weather in Oregon was well like autumn. This was the fountain by our hotel.
Tree People sculpture near our hotel.
Mike in the city.
We headed straight over to the Hollywood theater for the festival, Mike was on a panel first thing.
This guy was perched in the lobby.
Us in the lobby.
Chtulu lurked in the corner during the panel.
The next day was the Pickman's Apprentice Art Contest.
The art challenge was to draw the deep ones at a science fair.
John Carlucci drawing during the contest. 90 minutes later they were all done
John Carlucci's finished drawing.
Karen Hudson's finished art.
And this is Mike's finished art. During the festival attendees were invited to bid on them and vote for the best one. We just heard that Mike won!
The festival was full of odd moments like when the HP Lovecraft impersonator began a strange exchange with the HP Lovecraft puppet. Overall we had a great time and Sunday afternoon we were back in airports. First we flew to Seattle (which was annoying being it was in the opposite direction). Then we waited around in Seattle for a LONG TIME!
This was an incredible art exhibit near our gate.
More images from the exhibit.
One more crazy, shaky flight and we were back in Phoenix (which, by the way is an amazing light show coming in at night by plane).
Anyway this morning we were back at the airport. Chloe flew off to Seattle to spend her fall break with my brother Duncan and my sister-in-law Kristin... She just landed.
Last night we rounded up the kids (which only seems to get more and more challenging as they get older, even though they now don't need help with shoes, don't need to even wear jackets here and have no particular reason for taking forever!) we also brought Oscar, and headed away from the city lights out to Goodyear to watch the eclipse.
We headed out to the Estrella Star Tower.
The Star Tower is is 50 feet high and excellent for sky viewing. It's surrounded by a park and some waterfalls and is really quite nice. It also sparkles when the sun sets.
This is a glowing sign on the side of the building. The place was full of people last night.
They aren't in this photo though. In fact our photos are kind of lame.
Night photos are just not so great with our camera.
This is the view from the top of the tower.
So our pictures of the eclipse are not so great.
 |
| ©Kelly Clark Moncure |
But, my good friend
Kelly Clark Moncure in San Diego captured some amazing images. Of course she's a professional photographer and an awesome one!
After standing for an hour on the stone tower we all felt pretty hot and hungry. (Yes, it's still pretty hot after night fall) We headed over to a pizza shop and watched it from there. Over all though it was pretty amazing though.
Last week Phoebe made this incredible cheesecake for Mike's birthday. It was quite delicious.
I managed to finish my second glow worm this week for The Grand Ave. Festival.
Anyway this is his head.
He's now waiting for the festival in our closet.
I've also made great progress with the second bird I'm building.
Here's his body in progress.
The show Mike is in at the Blue Wave Gallery was reviewed in Art Scope Magazine. They called him a "SciFi Michelanglo"!
Anyway last week was the first day of class at the Montessori school pre-k. One little boy was helping me tape his art work into the frame. I said to him "You're very good at this, do you help your Mommy wrap presents at Christmas or Hannukah?"
"What's Monica?"
"It's a holiday like Christmas, where you wrap presents and give them to family." Then he got really quiet, but for the rest of the day he called me Miss Monica.
Well, my knee is no longer swollen from last week's
tumble, but it might make good reference for someone's Halloween make-up.
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| head close-up |
I've been pretty busy this week with work in the studio. My second Glow Worm is coming along for the Grand Avenue Festival....
He's getting there, but he still needs his legs before I can start painting. I've also begun work painting the chair for my commission....
As you can see the chair for the new bird is a different style than the original one from my show, it's also heavier and hurt like crazy when I dropped it on my feet (I have got to stop hurting myself!)
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| "An Intelligent Breed" from my show "Books of Whimsy" at the Central Gallery |
Anyway this weekend Chloe went to Anaheim with her friend to visit Disneyland (lucky kid), so she's gone for a few days. Yesterday was the last day in the season to use our Big Surf water park tickets, so we sent Phoebe and Naomi and a friend. They were filming a movie while they were there. They managed to get some water bottles from the catering table and had a great time watching the film crew shoot the movie.
Mike has a new exhibit up in Amesbury, MA at the Blue Wave Fine Art Gallery, for anyone in the area, stop on by!!
Also I have some new paintings up for sale in my Etsy store....
Hope everyone's enjoying their weekend!
Our last night in our rented house was most fortunately uneventful. The only odd moment happened in the middle of the night, when I woke up and realized all the lights were on. I limped about on my gimp knee and shut them off. By morning when I woke up much of the swelling was down on my knee, so I got to packing. I was too sore to help Mike load the car, but I did manage to clean up, pack some and wake our kids (which is no small task). We left town and headed west for our long drive home.
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Chloe, Phoebe and Oscar in New Mexico
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There are travel centers and rest areas when you drive around in the west that embrace a theme. Usually it's dinosaurs or Indian Teepees. Our first stop in New Mexico had an old west theme.
The whole place was like a movie set.
Of course inside they sold the usual indian pottery, pieces of petrified wood and scorpion keychains sealed in plastic. The drive was long and dull, but early on in our trip we started seeing signs for The Thing....
Seriously, they advertised their rest stop 200 miles down the road in New Mexico (the stop is in Arizona). So we stopped, because at this point they'd been advertising to us all the way there and now on the way home.
It cost a dollar to go to The Thing "museum"....
We followed a footprint trail into a colorfully painted barn, that was pretty hot, and dusty. Inside were all these displays. Here you can see there's an old car.
A display of strange doll figures.
Some old fashioned phones.
A bizarre display that demonstrates torture devices.
Naomi studying some of the odd looking wood sculptures.
These strange wood sculptures were literally everywhere. On many shelves and hanging from the ceiling!
This was also in the "museum". As we followed the footprints we began to get impatient. What is this thing? Is it a rock? Where is it? Finally we turned a corner and faced this banner....
It was in the glass case in front of the sign.
So here it is.... The Thing.
They called it "The Mystery of the Desert"
Anyway it was hard to photograph, but it's some kind of mummy. My kids were convinced it's the fake kind of mummy, but I don't know. It wasn't the greatest museum, but it sure was nice to get out of the car! After this we didn't really drive that long before we just had to get out of the car again.
The sign said we were in Texas Canyon (which was for some reason in Arizona).
The canyon was surrounded by boulder encrusted mountains.
Chloe and Phoebe were nice enough to pose for the camera
Me leaning on the girls with my swollen knee.
A rather nice picture of Mike and I for once. :)
From here it was back to the car! We finally stumbled through our door in Phoenix by evening (or maybe it was just me who was doing the stumbling). Oh well, vacation's over...Back to real life!
By:
Carolyn Watson Dubisch,
on 9/7/2015
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Yesterday morning we took it slow. Mike and hiked with Oscar in South Mountain Park (or we tried to). Then we realized it was way too sunny, so we went to check out where the Wyler Ariel Tramway was so we could come back with our kids when they woke up.
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The ticket counter
|
It looked like a nice little activity at 8am. No one was around as they were just opening and the view from the parking lot was fabulous, we could just imagine that the top of the mountain would be amazing!
Around 1:30pm we finally got all our kids moving (teenagers!) and drove over to the Tramway. It was packed! For labor day weekend everyone showed up to ride the tram. They told me when I bought the tickets it would be an hour and a half wait!
So we waited....
We looked at the little displays they had up. This was the old gondola car they used to use.
We watched the two little yellow cars bring people up and back, seven at a time.
We learned about the counterweight (the giant concrete block) that went up and down as the tram climbed up the mountain. Until finally it was our turn!
We rode standing up inside the gondola, which was different than the one we went on in
Argentina to go up the mountain and at the
San Diego Zoo that flies overhead.
It seemed like we were go slowly up the mountain, but when the other car passed us it zipped by!
The view was spectacular, but we were a bit crowded inside.
Naomi inside the tram.
The view from the top was pretty awesome.
Mike and I at the observatory.
The girls and I at the top!
Staying in the shade.
When you climbed to the top of the observation deck you could get a close up view of the radio tower.
It was pretty amazing.
From the top you could see El Paso, all the way into Mexico and into two other states, New Mexico and Arizona!
After milling around a bit and checking out the gift shop it was time for the ride down.
Our ride down arriving at the gate.
A final shot out the window.
After the tram we had a late lunch at the house. When I came back I plugged in my phone in Phoebe's room and after lunch I went to check on it. I sat on the floor leaning against my daughter's bed and uploading photos from my phone while it was still charging in the wall plug. As I sat there I felt a tapping on my lower back from under the bed. I assumed it was the cat and kept swatting my hand back at her to make her go away. Then I finished, got up, and walked in the living room, where the cat was sound asleep in a chair by my husband. He said she'd been there for half an hour at least. I ran back into my kid's bedroom and looked underneath. It was empty.
Anyway between the strange incident with the dresser (see yesterday's post), and the fact that every night so far in this house my dog spent wandering in and out of each bedroom whining, while my cat had her night time irritation level set on high, I was getting a little weary from it all.
That evening we went to explore downtown El Paso. This is Phoebe by a cafe made from shipping containers.
By a statue in the plaza.
Naomi and Chloe at the big fountain by the art museum.
After walking about it was time to get dinner before all the lightening we kept seeing turned to rain. We stopped at a place called the pizza joint and while the girls sat out at the sidewalk tables with Oscar, Mike and I went in to order and get drinks.
I guess the interrupted sleep got to me, because when I came out with the drinks Oscar jumped out in front of me and tripped me with his leash. I landed pretty hard and by the time I was going to bed my knee had swelled up like a grapefruit! This was going to be a long drive home....
For the long weekend we took a long drive... to Texas. We're spending this holiday weekend in El Paso. After quite the journey on Friday we arrived here at this little house we've rented...
The kids sprung to action after the epic ride and quickly decided on rooms.
Oscar took to sniffing around the front yard.
Anyway we all settled in nicely.
The little neighborhood is very pretty as well...
Me walking Oscar yesterday morning...
For our first morning after working very hard to wake up the girls we headed over to the Farmers Market for breakfast in Union Plaza....
Union Plaza was pretty hot and sunny, we were wishing it was more like Friday when we drove down in the drizzling rain.
This woman was selling some interesting skeleton puppets...
After a bit we found the food trucks and managed to eat some breakfast empanadas and some smoothies. From here we headed over to the International bridge to go into Ciudad Juarez.
At the entrance to the International bridge.
Crossing over the river into Mexico.
Juárez is a very big city compared to El Paso, but has the gritty feeling of many Mexican border towns. About five years ago it was one of the most dangerous places in Mexico to visit, but the violence had dropped off significantly and they are trying to woo Americans back to visit.
When we got to 16 de Septiembre street where most of the crowds were. There was a huge display of wonderful painted horses by various artists.
This one has four men painted on the side.
A beautiful one with birds taking flight. (In fact so many were so amazing you'll have to bear with me while I post as many as I can!)
This guy was painted with a metal armature.... Robot horse!
A black and white beauty with a woman's portrait!
This one looks a lot like a flag.
A spattered horse.
Another interesting portrait.
And one of my favorites. Unfortunately this exhibit was in the direct sun so we headed from here back into the crowed sidewalk of the marketplace, where Mike managed to find a hat to buy.
Our chosen destination the Mission of Guadalupe. Since I didn't know what it looked like we wound up going to the cathedral next to it (oh well).
This is the Jesus in the entrance. It was right about here that Mike thought his ipad was stolen. He'd taken it out to photograph horses and suddenly couldn't find it!
There was about 10 minutes of serious panic, and then there it was in another pocket. After this we started our trek back. As we walked we shopped a bit for ice pops and a ring for Naomi. We had many leftover pesos from our last trip to Mexico and were looking to spend them. One woman was selling something Mike wanted though and refused to take pesos. She only wanted American dollars and wouldn't budge about it! As we got to the bridge to go back over the river we scrounged for quarters to plug into the turn style to walk back. The Mexican customs official thought we were quite hilarious as we held up the line looking for change.
As we walked back I came to an alarming realization, I gathered our passports and discovered I'd dropped Oscar's international health certificate somewhere on the streets of Juárez!! I was in a blind panic as we got in line at customs. Mike was too. The customs official didn't even ask about the dog, though and I breezed through the passport check with another official laughing at us. I put my bag through the scanner and there we were... back in Texas!
Today is a new day in El Paso, though I think this house we've rented may be haunted... All the dresser drawers were empty when we woke up this morning, and our clothes were on the floor!
Last week as I set out to drive around the city, picking up kids from school a huge dust storm rolled in.
It was definitely pretty crazy with the wind and the sand and of course all the other drivers in this city who were still mesmerized by their cell phones.
Also last week I made huge progress on my glow worm for the Grand Ave. Festival. Here he is before painting.
I gave this one a green base coat.
From this angle you can see he's about 4 feet long.
Here he is on his back with some designs painted in.
Here he is finished from back.
The light green parts glow.
He's a pretty huge glowing sculpture now sitting in the corner of my bedroom, and I've already started the next glow worm!
In other news, you may remember this sculpture of mine that I made for my show downtown. He sold on the opening night, but now I've been commissioned to make another one. So I need to get sculpting on that now as well!!
Last week Chloe turned 17 years old! This massive cake with 7 layers was created by Phoebe who loves to experiment with pinterest recipes she finds. She make a gradation in the frosting (from light pink to dark pink). It was amazing!
Anyway, Chloe planned an outing to the water park with 4 friends and only one showed up. Between that and the fact that most of the family forgot her birthday this year she seemed a little bummed. Still she did get an excellent cake. :)
Yesterday we celebrated Naomi's 12th birthday (which is actually Monday). She only invited one friend to join her at the dine-in theater.
We brought them to see the new "Vacation" movie, that was so funny it had me in tears. Which was nice because yesterday started with Chloe's bicycle getting stolen off our patio, which then led me to be late to work and was shaping up to be a real downer of a day....
By the way this cake was also made by Phoebe. It's all chocolate with 4 layers and this chocolate ganache frosting she made. That child is getting very skilled!
I've been busy building the first of three glow worms for the Grand Ave. Festival this year. This is his head and thorax.
Next I added antennas.
These are legs ready to be added later.
And this will be his back end, still in progress. Anyway, much, much more to come!
On November 29th in 2007 we left our house in Greenville, NY and heading in a rental car to JFK international airport in NYC.
Here I am with our three girls and all our things. We'd decided to go with ten suitcases, 5 carry ons, and some personal items. That was everything we moved to Argentina with, whatever we could carry.
We just checked in and are about to get on the airport train, which circled us around the airport with amazing views out the window.
Eventually we found our gate.
Our flight was well past 10 at night, but we were there early and had hours to kill.
It got a little dull, but eventually we boarded our flight. We flew American Airlines and it was definitely quite miserable. For a 14 hour flight to Buenos Aires they showed ONE movie and then all we could watch was the little moving airplane cursor over a map that showed our slow progress over Central America. I do remember lightening and turbulence over the rainforest. Only Chloe and I were awake for it (possibly Mike as well). Sleeping in coach is a skill I have not mastered.
That morning we arrived and stumbled into the summer heat of Buenos Aires. We'd booked a hotel in town as the International airport was extremely far from the domestic one so connecting flights were too challenging to bother with. After a groggy day and restless night in a foreign city we found ourselves waiting at the airport again.
This was not our plane.
By now the kids were getting used to airports.
I was a bit tired though.
Eventually though all the waiting paid off and they brought us to a plane.
A short flight later we found our selves in our new home in Bariloche, Argentina. After that day we began our new life in South America, and it marked the beginning of our greatest adventure as a family,and I miss it, each and every day.
All three of my girls are back in school!
Phoebe started yesterday and is ready for 8th grade. She's T.A. (teaching assistant) for her theater teacher and for her English teacher from last year. She's also back with her friends and is deeply concerned about which musical her theater group will be performing for the Spring Show.
Chloe's been at school for a week and a half now. She's also T.A. for her poetry class. She just completed her first drawing assignment for mixed media and I think it came out pretty awesome...
She had to show an action in three panels.
Anyway, the big news is that after applying all over town we found an awesome school for Naomi. She's been accepted into BASIS. It seems to be some kind of genius school, she's studying latin, chemistry, biology and physics this term! Today was her first day, and she grabbed the last seat in the art class, and immediately connected with the other students who were also fans of the Percy Jackson books.
In other news my hand painted skate deck, "Off With Their Heads", sold out of the {9) Gallery last month, which makes me very happy. We also heard yesterday that we're getting a discount on our rent this month for the air conditioning fiasco last week which left us sweating it out for 7 days. So Whoohoo!! Happy Tuesday :)
Last night was first Friday and the opening for my show "Books of Whimsy". Unfortunately this crazy stuff called pouring rain came down from the sky, just before the gallery doors opened and chased away the small crowd that had gathered.
Some people did show up later on though, and fortunately my teenage daughter, Chloe showed up with friends, but it was a slow turnout.
Some people have indicated they would like to buy some art, including my boss, Julia who asked to reserve a painting and came all the way down from Scottsdale in the pouring rain.
Mike and I while listening to the fantastic live music of Mahlon Hawk, who performed for the reception.
Phoebe and Naomi went and took many photos in the gallery. The sculpture behind her "Reading in The Bath" was reserved that night for a buyer visiting from Holland. She wants me to ship it to Amsterdam once the show comes down, which should be challenging.
The Troll on display in the gallery.
The Gift in the gallery.
This is the "Little Ship" and "Book worm on a Paper Tree". Before the show I received a request to reserve the book worm as well.
Naomi with the "Clock tower". The gallery director told me that during story time in the children's room they marched all the kids into the gallery and did "Hickory Dickery Dock" in front of my mouse sculpture. She said it was the cutest thing she's ever seen.
My sculpture "An Intelligent Breed" sat near the window. He was also reserved that night by the musician and his wife, Mahlon and Renee Hawk (they just remodeled).
And here's a nice shot of Naomi by one of my paintings.
Mike and I in the gallery.
This week has been a crazy one. Late last week our a/c went out, which makes day to day life ever more challenging in the desert in the summer. Finally it was replaced on Thursday and we could all breathe again!
Chloe finally returned after a month away and headed straight off to school on Monday. She's off to a good start in her senior year. Phoebe starts 8th grade on Monday morning, and we're running around town trying to find a new school for Naomi, who just can't bring herself to return to her old school from last year(there was a lot of drama!).
In the mean time I'm going to be starting my next project. I'm building some glow worms to attach to a tree for this year's Grand Avenue festival. I'll be buying some glow in the dark paint so these look good when the sun goes down!
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| "An Intelligent Breed" by Carolyn Watson Dubisch -photo ©Duke Photography |
About a week and half ago we brought some of my sculptures into Duke Photography for some promotional shots for my show next month.
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| "Reading in The Bath" by Carolyn Watson Dubisch- photo ©Duke Photography |
The photographer, David Willhe, was very good, and seemed to enjoy shooting my art.
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| "The Gift" by Carolyn Watson Dubisch, photo ©Duke Photography |
Anyway we got some good shots and now my art is up on the website
here. I've also been working on some paintings for my show. This is one of them....
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| The Garden Fairies by Carolyn Watson Dubisch |
I'm painting six images on cut wood panels. I have finished almost five, so just one and half to go!
Unfortunately this last week was a pretty awful one. On Tuesday a nurse finally called me about my test results from the doctor. Apparently I'm pre-diabetic, which means now I have to eat better, exercise and test my blood sugar levels. On Wednesday I got a toothache and am now scheduled for a root canal next week. And then Thursday morning I was bit by a tiny insect on my ankle while walking the dog. I squashed it and didn't think about it for till the evening. Around 4pm it started itching and swelling.....
So when it looked like this I went to urgent care. They put me on antibiotics and said to wait, and "It'll go down on it's own." So I came home and now after several days it looks like this...
Which is just so lovely. It doesn't hurt but I feel like a mutant growing another foot! Anyway I've been hiding my ankle under a bandage and waiting for it to resolve itself, but it's really putting me in a bad mood. Anyway here's hoping next week is a better one!
Last weekend we traveled north out of the blistering city and into the mountains for a 4th of July weekend with family.
It was amazing how a couple of hours outside of the city can make such a difference. It was so much cooler we decided to go for a hike (in the middle of the day!!)
We stopped at Montezuma's Well, which is a natural limestone sinkhole in Rimrock, AZ. It's also an archeological site that has ruins of dwellings of the Sinagua people.
This is Oscar at the beginning of the walk. All along the trail were huge nests of harvester ants (big red ants), anyway they bit Oscar pretty fiercely.
Poor guy had to be carried back to the car. He hung out in there with Naomi, who was very involved with her book.
Mike and I by the well at the top of the trail.
The well from above.
From there we hiked down to the creek that feeds the well.
Chloe near the creek.
Hiking down to the creek.
Mike from below.
A better picture of Mike.
On the walkway next to the creek.
From the creek we hiked back up to the well and took the trail down to the water.
These ancient stairs weren't exactly welcoming.
Hiking down to the well.
The hike down had some amazing views!
This is an ancient dwelling by the water's edge.
After Montezuma's Well we went to a family gathering for July 4th.
Mike's Uncle Ray and Aunt Jill hosted us all (that's their labradoodle, Max,with them). They were kind enough to treat Oscar's bites with some benadryl, who bounced back immediately!
Mike's baby cousin, Joyce was walking all over the house.
It was a great day out of the city. From Jill and Ray's rooftop we ended the evening watching fireworks from the nearby casino.
Chloe is home from Aviation camp. She spent the week learning about charting a course.
Listening to various speakers and practicing in simulators (which she gleefully crashed each and every time, including the helicopter one!)
On Thursday morning she flew a plane from Prescott to Scottsdale airport with the other girls in the camp. Then they toured an old airplane graveyard.
Inspecting a propeller.
So glad this wasn't the plane they were flying.
This one has many important parts missing.
Chloe and her friend by a tail fin.
....And in front of a large, green wreck- Anyway she arrived home on Friday night, very happy to be home. She's a vegan and their "vegetarian meals" consisted of a large block of uncooked tofu with soy sauce dumped on it.
In other news I finally received my proof of my new book...
It's a huge hardcover of my entire comic series "The Horribles" with a fabulous cover by Mike (Dubisch)!!! I was thrilled to be able debut it at LepreCon where we had a booth last weekend.
It was a smaller local con, but we met people, sold books and had a good time.
Also we had a chance to try out our new banners. Which I think look pretty great. :)
On Sunday night after the convention we brought Naomi out to A.S.U. in Tempe for a sleepover, summer film camp in the college dorms. We set her up in her own private room (with a view) for the week. She wrote us to let us know that she was elected to be the director for the film her group was making! I hope it's going well, I guess we'll see on Friday.
This week I also finished this painting last week for my upcoming solo show in August. It's one of just a few paintings that will be in the exhibit. It's called "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" and is painted on a shaped wooden panel.
The last few weeks between teaching and everything else, I've been busy with "Leonard"...
"Leonard" is a giant lizard sculpture for my upcoming solo show called "Books of Whimsy" (You know that thing I mention all the time and have been working on all year). Anyway here he is in progress. I used a pool noodle to create the right curve to his body.
I hand painted designs on this 6 dollar table I picked up at good will, mounted a book on it and like all my sculptures tried to create the illusion that Leonard was emerging from the book.
Anyway this is Leonard getting his base coat outside on the patio.
And here he is finished. All pretty and ready for his big day!
Anyway Leonard is done and I'm on to the next one!
Last Friday was also the opening night of the "She-Deck" show sponsored by {9}Gallery downtown.
This is Chloe that night posing with her skate deck (just above her head).
And me with my "Alice in Wonderland" themed skate deck.
It was an impressive show, with some really talented local artists. These two are some of my favorites!
It's good to have a nice outing on a sweltering summer evening!
In other news my new big complied book of "The Horribles" is now available!!!
Anyway this week Chloe is away again at "Aviation" camp. I signed a paper that said I was ok with her flying a plane (this kid has not even gotten her driver's license!) Anyway, if you see me walking around muttering and staring up at the skies, you now know why!
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