Cactus Lady

My daughter Kacie recently organized an exciting art event called "Ready," a participatory show held at The Big Umbrella in San Francisco. Kacie and fellow Wash U School of Art alum, Ilyse Magy, conceived and organized the event as a fundraiser for Urban Sprouts. They collected found objects, created paper maché objects, and set up a tent of canvases. They gessoed and arranged all these white and ready-to-paint objects in the gallery. Kacie also produced and offered silk screened fabrics featuring many of the objects -- many of which I will eventually work into one of my quilts. The preparation entailed weeks of work; fortunately, they elicited friends and other artists' help. The public--including many San Francisco Waldorf School families, Kacie's friends, roommates, neighbors, passersby, and family members--came on a Saturday afternoon and painted and embellished the objects, sculpture, and canvases. Each Ready object became the collaboration of many hands, and there was live music and a silent auction as well. The co-op studio and gallery is on Divisidero just south of Golden Gate, around the corner from where Kacie lives.

This picture is the colorful and amusing Cactus Lady I won. She has just come home to live in our house in Orinda . . . until I have a big studio for her to inhabit. I love how (even before participation) she combined these elements: a flowing skirt (I've always loved draping fabric); a cactus (it looks just like those near our vacation rental property in Los Cabos); and bright yellow hands holding a heart shape over the solar plexus chakra (about combining gut instincts/intuitions with the heart in decision-making). Many participants added embellishments including a spiderweb of yarn, sequins, objects from nature (a pinecone and feathers), a 45 record of the song "Now and Then," a patch of cellophane adorned with sparkles, words, pictures of Obama, and a piece of scalloped scrap of lumber, painted red, with "NAMASTE" inscribed upon it. My inner child played, painting with purple, a favorite color. As part of her "guerilla poetry project," Brenna added Emily Dickinson's, "I'm Nobody. Who are you? Are you Nobody, too?"



To see more of my daughter Kacie's work, check out her website. Michael Rosenthal Gallery currently has some of her work for sale (365 Valencia), and this week she has been asked to bring some prints to another SF gallery. Yeah! Ilyse also has a website worth a visit. And to see my daughter Brenna's artisty, take a look at her You Tube videos, starting with this one.