Lest you think I've been lying around doing nothing, I just thought I'd write a line or two summarizing what's been happening over the last few weeks.  Far from kicking back with my paws over my eyes, I've dug in deep to my art practice. Be careful what you pray for, because sometimes the Universe just serves it up, and keeps on giving.  I'm astounded.  It's an embarrassment of riches, and here are the high spots:

Art is Davis  is the new art cooperative downtown Davis, located at 222 D Street, between the Mustard Seed restaurant and the Pence Gallery.  It was started the end of last summer by Seana Burke and Marieke DeWaard.  They were joined in the co-op by Joanne Andresen and Jan Castle Walker.  I'm excited to say I now have studio space in the gallery along with these very talented artists.  My first Davis Art About in the gallery is THIS FRIDAY, March 14th.  And, there's more...

Beginning on Friday, March 21, I am offering a weekly Friday evening Painting for Relaxation series.  This will include instruction in acrylic painting at whatever level the student is, including never having picked up a paintbrush.  Emphasis will be on gaining confidence and just letting go and inviting the creative process to take hold.  All materials are provided, including an encouraging environment.  I see it as a time to kick back, enjoy music and a beverage, and let the stresses of the work week melt away.

Also, beginning on Sunday, April 6, Seana Burke and I will offer the perfect introduction to plein aire art.  It's Spring Sketching and Painting, and will take the student from the basics of sketching here in town using our charming Davis downtown, building skills week-by-week until you can execute an acrylic painting from a site you've sketched.  Painting materials are provided.  The class will meet for 4 sessions.

I'll also be in the gallery several times a week if you just want to stop by and say hi.  Check in with me here, on Facebook at Quicksilver Art and Spirit,,on e-mail at dori.marshall@gmail.com, or on Twitter @Quicksilver1953.

Yes, I'm still teaching Grumbacher Art classes at Michaels, 2175 Bronze Star Drive, Woodland CA where fun new children's curriculum has been added to the popular adult beginners and intermediate classes.  I will continue to teach every Wednesday afternoon (4:00 pm) and evening (6:30 pm) and several weekend days including some Saturdays.  My schedule will be posted on Facebook, on my art page, Quicksilver Art and Spirit..  You can also look for these classes on Michaels.com.

I'm still hosting Sketch Sunday Davis at Monticello Seasonal Cuisine on the second Sunday morning each month.  It's a refreshing time of brunch with fresh, local food and live music.  The art and food are both local, and the sketches done on site are available at affordable prices.

Lastly, there are the things I am grateful to be able to do to feed my soul...life with my family and friends, school and my unstoppable Artist's Way group of creative traveling companions.

Whew!  I think I'll follow Brodie's example and stretch out with my paws over my eyes.  Daylight savings started today and I have a feeling I'll be up early tomorrow!

It's the Scopes Monkey Trial of Our Century, and the Century Ain't Even That Old Yet

Until I read this article I had thought it was all right to totally ignore this debate.  After all, in my mind there is no inconsistency in being Christian and also having a healthy respect for and belief in science.  In fact, I've been quipping lately that Bill Nye won because he made bow ties cool before Doctor Who said they were, and Ken Ham lost because his biggest clobber was to say "It's in the Bible" as if that made something a scientific fact.

Now I'm less comfortable as I wonder why we Christians think it's okay to dump the responsibility for defending our religion from crackpottery on the scientists.  This article does a good job of encouraging all Christians to think through how we tell our story in the context of the science which the vast majority embrace.

Maybe it's timely for the many of us who take the Bible seriously but not literally to include ways of talking about our beliefs in a way that communicates our wonder at the created, evolved world as well as our sense that what has been learned through millenia of scientific inquiry serves to expand our ideas about God, not diminish them.

I'm glad to have seen Elizabeth Stoker's story.  It's a long-ish read, but it's shorter than the Nye/Ham debate.  Photo Credit:  ABC News  

Drawing New Life: A Civilized Way to Begin the New Year

It used to be that the practice of drawing was taught in schools, just as a natural part of education.  It was considered as natural, in fact, as reading, arithmetic, and writing.  Yet, most people I ask about Art (notice the capital A) in their lives usually respond by saying, “Oh, I don’t do Art.  I can’t draw.”  Sadly, this is often due to one of two reasons.  The first is that they have been the victims of judgmental educators who themselves may not have been compassionately or encouragingly taught, ending up therefore as demanding and rigid teachers unable to adapt to the unique needs of each learner.  This is a damn sad and sorry state, for every child has the innate desire to perceive and represent her/his world on paper with crayon or pencil. The second reason a person may think that s/he can’t draw is that they have never learned to see in such a way that they can represent their world on that paper with crayon or pencil in any kind of way that meets their own expectations, said expectations having been created by artists such as Durer, Rembrandt, or Leonardo.  Well.  There is hope for those suffering from both critical childhood instructors AND unrealistic expectations, for learning to draw is merely learning a skill set which is no more complicated or magical than cooking or auto mechanics.  Besides, incorporating drawing as a life skill is every bit as civilized as becoming a good reader or writer…and as uplifting as nourishing the spirit by the regular practice of prayer.

For an eight week period beginning February 4^th, I will be teaching Drawing New Life…a fine

way to experience new life.  Read about it here:

YOU ARE INVITED TO ATTEND THE NEW YOLOCANVAS

ART CONNECTIONS WORKSHOP SERIES,

“DRAWING NEW LIFE”

WHEN: Tuesdays from 1-3 p.m. February 4, 11, 18, 25,

March 4, 11, 18, 25

WHERE:  CESAR CHAVEZ PLAZA COMMUNITY ROOM,

1220 OLIVE DRIVE, IN DAVIS

In addition to drawing and sketching exercises inside, if weather permits we will go outside with sketchbooks to sketch from nature.

TEACHERS: DORI MARSHALL AND MARILYN MOYLE

CLASS FEE IS $10 PER CLASS.  Basic materials provided.

TO SIGN UP FOR THE SERIES CALL:

Dori Marshall (530) 219-5221 or e-mail

Dori.marshall@gmail.com

YoloCANVAS is a program of Davis Community Meals

THE FEE CAN BE WAIVED FOR LOW INCOME STUDENTS AND MENTAL HEALTH CLIENTS.

Doing the New Thing

"Magic Sticks"

It will soon be Halloween, I realize.  Halloween once meant diving into boxes of decorations and costume parts and pieces accumulated over years:  Masks, fake blood, face paint, plastic fingernails, Happy Meal buckets, even packages of (very messy) phony cobwebs to string around the front windows and porch.  It meant fighting off the temptation to swipe "fun-size" candy bars out of the stash purchased for trick-or-treaters.  It used to involve my sewing machine, as in when I once sewed a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shell for my older son, Michaelangelo.  (Just kidding.  His real name is Jonathan.  We only called him Mikey for fun.)  Pumpkin carving (eww) and playing scary music out the front windows.  

We used to offer a Fall Festival at my home church, where the kids could wear their costumes, play games, eat creepy treats like Worms in Dirt and Hand-Maid Punch.  We'd have quasi-carnival games like a cake walk and decorated pumpkin cookies.  Everyone was guaranteed a stomachache the next day, and everyone had a ball.  My favorite thing to do was to dress up as a gypsy, "Madame Fortuna Casserole" and tell fortunes with a bagful of polished stones and crystals and a pack of tarot cards.  Everyone knew it was bogus but making up fortunes was a lot of storytelling fun.

In my new life as a working artist, I realize that the most fun came from making something amazing using the resources that were readily available to us.  Fruit juice frozen inside rubber gloves became the ice cubes floating in Hand-Made Punch.  Crushed chocolate cookies and candy worms topped pudding cups for the Worms in Dirt.  Pretty pictures on tarot cards inspired fanciful predictions for aspiring ballerinas and astronauts.  

Artists everywhere have helped build culture, historicizing society using the resources that are available to them.  Often artist's images are the first mirrors held up to trends and paradigm shifts in politics, religion, values.  Sometimes however, art is art because artists find ordinary things and are compelled to do something extraordinary with those things.  Great chefs do it with food.  Designers use bricks and mortar.  Storytellers do it with a handful of sticks.  Magic sticks.  And paper.

Anyway.  Now that I am a crone and full of the wisdom and experience of my age, I have a lot of time that won't be spent sewing TMNT shells or painting Darth Maul faces on little kids.  So I have more time for my Magic Sticks.

It's a good thing it's almost Halloween.  It's a good season to make magic.

Join me on October 20th 

10:00 AM to 2:00 PM

at 

Monticello Seasonal Cuisine

630 G Street

Davis, CA 95616

for 

Sketch Sunday Davis

FRESH FOOD and FRESH ART!

Art About Davis

                                                                 

            CAPTION     

   !!!!!!!CONTEST!!!!!

Cinderella, my studio assistant, pictured here, unfortunately will not be helping me present art this Friday, Sept. 13th at the monthly Art About Davis
event.  I will be with the Square Tomatoes show in the old Beach Hut space downtown next to the Natsoulas Gallery.

I will be exhibiting small works and works on paper, so the art is big but the format makes it both affordable and easy to handle.

So, here's the contest:  Caption the picture of Cinderella using the comments section below, by 3:00PM PDT on FRIDAY the 13th, 2013.  The writer of the best caption explaining why Cinderella won't be there at the Art About will win an original work on paper by me, to be awarded either in person Friday evening or by USPS priority mail.  Winner need not be present to win!

Maiden, Mother, Crone...

Throughout the centuries the mystery of womanhood and its attendant phases have given rise to countless myths and legends, but for me the clearest way to understanding follows the eons-old "Maiden, Mother, Crone" progression, or the Goddess Tripartite.  This is an illustration found in many ancient civilizations and is for me most clear as the waxing moon of maidenhood, waiting to ripen, the full moon of motherhood which astonishingly gives life in many diverse ways, and, finally, the waning moon of the crone.

She, the crone, embodies the elder role within the tribe.  She has left the skipping flirtation and discovery of maidenhood behind.  Likewise, her hardworking, child-rearing  days are behind her.  Hopefully, with the days of reflection in which to meditate, she takes advantage of the opportunity to consider all the wisdom of the world, to integrate it, and to become the locus for that wisdom within her tribe.

Some women become crones which are dry as dust, uninteresting, and hollow as an old stump.  If we are truly women of wisdom, we choose to age differently.  My aging has been a thing of grace throughout my entire existence, and for the next season I bear the Creator nothing but gratitude.  To honor and celebrate the progression into that season which will lead me inevitably into the next life, I will gather friends and family on September 28, 2013 at the Davis Art Center in Davis, California, for a champagne dessert and a croning ceremony.

I don't know how folks will react to this; some of my friends have considered this to be 1) silly 2) pagan  3) self-indulgent.  Me, I say:  I'm having a pretty good time, all things considered, and my biggest question right now in my life is if I should stop coloring my hair.  My next question is:  Want to join me?  Want to look smack in the face of the ONE THING that American womanhood is supposed to fear above all others:

AGING?

I say:  Let's join in raising a glass to honor women of "a certain age", let's celebrate wisdom, power, grace, and the beauty that comes with experience of life.  RSVP to me at dori.marshall@gmail.com or leave a comment here below to join the fun.  Bring a token, talisman, or trinket to affix to my traditional walking stick to wish good wishes into the grey journey.

I said a "Croning", not a "Crowning"!

You are cordially invited to a champagne dessert on

Saturday, September 28, 2013

7:00 PM to 9:00 PM 

at

Davis Art Center 

1919 F Street, Davis, CA 95616

It's the Little Things that Mean so Much...

The Great Egret Song (Sold)

 These little gems are only 8"x8" and are on display at the Kennedy Art Center Gallery now through June 1.  They are a part of my 25-piece collection "Impressions of the Sacramento River Delta" and each of the 25 has its own special story to tell. 
The Delta is a network of paradox:  Cultivated fields and orchards abut wild meadow lands.  Natural watercourses join canals and irrigation sloughs.  Former marshlands are home to small towns protected by man-made levees.  And above it all are the birds, for birds and other wildlife continue to make the Delta their home.                               

Delta Yolo Rice Fields; Green

I've spent more time in the Delta than I expected to over the past few years...in fact, for the first few years I lived in Northern California the only thing I knew about it was that it was the annual water-skiing and houseboating destination of some SoCal neighbors who loved the landscape, the glassy water, and the camaraderie of river type folks.  When I met and married Dan Ray I learned to look forward to weekend sojourns to hunt for the elusive bass or striper.  I also soon learned that, for me, it was more gratifying to catch a watercolor or pen-and-ink sketch (they are sure bets) than making myself frustrated missing out on the fish or tangling my line.

              

We often see blue herons, the occasional deer, many assorted ducks, sand hill cranes, and the regal snow geese.  My favorite by far is still the great egret, and one of my best times on the river was marked by the finding of a feather floating in the water alongside the boat.  I fished it out and took it home, where it serves as talisman in my art studio.  I don't think egrets are known to sing, but I think they have a song we should listen for nonetheless.

Red Levee

I think there are a thousand stories large and small to be told yet about this place of water and light.  I've told 25 of them and I'd love for you to see them.  Won't you stop by the gallery while the show's running?