Steinbeck Library , Salinas talk 12/1/2017

831 7587311

350 Lincoln Ave take some cards.....And imagery.

.2 Haitian and Mermaids Erzulie.

Follow your dreams

My Art is my story telling. I am a Writer, a Photographer and a Painter.

Exploring, discovering and caring.....following one’s curiosity, imagination, your vision you will discover by asking questions and learning new techniques.

A playful spirit. Making a garden, planting trees and flowers, reusing and recycling to heal the heart. Celebration of stories, songs, special meals.... celebrating holidays. Giving to the earth. Caring for injured plants and animals. Talking about these things with my students.

Teaching students Poetry and Art to me is about stimulating feelings with a spirit of adventure learning to feel and see by expressing one’s self with photography and artists materials painting and drawing. Writing down each child’s life stories, making god’s eyes, and experimenting with various mediums. Honoring their feelings and painting their thoughts about them.

Learning to trust one’s eyes, and use them carefully.

Talking about kindness with each other. Thinking about one’s eyes as an instrument... to share your heart through imagery.

Looking through your eye as a lense. Getting in touch with a place deep inside and make photographs.

Writing for minutes at the beginning of my classes. Separating the students in a thoughtful way so they can think for themselves.

Anything they are feeling. Unwinding....

Writing the story of their history, putting their visions and feelings into poetry.Telling personal stories to one another, reading to each other, writing life stories about what they love to do, where they like to go, what they feel about their lives, what they hope for.

As a young teenager I began spending time in different parts of Mexico and South America. I returned later to explore unsettled regions in Chiapas and translate and photograph for Los Medicos Voladores, in Sonora and Baja.

I am interested in indigenous peoples and their ceremony.

Temples of the Mayas and the Incas in Peru and Bolivia, I visited.

I have been told my paintings tell stories my images are about being in one's heart. Working with cameras pen and paint. I am interested in people and their amazing courage.

Later on I visited Haiti and Cuba.

Jazz, Horses, Dogs, and the Ocean.... The mountains

I was hungry for space and freedom,

I was like a young wild horse.

My eyes looking always for more beauty, resting there for moments,

Colors, Sounds, Tastes, Perfumes and Distractions.

Far away Places. Horses, Dogs and the Ocean.,

The Seashore.

I love being close to the horses, all the animals, they give me so much love and make me happy, calm me down.

WRITE your feelings out, start writing, need to

blend them into yourself like a recipe.........Garden,

weed, watch your garden grow.

LOOK, WATCH, FEEL, WRITE, LISTEN, PAINT YOUR LIFE.

To be able to look at,

Write what you feel. Draw what you love. Encourage.

Play your Music, grow your Passion,

Look deeply, be thoughtful,

always try to be kind.

Reach out and try new ideas....,

If you could put all your ideas together,

imagine what they would look like in a large Mural backdrop painting,

across a gigantic endless background. Then imagine them

in a small softly lit Theater, on a quiet rolling hilltop, in an old Artist town, above an old place of pleasure and familiar haunting.

As a child I remember smooth curving wild beaches,

with ruggedness and gentle edges, all the perfect imperfections.

The hidden places behind the conversations i never

could understand,

i wondered.

My family's Artistry goes so far back, thinking of the Railroad, The Agriculture business,

the building of the first Governor's Mansion in Sacramento, the beautiful

old old house, standing gracefully in the heart of old Sacramento, California.

I come from a family who follow their dreams, vast and dreamy.......

I think the magic of Art comes in our bodies like a perfume of desire,

born deep inside.

I went to Big Sur, the mountains to find myself. I needed the Sea.

Remembering my grandmother playing her piano with her gently moving fingers, with sudden passion,

of the old man my grandfather laying tired in the back room, dying slowly

and I so shy as I remember going into that room on tiptoe,

he scared me there, a little girl who could feel

his time was leaving. Now I wonder why I only knew him

so.........

Sharing with the young children who I have been so close

to in creating many treasures together.

Making paintings and paper mache creatures really, Murals for our

Community, the Monterey Airport, Health and Transportation Departments

in Salinas. I worked with the Art Council of Monterey County,

teaching in the Public Schools from Castroville,

Salinas, to Gonzales, Greenfield to King City,

through the Salinas Valley.

So many possibilities are out there for our children and our young,

to gather their talents and creative magical worlds of their

dreams. We need to help them,

FOLLOW THEIR DREAMS.