One For The Kids

I teach art at a day care here in Seattle. My students range from about a year and a half to four years old. They are smart, creative, and absolutely willing to destroy anything I put in front of them. I watch them in disbelief as they tear apart projects that took hours of thought and preparation, and then I watch them in awe as they turn them into things I never could have imagined. And then they do it again. For them the project is never over; the creating never stops.

Last week I cut sea animals out of different colored pieces of felt, and with Velcro, attached them to another large blue piece of felt, creating an underwater world. In my mind, the kids would remove and reposition the felt animals where they saw fit, creating their own underwater world. We would talk about underwater animals and admire the starfish and turtles and put them in groups.

This didn’t happen. Within a minute of showing the kids the underwater scene, all of the cut out animals were on the floor or stuck to the kid’s clothes. The Velcro and what it would stick to was the new project. Then, the animals got put back on the large piece of felt and the kids began to swim with them, screaming, as turtles and fish nipped at their feet. One girl asked me for a Band-Aid because she had just been bitten by a shark. A minute later, the underwater world became a giant tortilla and the kids rolled themselves up into burritos.

They are not attached to the ideas they have or to the things they make. They create and destroy with the absolute confidence that anything they have done they can do again. And they’re right. I’m sorry, did I say I was the teacher?

Winky’s Night Out

All Winky wanted was to go to the other side of the room where all the people were. She felt wary of the awkward knee -bending, head bopping line of people admiring the band, Ghost Power, and wanted to be closer to the less awkward drunk people.  She didn’t even want to drink. She had already done shots over a toilet with four other girls in a bathroom stall. She was good on booze.

Seeing as how she would be 21 in two days, I gave her my i.d. to get into the bar area. I mean lets face it, she was going to need the drinking practice and I just wanted to help out. She put my i.d. in her wallet, thinking it would look more natural to pull it out when she was asked for it. Little did Winky know that she had put it directly on top of her own i.d. When asked for her i.d. by the bar guard, she accidentally pulled her own i.d. out first, said “Oh,” and put it back in her wallet, trading it for my i.d. The bar guard, having already seen the first i.d., knew something was up. Winky, strong at heart, didn’t give up. She said “Oh, this i.d. is expired. Let me give you my real one.” Unfortunately, he wanted to see both. He kept my i.d., and as Winky and I were talking to one of our teachers, he told her she really had to leave. He then asked me if it was my i.d. and told me if I wanted it back I had to leave as well.

Rodrigo was extremely relieved, being that we had already been there longer than he wanted. He had suffered an hour of Ghost Power and actually thanked the bar guard for kicking us out. He was even happier when he realized that it was his first time being kicked out of a bar because of the bad ass girls he was with. All in all, it was a pretty great night.

Almost Thirty

(This is the artist statement I wrote for a show I am having in the Closet Gallery at Cornish College of the Arts on Tues. Nov. 22nd)

I remember thinking that I’d never be thirty. Not because I thought I’d die young, but because thirty seemed so old and so far away. It still seems old, but it is definitely not far away. Almost Thirty is a series of prints of me at age twenty-nine, looking in the mirror and recording what I see.

All of the images in this series are observations from life, engraved directly into copper or plexi-glass and then printed. Most of the pieces have blind contour engravings integrated into the images. Using the blind contour technique keeps me honest. I draw what I see and am not tainted by the desire to create a beautiful drawing. It also helps me capture things that I would normally overlook.

For as long as I can remember, I have been an avid people watcher. I always notice a person’s gestures and the way their body moves. When I draw someone, I try to show something specific and unique about them. My ultimate goal is not only to portray who I am looking at, but also how I see the person in front of me.

This series of prints is an attempt at documenting how I see myself in my twenty-ninth year.

November 1st

sneak peek: setting up the show

Clone Steak

Would it be considered cannibalism for a person to eat a human clone? Rodrigo says yes, but I am not sure. I tend to think of clones as steaks waiting to happen. Not in a bad way, I just don’t really consider them to be human. Rodrigo says that people like  me are the reason that human clones don’t exist- they wouldn’t be safe or whatever. Like I am one of the bad guys from that movie The Island. But those guys were really bad. And wasteful. I mean, if you are going to kill a clone for its liver or heart, why not cook up the rest of it for dinner? It is really messed up when they kill sharks for their fins or elephants for their tusks, and then just leave the animals to rot and die. Why should clones be any different? Honestly I do think there should be human clones, but not really for harvesting organs. Just for food. I think famous people who look like they would taste good should be cloned first. Imagine going to the supermarket and finding prepackaged cuts of Brad Pitt steak or a bag of Angelina Jolie wings ( I don’t think I’d go for those). There could be Beyonce brisket and Russel Crowe ribs, I bet you Scarlett Johansson tastes like chicken. I would have no problem at all eating human clones. I would probably stop eating other animals. I would be a vegetarian of sorts. So I ask you, whose clone meat would you eat?

Seriously?

Let me just start off by saying that I am loving art history this semester. We are studying so many of my favorites that it is overwhelming. Monet, Rodin, Degas, Cezanne, Van Gogh to name a few so far. I also like my teacher. She is fair and passionate about art and slightly hard of hearing. It makes things fun. My only problem is that my class is from 5:30-8:20pm. It is my last class of the day, a day full of classes that begin at 8am. By the time I am sitting in my usual front row seat I am so tired that everything is funny. Things that would normally make me smile to myself give me uncontrollable giggles.

Take today for example. We were looking at a painting by Winslow Homer called “The Lifeline.”  It is a painting of a man holding a woman he has just rescued from a sinking ship in treacherous waters. There are crashing waves all around and one very big, very white splash behind them. The guy sitting next to me asked, “what is the light source for that big white area of the painting?” My teacher “what big white area?” The guy points to the painting and says “the big white area.” My teacher, “show me” (handing him the laser pointer). The guy “seriously?” Now this may not seem funny to you, but it almost had me in tears. They were both just so sincere in their desire to communicate and it was just so not happening that I couldn’t control myself. Its interesting, I am always too tired to be there, and I always leave class in a good mood.

Picture Perfect Moments

Being In The Water 24"x36" engraved acrylic, oil paint, acrylic on canvas

This is my submission to a contest with Seattle Met magazine called “Picture Perfect Moments.” If you like what you see, please click here.

The contest ends on September 27th at 8pm, so please tell your friends to vote! The winner of the contest gets a free trip to Hawaii and I really want to go!!!

Thanks!

Charlotte

9/11/01

I’ve decided to share my “where were you on 9/11″ story with you because I know for sure that it is much different from yours. First of all, I was in Guadalajara, Mexico doing a semester abroad from Bard College in New York. I was staying in a house with a Mexican woman and her daughter along with a four other girls from around the world. Rie was from Japan, Vicky was French-Canadian, Megan was from Oregon, and Kay was from New Jersey. We were all in an intensive Spanish program at a nearby university and on that particular morning I decided not to wake up for our 8 am class. At around 9 am I woke up and dressed for class and as I went downstairs I surprised the woman of the house who thought I had already gone to school. She had been crying and tried to explain why. Well, she did explain, but I didn’t know enough Spanish to really understand. I understood something about an airplane and my country. She was very adamant about telling me one thing and she made sure I understood every word. “Dile a Kay que su papa esta vivo. Me llamo. Hoy no se fue a trabajar.” (Tell Kay that her father is alive. He called me. He didn’t go to work today.) I had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew it was serious. On my way to school I saw Kay and Vicky running towards me. Kay was crying. I told her her dad was okay, that he didn’t go into work. I asked her what was going on, but she couldn’t speak. Vicky told me about the terrorist attacks on the twin towers and that Kay’s dad worked in an office high up in one of them. I guess Kay had been trying to call, but she couldn’t get through. They had seen the attacks on t.v. at school and Kay thought for sure that her father was dead. My head was spinning. I don’t remember how we got home from that spot on the sidewalk. I don’t remember much else that day. I know we all sat around the t.v. at the house, trying to understand as much as we could. We called our parents and our friends. I was unable to get through to any of my friends in New York and I was really scared for a few days. The next few weeks were very strange. People on the street would approach us with genuine sadness and tell us how sorry they were for what happened in our country. Other people would shout “Osama Bin Laden!” at us through their car windows as they sped by. Our program supervisor advised the American students to put Canadian flags on our backpacks and to not tell people we were American. In December, when the semester was over and it was time to go home, people were still wary of flying. I remember counting eleven people on my flight to Los Angeles including four flight attendants. We had to fly to Texas first, to go through homeland security. We walked through an aisle lined with soldiers and bright lights and huge American flags and silence. Everything was silent. Except for me. I was wearing flip-flops that had some suction thing on the soles, so they made a farting sound every time I picked my foot up. I remember wanting to laugh so bad, but being too afraid.

Disposable Daughter

We got to Napa around 3pm with an idea of what we wanted to do, but with no real plan. We drove to the hotel we stayed in last time only to find out that they had raised their room price by about $200 and they were fully booked for the night. The snob behind the counter told us that most hotels were booked for the weekend. He said “good luck,” but he meant “you’re fucked.” We decided that we would eat something first and worry about getting a room later. We tried all the restaurants, but they weren’t serving food until 5. The only other option for food was the bars. As we were walking towards them, we remembered that our friend Chloe is not yet 21. I had just gotten my new driver’s license and I still had my old one as well, so I gave it to her in hopes that no one would ask for it. We ended up in a bar called the Bounty Hunter whose main attraction is its beer chicken. The waiter explained to us how it was cooked – an entire chicken impaled on an open can of beer – and then served on a platter. It actually looks delicious. We ordered our food and a few glasses of wine. The waiter then asked us for our I.D.s. Rodrigo showed his first and then Chloe and I handed ours over at the same time. Holding a California license belonging to Charlotte Dean in each of his hands, he looked at them, read the birthday out loud on each and then handed them back to us saying he would be right back with out order. We all just sat there and stared after him. He was a nice guy, but he wasn’t just being cool and doing us a favor. He really didn’t see it. Our meal was great and we ended up finding a hotel room soon after for a pretty reasonable price. We walked to a winery and did some tasting. It wasn’t until after our last sample of wine that Rodrigo explained to us that we weren’t supposed to drink all of the wine they gave us, we were just supposed to taste it. So, we had a really nice buzz. The air outside was perfect. It was warm and breezy and we had a great time walking around the town laughing.

The next day we decided to try and make it all the way to Florence, Oregon to visit Chloe’s mom. This meant a full day of driving. We left Napa around noon after a delicious meal at a small Mexican restaurant. I could tell the food was going to be great because all of the hand written signs in the window were misspelled. These people weren’t wasting time with grammar. They were cooking. Rodrigo and I took turns driving three hour shifts. We stopped for food with the idea of getting something healthy. We ended up doing an all you can eat lunch buffet. I ate pretty well. Rodrigo got fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and cornbread. Twice. We kept driving. We found out that the three of us have a special gift when it comes to Mad Libs, coining phrases such as “disposable daughter,” “slippery mother,” and “barfy blonde.” We laughed and slept and drove and got peaches on the side of the road. We kept driving. Around midnight we stopped at a Wendy’s to pee. Rodrigo ended up ordering a chicken sandwich from a very strange looking cashier. He looked more like a drawing than a real person. He was really tall and thin and looked like Adrian Brody mixed with something Shel Silverstein would invent. Rodrigo looked at him for a minute and asked him: “Have you ever heard of Shel Silverstein?” The guy replied: “What’s that, a gas station?” Wow. Talk about making my day.

A Pile of Spaghetti

Today was my first reading ever of “My Crazy Baby Brother.” I went to Wagon Wheel, my old preschool here in Los Angeles, and read the book to five different groups of kids. Rodrigo held up pictures from the book and passed them around to the kids, and my parents were in the back cheering me on. I was very excited and very, very nervous. It didn’t help that the first group I read to was about thirty two year olds. It was sort of like reading to a pile of spaghetti. It was tough to stay focused on reading the story. They crawled all over each other and it seemed like they weren’t paying attention at all. However, when I finished the book and asked if they wanted me to read my next book, they all yelled “yes!” It got easier from there. By the third reading, I felt like myself. Still a little awkward, but definitely less nervous. These kids were about three, and there were only fifteen of them, so that was nice. They really listened to the stories and when I asked if they had any brothers or sisters one girl shouted out that her big sister was a dog. I read the book to the next group, and when I finished, one boy looked at me like I was crazy and said “so, read it again.” By the time I read to the last group I was really having fun. They were four and five years old and they understood everything. They “eewed” and laughed at all the parts that I wanted them to. They asked questions about my writing and drawing process and were very excited by the fact that I had made a book. They were very eager to tell me about their crazy baby siblings. One boy raised his hand and said “my name is Henry and my baby brother puts his head in the garbage.” I can’t wait to read to the next group of kids.

Long Walks on the Beach

 

Why does everyone on dating sites say they like taking long walks on the beach? I don’t. I don’t think I even know anyone who does. It’s hard to walk on sand. Every time I do it, my calves hurt, I sweat, and I start breathing like a stalker. I can’t imagine that being a pleasant first date with someone. Yet universally, it seems to be that “a romantic dinner followed by a long walk on the beach holding hands” is the ideal first date people describe. I think it’s a lie. I think that it is probably the best answer to a seriously messed up multiple choice question like:

Describe your ideal first date:

A. A romantic dinner followed by clubbing seals.

B. A romantic dinner followed by watching a 12 hour marathon of Toddlers and Tiaras.

C. A romantic dinner followed by a long walk on the beach holding hands.

D. A romantic dinner followed by a 6 mile run.

I’d still probably rather watch Toddlers and Tiaras than walk on the beach. I guess I’m just not outdoorsy.