In art therapy materials class we made a representation of our families out of non-hardening clay. I used Crayola clay. My family ended up all melding together, their clay bodies that is, and there was a little nest with eggs in it. It’s meant to be a healing way of expressing how you feel in your family dynamic. I took it home where it sat on the kitchen table and my husband said, “What the hell is that? That’s just scary.” I laughed and said, “It’s my family, and you’re that blue being melting into me.”

My family — detail

A fascinating book which at times gets far too bogged down in the author’s own self-analysis, On Not Being Able to Paint nevertheless comes to some amazing conclusions about what can stop creativity. She talks about the fear to create a piece of artwork and how it often seems like a life-and-death situation, when really, it isn’t at all. After all you can just tear up what you made if you don’t like it. And how it’s really difficult to teach someone how to paint with rhythm and real feeling in a painting. Because that comes from within, from a deeper place, and can’t be taught.

The significance of an art school for an artist, she feels, is not in teaching certain painting techniques but in offering a safe framework and space in which the artist can work. That really resonates with me because going to my art classes once a week really helped me stay creative and keep putting something down on canvas. Whether it was crap or not, which sometimes it could be.

I love plastic cameras, especially my Holga. The photos come out with all these unexpected light leaks and effects. There’s a great article for beginners in Plastic Camera photography I would really recommend here. You can buy Holgas in NYC at ICP.

If you’re anything like me, you love to go to the Salvation Army or any thrift store you can find looking for old weird junk. And one of my favorite thrift store finds is a polaroid camera. If it’s a pack-film type of camera, you can still shoot with it, with varied results depending on the condition and model of camera. If you find one, check out the Land List How To page and get shooting! The photos come out with some very unusual and interesting affects. In subsequent posts I’ll show you some examples of what I mean, after I dig in my old box of polaroid pics. Click on the link below to see this old Polaroid ad in full-size.

Just watched Born Into Brothels, what a great film. It follows a photographer, Zana Briski, as she lives in the red light district of Calcutta documenting life there. She becomes very attached to the children who live in the brothels and teaches them how to take photographs. The children are totally transformed from the experience, finding a great deal of joy in making art. The film really showed the power of art to heal and to change lives. It’s a really touching and bittersweet film.

So my co-worker just put out an album on his own label! He’s a singer-songwriter and the stuff is really good. And he’s also a really sweet, great guy. Really bare bones singing and acoustic guitar a la Nick Drake. Very moody and melodic. Check it out here:

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