The New York Times article on the Insights 2009 art show gave some great coverage to a cool group show of blind artists’ work.

Insights 2009 marks the 20th year for the annual show in San Francisco’s City Hall and the first year they ever had a blind juror on the panel (me).  What I learned from the experience was that I am self-employed for a reason!  Wow do I have passionate opinions about art!  (As did the other two jurors.)

We came together, though, and the show hangs really well.  It’s tough to hang a group show, but the SF Arts Council and SF Lighthouse for the blind did a great job.

Left side of our display

Right side of display

And one just for fun, me standing in the booth:

So happy to be at the Quilt Market!

Thanks, Mark, for letting your readers know about the Art of Possibility textile collection launching in October at the Houston Quilt Market.

Can’t wait to see you there!

I want to keep everyone informed about Art of Possibility’s progress as a business and change agent and we’ve had some boy-howdy successes, but now I have a new brand management fear to add to my list of commerce paranoias: winding up on Tweeting Too Hard’s aggregate of blowhard tweets.

See, we have a lot to shout from the mountaintops and people who take a genuine interest in the work we’re doing, but out of context we’d just look like … me. With 30 drinks in me. Is perception reality? maybe I’m focused too much on being understood than being understanding, or averting misunderstanding, or caught up in my own cheerleading while not depriving folks of learning about our ups and downs. It’s just been a lot of ups lately.

We’ll take ‘em when we can get ‘em.

And therein resides the dilemma: sharing our glad tidings without coming across as boastful, self-important bores.

At the risk of overthinking the latest news, thanks to

The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Kokomo Tribune

The Kentucky Enquirer

Hot Spots Magazine

Elk City Daily News

for your recent coverage. It means a lot to us to share our message with others and we love you for caring about us.

Sitting at the Lake watching the moonbeams dance reflecting on the water, listening to guitar ballads, fireflies – the coolest insects ever – illuminating their lazy trajectory, with spartan distant fireworks and the blue-black night’s canopy over the verdant slopes to the water, I revel in the sublime moments off the grid.

Roman candles across the lake, the subtle sizzle of the neighbor’s grilled fragrant goodness wafting through the screen porch of the log cabin, hand hewn walls from the land on which they stand, I delight in how connected I am to it all when I disconnect from the cloud that’s responsible for 90% of the items on my task list that I need the vacation from in the first place.

As the momentum for Art of Possibility has accelerated I’m again leaping outside my comfort zone and the holiday break has been a great chance to renew, restore and remember how damn much fun it all is. Anyone reading this, feel free at any time to remind me of the fun of it all. I get caught up in the doing and forget how deeply I love my life – all of it.

Tomorrow we pack up coolers, kids & dogs and drive on the two-lane ribbons through the corn fields, across the one-lane iron bridge, easing ourselves toward the Interstate that leads back to the airport, as we gently close the story of the 4th at the Lake and catalog its moments of delight, laughter, minor annoyance with a slathering of SPF 45, I’ll take home a joyful collection of stories and snapshots of the spaces opened for sharing love.

Thanks to our friends in the media for sharing our message of hope with their readers.

- MomFinds Daily Blog

-  Jennifer Wang of Enterpreneur

And – a PodCast on the Dino Herbert Show.

I’m off to corn country shortly to enjoy friend and fellow artist Tamar Assaf’s participation in The Fields Project. Tamar is Hebrew for fabulous and the selection of her work for this annual celebration of art and agriculture creates not just beauty but also an excuse for me to road trip (via commercial airline, naturally. I’m a lot closer to hip replacement than I am the hip college scene) to the Land of Lincoln where I shall eat tomatoes and corn from local farmers all day every day while talking about how good the food is, which is the way of my people. We are a people of Grammas offering seconds, of long, lazy discussions of string bean varieties (go, Kentucky Wonder, go!) and of watermelon slices so sweet you’ll weep with the glory of the divine mystery that is summer eatin’. Art and agriculture belong together. The smell of grilling burgers and sunblock, the sweet nectar of a peach, sleeve-wiped and juicy fresh from the tree, the moments sublime and cuisine exquisite, will kick off hot fun in the summertime for me. See you there.

Oh Look! An Art of Possibility Studios article scavenger hunt!

(You’ll find us on p.34).

We’re doing our part to stimulate the economy by having a kid paint the entire interior of the house. A sunny yellow living space and cool sage resting spaces will enhance our lives and keep someone out of work in motion while the downturn trundles along. The thing about having your house painted? It’s like moving cross country, one room at a time.

Unlike moving cross country, though, there’s no “stop” to your life while your brother-in-law drives the truck from sea to shining sea. Instead daily life continues amidst a hubbub of home furnishings and the chaos of cardboard boxes. Compounding the drop cloth drama is a home-based business, so I get no reprieve from the tumult while I’m at work all day.

And with Surtex and Licensing just around the corner my work load skyrockets so I have a lovely aerial view of the pandemonium I hath wrought.

I just took three paragraphs to say “I’m busy.”

As such, expect bloggus interruptus; less frequent posts while I ride the wave of commerce (my economy is booming, frankly. I keep costs low and work like a field hand and y’know? Art of Possibility is doing o-kay) but I’ll tweet the big deals and hope to post when interesting ideas catch my imagination.

Friendships may or may not translate into good business, but good business invariably grows into lasting friendships.

I’d like to introduce another upstart, friendly, fun, artist-founded company to the growing list of friends of Art of Possibility: Sandy Parker’s Phenominoes®. Sandy founded Deep in the ART of Texas to create affordable, wearable art and generate jobs in her community, a place I lovingly described as “not California.”

Sandy found my work online, called, and we just love one another’s unique, independent goals and are now working at the intersection of those objectives, making both Art of Possibility and Phenominoes better for the shared effort.

We chose 27 different great paintings by George Mendoza and me for our first collection. Each domino pendant has a cleverly designed hook so you can easily transfer it onto other necklaces to add a little play to any ensemble.