how hands can make sunshine

One day, in Oregon, we made collages. It was all because of Kelly Rae, who shared both her artistic process and her giant suitcase of cool collage stuff (like vintage letters, postcards, ledgers, envelopes, stamps, sheet music) with us. When I saw the paints and canvases come out, and when I realized what we were […]

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lovebomb

Last spring, I got invited to go with a group of women artists to the Oregon coast for a retreat called Lovebomb.  And of course I said yes.  Even though Oregon is a long way from Texas.  And even though I’ve done more than enough traveling lately.  And even though I only knew four of […]

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caroline carefully arranges everything she holds dear

I found a link to this painting at live.life.create.art today and I’m totally breathtaken.  The artist is Amanda Blake, and I just want to stare at this painting all day.  Really, I want to go inside it.  I’d love to know how to paint like that: to know how to make a paintbrush do that…

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you left footprints

Here’s a little photo poem.  The image here comes from one of my very favorite sites, Square America, an online collection of found photographs and snapshots.  And the text comes from something I wrote years and years ago…

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style with style

I grew up with The Elements of Style, but I guarantee my copy was nowhere near this gorgeous. Maybe it’s time for a new one. I might need to get it for the illustrations alone. These illustrations are by Maira Kalman, who also has a gorgeous and super-fantastic illustrated blog for The New York Times. […]

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the body project

After my friends and I did this project there were comments.  Lots and lots of comments.  And many of those comments said this: I want to do it, too! Which gave me an idea.  Other people should do it, too. I cannot tell you how soothing, amazing, and comforting it is to paint words of […]

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written on the body

I’m not sure how I came up with the idea to do this.  But a few weeks back, I decided that I wanted to paint words all over the body of my friend Jenny and have our friend Karen photograph it.  So I asked them.  And to my serious delight they both said yes. Here’s […]

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art gallery

Summer is officially here, and with it came stacks of art from my children’s schools.  And just as I was looking at the piles and wondering where I would store it all, it occurred to me that I didn’t want to store it.  I wanted to look at it. So began my project of covering […]

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the lives we hoped for

Here’s a video I just made for the essay “The Lives We Hoped For.”  I originally posted the written version here, under I Love Wrinkles, and then the amazing Mary Swenson posted it to Kirtsy.  Which inspired me to read it at a book event a few days ago.  And reading it out loud to […]

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