Honey-Sweetened Love

My first lattice-topped double-crust cherry pie entirely from scratch was very inspirational. Pie for breakfast? Just try to stop me.

 

 

Home

To my shame the moving in stage of moving in was delayed for a while.

While I enjoy my two office rooms, my whistling radiators, my teeny tiny kitchen, the local overly cautious SUV-drivers, the stark winter colors, my eerily quiet neighbors, the relative difference of 65 versus 67 degrees and a thousand other aspects to my new town and apartment, it has not been a smooth transition. My homes have always been built around friends and family. The new connections I have made here along with many long-distance calls have helped, but, obviously, the numbers of connections has changed greatly from what I was familiar with.

It takes a long time to move into a place if you're not sure it's really where you want to be.

In the end, this is the right thing, so during the holidays I spent plenty of time making my apartment into a home rather than just a place where I sleep, eat, doodle and teach fashion students figure drawing.

It's back to taking my thyroid vitamins and making prioritizing lists, starting with the four or five or ten projects I've managed to attempt working on at the same time, some as adjustments to existing pieces and plenty of new works. They always keep me up far longer than I initially expect, too. I also have plenty of pieces that I need to catch up on posting.

"A Lid for Every Pot" was a commission that allowed me the opportunity to get back to using the kitchen as artistic subject matter, much to my own enjoyment.



After four years of art boot camp, I've had time to refamiliarize myself with those bulky things called books. Between the Gil Evgren calendars, the debut of Patrick Rothfuss's epic fantasy and Mo Willems children's books, I spotted an enjoyable little book by author and artist Vivian Swift.



It's the book that every visual artist secretly or not-so secretly wants to publish, combining personal sketches, facts and observations into one place for no other reason than to share everything with the viewers. When Wanderers Cease to Roam is catered to the creator herself, containing paintings and information of nature, life and the change of seasons in a year as an homage to her quiet experiences. I would not choose to draw the subject matter that she has in my own sketchbook but to view the work is a lasting inspiration.

From Mom with Love II

When you combine baking and painting pictures, the best part is is eating the results. The baked goods, not the painting.

Florida to New York (and then over to Minnesota)

I was waiting to post until I had better news than 'I'm coping with living out of boxes', but no. At least there are plans in motion that should resolve the big box debacle of 2008 relatively soon.

Good thing I do have brief highlights of the long road trip I took in May with my mom that I can post.

It started with a last visit to Publix for a Publix veggie sub and a bottle of flavored tea. I will greatly miss those subs and the simple and effective packaging design on Publix brand name products. We also picked up a bag of the Publix Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips because Publix has amazing food products.



We stopped at South of Reality--I mean, South of the Border. The billboards every few miles though South Carolina really sold us on visiting fake Mexico and its bounty of random creature statues.



Sometime during Day 2, Virginia welcomed us. At least I think it was Day 2.



Then we spent a lot of time driving somewhere, at some point. Probably not a good thing, since I was the one driving to get us to NY.



In Chadd's Ford, PA, I bought a bunch of lovely art books and we took many pictures of the gorgeous scenery. Of course, I was most enamored with a small rusty door.



Then, because we were close, New York, New York. For Mom, the food and attractions were good, but the noise and constant motion was not good. I'm glad it's all good for me.



As we only had a day to spend in the city, we took a trip on the Staten Island Ferry. I will be returning specifically to visit Ellis Island for as many hours as possible.



Of course, we stopped over at the Society of Illustrators, where my Basic Needs illustration was on display as a part of the student show. I picked up the 49th Annual and the 2008 Student Competition Catalog, both which feature my work!





(In mentioning the Society books, my illustration was used for this year's Art Directors Club National Scholarship poster!)



After unpacking the car, I needed to drive Mom back to Minnesota. On the way we had to visit the Field Museum. Two words: Tsavo lions.



During the road trip, my nephew was born, so we hurried home to see him for the first time. To be honest, I'm not a baby person. They're far too delicate and unresponsive for me to want to touch. But I'm really looking forward to buying him children's book and comics by Shaun Tan and my friends when he's old enough.



In the end, I made my way back to the beautiful ivy-covered brick house where I'm staying. Or at least until I move again.

Graduation and Help Support Artist's Rights

Tuesday, April 29th was the last day of classes for the year at Ringling, and on Friday the qualifying seniors walked across the stage to receive their diploma cases. (The real diplomas are in the mail.) As my name was called, I was elated and deeply gratified to hear my friends, faculty, administration, and family cheering and clapping for me. In the final hour, it still felt more like everyone was just leaving for the summer, and we'd all be back in the fall. But no, not this time around, and I'm happy to walk away with connections to an amazing group of people whom I will support and who will support me.

The photo is of me and my parents, Dave and Deb, in the big purple building known as the Van Wezel, with my new diploma case.


After officially becoming a working professional, my fellow artists and I are now faced with a challenge to the intellectual copyrights of our work. Two bills about U.S. Orphan Works have been introduced to the Senate and the House. From the Illustrators' Partnership of America, "The Orphan Works Act will affect all images from professional paintings to family snapshots. This includes any image, whether published or unpublished - or any that resides or ever resided on the internet. It will force [the artist] to register every image [made] with privately-held commercial registries. All unregistered works will be exposed as potential orphans for commercial infringement."

The bills infringe on current individual creator rights and laws which are necessary for visual artists to successfully maintain their businesses and protect their work. At this time, the moment an artist creates a piece, that piece is under the copyright of the artist. The artist is then protected from others stealing their work without having to register the piece with the U.S. Copyright Office and paying the incurring fees. The wording and definitions of the Orphan Works Bills are too broad, and if passed, individual, self-employed artists would suffer in their attempts to protect the copyright of their own work through fees and actions that are unreasonable to sustain. The IPA provides information about the bills and makes it easy to fight against them.

Please take two minutes and help protect artist rights by filling out an email take action form to your Senator in opposition to S.2913, and an email take action form to your Congressman in opposition to H.R.5889.

So far, through the IPA over 68,000 email messages have been sent. I have sent my letters, and, for good or for bad, I have received the responses as follow.

"Dear Ms. Sweep:

Thank you for contacting me regarding copyright protection issues and the development of digital media.

As you know, many bills introduced in the 110th Congress address legal issues surrounding licensing, digital reproduction, and distribution of artistic works. As a pro-consumer Senator, I believe it is important that our laws adapt to new technologies, with the aim of increasing consumers' access to the widest possible range of digital media. At the same time, I support efforts to stop the illegal piracy of copyrighted materials and ensure that copyright holders are compensated fairly.

I appreciate hearing your views and will keep them in mind as this issue is debated before the Senate. If you have any additional concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me in the future.

Senator Bill Nelson"

"Dear Ms. Sweep:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Orphan Works Act. I appreciate hearing from you and would like to respond to your concerns.

Patent rights and the protection of intellectual property are the fundamental building blocks of commerce and innovation in our country. I believe that artists and innovators should be fairly compensated for their work, and that reasonable efforts to find and reward these individuals should be made before allowing works to be used or copied by others.

On April 24, 2008, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 (S.2913). An orphan work is a copyrighted work where it is difficult or impossible to contact the copyright holder. The establishment of the Orphan Works Act would provide restrictions and limitations to the remedies that could be awarded to those involved in copyright infringement that entail orphan works. This bill would require that the infringer takes diligent effort to locate the author of the infringed copy before using the work and require a Notice of Use to be filed with the Register of Copyrights before the work was used.

The bill specifies that monetary relief may not be made for damages, costs and attorney's fees, however reasonable monetary compensation can be made to the owner of the patent or copyright. Other limitations include that compensation may not be collected if the infringer is a non-profit educational institution, museum, library, archives, or public broadcasting entity. S.2913 was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. Although I do not serve on this Committee, I can assure you I will keep your comments in mind as we proceed in the 110th Congress.

Representative Howard Berman (D-CA) introduced similar legislation (H.R. 5889) in the U.S. House of Representatives. H.R.5889 was referred to the House Committee on Judiciary, where it awaits further approval.

Again, thank you for sharing your views with me. If you have any additional questions or comments, please do not hesitate to let me know. In addition, for more information about issues and activities important to Florida, please sign up for my weekly newsletter at http://martinez.senate.gov.

Sincerely,

Mel Martinez
United States Senator"

From Mom with Love

My mom had originally given me this recipe, and it's a great one to share. For my Friday critique and bake group, you guys make all the difference.

The holidays, changed.

Thanksgiving, along with the rest of the major holidays, is a family event. Grandma cooks and bakes and hosts the family party, and spreads her love among us. She has always been the center of the holidays.



This October, my Grandma had an accident at her home and passed away. It's hard to experience the effects of the loss away from my family, especially during the holidays when she meant so much to us. I worry about my Mom and my Grandpa, and I think of what is now missing.

I also think about the memories that I carry to remember her by. In August, when I visited my family for my sister's wedding, afterwards I spent a few days with my Grandma. Together, we went to the Kandiyohi County Historical Museum, home to the Great Northern passenger train No. 2523.



"Twenty-Five, Twenty-Three" is a collograph print, created in memory of my Grandmother and the day we spent together, not knowing it would be one of the last.

I am appreciative for all of the memories.

Summer Summary

The summer began with the continuation of my internship for the Ringling Design Center, working everyday up until the Illustration Academy 2007. It's a life-changing gift to go to the Academy. I was particularly grateful to be in attendance for a second year, because it was more relaxed and comfortable, as opposed to the first year when I was painfully shy and intimidated.

The best assignment of the academy for me was Mark English's, in which we were limited to illustrating a conversation in a cafe scene, using only two values per object with a 20% difference between the values.



Utilizing such restrictions, I was able to complete another piece like my "breakthrough" piece from last summer.



During Doug Chayka and Jenny Kostecki's alumni week, I used pen and watercolor to illustrate Chapter Three of Pinnochio as a two page spread.



I'm in love with how the lamp turned out.



For the conceptual portrait assignment from Anita Kunz and Jon Foster, I painted a movie producer remaking quality Asian films into "American spectacles."



I scanned it in two parts because a) it's too big for the scanner and b) the still-life objects are better than the figure anyway.



For my reference, I made the props and set it up as I needed it, using Gumkid as a model. The reference was half of the fun.



After the Academy, I flew to Minnesota where I visited family and friends, attended my sister's wedding as a bridesmaid, browsed the dusty goods of the local antiques store, explored inside a huge No. 2523 steam engine locomotive built in 1916, and toured a wealthy farmer's house built in 1893. The wedding was the most exciting part of my trip, as evidenced with my sister in the photobooth.