http://jillberrydesign.com/blog living the creative life Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:30:29 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Finally my website is up and going for my Taos class this August. We will be painting pages and making books in the Stables Gallery, right off the plaza downtown. The casitas are ready to book with Lovey of Taos Lodging (mention the class, she is giving a discount). The ... http://jillberrydesign.com/blog/2010/03/06/taos-the-luminous-landscape/ I love working on black paper. In high school I had an aversion to black, and would never wear it or use it in art. Even now the only black paint I have is actually gesso. Black does not, in its absolute form, occur in nature. Dark colors do, but ... http://jillberrydesign.com/blog/2010/03/05/black-is-the-new-brown/ I love inventing alphabets. Quirky hobby, I know, but it is fun. This is a page in my journal of Mexico Letters, which were inspired by a book I have on Pre-Hispanic Stamp Designs. This one was inspired by the work of Joan Miró. I did this in a workshop that ... http://jillberrydesign.com/blog/2010/03/04/lust-for-letters/ This weekend I taught the Personal Geographies: Mapping Your Life class at Denver University, and as usual, it was filled with the kind of energy that you want to enjoy on a gray weekend in February. It never ceases to amaze me what comes out of this class, the range ... http://jillberrydesign.com/blog/2010/03/02/denver-university-mapping-class/ In three weeks I will be in Port Townsend, Washington at Artfest, where I will be teaching two classes, can you see my name in lights above? This is thrilling for me, both because I think it is a well run, imagination filled event, and because it is on the ... http://jillberrydesign.com/blog/2010/03/02/artfest-is-acomin-up/ This is a piece that I did a few years ago. It is a wild on-the-floor journaling exercise that I did when I was working with Mary Oliver's poem, Poppies. It took me about a half hour. Sometimes you just have to splash things around. Some of this you can learn ... http://jillberrydesign.com/blog/2010/02/26/poppies/ In the last few weeks I have been up and down so often it feels like the teeter totter I used to ride in Lacy Park. It has been the kind of ride that means I am way heavier than the one facing me, who is up. I am keeping ... http://jillberrydesign.com/blog/2010/02/25/teeter-totter/ Today I have four friends in medical crisis. I am the kind of person who takes that to heart, and my mother would describe me as "acutely sensitive". When you are made out of one kind of material, it is impossible to imagine that all of humankind does not share ... http://jillberrydesign.com/blog/2010/02/23/reality-blogging/ On Wednesday of this week, I went to see my friend Nancy in the hospital. Nancy has a brain tumor. It has been a long haul for all of us who call her friend, since the dark day in January that she had a stroke, to now, when we know ... http://jillberrydesign.com/blog/2010/02/19/poetry-for-healing/ This Valentine was made about 1916, about 45 years after the greeting card for this holiday became popular. Now it is second only to Christmas, billions of cards per year. Yesterday I received three Valentines from arty friends, this is such a huge benefit to being in the art community. ... http://jillberrydesign.com/blog/2010/02/16/valentines-day/