Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo.

--Paul Simon

I just noticed my last post was in February. It's been busy.

I was invited in the Fall to teach a Collage Workshop at Nimrod. Oh please, don't throw me in that briar patch!! That weekend is here and we've all arrived at beloved Nimrod Hall, in Bath County, Va.  I brought a huge box of paper for the gals to use, examples of my work, and blank canvases to work on. Everything I brought this weekend revolves around my animal collages. Why animals?, people ask me. It's strange how everybody relates to animals. What is it about certain creatures that we feel a connection with? There are so many HUNDREDS of types of animals, but we all relate to certain ones. Yesterday, I went around and asked each person if they have a favorite animal -- a resounding yes from all: "dogs", "cats", "insects", "giraffes"... It's so interesting to me. And further, a lot of these favorites we may never see in real life, but only in pictures or storybook drawings. But holy moly -- seeing a peacock in real life? Or a zebra?  Talk about knock your socks off!! God had fun the day he created animals.

Most of the collages that were made were animal related, but some made pieces with other subject matter. Overwhelmingly, they couldn't stop!   I know that I have a really strong work ethic and painting/paper addiction and therefore spend inordinate amounts of time working while I'm at Nimrod, but I had no idea everyone would all be back working after dinner! AND Sunday morning. It  was a success.  Here are some pieces the workshop participants made:

A Little Bit of Orange

When the trumpet brays, Kandinsky hears vermilion. The violin plays green on its placid middle string. Blues darken through the cello, doublebass, and organ, for him, and the bassoon's moans are violet like certain kinds of gloom. He believes that orange can be rung from a steeple sometimes, while the joyous rapid jingle of the sleigh-bell reminds him of raspberry's light cool red.

I'm really lucky that my cards and prints and paintings are in some great shops around town, with even cooler shop-owners. I can't sell my things where I start to feel anxious when I visit the shops. (sorry -- ain't got time for that...).  A few months ago,  one of my shop owners told me she had never seen one of my original animal collages in person. From different conversations, I also know she's crazy about her horse. And the color orange. 

I get a lot of requests for horse portraits.  I decided to make one for her, and make another one to scan and make prints of.   I made the one for her big enough so that it could not be scanned for a print, because if she were selling the prints in her store, it might make the original feel less "original". So a few weeks ago, I took it in to show her an original animal portrait . I was so flattered when she almost cried -- an orange horse just for her!! Here he is, along with the other one.

The poem, the song, the picture is only water drawn from the well of the people...it should be given back to them in a cup of beauty so that they may drink, and in drinking, understand themselves.

Federico Garcia Lorca

My dad passed away over 3 years ago. I still think of him every single day, and every few days find myself turning to tell him something or remind myself to call to ask him something. I still feel really sad knowing he's gone, sad for my mom who misses his companionship, from a marriage that spanned 50 years. I'm lucky that when I divorced I moved only a few hours from them. I enjoyed their company enough to run home many many weekends to lick my wounds and feel better. I'm so thankful I spent so much time with them, to form a close adult relationship where they were at a point to learn from me just as I was still learning from them. I often think of my brother who lives across the country. I know that I have had this priceless time with them I feel badly for him. It's never coming back.

But he's not really gone.

I know he is watching me and I know he is proud of what I'm doing. I know he is laughing at the things my two boys do. I'm just sad that I can't see it.

About 6 months after my dad died, I started a job teaching art to dementia patients at an eldercare facility, (or "finishing school" as I like to call it).

Years before, he had encouraged me to go by there and visit a Dr. Michaux, who was a distant cousin of ours. My dad was the third Michaux in our family line and we were frequently reminded of our family history --we are after all, from Virginia.  The original  Susannah Rochet was a French Huguenot. The story goes that in the 1700s her father could not afford passage on a ship to escape France (because of religious persecution). He befriended a ship captain who agreed to hide her on the boat as it crossed the sea. She was hidden in a wine cask aboard the ship, at 8 years old, and later called "Little Nightcap". She arrived safely.

It was natural for my dad to want me to visit Dr. Michaux in the nursing home. But I never got around to it, and Dr Michaux passed away.

Fast forward  about 15 years later. I started working in the facility and lo and behold! Guess who one of my patients was: Dr Michaux's wife, Julia! Odd, right? I spoke with her about who I was and our connection but her mind was too far gone to understand.

A few days later my manager asked me how things were going in the area that Miss Julia was in. I related the story of Dr. Michaux and told her that I couldn't believe I was teaching his wife, of all people. Suddenly my manager looked at me with fresh eyes. " You know how you're being paid, right?" she said to me. I had no idea what she was talking about. She explained that I was being paid through an endowment left by a patient whose wife had taken an interest in art in later life, and he wanted to always make sure art was available at this facility. The patient that left the endowment? You got it, Dr. Michaux. Did you get chills?

How can I not see my dad's involvement in that?  I think it was his way of saying how proud he is of me for sticking with my passion, no matter what. And making sure I got paid for it.

Yep, he's still around.

And there are more stories like this. Another time.

Speaking of family, my father's mother was ZouZou, and it is from her that I named my business (another story). From my other grandmother I inherited a lot of old photo albums, with mostly black and white pictures from the 1920s.  I look at these old photos and wonder about about all of their stories. I am endlessly drawn to old sepia photos.

These paintings are based on some of those photos. The top photo is ZouZou and Michaux, Jr. The one here is a likeness of my other grandmother, Lucille, who was a flapper in the 1920s.

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...

Jack Kerouac

Years ago, when I had decided to go back to school to teach art, and therefore devote myself to my passion, my brother told me about a woman in town, an artist, whose work he had just purchased, a painting.  He told me that she led an artist retreat every summer out in the country, close to where my mother grew up. I looked her up, loved her work as she is a colorist also, and began my dream of attending one of her artist retreats. A few years went by, I occasionally heard her name mentioned, met her several times, began to go to her openings, and still I dreamt of the retreat. Somehow I thought it wasn't possible until I was older and retired, or suddenly struck it rich as an artist (ha) to be able to afford such a getaway. By then I was married with 2 very small children, which presented another stumbling block. Whenever I ran into this artist here and there, she encouraged me to attend her retreat.  One day, my husband ran into her and he told her how much I admired her and really would, one day, attend. It turned out to be my lucky day. My husband had gotten laid off work and therefore had time off, and someone had just dropped out at the last minute, for a camp she was doing the following week. Could I go on short notice at half price?

(COULD I?). I immediately packed up and soon headed out, blindly, into a new adventure. It turned out to be one of the most memorable weeks of my life, and one that has continued every year since then. It's my reward in the summer for working so hard, when I get to go away to camp.

I love it because I get to paint for five days, 12 hours a day if I like.  An added bonus is that Laura, the artist from above, is a fabulous artist and it is amazing to watch her paint.  She is also one of the funniest people I've ever met. With a mouth like a sailor. The stories she can tell! We have hit it off over the years and now are in touch with one another throughout the year, checking in, going out, and seeing each other's work.

Recently, THE most flattering thing happened: she has asked me to teach at camp next summer!

Wow, I've come a long way...

Here is one of my favorite sights at Art Camp:  the screen door to her studio that constantly slams
open and shut, covered in a beautiful lineup of paint colors. She's as messy as I am.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein

I consider myself extremely lucky to have found my passion early on, when I was a child. Only I didn't realize it then.  I would draw draw draw all the time, try to paint, play with paper. In school, I could still listen to my teachers while I doodled all over my notebooks. I was the one on the cheer squad who was in charge of making the posters advertising the week's games.  In college I was even in charge of the bulletin boards all along the main hall.

But I never considered making a living at it, it was just something I did.

Then, I was in England studying. We discussed paintings of Anthony van Dyck and composition and implied line, and were told to go to London to see his Charles I On Horseback in person at the National Gallery. As I stood in front of this huge painting, at least 12 feet tall and 12 feet wide, it took my breath away. Then I felt like crying. Then I knew that I had to do this, study-paint-explore art, for my life 's work.  It was my light bulb moment, or as Oprah would say, my aha moment. (My counselor was a bit panicked when I returned to campus my senior year and told her I wanted to change my major from psychology to art).





And that's what I've done. Worked all sorts of odd jobs (I'll save that for another day) but making things has been my constant. I've found that I feel at odds if I DON'T do something creative -- paint, draw, cut, glue -- every day.  And I love teaching for this reason -- helping kids (and others) find their passion early on, and explore it. I know many people my age, late 40s, who haven't figured out what their thing is, the thing that makes them excited and happy and curious. I am so very grateful that I found mine early on. Boredom does not exist in my world.

He expresses himself as no one else scarce begins to do in the language of the art he practices. He is capable of an immense and exquisite correspondence with life.

Henry James, referring to John Singer Sargent



Until I made my first rabbit collage and began selling prints of it, I had no idea how many rabid Rabbit People there are out there. I am now selling 5 different prints of rabbits, from originals I have sold, and have sold many other collages that I haven't made prints of. The rabbits outsell all of the other animals.

A customer on etsy requested that I contact her anytime I do another rabbit piece, so she might have first dibs on it. I have, and she has bought several originals from me, and some rabbit prints and some rabbit notecards. (Excuse the general term "rabbit".  I have been corrected several times, one particular piece is a Rabbit, one is a Bunny, and that one is a Hare.)

On etsy, I have joined many teams, related to things I make and/or processes I use, and yes, I am on the Etsy Rabbits Team.  The customer mentioned before contacted me last week and told me that one of her beloved rabbits passed away over the summer, and could I do a painting of him. Then she told me I must think she's crazy, but she's not, she just loves rabbits. (By the way, National Rabbit Day was in September).

I assured her she isn't crazy, and that, believe me, there are lots of people just like her out there. For example, I am in the middle of working on a group of commissions. Someone wanted to surprise his wife for her birthday and asked if I would do a painting of each of the animals they had had together, but had passed away, as he wanted to line their hallway with the paintings. No cats, no birds, no gerbils. A couple of dogs, and 9 rabbits. Here are some of them:

The viewer's vision must be changed by a good Realist picture (or any picture). He or she should never be able to look at the subject depicted in the same way again.

Adelle Weber

A few months ago I got word that some of my work is going to be published in a national magazine in January. In mid September I got another email that the shoot for the magazine was the first week in October -- could I send 5 or 6 original pieces, and a 3-4 part step down, along with a 1,000 word article to arrive in their offices by October 1? 

Well, uh, sure...I can do that...(What the heck is a step down??). I called a magazine editor friend, she had no idea. So I forgot my pride and wrote back to the magazine, and got my answer. A step down is a 3-4 step example showing the process where a piece is created. So, in the next week, I had to decide on -- and gather from various places -- 5 or 6 originals to send, a 1,000 word essay, and 3-4 new pieces showing the process...no stress, no problem...

So here's what I came up with. All packed up, sent away, and now I await the return. The next question is, what do I do with the first two pieces???