Lina

Dec 28 2013

How Sweet it Is

By melissasasichambers Everything Else

We went to Salt this morning for breakfast and had Guru Donuts and lattes. Sweet.

Today is Lina’s last day in Boise before she goes back to Chicago and so we just ran around doing last minute things like mailing her Christmas haul so she doesn’t have to carry it back on the airplane and train rides home.

We also felt the need to carb load. Apparently donuts for breakfast leads logically to Mac-n-cheese for lunch.

After lunch we stopped into Bricolage and talked with Chelsea Snow who has some great plans for the New Year for local artists and makers. Pay attention! 2013 was a stellar year for Boise, but I can see that 2014 is shaping up to be even SWEETER!

On the way home we stopped at the new mosaic collaboration Anna Webb and Reham Aarti have just finished. It’s a roundabout next to the Boise Depot:

I think there’s something really special about a city that not only has new food and art and craft and public art ventures popping up all the time, but whose chefs and artists and makers and public artists are all accessible, real people. Maybe it’s a Boise thing. Whatever, it’s the sweetest.

Now back to my sweet daughter for our last evening before she heads home…

Looks like she may have over done it on the sugar today.

Whatever, she’s the sweetest.

Dec 24 2013

Crazy “To Do” List

By melissasasichambers Holidaze

Lina arrived safely from Chicago for Christmas, meaning it was time to relax and play and enjoy the holiday, right? Only I’m slightly embarrassed to admit, I pretty much put her straight to work. (Tell me I’m not the only one with a crazy “to do” list in her head?!)

Well, we let her refuel first.

Twice.

I’ve been wanting to build a snowman for days, but it’s been so cold the precipitation has all been powder. Finally, it warmed up enough the snow could stick and then (of course) it all started to melt. So, first things first, we made 3 tiny snow creatures…

Quickly.

Next there were cookies to be baked and decorated at mom’s house with both Lina and Logan…

And then the real work began. Lina introduced me to the 21st Century. (I don’t always move quickly.) She set me up on Facebook.

I’m only about 10 years late to the party and I’m really planning to stay only as long as we can talk about art. And I can already hear my more literary friends practically screaming in unison (some with really bad Scottish accents)… “and the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.”

But I’m here now, and Facebook actually let me open a personal page and an artist’s page, and a few of you already like me. You really LIKE me!

I will try to keep up with the whiplashing pace and volume of information (Hey Deby!!), but I will also be honest and say my hope for Facebook is that I can finally share what I’m doing with my art with a much larger audience. Color me crazy!

I hope your crazy “to do” list is as short, and sweet, and colorful as our plate of Christmas cookies. And vanishes as quickly!

Merry Christmas!

Dec 18 2013

Breathing Room

By melissasasichambers Everything Else

I have been waiting for today for some time now. In fact this is the first day since this time last year that I am beholden to no one and no thing. There are no looming deadlines, no exhibition openings, no meetings, and no social events to hostess. My only concerns are my family and myself, and I am already finding it easier to think. It’s so much quieter in my head.

The final event on this year’s very busy schedule was the TVAA Kringle Mingle last night. I promised you results of the art exchange and as you can see, I was tickled!

I received Kathleen Probst’s beautiful abstract textile piece titled Peepholes #7:

You can see more of Kathleen’s work at her website www.kathleenprobst.com and I highly recommend you do so.

The other cool thing is that Barbara Bowling received my bamboo utensils…

Barbara is another one of those 1 degree of separation stories. My daughter, Lina Chambers, and her daughter, Sarah Gardner are both actresses who knew each other and acted together long before Barbara and I ever met.

We had one of those “Wait a minute, your daughter’s an actress? My daughter’s an actress! I know your daughter! She’s your daughter?!” sort of conversations a few weeks ago from which we are still recovering.

Barbara is also a very fine artist and jeweler. Her website is www.louisesleap.com

By the way, both Kathleen Probst and Barbara Bowling have terrific work in the current TVAA Foray III exhibition, to say nothing of the other 65 artists, so check out the show if you find a little time in your schedule.

Ok. That’s enough work for one day. Now I’m going to go relax and enjoy this terrific weather we’ve been having. Maybe work on my tan a little. I’ve really been looking forward to this break!

Nov 21 2013

Field Trip! Star Moxley’s Costumes at Enso

By melissasasichambers Field Trips

I took a little break from painting hot air balloons today to go see the exhibition of Star Moxley’s costumes at Enso gallery.

I’d missed the opening, and her subsequent walk and talk-through, and the whole Idaho Shakespeare Festival reception. Frankly it was just getting ridiculous, and then mom said she was going to go and photograph the costume that Lina wore as the Woman in Black.

So I decided “Foray III submission deadline be damned,” I was going too. Good thing. The show closes tomorrow.

Star is a mix-master, a mashup queen, a genius at spinning hay into gold thread, whispering pigs ears into silk purses, and making chennile bedspreads into boleros.

I appreciate her playful intermingling of materials and high/low mix of quality and I know she loves the second hand hunt as much as I do.

One of the things you figure out about Boise after you’ve lived here a little while is that nobody in this town is more than one degree of separation from you. One degree. If you live here, you know I’m not lying. Ask anybody. Star has designed costumes for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival since they began, and my daughter Lina’s acting career began with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. One degree, I’m telling you.

Anyway, Lina has worn costumes designed by Star for a couple of Shakespeare Festival productions including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but the reason I didn’t want to miss going today was the dress she wore as the Woman in Black was in this exhibition. Gorgeous.

The dress isn’t bad either.

Lina lives in Chicago now and I miss seeing her every day, but it felt good to be in the same room with a ghost of her presence. Pretty cool too since everyone knows the Woman in Black wasn’t really there at all. Was she?

Tomorrow it’s back to painting. Tonight I’ll enjoy the visions of Star’s patterns dancing across my blog.

Take a seat and join me!

Nov 12 2013

Evolution of a Theme

By melissasasichambers 2D & 3D

Yesterday I mentioned that quilts show up all the time in my work. As I sit here running through the house in my head taking an inventory of my art, I would venture a guess that were you to remove all the pieces that were inspired by, featured, or actually were quilts, you would assume that Mike lived here by himself, or at the very least that we only hung his art.

Quilts started showing up with my art and domesticity mashup which occurred with the introduction of one Carolina Lorraine Chambers…

followed seventeen months later by Logan Blackburn Chambers….

I did say “mashup” right? I think that about covers it. Logan was born on Christmas Day (Surprise! He was due on the 29th.) and so I painted his first portrait with Christmas quilt patterns: Star of Bethlehem and Fir Trees.

I don’t spend a lot of time analyzing what I do, I just do it. Action Girl, ON IT! But it has always been clear to me that what is considered to be “woman’s work” is an art, Domestic Art if you will, and should be celebrated. Quilts show up in my artwork all the time because to me quilts are a “signifier” (damn that Art Criticism class) of home, family, connection, story and tribe.

My tribe is made up of those who make art, who make home, and who make the two inseparable.

Lina is all grown up now and organizing her own Big Ass closet in Chicago. Logan is getting ready to move into his new house next week. And still the theme goes on: I am starting a new painting of hot air balloons each with a different quilt pattern…Up, up and away? (Oh, you sly subconscious.) My guess is quilts will always be present in my home and in my art.

Besides, a quilt works great as a superhero cape in a pinch!