a parallel

New Czech hit from Vaclav Neckar for this holiday season. (An icon from Czech history and film who suffered a stroke not too long ago.) The song talks of hope and comfort in times of fear of the unknown.

Love of/in a woman

(detail of gift, watercolor, 14"x12")

There is a lovely old photograph of a wedding couple, of my grandmother’s brother with his wife in which you can almost feel his devotion for her. As long as I had known them this chemistry was present. After something like 60 years of marriage and two sons, her partner left her side. Milan Tomastik died in 2008 leaving his wife for the first time since their teens. She in turn had a stroke which left her in a wheel chair and almost mute. Miraculously she has regained her speech and is quite self-sufficient and has recently celebrated her 80^th Birthday! I feel his presence and this love still surrounding her. 

                                                                 

                                                          Dagmar Tomastikova

We are still here

Yay! I am so happy to have just read your post about continuing on with our blog!

Admittedly, I was a bit confused about how you wanted to participate here when you started your own, but of course didn't want to push the issue since you were moving not just yourself, but your family, half way across the world.

And so, here we still are.

I am just getting ready to mail a piece to you - to work with, next to, on top of...whatever you dream up. It could be very interesting to work in this way together.

I am intrigued by the soap carving. It very much feels like the small paintings on eggs that you did 10+ years ago..There is a warmth and intimacy to the piece - please post more as you do them. I'd like to see what more transpires. Why are you interested in covering them with dust or charcoal? What does that signify to you?

I'll do the same - posting what I'm working on, I mean.

I just started working on an edition of 30 small pieces, each only 8cm x 8cm.

It's with others from the SAP group. The pieces are supposed to be white on white; I am using the horizon line as a metaphor of the Above and the Below. I take colors (whites ) from the everyday and place them in relation to each other. The horizon line appears and then suddenly disappears. It's very interesting - a new way of relating to work.

More soon - I have to go tend to Alessandro.

xo

Angela

Babicka

She left 120 soaps. I understand the wires, the china, the towels , the clothes, the books, the radio, the typewriter. But the soaps are a joyful/light surprise. Their touch, smell and feel are all lovely  to work in. (The carving tools are also hers, a knife and a manicure set.)  The carved portraits will need a layer of soot, I’m thinking of oil, or something that will combine with soap, (any ideas?)  and dust that is left in her room.  

dialogue

Let me be very clear that I have no intention of stopping our work together here. The dialogue is very much part of who I am and I cannot bare to lose that especially now that I cannot just pick up the phone and call. What is more I will need this forum for communicating and making clear those ideas that I need to translate into art form. (Clarity is not my strong suit so please do not give this up.)

(My Czech blog is more of a record for me to process the overwhelming totality of this new space and the new yet familiar experiences I find myself in.)

I think the solo show is an important step in both of our lives. I want to start coordinating (after the dust settles,) one myself for an intended space in Praha.