My Sister in USA Today, April 30th, 2008

Follow this link and click on the image of the dog's vest to view the full gallery of images:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2008-04-29-therapy-pets_N.htm

Tahiti and Mom

My sister and I have decided to disinter the ashes (cremains) of my late mother and bring a portion of them to be scattered in Tahiti. The remainder will be used to create two paintings - one for each of us.

I share this with you, dear reader, because you are my witness and my companion on this adventure. If you have experienced my paintings then you have been present to something inside of me, and I would like to continue to share the artistic journey as it unfolds.

This idea of exhuming the beautiful and ornate blue urn that has lied underground for 12 years is a bit confronting to say the least, and yet it seems perfect. My sister emailed me to offer the suggestion of bringing "Mom" to Tahiti only days ago on the same day that I had been researching the use of cremains in various unconventional ways. However, I had not even thought of my own mother's cremains, nor had I mentioned it to my sister, ever. We hadn't even spoken about my mother in a long time. The timing of her writing seemed serendipitous. What are the chances of me just happening to be reading about putting cremains into reef balls, paintings, or shooting them into orbit (which is all kind of a random reading topic for me), and my sister just happens to write with a seemingly random suggestion of bringing our mother's cremains to Tahiti? Seriously.

Why bring her cremains to Tahiti? That was where my parents met and fell in love. We will complete a circle there - we will leave part of her there where we began. The time has come for us to be complete, and I'd like to share the journey of completing with you. When you see the paintings or other works you'll know what inspired them to be.

Now I have to figure out how to obtain the cremains and the urn from the cemetery. Legally, of course. We're not grave robbers. However, I do have a tendency for breaking fragile ceramic things and therefore the responsibility of carrying the urn at anytime should trustingly lie with my sister.

May Day Soirée

Please consider attending the MAY DAY SOIREE benefiting Camp Get-A-Well-A, and bid on a painting of mine!

Thursday May 1st, 5:30 - 8:30pm

Minneapolis based Camp Get-A-Well-A (CGAWA) serves hospital-bound children and their families across the country (and regularly operates at Gillette & Children's locally.) From campfire sing-alongs, to arts & crafts, carnivals, canoe rides, s'mores, and even nature hikes, CGAWA is the only camp that brings the learning, laughs and memories of camp to children in the hospital. It's free to the hospital and free to the families-- so far they've reached over 7600 campers, and they have several requests for more camps -- but cannot reach more children without raising more money.

Their first fundraising event is at the new Joffe MediCenter (just 2 minutes outside Minneapolis at I-394 at Penn) -- where you may enjoy beer and wine plus signature cocktails from locally-produced 45th Parallel Vodka and food from local celebrity chef, Philip Dorwart. Parking is easy and the event is free.

for more: www.campgetawella.org/maydaysoiree