Salon meeting, June 3, 2012, Karen Bellone

Thank you Karen for hosting us at your bucolic home on Sunday.  In attendance were Karen, Phoebe, Judith, Sandy, Carolyn and our newest Salon member Mary Milelzcik.
Karen's work is luscious, haunting, beautifully crafted and heartfelt.  I am so excited to have her passion, intelligence and warmth added to the chemistry of our group.  It was wonderful to engage in the dialogue  evoked by Karen's images, mirroring a different meaning for each person.  The general consensus was to "keep going".  I can still feel the crunchy parchment in my hands and feel the desire to run my hands over the luscious prints in Karen's book.
For those of you who missed the chance to see Karen's work, she will be meeting this Friday, June 9 with Craig at 1:00 at her house.  Please contact me if you need more information.

As usual, it was fantastic to reconnect.  We always walk away feeling nourished by the connections that we create when we are together.  I feel that our group has been an important source of strength and support for my own practice and well-being.
Here are a few a notes:

• Our next meeting will be in July and will most likely be a connect and talk meeting.  We are happy to host it, but will be open to any other takers.
• Please click on Mary's name above, to find out more about the interesting work that she is doing.  Mary is a friend of Peggy's. She is also a grant writer, has been a curator for many years and will bring another perspective to our group.  Her art website is in process and I will post it as soon as she is ready to share it.  She described her work as combining painting and photography.  We are looking forward to Mary's new voice in our Salon.
• Peggy sends her regrets as she's trying to balance her life and her studio time.  I wanted to use this chance to say "come when you can, we adore you and your input and we'll come to you!"  This goes for everyone who can't always make it.  This isn't an obligation, it's a love-fest.
• Zelda, I never posted after your last meeting as I was trying to re-gain my sanity and then too many big life events washed over me.  I just wanted to say: I LOVE your work.  Love it.  It's like poetry.  To quote the movie Swingers:  You are so money and you don't even know it.  If you've got it, flaunt it.
• Karen's lab that she mention in Culver City: Bowhaus.

• Judy brought up the artist Odd Nerdrum.  She felt that Karen's newer work was evocative his enigmatic paintings. 

Wishing you all a happy to start to your summer.  Hoping that creativity abounds and the time to express it is plentiful,
Phoebe