Gateway Center 2019 Art Donation

In 2016 my good friend, Kaaren Pixton came to me to ask me to collaborate on a public art piece that we could donate to a local shelter.  Kaaren loves serving in her church and she loves collaborative projects that include a lot of people.

Kaaren  found a shelter for domestic abuse victims that wanted to work with us on an outdoor installation that could be used as a privacy screen. Together we designed these mural walls.

The shelter loved it and they even blogged about us.

https://bradleyangle.org/a-gift-of-love/

To Kaaren’s delight, we were able to involve over 70 women in the painting of these pieces. Each block of wood was painted by a different person or group of women. We loved how that adds to the meaning of a piece given to women in need.

 

 

 

In 2017 we made these underwater Coral reef scenes with “beautiful fishes and other inhabitants of that world.” (Kaaren’s words) The creatures were all created by women of the LDS faith that gathered to share their time and skills.

(Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the shelter they went to.)

 

 

In 2018, we made two meadow scenes and a butterfly collage.  We hung the collage in a stairwell at the Raphael house. When we first visited the establishment, I was confused when we walked in. I was not sure if we had entered the right place and did not know where to go. I knew at once, that we needed to give them something for their entry that would ward off that feeling of discomfort and unknown and give a sense of belonging and place. These flower murals and butterfly mobile do just that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The butterflies were so fun to make for the mobile that we helped dozens of girls make them at girls camp. They were installed at the New avenues for youth

 

 

 

 

Kaaren grew up going to a boarding school in England. From her stories it was largely void of beauty and art. As we were visiting the Raffael house, and explaining to the program director why we wanted to do this project, Kaaren recounted a story from her boarding school days she had not remembered until that very moment. As a young girl she had gone to the infirmary and as she sat there suffering, she looked up and saw hung up high in the lofted room, a large painting of a beautiful flower. She learned that it had been donated by a local artist. It filled her little heart with love and hope. A seed was planted in her heart that day. That little seed has grown into bursting abundance.

Karen has worked as an artist in residence for schools all over the Portland area helping children make art. She has created between 110 and 120 public art installations. I have been so blessed to have had the privilege to learn from her create with her! 

Kaaren’s work doesn’t end here in Portland. Her collage and murals have landed a spot all the way in Kenya, Africa, where she continues to help children both here and on the other side of the world experience the joy and wonder of creating something beautiful. 

  In 2018, Kaaren, Shanon and Melody turn the art from Magale students into a mural for River Grove Elementary in Kenya, Africa. 

Two worlds bridged through Art 

    For our 2019 Mural, Kaaren and I went together to the Gateway Center and chose a location to place the artwork  and began brainstorming ideas for the subject matter. Five days later, before Kaaren and I had a chance to reconvene,  Kaaren suffered a stroke.

I designed this piece of artwork in her honor. Kaaren is unfailingly optimistic and she never ceases to find the beauty in every situation. Karen had hard times in her childhood, and not always an easy life, but when you hear her speak of her life, it  is with delight and joy. Her quick laugh always reminds you to be in the present and to be full of love. She often says, “love is the answer, what is the question”. Karen and I had discussed making some sort of beautiful vista with a foreground with lots of flowers of some kind. I wanted to make this painting a portrait of her, to honor her, but since the stroke she has lost the ability to stand and  it was a lot easier to get her beautiful daughter Courtney out in her gorgeous yard for a photo shoot for photo reference. Courtney has brain cancer. She faces an unknown future of pain and undeserved suffering. And now she faces it without her mother’s help. It suddenly seemed right to celebrate Courtney, her beautiful life, her beautiful hair, and Karen, and unknown futures, and positive attitudes all in one painting. And then my dear friend Missy Mcconkie suggested a poem to be used in conjunction with the painting.

 This is a picture of the Gateway Center

And here is the final piece. It was lovingly created by over 70 women. Each woman at the event painted a quilt square for the border and a piece of patterned paper to be cut into the pieces of the dress. Shanon Edwards, Sierra Able, Jennianne Workman and Bonnie Traylor Talbot all donated many hours of cutting, gluing and painting to help this come together. Thank you all!

 

 

 

Juni age 3 Teig age 6

Mom: "Juni, what makes you happy?" 
Juni: "So much wands and sunshine and dance!!"

Dad: "Who is your favorite princess?"
Juni: "umm.. MOMMY!"

"Dis is my story but I don't want a read it to you cause it have a bad words. Once upon a time there was a poopy pat! Gross, but I wike it, cause it funny and gross, OH YA!"
Dec 20, 16

Juni: "It not scary! I just waf!" (laugh)  

Mom: "What do you want to be when you grow up?
Juni: "Teig".
Mom:"You want to be Teig when  you grow up?"
Juni: "Yes, because he so nice to me."
Dad: "When you grow up you want to be a dermatologist. Say it, der-ma-tol-o-gist"
Juni: "der-ma-tol-o-gist!"

Juni: "My body is telling me to say bad words that are funny."

"Hanguber"

"Monsters turning into monsters, like dis. I am a giant. Roar!!?.. I didn't slap them. I hurt the monsters, they eat chickens and it was the most horribelist dream of all time. I'm going to kill you so much a nd they are not going to die." I wike everyseeng.  Out of my clothes, I change into costumes and not clothes. I wike swimsuits everyday. Dad gets dressed in the morning in swimsuits in the winter time.  Roxy is giving me a hug."


Teig- Age 6

Teig is finding his voice. He has to be strong and loud and aggersive to be heard and to stand out with three older boys and an attention grabbing little sister. He's developed some anger in partnership with his voice. What I am learning is that he has learned to really scream! His tantrums sometimes are epic. He is learning some skills to help.  It is a phase. I hate to see him so upset.
He is very detail oriented. He likes things to be done in order, with reason and logic. He likes to have enough time because he hates to be rushed.

He loves to wear jeans and minecraft t-shirts with a turquoise sports hoody everyday. His favorite colors are turquoise, green and blue.  His backpack and tennis shoes are these colors and he gets comfortable with one one outfit and wants to wear it everyday.  He enjoys consistency and predictability. He likes me to wake him up with plenty of time for school.  He wants to be early for things.  He loves being in Kindergarten.  He is really good at math and is reading now. His favorite way to spend his time is playing minecraft. He is quite an expert and can make amazing buildings and temples. They are almost always turquoise, "diamond" and gray and sometimes green. 

He loves skiing. He likes to say that he goes 25 miles an hour.  On the chair lift he asked Paul, "am I adopted?" Paul said, "no, we are so much alike. Of course you're not adopted." Teig said, "oh, ya, I like treats and you like treats, you must be my dad." 

full disclosure

Teig: "Mom, Juni bit me!"
Juni: "na, uh, I tried to bite you but I couldn't"

New President and Riots

Donald Trump won. It amazes me. I am floored that our country could nominate and elect someone like him.  I could talk a lot about this, but this is not the forum.

 

Paul and I were downtown at the Blazers basketball game on Friday night. At the end of the game reports came from the PA that I-5 and I-84 were closed due to the third night of demonstrations. That was our way home, so we took our time in the parking garage looking for alternatives. I said, "Let's go dancing!" We started looking for a place to go dancing and I turned the radio to a new station.  The radio announced that downtown Portland was a war zone!  There were bombs going off and I could hear all the screaming behind the announcer.  We found a route and came straight home.  It would have been fun to go dancing, but not tonight!  We still had a great time together. The Blazers won by 1 in overtime.

My parents have been here for 13 days working on a remodel they are doing in Willsonville. I helped with the finishes for about a week.  They left this morning.  My mom and I got to go to Value Village together and I sneaked her away to look at pinterest and art ideas a couple of times, but most of the time, she was busy working with my dad. They watched the kids so we could go to the game. I got to talk to my dad about the drama with his siblings that occurred when his Mom died.  It's really sad that they don't communicate better and that there is so much pain in their relationships. They really needed their Dad not to die so young. I wish he lived longer. 

Jeanette sang in church today with a group of 5 women. It was beautiful.  Eirik gave a talk on being reverent and having respect for Heavenly Father. It was very good. 

Paul taught my dad some cords on the guitar yesterday.  I loved watching this!

Lllllotion

Sometimes on slow Saturdays, all the kids take baths and then we have spa day. I lay out towels, turn on the heater, light candles and we do massages, nails and listen to soft music.  It's been a long time since we had a spa day and Juni was getting out of the bath this week.  She said, "you rub my back." She laid down on the towel and waited.  I laughed and got out some lotion.  She said, "Llllllotion!" She is working on learning to say her L's and overemphasizes them in the cutest way.  When I started rubbing her back, she said, "what is this?" I said, "It's a massage." She said, "Oh massaaaage. I wike massaaaaaaaaaaages." Then she said, "slllllowlllly,  slllllowlllly."  It was so cute, I had to write it down.

"You look like a bully in that haircut."

"You look like a bully in that haircut." Joren screamed at Eirik in response to something Eirik had done.  There were tears.  I found Joren in his room ashamed and sad. He cried on my shoulder and then said he was going to make it right. I watched him go next door and through tears, tell Eirik he was sorry and that he really doesn't look like a bully.  They hugged. 
My boys love each other and are old enough to have learned to apologize and make their relationship strong on their own.  Today Joren had a rough day at church.  He was hungry and tired and wanted to go home. It was all he could do to hold it together until the end.  I was in charge of sharing time. I took them into the sacrament room for the lesson. They all sat down and Eirik's row filled up really fast. Joren was the last into the room.  He looked around at all the hundreds of open spots and then climbed over people and squeezed into the nonexistant space next to Eirik.  Eirik was happy to make "room" for him. It made my heart happy.

Roller Skating

We went to Oaks park to go skating as a family when Eirik's school teacher invited his whole class to skate.  We were ALL surprised to find out how much we loved it. Juni was adorabe in her little strap on skates and effervescent attitude. Nothing got her down. Teig was like a constant ball of motion.  There was no stopping him, even the 5000 falls which seemed to be part of the whirl of forward momentum.  And Joren found a groove and took off on his own all night long.  He went around and around and around with pure determination.  Eirik and Jake and Jeanette all had a great time too. There were calls to go back the next night and the next and the next, but we settled on a week later.  The night agreed to came and the adults were not as excited to go since Halloween was the next night and we had to leave a party at the school early to go skating.  It seemed like too much.  Despair was in the air.  Joren said, "I want skating to be my life! I love skating. I want to go three times a week!"  Teig was so mad! He said, "If I could, I would run away and go skating right now." I took just Teig and Joren and the three of us had a great time. The third weekend, we took my mom and dad.  The Westovers met us there.  If we can get Eirik more on board, we will have a family activity we all love.

Biz Town

Today Eirik and Jake went to Biz Town, a warehouse downtown setup inside like a little town where each student is given a job in the town and they spend the day interacting withing their job titles, earning money, buying things and learning how commerce works.  Each student was given the chance to apply for three jobs of their choice and then interview for them. Eirik was given the job of meteorologist, but what he really wanted to be was the TV Host.  He thought being the meteorologist was fine, and he enjoyed it, but he was able to get the TV Host to agree to let him fill in for her while she was on break. He came home bragging that he got the most screen time of anyone there.  He admitted that he may, or may not, have bribed the representatives of the different businesses that were responsible to come for interviews, to all come while the TV host was on break for so that he would get to do the most interviews.  My friend Tiffany went to Biz Town as a volunteer and I saw her after school.  She said that all the parents were talking about Eirik and how talented he is. She said, "Eirik said he wants to be a dermatologist, but he would be great on TV!"  I told her that he is always volunteering to give talks in primary whenever anyone is absent.  Talent and confidence oozing from this kid!  

A prophet at six

Teig and I were discussing his part for the primary program that's coming up. His part talks about prophets. I asked him what do you think of prophet? He replied "I believe in prophets because I am one. I  I'm starting to become one."

3/25/16

"Bacon pack pack in case you want a snack." Eirik Yosemite 

"I not want a bunny in my hutah. Cause I not like it.  

In de trees. And climb and climb like this, like a fox."

You're adorable. "No I not!"

"I yike haw gaws and yike meat and cheese anymore. I just yike food. Taberries, buberries, eggs and ham and meat and meat aaaand meat and haw gaws."

"You're argumentative." "No I not!"

You're fired

Juni was so mad at me on the way home because I wouldn't give her her succer until she put her seatbelt on. Through here tears she yelled "you're fired."

School year 2016-17

On Teig's second day of kindergarten I got a call from the office. Gretchen told me that Teig did not have a fever but he said he was not feeling well and wanted to come home. In his tiny voice, he told me that he felt like he had needles in his neck from the inside.  I said, "your throat hurts honey?" He said, "yes, can I come home?" I told him that I could come and be in his classroom with him for the last hour of school and that we could find him a nice place to rest in the classroom while I read him a book or something.  He thought about that for a minute and then said, "so I can't come home?"  I said, "sorry kiddo, you're in kindergarten now and you need to stay until class is over.  Then I asked again if he wanted me to come in and hang out with him.  He said, "fine, I'll just go back to class." 

On the fourth day of school (Friday) Joren was exhausted.  He came downstairs yelling at everyone and crying.  He's never like that. I helped him get breakfast and carried/ drug him to school.  He told me the whole way that he was not going to school.  I took him into the assembly. As I dropped off Teig, Joren went to hide in the hall.  I found Joren's teacher and told her the situation. She found him and told him to come to class when he was ready. Instead, he walked home. It caused quite a stir at the school with search parties looking for him within 10 minutes. By the time he was home and I had put him to bed, the school was calling me. We had a 30 minute talk with the principle and school counselor that afternoon.  So, we did not make it through the first week without visiting the principle! We are off too a good start!

2 year old essentials

There is an awkward stage from about 2-3 years old when a nap is still an essential part of the day, but getting a nap will ensure a late bedtime.  I usually stay up late, but the intent is to get a few hours to myself during the day. When a certain 2 year old is awake until 10:30 or later every night, that time quickly disappears. Sometimes, when I get tired of so much vigilant duty, I get lazy, and that's when it happens. 2 year old boredom strikes. It's almost as if there is something inside Juniper that commands her to smear, squish, stab, destroy, cut, spill, break and color when she gets bored. Today I cracked open a Diet Dr. Pepper and for the rest of the afternoon could not figure out where I put it. Well, Juni knew where it was; she was sipping it and hiding it behind her potty chair. No wonder she got up after I thought she was sleeping and got into my make up again! For the 4th time this week! You may think that we are being to easy on her or not consistent with her about rules or that we are soft parents.  Let me assure you, she is not getting of easy, and yet, why?? What motivates a 2 year old to paint herself in bright red lipstick head to toe, day after day even after spankings and time outs and lost privileges?  Really, I'm to blame for, once again, leaving it in reach. I can't make any mistakes around here.  Yesterday she dumped out the whole bag of trailmix to pick out the M & M's. Really, who doesn't want to do that though? Tonight, before the make up she took all her clothes out of her drawers and stacked them in the hamper. Earlier today she stole and ate all of Teigs gum. I have to fight with her every time we leave the house to get clothes on her. She wears a swimsuit every single day. When I hide them, she will go naked instead. She will not let me comb her hair without holding her down. If I am lucky enough to get ponytails or a headband in her hair, it is on the floor in 2 minutes. Last night when she sneaked out of bed she stood at the top of the stairs peeking around the corner batting her maskared eyes at us with a little mischievous look. How does she instinctively know to do that?!  If she knows she is doing something she shouldn't, she says, "Shhh"
She is "cared" to ride in the car. She says that there will be rocks and she will fall down. She is not afraid if she does not have to ride in her carseat, but as soon as I have wrestled her into her carseat (a major task!), she insists that someone has to hold her hand or she needs her pink teddybear or Roxy.  When Roxy rides with us, she gets a fierce embrace wherever we are going.
Juni and I talked about the rules. She is very good at rehearsing all the rules. She says, "you have to ask first." in the cutest little way.  But she does not keep them!
She is very tough. She will tell her brothers in no uncertain terms when she wants her way. she is fearless (except of cars, shopping carts, and bikes).  She loves sports and slaying monsters and everything pink and purple.
We painted this morning on a giant canvas. She did one side while I did the other. We listened to country ballads and mixed paints together. She kept saying, "I wike dis song. or Dis is so pretty. I wike dis color."  I was thinking, "This is the start of a beautiful partnership, but then she kept breaking the rules and painting on herself and dipping into the paint cans instead of the palette and using her fingers instead of the brushes, so finally I had to put her in the bath. When she came back down, I had proceeded with the painting and had turned some of her work into meadow (using her colors, but not her marks). She looked for a long time, then said, "well, you ruined it!"  What a terrible mom move. I got her her own canvas, but it wasn't the same.  I have to make it up to her tomorrow.
Last night at the farmers market, I let her get her face painted like a pink kitty cat. She was so proud! No wonder she wanted to get into the make-up again today. When I asked her why she did it again, she said, because I wike being pink and sparkwy.  Really, how can you blame the girl?  I like to paint with my hands and be pink and sparkly too.  It must be terribly hard to be 3.