Image by Rui Fernandes – a view of the Obras Foundation near Evoramonte, Portugal (with a drone camera)

I have been processing my recent residency in Portugal at the Obras Foundation and the work I accomplished there and how Helena Almeida’s work has affected my work. I have also been thinking about my residency in 2014 in India at the Sanskriti Foundation and my profound connection and interest in Nasreen Mohamedi’s work and the work of my own that I exhibited in my studio last summer that resulted from my “time” with Nasreen. And… going back even further – to the many years I spent traveling to Palestine with my dear 6+ colleagues doing art projects there. How amazing it has been to travel and meet wonderful artists and people from all over the world – my friends and artists in Palestine, my artist friends in India, in South Korea, in Australia, in beautiful Portugal, in Italy, in Holland, in Japan, in Israel, as well as the wonderful art community I have here in Colorado and the United States. I feel very blessed to have these relationships and experiences – which are based on the common joys and struggles of being an artist. I miss those of you who are far away, each and every one of you.

And with every major encounter, every trip, every new relationship there is a processing and integration of that time and an ending in a certain way before you can begin again.

And with this specific practice I have undertaken with “remarkable women artists of the 20^th century” I still have much work to do here in my own studio in Boulder, Colorado. So I am looking forward to 2016 as a year for working more on these projects that I began in India and in Portugal. I have no plans for new residencies in amazing far-off places, and no new examinations of other remarkable women artists are planned for 2016. I want to extend the practices and works that I have started with both Nasreen and with Helena as “my guides”. I also have several exhibits both here in Colorado and abroad in 2016. So I look forward to 2016 and a new beginning.

Speaking of endings- the images below are from the last photo-shoot I did at the Obras Foundation in Portugal in October with Rui Fernandes operating the drone camera and Cydney Payton directing and photographer Luis Branco overseeing. We were working on the tile terrace near the studio building. We lay down large pieces of primed white canvas on top of the tile terrace. I see these images as “studies” or sketches for a body of work in progress – not finished work. The drone camera Rui was using was not a high-resolution camera either. I like the gestural quality and the playfulness of these images and I am planning on re-shooting these here in Colorado with photographer Robert Kittila (and hopefully with Cydney Payton’s direction) in the spring when it is warm enough. Also check out the second and third figure and their shadows in a few of the images – those are Cydney “arranging” me and the black fabric and Luis’s figure and shadow is in one image at the bottom.

Anyway happy holy days, happy winter solstice, happy new year to all of you near to me and far away.