Recognize Your Intuitive Abilities
I know it’s hard to believe this–but when I drew the figure on the right I had no awareness of dancer Gaston Gurewitz’s photo on the left. Here is the sweet story behind the drawing on the right. I was in Starbucks when a man with his cell phone caught my eye. I drew him […]
Colors of Nature Exhibition at Design Festa Gallery
Contact: liane@axel.ocn.ne.jp These watercrayon drawings, for sale at the 12/2 Design Festa Gallery exhibition “Colors of Nature Exhibition” are part of my collaboration with the very talented Russian-American artist Lark Larisa Pilinsky. Twenty percent from the sales of these drawings will be donated to my favorite charity, Intrepid Model Adventures. I’m at the gallery 12-6 […]
Genesis Art–the Challenge Has Begun
In late September, with the start of a new year in the Jewish calendar, I began a yearlong project to illustrate the Torah with weekly drawings. I’m taking it week by week, knowing that as the year wears on, I’m going to find it pretty tough to draw some of those sections. Well, the first […]
Women Artists’ News
A recent article in the Guardian about how women get shorted in the art market prompts me to reflect on how I see the situation. I’m gong to pause long enough to reflect on whether I actually want to achieve success on mens’ terms. To me, money is not the whole story. It’s not even […]
The Wagamama Side of the Story
Over the last year and a half I’ve been working on a memoir that I am finally ready to share with my dear friends and readers who have known me over the years in both incarnations. Writing came first. I’ve been a published writer and editor since 1983 and while my passion for art has […]
Thinking in Black and White
This is an annoying discovery: I think in black and white. I am in the thick of writing a memoir about my nearly 25 year relationship with my Japanese in-laws and I’m having the hardest time imaginable seeing images. All the colors, shapes, textures and depth I bring to painting are sequestered from the writing […]
The Best of Intentions
When Oshiki peninsula was destroyed by the tsunami, out went the unsightly stuff as well. No billboards anywhere. No neon signs. Nothing to disturb the peace except for a growing crop of storage containers painted by well-meaning volunteers who come armed with pots of paints and spray guns and a mandate to bring color back […]
When Volunteers Go to Oshika
Our host Caroline Pover is brilliant at slipping into the Oshika Time Zone and in the coldest months of the year gets a superhuman amount done by zeroing on whatever she can do to restore some semblance of normalcy to the lives of people whose villages have vanished in the ‘shinsai,’ the tsunami that followed […]
Who Really Benefits from Acts of Kindness
Montana King Ramsey put it this way. When you’re making music, you’re reaching inside to discover yourself. When you’re making art you’re finding out who you are. We had quite a crowd in Okachimachi–more than a dozen artists, musicians and a few kids too. Gathered around two tables laid out with big rectangles of washi […]
When Art Encourages Accidents
When Art Encourages Accidents. . . This is a very strange topic, one that I’d rather not discuss, especially since it strikes so close to home. But here goes: a new discovery in how my ten year old son’s not-so-innocuous hobby of playing Bike Rider downloadable games set up the mindset for a very dangerous […]