traditional Mother of God icons now showing in group exhibition

Two of my traditional Eastern Catholic icons are on exhibition in Incarnation Icons at the Cloisters Gallery, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Portland, Oregon from November 1, 2009 - January 2, 2010.

if you're in portland, it's worth a visit to this beautiful exhibition. many of the icons are written by my vancouver, washington teacher, virginia barber! sally wooley did a great job organizing and hanging the show.

the icon pictured here, Kykotissa Mother of God, is based on a prototype from St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai. the feel of it is so Arabic, very different than the typical russian prototypes, and the appeal was very strong. when i visited the Getty Museum in december 2006 and saw the amazing iconography exhibition from St. Catherine's monastery, i was inspired to write this icon. on a recent trip to LA and a return to the Getty, i saw these two icons from their collection, but i failed to note the artist's names, dates, and other crucial information...just was snapping away (without flash, of course!) while chatting with my LA illustrator friend, Gail.

cover art goes around the world again!

my lebanese family cookbook, alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking, was launched into the world in a fabulous way by being first excerpted in Aramco World magazine, Jan/Feb. 1997, in an article titled "Memories of a Lebanese Garden", which i wrote and illustrated using photos transferred onto paper with acrylic paint and collage. this was marvelous—our book received great international exposure, as many thousands of copies were distributed across the globe!

letters poured in from people all over the world who wanted to connect—very grateful to see positive images of arabs for a change, and delighted to find recipes their grandmothers made but had been long lost, and to share that the people in the photo illustrations reminded them of their fathers, uncles, sisters, and so on. and most of all, they wrote love letters sharing their own beautiful family stories. our story brought tears to their eyes and their letters and stories brought tears to our eyes. this was more than we ever could have imagined and such a huge blessing and gift! it expanded my family far beyond my own. friendships were made that continue to this day, with love being the essence of it all—expressed through making food with love and sharing it with generosity and beauty.

a few days ago my dear iraqi friend, aseel, phoned up to ask if i'd seen the latest issue (Nov/Dec) of the now titled, Saudi Aramco World and to congratulate me. this issue has a 2010 calendar insert celebrating  60 years of publishing their exquisite publication. my illustrated cover from the 1997 issue is the image chosen for their 1990s decade! my mother and i were "cover girls" and their choice of this issue to represent a decade is an honor and a delight! alice's spirit lives on and travels around the world!!! we are "cover girls" once again!

baghdad flourishing 2

another in my series of baghdad reviving from the brutal u.s. occupation. this canvas is 8 x8 inches and is available
for sale. please email me for pricing.

baghdad flourishing 1

today's painting is the first in a series of acrylic paintings on canvas that i'm taking to the seattle arab festival to sell. this one is 10 x10 inches, and is inspired by an illustration done for saudi aramco world magazine last summer. the subject matter is baghdad, but instead of baghdad destroyed, it is a vision of baghdad flourishing once again. this painting is for sale. please email me if you're interested in buying this or one like it.

autumn woman

it is not even august yet, but hints of autumn are already in the air. the light is changing. the air is cooler; days are becoming shorter. this is how it is in the pacific nw.

so the use of the gilded autumn leaf as a starting point for this painting...another in my series.

with the golden yellow of summer, hinting of fall to come.

buddha/great vow

while away for a meditation retreat, this is the first of four paintings done with my first media—watercolor on paper.

butterfly woman

the latest in my collage/acrylic series after a month of travel, a retreat, and gardening catch up!

medicine woman—original version

here's the original painting without photoshop. which one do you like better?

medicine woman—psychedelic version

after my initial scan of this painting, i started fooling around with this image in photoshop, and decided i like the psychedelic version more than the orginial painting. so maybe i will go back to the original painting and really put in some color such as this! it's really fun to play with images in photoshop. lots of amazing variations are possible!

cauliflower woman

spent a week intensively getting caught up on my garden—planting american corn, lebanese squash, german green tomatoes, middle eastern and armenian cucumbers, jalapeño peppers, italian basil, and more...so my delay in painting and posting! the garden has produced abundant strawberries this year—a result of little rain, which minimized the usual slug damage. this year, for the first time, the strawberries and rhubarb were ready at the same time to make a fabulous pie—the best ever according to my sweetie, with a secret ingredient of orange flower water and lemon zest! Yum! (thanks to global warming?)

and perfectly in keeping with my activities of planting food, today's painting is an offshoot of people with things at the top of the head series, people with food at the top of their heads! self-explanatory...obsessed with food; food on the mind; love to cook and eat; a silly concept? you decide.

nimrod woman

to commemorate the loss of life, dignity, beauty, history, culture, civilization, and people of ancient mesopotamia/current day iraq, i dedicate today's painting.

dog man

a slightly looser painting style and a silly starting point (the dog!) led me to breaking out a bit from the usual today.

spectral man

he is spiraling! i struggled with this painting today to finally bring it around to the point where i liked it. and now he seems a good companion to spectral woman. let me know what you think. did i make the mark? as spectral woman is a hard act to follow!

buddha lotus

today's painting is a completion of a piece begun as a demo in a workshop last year.
what a joy to have finished it—another in this series which is growing into a body of work!

lotus woman 3

i found another lotus woman that needed completion! she's got some lotus "jewelry" which gives her a little zip!

let me know if you'd like to buy originals or prints of any of these paintings!