rebecca bush

Deer Meeting

2011-10-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

Seattle Art Museum's current exhibition, Luminous, features the cream of their world renown Asian art collection. One of my favorite pieces, Poem Scroll with Deer, is once again on display in a case that allows for over 30 feet of it to be on view. Although I can't honestly remember, I'm sure that it must have influenced my painting, "Deer Meeting." Visit the Deer Scroll online below and read the lovely lonely poems inspired by Fall.

Bumping Lake Retreat 2011

2011-10-09T10:24:00.001-07:00

Visit Slideshow from 2011 retreat of the Painters of Bumping Lake

The Chelsea Deli

2011-08-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday Paul and I put up about 10 pieces of my artwork at The Chelsea Deli, down in the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle. Nestled in an old block surrounded by funky boutiques, coffee shops and galleries, The Chelsea Deli is run by Dave. Dave is a guy from New Jersey who is dedicated to bringing East Coast style sandwiches to our corner of the country. Vegetarians will be glad to find that the Deli also serves the local wonder that is Field Roast grain meat.

We arrived in Columbia City in the late morning in an attempt to dodge the traffic from the crowds descending on nearby Seward Park to watch the Blue Angels Seafair air show. In fact we were so early that the Deli had not yet opened. By a stroke of luck we ran into our friend, artist Darick Chamberlin and an opportunity to enjoy the Columbia City Bakery, wish him a happy belated birthday and catch up on things.

A few hours later, the artwork was hung and we slipped out of Columbia City never having encountered a bit of that holiday traffic.

Studio Sale this Sunday!

2011-07-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

Studio Sale at the Arts Umbrella

Sunday, July 31st, 11-4

I’m joining my friend Michelle Walde Dick for a Studio Sale this Sunday. We’ll be selling original paintings, art supplies, and odds and ends from the studio.

The Arts Umbrella

Country Village Bothell

720 238th St. SE #C

Bothell, WA 98021-4308

Fern Forest Studio

2011-07-18T15:47:00.000-07:00

Following the lead of my friend, Suzy, the founder of Sea Horse Studio, I have christened my art studio The Fern Forest Studio. As noted previously, the “Fern Forest” was where I played as a child and represents a realm of creative imagination.

Here is my studio as of last weekend- complete with ferns acquired at last spring’s Friends of the Conservatory Plant Sale.

In case you missed my show “Into the Fern Forest!” in June, there’ll be another chance to see most of it at The Chelsea Deli in the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle. I’ll post the details when the art is up!

Currently my Crocodile painting is on view at The Coastal Kitchen, through September 2011.

Into the Fern Forest Show Reception!

2011-06-06T06:23:00.001-07:00

Saturday evening saw a wonderful reception for "Into the Fern Forest!", my June show at Art/Not Terminal Gallery.

If anyone would care to join me at the gallery again this month, I will be there from 6 to 10 pm on Thursday, June 16th during the Belltown Art Walk.

It was so much fun to create this art and then sharing it with everyone that I’ve decided that I would like to have at least two shows a year!

Leopard Suit: Modern Patchwork Edition

2011-06-03T05:56:00.001-07:00

Today I’m installing my show, “Into the Fern Forest!” at Art/Not Terminal Gallery in Seattle. The show is a tribute to the world that I created playing in the leopard suit my mother made for me.

Using fabric that I inherited from my mother, who spent her latter years creating colorful quilts, combined with fabric that I’ve acquired along the way, I’ve created my own patchwork leopard suit that will be the centerpiece of the show.

The rest of the exhibit features a series of colorful quilted animal banners, the pennants of my Fern Forest Kingdom.

Into the Fern Forest!

Artist Reception: Saturday, June 4th, 7-10 pm

Art/Not Terminal Gallery

2045 Westlake Ave

Seattle WA

Show ends Thursday, June 30th

Gallery hours: Mon-Sat 11:00 am - 6:00 pm | Sun. 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Leopard Suit: Rebirth in the LA Jungle!

2011-05-27T10:59:00.001-07:00

When I was 24 years old, living in Los Angeles, my mom called and told me that she had bought some plushy leopard print fabric and would sew me anything I wanted, except a leopard suit.

My new leopard suit arrived in the mail not long after that conversation. It became my usual at home attire, my “Mr. Rogers Sweater” comfort wear. My first husband, a film maker, used it in several of his movies, creating a character called the “Leopard Chef.”

The most fun I had was wearing it, with full face paint, to an LA Weekly staff Halloween party (pictured here). Nobody recognized me and I loved being able to have complete conversations with good friends who didn’t realize who I was. :))

This costume was worn to bits-- I have just the hat and one mitten left. It was my last leopard suit until...

Stay tuned for Part 3: Leopard Suit: Temporal Rain Forest Edition

Leopard Suit: Fern Forest Origins

2011-05-24T17:41:00.000-07:00

Composer Brian Eno has stated that he can trace all of his artistic projects back to the games that he played as a child. When I was a child, I became obsessed with pretending that I was a leopard.

My mother, who was a sewing whiz, made me a wonderful leopard suit for halloween the year that I was 5. Its popularity lived on long after trick or treating had ended, as documented in this family photo.

I wore my leopard suit outside the house too, exploring the field of ferns behind our house in the country. Crawling on my hands and knees, the ferns appeared before me as a jungle, a veritable forest of ferns.

I outgrew that leopard suit in a few years and my mother made me a bigger one. (My little sister took over leopard duties in the original suit.)

Everything was going along swimmingly in my leopard world until the year I turned 10 when my family moved from the country into the suburbs. The children in our neighborhood did not understand leopards roaming free and in order to befriend them, I put my leopard suit away, only to be brought out on proper occasions such as Halloween.

Ah, self compromise, that bitter pill!

Stay tuned for Part 2: Leopard Suit: Rebirth in the LA Jungle!

Our Daily Mouse

2011-05-11T05:27:00.000-07:00

Here is some bits of work in progress for “Into the Fern Forest!” my show opens June 4th at Art/Not Terminal Gallery. I’m busy as a bee quilting fabric onto my oil paintings to create colorful animal banners. I’ll be posting more work in the weeks ahead!

Mark your calendars for the opening:

Into the Fern Forest!

Saturday, June 4th, 7-10 pm

Art/Not Terminal Gallery

2045 Westlake Ave

Seattle WA

Bone with a Plant

2010-11-26T08:48:00.000-08:00

Bone with a plant growing through it, discovered in the forest this fall.

An elk skeleton left amidst the trees in the wilderness on the eastern side of Mount Rainier.

From the annual fall retreat of The Painters of Bumping Lake.

Sauerkraut Season

2010-10-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

I love sauerkraut! I made my very first batch this year and I can't believe how easy it was. Basically, you just chop up some cabbage, sprinkle it with sea salt. squeeze it with your hands to get the juices flowing, pack it down into a jar and cover it for a few days. I decided to also add some grated carrots and beet to this batch, along with some fresh dill, celery seed and mustard seed.

After you have all your ingredients chopped, grated, salted and squeezed, pack them down really tight into a glass jar with a loose lid, or the classic pickling crock with a plate on top. For the first day, keep pressing the kraut down into the jar until the juices rise up and cover it all. It will produce so much juice at first that you have to stand the jar inside a bowl to catch the overflow!

Within a few days, the sauerkraut is ready to eat!

Acknowledgements to fermentation guru Sandor Katz, the author of the book, "Wild Fermentation". I learned the how to make kraut by reading this recipe on his website.

walking in the woods

2010-09-24T05:11:00.001-07:00

There is nothing so refreshing as walking the loamy trails around the cabin near Bumping Lake. Here is a typical scene where I am lagging behind the bouncy Kathleen and Gudrun while trying to capture the mossery of this fir stump.

poppies again... but this time with bees

2010-07-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how time flies... and buzzes.

Last year, on my other blog I posted a photo of poppies that I pass on the way to my studio. Last year they seemed to mark the one year anniversary of my father's death. This year those early June poppies came and went and the reminder was there but the sadness has lessened.

This year another garden that I pass on my walk was completely taken over with these lovely pale salmon poppies with lavender spots. In this photo I managed to capture two busy bees.

Into the Fern Forest ... for real!

2010-06-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

I am psyched to report that I am going to be attending an astrology conference in Hawaii next January!

It'll be my first visit to the magical islands. We are staying at a resort in a forested area on the big island (near an area named "Fern Forest" which is a recurring theme in my artwork!)

From the looks of this Google Map. we'll be just a few miles away from an area where hot lava flows into the ocean. Wow.

We also signed up for a one day field trip to the top of one of the 12,000 ft. volcanoes to watch the sunset and view the stars and planets through a telescope.

It IS about the bike!

2010-04-08T13:14:00.000-07:00

When I turned 20, to protest no longer being a teenager, I went out and bought myself a skateboard! That's just the way I roll-- what can I say, I'm an Aries.

Last week to celebrate turning 52, I got this beautiful 1970 Schwinn Breeze 3 speed cruiser. Looking forward to getting a little basket and a bell. :)

Baby Jesus visits Santa!

2009-12-22T21:59:00.000-08:00

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

2009-12-06T07:29:00.001-08:00

There I was, washing up some Thanksgiving dishes at the kitchen sink , staring blankly at the detergent bottle, when this came to me in a vision!
TideTMings of ComfortTM and JoyTM!

Into the Woods

2009-11-04T06:14:00.001-08:00

"Into the Woods", as Steven Sondheim points out in his musical of the same name, is, in fairy tales, where Things Happen.

Most cultures have folk tales that warn children not to venture into the woods alone. In the Pacific Northwest, we have the native legend of Duzunkwa, the Wild Woman of the Woods, or Cannibal Woman, who bears more than a passing resemblance to our Bigfoot.

Does such an entity exist? You'll never know unless you follow this path deep, deep into the forest. There are records of people having heard the scream of a Bigfoot in this very area, just east of Mount Rainier.

Interestingly enough, pilots flying near Mt. Rainier in 1949 gave us the first modern day UFO sighting report.

Into the Woods, indeed.

Bumping Lake Retreat

2009-10-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a group of women artists who called themselves the Painters of Bumping Lake. Every year they would go on an art retreat to a mountain cabin named Normandie to paint, cook and explore the forest.

Mercury Retrograde: A Good Time to Slow Down!

2009-09-12T06:22:00.001-07:00

I’m going to talk about astrology today, a study that I find eternally fascinating, and our current experience of Mercury in retrograde.

Our ancestors, having no internet, television or movies to entertain the nighttime mind, made up their own stories and one of the places they projected these tales was into their observations of the changing sky.

Upon this heavenly stage, with it’s backdrop of stars, trod a few bright players. The “stars” of our show, the leading man & lady, of course, are the sun and the moon, who make regular dramatic appearances and exits, but we also have a fine supporting cast of planets.

Our word planet is derived from the Greek planetes asteres, or “wandering stars”, a charming term referring to the way that they appear to go backwards during the times when not traveling tandem to Earth.

Our most quick and inconsistent wanderer is the planet Mercury, who speeds around the sun so much faster than we do that he appears to go backwards or “retrograde” several times a year.

Mercury gets his name from the Roman’s winged messenger of the gods, a fellow concerned with all forms of commerce, communication and travel.

When Mercury is retrograde (currently September 7th through 29th) the story is that all areas of life ruled by Mercury are prone to go awry: miscommunication, bad purchases, being lost or delayed in travel, to name a few. The general astrological advice is to check twice, watch out for hasty moves and comments.

My favorite feature of Mercury Retrograde is that it’s also a good time to go back over unfinished business and to tie up loose ends. I always seem to have enough of those to keep me busy.

Look: Trout! Brook Trout!

2009-09-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite adventures this summer was my first visit to New York state's incredible Catskill Mountains. They are not so incredible in the "mountain" category, but they are unique in being a green rural farm -jeweled oasis just a few hours drive from NYC.

Developed as a "Gone Fishing" retreat for the likes of the Rockefellers, trout fishing is still a big industry in the area. I was lucky enough to spend a 3 day weekend at a friend's cabin there in June.

We did not catch our own trout, we stopped at the Beaverkill Trout Hatchery (home of the fish herding labrador retrievers!) and watched as the owner's teenage son netting up this trio.

Painting made with ArtRage 2.5 and a Wacom Tablet. Photo with iPhone

Oh, and later we cooked it up for breakfast, and it was the most delicious trout I have ever eaten.

Lady of Alder Lake

2009-08-08T08:59:00.000-07:00

May this Tree Shadow Keep You Cool

2009-07-29T08:39:00.001-07:00

As temperatures creep towards a record 100 degrees today in Seattle, I turn my gaze to this scene I sketched last month in the Catskill Mountains of New York .... the beautiful cool green lawn .....

Lake Iris Painting

2009-07-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

My Computer Painting Set Up

2009-07-12T16:11:00.000-07:00

This is the set up that I use to when I create digital paintings based on my photographs:

Open original photograph on one side of the screen.
Open painting program on the other side of the screen.
Create painting using tablet and stylus.

Details:
Photos taken using iPhone
Photos displayed in iPhoto software
Painting program: ArtRage 2.5 ($25 upgrade from the free version enables use of oil painting feature: www.artrage.com)
Tablet & Stylus: Wacom Bamboo Fun($99 www.wacom.com)

First View from the Cabin

2009-07-08T16:21:00.000-07:00

Salted Caramel is the Best

2009-06-23T22:37:00.001-07:00

I meet the Real Charles and paint a Statue of his family

2009-06-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

Charles the Cat is a cat at my sister's house. I've heard stories about him for years, but did not get to meet him until my visit to Michigan last week.

Even then, I didn't get to see much of him, as he hid out under the bed most the time all us strange people were in his house, but the final evening of my visit, he visited as we were watching a DVD and he let me scratch his tummy.

Also while I was visiting I repainted this statue that my sister had of a mother cat and four kittens so that it became Charles' mother Robin Hood and his siblings. (I stand corrected: There were 4 kittens, not 5, and also Charles is a grey tabby, not a brown tabby.)

Charles the Cat in "People Who Live in Glass Houses"

2009-05-30T18:53:00.001-07:00

Charles the Cat in "Where's Mom?"

2009-05-25T21:52:00.001-07:00

Charles the Cat in "I Didn't Ask to be Born!"

2009-05-17T19:59:00.001-07:00

Charles the Cat Formerly Known As...

2009-05-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

Charles the Cat in... Cat Dreams

2009-04-24T22:03:00.000-07:00

Scenic Drive #1

2009-04-22T08:02:00.000-07:00

Sunday Morning

2009-04-19T10:11:00.001-07:00

Heard On...

2009-04-11T22:55:00.001-07:00

Untrammeled by outside interference

2009-04-07T08:53:00.000-07:00

walking to my studio yesterday

2009-04-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

I dream I am a Cartoonist

2009-04-02T07:14:00.001-07:00

always on the limits

2009-03-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

so much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle

2009-03-27T21:15:00.001-07:00

the artistic life

2009-03-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

splickety-lick

2009-03-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

the love-hate relationship was probably caused by over familiarity

2009-03-19T22:49:00.001-07:00

as if you could kill time without injuring eternity

2009-03-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

something divine is occurring, even though it cannot be explained in mortal terms

2009-03-15T10:52:00.001-07:00

whirled round the globe with the speed of birds

2009-03-14T20:44:00.001-07:00

most of these species demand constant moisture

2009-03-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

perhaps some superstition of immemorial time

2009-03-11T09:14:00.001-07:00

flag all clip art omnipolars

2009-03-09T22:37:00.001-07:00

and lo! Swedenberg is the angel sitting on the tomb

2009-03-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

there is one reality, at least, which we all seize from within

2009-03-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

we shared a great deal, and suddenly that was wonderful

2009-03-06T20:33:00.000-08:00

we come face to face with a high wall undulating like a dragon’s back

2009-03-04T06:32:00.000-08:00

what need we who fear who knows it, when none can call our pow’r to accompt?

2009-03-02T08:25:00.000-08:00

you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes

2009-03-01T09:44:00.001-08:00

it mattered little that it was far away

2009-02-28T12:07:00.001-08:00

they dig long burrows and feed mainly on rodents

2009-02-27T07:29:00.001-08:00

those are dollars that left our state

2009-02-24T08:18:00.000-08:00

several aspects of customer interaction including complaints

2009-02-22T21:43:00.000-08:00

The most brilliant season of entertainment that North America has ever seen.

2009-02-21T17:57:00.001-08:00