Patti Gibbons Art

I manage/mentor a group on Facebook called  Art Thirteen .  It is a gathering place for   artists/thinkers/writers who post images that please or inspire them, sometimes on a daily basis, and sometimes less often. We make our own assignments, it is open ended, and the group has been a source of creativity, humor, and camraderie.  I have met up with a few of the artists there, and hope to meet a group of them this summer when we have a gathering, and look to find a venue to host a group show.  We have botanists, historians, designers, collectors, and MORE, who impart their widsom and viewpoints in a visual journal. For 2013 I have decided to focus on a color a month. Though I can not always make art each day, I try and become intimate with that color and seek it out and depict it in any form I can manage. This month is purple. Spring is abundant in purple, so I have no problem finding inspiration from nature.  I explore purple in my greeting c...

I am getting excited. A month left of teaching and then I am reinventing my entire life,  creating my own personal paradise where I am surrounded by what and whom I love, while doing what I love. It seems very simple to me. So simple, that is seems absurd. Teaching has been a very difficult career which has involved the past 25+ years of my life. Raising two babies alone for the most part, while getting my bachelors, and then working full time while getting my  masters.  Working with at-risk and difficult teens while raising my own of the same ilk. Then illnesses here and with family. A few years of making great money but at the price of high stress. I have my moments of self doubt. Cruise thru my Facebook and you will see posts that dangle fear and doubt like dirty clothes on a line. But I am bathed in the confidence and hopeful words of friends and colleagues that it will all come together, and I will have enough. I have taken preventative measures. Refinanced m...

The late Alan Watts made this three minute video.  I have been showing it in my classes. Whenever I get nervous about leaving my secure job in a few months, I just pop this on, and I am encouraged, inspired and KNOW all will be ok. Three minutes. Three powerful minutes.  This video may have started getting the ball in motion.  I can't put my finger on the definitive moment that the seed was planted, but this was certainly part of it.

I've had a rough school year. New schedule/new students/new rules that have made the amount of stress and work at my job as a teacher unbearable. Months of sciatic and back pain while having to be on my feet 6-8 hours a day teaching.Months of PT, acupuncture, doctors. Bottles of ibuprofen.  Tests. Results? Herniated disc OR a cyst on the lower spine. Arthritis of the spine due to age.Inflammation of the coccyx. Then I got the horrid eye/sinus infection that laid me flat for 10 days. So I had a lot of time to think. I was miserable. My health was suffering on many levels. My art was suffering. My soul was being smothered. Then... I had an epiphany. I was done with my career. After 21 years of teaching in a school for special needs children, and difficult circumstances, I was toast.  I knew at that moment I could not go back.  I was far from the wonder retirement that veteran teachers of 30 years make. If I left now, I took a 50% cut in retirement fr...

I feel badly that I have neglected my blog. It's like neglecting an old friend. Once in a while people ask me why I don't write anymore. It's not that I don't want to, or don't like to, but I have been doing other things that eat up my time. Things that mostly make me happy. But I promise that I will better, even if  I don't write every day. This winter has been tough. This time of year I struggle with the lack of light and warmth, and not being able to put Sexy Sadie's top down.  I spend much time dwelling on life,  and even though I have my dark days, it excites me that I  have taken a step closer to serenity and to being true to myself. Having faith that all will be fine. Being honest when I make a mistake.  I learned a lot in 2012.  Most of them good lessons - and out of the bad came some hard core learning and growth.  I learned... To Look for magic in everyday things. That it takes a lot of work to be mindful and grateful. That pai...

I recently gave an artist talk. One of the questions that I had been given in preparation was  “what inspires you to create? “ It  not a simple answer. Or maybe it is.  Everything inspires me.  I told that to my accountant, said that an artist should be able to deduct all life expenses on their taxes.  He looked at me a little oddly and laughed - while shaking is head “no”.  I was serious. Most of my life is run at breakneck speed. I want to do all and feel all and cram all into my reservoir of life experiences.   I  race through the day to get to the next thing, my life scheduled into 30 minute segments.  And then I freak out and scream STOP....  put the brakes on and  S L O W  DOWN,  BE IN THE M O M E N T.    FEEL.     SMELL.     HEAR .  TOUCH.    TASTE. And when I do that, the inspiration reveals itself.  Stories  resonate in ...

Summer flew by. School started. My days are now fast paced and crammed with so much work. Teaching in NY has changed and all I do it work from dawn till dusk doing stupid paperwork, some of which is a waste of time and proves NOTHING save for the state can make teachers do more.  When will the state start making parents do more? I am still drawing every week in my Abstract Drawing class with Meredith Rosier , producing a body of what some are calling"new surreal colorist art".  I have worked in a surreal manner ever since I was a child, and especially seen in my collage work.  Now it is creeping into my drawings, and  I am  finding my voice in my art making.  It is the most original work that I have made -  most drawings are automatic drawings (meaning they are begun with my eyes closed) and it is created out of a well of lifetime experiences, and sometimes I think the human race's collective experiences; there are times when I feel that th...