Patti Gibbons Art

Tomorrow after school I am getting into my car and heading south. I have spent the evening packing, getting orders together to go out, and I doubt that I will have time to do my lesson plans tonight. That will have to be squeezed in during the day tomorrow. Another day of 10,000 things. But after that I am heading to help my sister with her 12 and 2 year old as she is having baby Alexander, who will probably be her last child as she is 41. I am excited about being with the girls, and of being somewhere else. Though I will have responsibilities there, I am leaving all the ones I have here behind. Too much has gone one, too much stress the past several weeks since I have returned from California. It is time to go away again and embark on another journey. I am lucky that I can rapidly discharge my stress when I leave my home. I wish I could find peace there, but I have not figured that out yet. I have solved my car music problem as I returned the transmitter for the IPOD (dont...

I knew Beppo was going to die. She came to me in a dream the night before to say good bye. I know some of you are thinking the I am weird, but I believe in dreams and apparitions. I had a vision of my father dying before he was diagnosed with terminal cancer at a very young age, I have seen the future in brief but brilliant flashes. I have been preparing for this the past 24 hours, and when the phone rang I knew it was about her. Many of you have suffered the loss of a family pet. They are like small children, who love us unconditionally and ask for so little and give so much. It is not only the loss of a dear pet, but the memories that come with out pets. When and how we got them, why we got them, the travels, the funny times; it is both the loss of the companionship, and the poignance of memory and the past that we mourn. Beppo signified times of great struggle, times of great joy, and times of sadness, that were connected with this overweight, sometimes obnoxious, but ever lo...

I fill my days solid with all that I have to do, all those ten thousand things. I hope that the universe grants me nine lives in order to get them done. I did so much that again I ran out of steam to write last night (also being harassed by my hormones is not helping things either), but I have my coffee in hand, and am recharged for the next 15 hours. I mentioned in a previous blog that I have been into electronics these days. I really want to keep in step with the pop culture and their ease of use of all kinds of technology. Though I STILL WON'T turn on my cell phone when I go out unless I want you to find me, I am slowly becoming plugged into the electronic world. I got my fabulous phone and hands free headset which will allow me to talk to you while I am working on my house or in my studio. I have avoided calling some of you because there is simply very little time to sit and talk. Being a type A personae, I find it very DIFFICULT to sit, so now I can work and talk. I also...

I was too fried to write last night. Some days I just don't have one bit of energy left to think. I have been busy preparing for a workshop to deliver to art teachers on Monday. The workshop person they had backed out, and here was an opportunity dropped right into my lap to share my expertise on digital photography, Photoshop, and how to incorporate it into the classroom art curriculum. I have a few lessons that I have developed over the years that are amazing. I am delighted to share with others, and in fact, need to start writing them down and submitting them to Art Education journals before someone else does. (the story of my life in designing) I have been asked to write a few articles for various web sites and been forwarded a request for a submission for an anthology. Though I still am insecure as to my writing abilities (insecurity is unfortunately part of my secret ancient past) I won't get published if I don't submit. And I have been somewhat successful in my art e...

I had just split up with the man who I was going to marry. I had invested six years with him, and I have to say, many of them were fun, full of great dinners, travel, and he was good to my young children. But one day he realized he was not in love with me any more, and it ended. In the blink of an eye, in the beat or lack of a beat of the heart. I took my dignity and my love, packed them in with the rest of my belongings, and once again I left my home with kids in tow, and Chessie my calico cat, howling in the front seat of the U-Haul, wrapped around my neck. I picked up the remains of my life and started all over again. My children did not understand the affairs of the heart and had a really rough time. While selling my cards at the local artsy flea market,(where I got a start to the businesses I now run) I saw a litter of kittens that someone was giving away. I chose the most friendly one for Megan as she was having a horrid time of it all. We named her Beppo, after a monkey w...

I am only going to drop a quick bomb here and leave, as I sacrificed my evening and blog time tonight to watch the Bill Moyers special on PBS about the lies the Government fed us on the War on Iraq and how the press facilitated the war and it's support of it. I hope many people watched it, as for me, it was just "preaching to the choir". And, unfortunately, because I was exhausted from going non-stop from 6 am till 9 pm, I fell asleep about a half hour into it. What I woke up to was a French reporter (was he a reporter- I am not sure but that is inconsequential as to what he was) who went into the Sudan, describing the horrors of genocide in the country and how the world is turning a blind eye to it. I did a bit of research and discovered that many states, universities and retirement systems have investments in countries "that do major business in the African nation of Sudan" Hawaii was making a move that was socially responsible by forbidding such investments. ...

I have not listed on eBay in ages. It takes a lot of time, and I have had precious little of it. But I have this very cool lot of antique Hawaii photographs and real photo postcards, and I am enjoying doing the research in order to describe them as best as possible, and learning along the way. This is a detail of a photo of a James Armstrong (on the left) in Oahu, Hawaii, in 1919. He owned hundreds of acres of rice fields. He is shown here standing in a cactus patch. Cactus were raised as fodder for cattle! He has some wild looking hair. My eBay link is to the right if you want to see the other photos and cards I have listed. For future listings I have a photo of Edward, the Prince of Wales which is WAY COOL..as well as erupting volcanos, funerals, skulls and more. I need to get my customer base back as the summer is coming and I will be doing the "hussle". I was not in the greatest of moods today....I slept very little last night, woke up with a headache, had to deal w...