Blog
December 25th, 2012
Today contains some of the few precious hours in the entire year that are just for us—when we can just be. We love the whirlwind of lights, colors, food, friends, music and surprises that comes with the holidays, but it’s the day we set aside for nothing but time that we look forward to all year.
May today be a gift to you as well—whether you spend it with family, friends, wide open spaces, or in your own lovely company.
Merry Christmas.
November 6th, 2012
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, abled, disabled, gay or straight. You can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.”
— President Obama, 6 November 2012
There’s a lot of work ahead, and not every step we took today was in the right direction. But I want to thank everyone who voted for women’s rights, for marriage equality, for four more years. Tonight I’m raising my glass to everyone who voted to move us Forward.
September 12th, 2012
Since Jessica and I got back from teaching at the Penland School of Crafts, I’ve been struggling to put the experience into words. But no matter how I go on about how beautiful the Blue Ridge Mountains are; or how unique Penland’s creative culture is; or how amazingly talented each and every one of our students were; or how seriously delicious a hot bowl of cheese grits is after a walk in the chilly morning fog; or how many wonderful people we met; or how much we loved the challenge of basically teaching two classes in one intense week—well, I get a little incoherent. So I’ll let my sketchbook do the talking. (I kept a little notebook in my apron pocket all week, and every time I had a second to spare, I was scribbling away.)
In short: we can’t wait to go back. Huge thanks to the lovely folks at Penland for hosting us and creating such a wonderful place to learn and make things; to our seven fabulous students for their enthusiasm and willingness to dive right in; and to our angelic friend Mary-Alice for being the absolute hands-down best teaching assistant the world has ever seen. Hope to see y’all again soon!
August 15th, 2012
The Tailor and I took a road trip to a friend’s farmstead wedding in North Dakota this month.
We figured that while we were at it, we might as well make a mountain (read: 750-mile) detour to complete our vacation.
So off to the Rockies we went,
sketchbook in (my) hand,
with our eyes peeled for roadside attractions,
and the camera ready to capture every perfect moment.
August 6th, 2012
Today is my fourth anniversary of living in lovely T-town. And all I can think of is: A) I can’t believe it’s been four years already—
and B) I still can’t believe I live in a place where artichokes will grow happily in the front yard.
I love this place.
July 27th, 2012
(Since they tell me a picture’s worth a bucket of words…)
Thank you, everyone!
April 30th, 2012
Mexico on the left, Texas on the right.
With all the crazy work I’ve been doin’ lately—and all the rain that this season brings—I really, really needed a vacation. So the Tailor and I took ourselves on a little road trip—way the heck down to the Texas-Mexico border. Yep, we drove 2,200 miles one way, just to be able to stand ten feet from an international border. It’s a pretty amazing feeling, actually.
We spent most of our time at Big Bend National Park (you know how much of a national park nut I am!), which allowed for plenty of time for sketching—
—and lots, and lots of desert sun to soak in.
March 26th, 2012
In between a whole host of deadlines I’m juggling at the moment, I’m exhibiting in the Woolworth Windows again, thanks to Spaceworks Tacoma.
Hillside Sketchbook
Artist book installation by Chandler O’Leary
On view through June 30
Woolworth Windows at 11th and Broadway
Downtown Tacoma, WA
Like last time, I’m creating an installation that comes together in real time. This time, though, I’m not painting in a glass box—I’m doing one huge drawing of a Tacoma hillside that’s made up of many dozens of tiny watercolor sketches. The sketches are done on different days, in all weather conditions and through changing seasons, and are tacked up in the window as they’re finished. The scene grows and takes shape like a puzzle being put together piece-by-piece. So go take a look—and come back often. Tacomans: can you figure out which viewpoint I’m drawing from?
I’ll be posting more photos here as the installation comes together. In the meantime, check out the post about the project on the Spaceworks blog.
September 10th, 2011
All this week the radio, the blogs, the instant media, and I’m sure the television, too, have been blaring with recaps and riffs and reflections and rage, on repeat, about that day when we all learned a little more about the nature of fear. And it’s not that I’m avoiding thinking about it—it’s that I don’t need any help from the talking heads to process my thoughts. So while I’m mindful of that terrible anniversary, there’s another, more joyful one that’s closer to my heart. You see, it was ten years ago today that I moved to Rome.
It was my third year of college, but it wasn’t your average study-abroad program. Because my school owned a (haunted!*) house in the middle of the city, and the program was based on independent study, I was able to experience true immersion in the culture and language.
*Built c. 1590, the place was home to Beatrice Cenci, who was infamously executed for the murder of her abusive father. I’m not the superstitious type, but all I’m sayin’ is … well, weird stuff happened in there.
Even at the time, I was aware of just how dumb-lucky I was, not only to have arrived there safely from New York the day before the world turned upside-down—but to have nearly an entire year in which my only responsibility was to experience and absorb the world around me.
That, and to get it down on paper—which proved to be the hard part.
Not that I didn’t try. With flawless weather almost year-round, it was easy to spend every waking minute outside. And with cheap, frequent trains bound for nearly every town in the country, I had no shortage of freedom to roam (sorry). But I’m the obsessive type. I needed to see everything, and though I knew how impossible that was, I think I came about as close as any one person can do. And I have hundreds of drawings as testament to that.
The drive to make the most of my time there was maddening, in the best possible way.
I didn’t know when or if I’d ever have an opportunity like this again, so I did my level best to commit as much of the place to memory as I could. For once, the camera went into storage (I think I shot a grand total of about three rolls of film—remember film?—in ten months), and I left the maps at home. I stuck to paint-and-paper, and my own two feet—and as a result, my memories and mental map of the place are still the clearest, the most vivid of any other place or time in my life.
Needless to say, it was awfully hard to leave. Instead of going home, it felt like I was leaving it. And when I arrived back in the States, thanks to the tragedy that took place the day after I left, everything had changed.
But then again, so had I. And that made all the difference.
June 24th, 2011
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The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk,
and then dead timber. The tree is a slow, enduring force straining
to win the sky.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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I’ve had four months now to mull over the experience of driving through a redwood forest in the early morning, in complete solitude and silence. And even now, there really are no words to describe it.
Thankfully, though, a redwood forest by its very nature makes it easy to ignore such things. Because my brain certainly wasn’t going to get a handle on what my eyes were seeing—nor was my camera.
And neither, it turns out, was my paintbrush. I needed a sketchbook that was six inches wide by about twenty feet tall.
And then I realized that I needed a sense of scale, a point of reference. Enter the only other car I saw that morning, and my wide-angle lens.
Eh. That’s still not it.
The only thing to do is to go there in person, crane your neck, and gaze upward in wonder.
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