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Mona Cliff with “Untitled”

Cold, dead, heartless eyes. Mona Cliff captures this and so much more with “UNTITLED”, 2019, Paper Collage, acrylic paint, matte medium on canvas,…
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Blending In

I can not express the importance of blending in with your artwork.  Matching handbags and boots are key to your success!  Are…
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Growing Your Art Is Like Growing Tomatoes

Brucie Hum? So I was out in the backyard with Brucie planting this years crop and trying something new and different, again. Yep, I bought into the $9.99 contraption “as seen on tv”. This WILL be the year I get great results after mediocre to poor results in the years past. So how does this tie to art? Well when I first moved to San Jose six years ago, I had really very little experience in the arts outside of running the galley at my jazz club in Petaluma and my work experience at MoMA (NYC of course) and the Emmerick Gallery. Now, six years later, I’m on the Board of the National Women’s Caucus for Art as the exhibitions coordinator and have a major show going to NYC and have been in about 20 bay area shows each year. But let me digress….
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For Love or Money

For Love or Money I get this asked of me all the time – why don’t you work in the arts?  Well, I do.  With the curating, consulting, WCA and my own painting, it’s a second fulltime job, I just don’t get paid for it – well except for the occasional sale of my non-political art.  My response to this art job question is that my day job as the executive assistant to a CEO keeps me in paint.  And it does.  I’m very lucky that I never have to think twice about the expense of my large canvases.  That simply would not be the case if I had a job in the arts.  I have a refrigerator magnet that says “I used to be an artist, but I didn’t like the starving part”.
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If You Say You’re an Athlete, You’re an Athlete!

Athlete So I AM an athlete!  I’ve never been in a race, ever, and I finished a triathlon on Sunday.  I’ve been training for months, but in the days before the race I was in a panic.  What the hell did I get myself into?  I CAN’T do this.  Swim in the San Francisco Bay – you gotta be kidding me!! Thinking about the swim was the scariest part, and although my friend Deborah and I were the last ones out of the water (besides the people who quit); we finished and ran out and up the ramp holding hands. In the water I kept singing “keep swimming, keep swimming” like Dora from Finding Nemo.  Then 12 miles on the bike and a 2.5 mile run – adrenaline kicked in and I sprinted over the finish line, completing the race in 1:56 where I thought it’d take me 2.5 hours.  I’m still so high about it all!! So, but what does this have to do with art….  I keep thinking about how we define ourselves. If you say you’re an artist, you’re an artist.
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