Other inspirations

I prefer to use the word inspiration to influence.
One can be inspired by so much in life and work. It is a more inclusive term to me.
Although influence is potent too, but more specific somehow and it is difficult to pinpoint HOW something influences one. Exactly anyway. The question is often asked especially of creative folk "What were or are your influences?". I think it is hard to answer accurately, but what perhaps is understood but not said is the fact that as a creative, one wants to be original and unique! Therefore "influences" are a no-no.
However I want to share my inspirations readily. When in my twenties I was struggling in particular with identity issues and how to become...
these people were beacons to me.
Joseph Beuys
Cora Sandel
Elka Spoerri
James Lee Byars
Meret Oppenheim
Sylvia Plath
Janet Frame

Marina Abramowic

Today is the birthday of Marina Abramowic. She is a very interesting artist who works in performance as well as in film/video and installation.
I look to her work, as well as to the work of Patti Smith, Agnes Varda, Mona Hatoum, Ann Hamilton, Gillian Jagger, Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, Rebecca Horn, Tracey Moffat, Annette Messager, Ana Mendieta, Betye Saar and Shirin Neshat. They inspire/d me to be a better artist. Meret Oppenheim and Niki de St Phalle were the first artists I came in contact with as a very young girl and who awoke that desire and calling in the first place. My grandmother had paved the way. She had been an art student in Stockholm during the first years when women were able to go to art school at all. To me she was a pioneer. A beacon.

Up holden

Upholstery comes from two Middle English words, up and holden, which means in effect- to hold up. At the moment I am covering a very long cushion for the seat of my pew! My long, heavy, dark, gothic oak pew from the Old Baptist Church in Cambridge, Mass.
When it ceased to be a church it became a dancing school and they needed the pews to go, so I bought it for a pittance and could have had many more! Getting it home was another matter though, especially without a car. Finally on a little trolley with wheels and the help of a neighbour in white socks and no shoes we pushed it all the way home and then another neighbour helped me carry it up to my apartment on the second floor!
I got off the subject a little however. What I wanted to say was that I love going and learning upholstery! Tonight I made 11 yards of piping! I could have swung it like a lasso! It is so much fun learning a new skill and making something with one's hands. Not to forget the baked goods at break time. I ate mince pies like there was no tomorrow!
It is very satisfying making something which looks difficult but actually is not.
Next I will have to...

Anna Mae Bullock born today in 1939 ...

...aka Tina Turner! Happy Birthday to one of the sexiest 68 year olds I can think of! I just love going to her high energy life-loving life-living concerts. Once in Basel, Switzerland when she played and Joe Cocker was the warm up- Imagine that!, I broke my right arm jumping from one tram to another trying to get to the stadium in time.
Did not feel a thing until I was riding the train back home late that night after the concert!

Today is the day that...

...Betsy Salkind was born. Happy Birthday Babe!
Here she is with Kev the cat. Betsy is a comedian, activist, writer, actor, and in general a very unique and wonderful person!
Hip hip hurrah!