Baltimore Sonnets

The holiday season is always full of wonderful surprises and unexpected gifts.  It feels like yesterday, but actually it was December 2005. Kathryn, Amy, and me It was my first art residency at a quaint gallery in Denver, Colorado.  Of all the regular visitors to the studio/gallery, I particularly loved talking to one.  Kathryn was her name and she was a wonderful photographer.  We talked forever about "all things art, design, and aesthetics." (Our special topics were  darkrooms, new technology, and old time photographers such as Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.) The lovely Kathryn with her daughter Amy One day, we began to talk about films, and I mentioned that my favorite movie was this indie film  Junebug.  And, I began to tell her about this amazing actress, Amy Adams .  The rest is history! Kathryn, Amy, and Darren Kathryn is Amy's mom. On the last day of 2014, I will leave you wi...

Yesterday when I returned home from spending time with friends and family, I was reminded of connections.  How the holiday season is a time to reach out and touch others.   Lucky 7, Handmade paper by Suzanne Coley Last night I made this series of prints with continuous lines symbolizing how we are somehow connected -- and how we touch other peoples lives in our own way. Reach Out Print on handmade patterned paper, Dec 26, 2014 Title: Reach Out  Reach Out, Handmade paper by Suzanne coley

at the National Postal Museum , Washington, DC I recently participated in the Mail Social Club at the National Postal Museum's Byrne Education Loft . Located on the 2nd floor, the Byrne Education Loft was a quiet and inspiring place to create during the hectic holiday season. I especially liked the cards that many of the artists made:  They took green stamps and created Christmas trees with them.  I snapped this photo of Kim's card, but I secretly wanted to take a picture of them all. The Holiday card workshop was two hours long, and the Postal Museum offered the opportunity to make unique cards for  Mail Call.    I used the first hour making these special cards. (Thanks to the Postal Museum for allowing us to mail these cards through the Military Post.)  Attending the Mail Social Club at the Postal Museum brought memories of some stamps I collected in 1995. In the 1990s I used to collect United Nations postage stamps, and in ...

Happy Holidays! handmade Christmas postcard with vintage Christmas postage stamps and gold leaf, 2014 This season, I allowed vintage postage stamps to guide the construction and design of my handmade cards.  handmade Christmas card by Suzanne Coley I began making postcards with this gold postage stamp from New Zealand.  The moment I saw it, I felt inspired!  I took some gold leaf and began to cover blank spaces.  Then I added some purple handmade paper.  handmade postcard with vintage postage stamps and gold leaf I found three pieces of this tiny metallic marbled paper and made butterflies out of them. I painted some of the cards before adding more gold leaf. The blue in these vintage postage stamps were inspiration for the design of these cards. The cancellation marks on these 15c USA Christmas stamps inspired the overall design. May your light shine bright this Holiday Season!

Color allows me to make sense of emotions, especially those that have been suppressed for a long time. One of the first pages of my visual journal -- looking back I understand why the colors  look so painful. When I began to take swimming lessons, I kept two separate journals.  An 11" x 17" visual journal with just my drawings & paintings, and a smaller diary. As a visual artist, I have come to trust whatever marks and colors I put in my "visual" journal.  I don't erase anything, and I do a lot of free flow exercises.  Even if the patterns, colors, and marks don't make sense in the beginning, I know that they will guide me in the right direction because they come from a deep place. Diving Deep, November 2014 I trust this deep place.  And, with fear, I dived into places I never thought I'd go. After writing and painting in my two journals for 14 weeks, I began creating  Breathe . Breathe is a special, one of a kind book I mad...

Show me your friends and I will show you your character. Lucky numbers: 7, 14, 19, 20, 39, 59 I spent many hours at the  Smithsonian National Museum of African Art  this week and this Fortune was inspired by all the intriguing Masks that I saw on display.  Masks are fascinating, with even more fascinating stories behind them. Face masks at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art

comes to the  Enoch Pratt Free Library  in Baltimore. Original illustration by Maurice Sendak The touring exhibition, Maurice Sendak: The Memorial Exhibition - 50 Years, 50 Works, 50 Reasons is playful, interactive, and larger than life.   The little red boat that took Max to the land of Monsters is life size! The 2nd floor of the library is now one large picture book. 50 original illustrations and artworks by Maurice Sendak are on display, including his original storyboard illustrations for Shakespeare's Macbeth.  They are wonderful. Sendak was only 16 years old when he did these illustrations for his High School English class. The exhibition also shows some of his other illustrations such as this set design (1979) for the opera Where the Wild Things Are. Enoch Pratt Free Library is offering the book in other languages. You can experience the exhibition at the  Enoch Pratt Free Library  until January 4, 2015.   ...

Bad!  They said I was "bad."  Really bad.  As in horrible . . . awful, what the HELL?!  One woman even said, "Suzanne, you got courage, because anyone else who swam as badly as you would have given up by now." The Mind.  Overcoming my fear was all in my mind, until my body began to shake and shiver uncontrollably in the middle of the pool.  Nine feet of water over my head and all I could think about was "how was I going to stop my body from shaking like a broken washing machine." I couldn't.  Someone had to come in the pool and help me!   page from handmade book "Breathe" by Suzanne Coley This is my story.  These are my actual diary entries of overcoming my fear of water.  It took me 40 years, only to realize that I will never actually overcome it.  I will learn to live with it. Working on drawings after swimming class Immediately after swimming classes, I would go directly to a cafe and work on my drawings and notes...

Photo of my backyard, December  2014  for making paper.  On these cold, snowy days I spend lots of time making paper.  Finalizing pages for a book about fear. linocut being printed on handmade paper, Dec 2014    Breathe!