Will you be attending the annual Mother's Day Studio Tour on Camano Island this weekend? If so, be sure to stop by Seagrass Gallery (http://seagrassgallery.com/) to view original art and prints by Shano.

Next stop- Wine tasting at Dusty Cellars Winery (http://www.dustycellars.net/) where you can purchase prints and limited edition signed flasks featuring Shano's newest images. *Some of which are not yet available in print!



Art Collectors? Just a head's up! There are still a few Original Artwork Pieces Left! Cleaning out the studio and over HALF the original art MUST GO! Huge paintings, small paintings, and everything in between- All one of a kind and priced starting as low as $100!



To view ALL the art click here:
http://shano-studio.com/originalart.html

To view the art on SALE click here:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=99376
(click on the original art category)

Keep up to date with Shano via social networking:
http://www.shano-studio.com
http://www.artbyshano.etsy.com
http://www.myspace.com/artbyshano
http://twitter.com/artbyshano
http://www.linkedin.com/in/artbyshano
http://artbyshano.blogspot.com/

Oopsie!


Don't want to jinx it but . . .

HUGE Art by Shano SALE

Stoopid is as stoopid does

Safe Horses Charity Event

....

"Wild Mares" Original Art painting for auction Save A Forgotten Equine presents... HeART of the Horse, an Art Show & Auction to benefit Equine Rescue http://www.safehorses.org/ Sunday, April 5th, 2009 exhibit 2-7pm ~ silent auction 4-6pm Abbey Ballroom 1902 South Fawcett Street Tacoma WA 98003 Hors d'oeurves will be served and beer & wine will be available for purchase Come support local artists & photograhpers for an afternoon of Art, Photography, Music, Food and FUNd-Raising to benefit Save A Forgotten Equine (S.A.F.E.) http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=46891659725

Patron's Party (http://www.uncladart.com/) - Opening Night Gala (Click on photos to enlarge)


From left to right:  Gayle Picken (Art Show Curator and owner of Gallery by the Bay - (http://www.gallerybythebay.com/), Jamie, Jack Gunter (http://www.jackgunterart.com/), Teri, Tom Jensen (http://www.tomjensenart.com/), Alison.


Teri, Alison, myself, Jamie - I'm showing off the "red dot" on the mermaid painting, Fluidity. Yay!


Jack Gunter (http://www.jackgunterart.com/), myself, Tom Jensen (http://www.tomjensenart.com/)


Shannon Kirby (http://www.shannonkirbyart.com/), myself, Liana Bennett (http://www.lianabennett.com/)


Coylinda purchased my purse to give to her daughter. Her husband in the background is artist John Vistaunet (http://www.vistaunet.com/)


Me and Jack Gunter. I love this photo because I have no recollection of what is going on or what is being said but the body language cracks me up.


Afterwards at Amigo's Restaurant with the girls (and apparently the restaurant owner?)

Some days, okay most days, I want to do everything.  I become so engrossed in everything that I do nothing.  For example I just signed up to DIGG.  Right now I really have no idea what that means other than I like a story or article.  Same with StumbleUpon.  I like it, I told somebody out there that I like it.  Who I am telling this to, or sharing with is really unknown to me.  Of course I could read the FAQ's, but I get spun around.  I have a good sense of direction, but my ADD rears it's ugly head and I find I'm learning only bits and pieces of a whole.  So I spend time exploring these technology vortexes in hopes that someday I'll know exactly what I'm doing while actually DOING it. It is a series of tangly spider webs with too many directions to venture off in, and inevitably I choose the wrong path further sidetracking me from what I was doing.   Information Highway?  No.  It's downtown LA in rush hour with a 5 car pile up.  

The Internet is so vast with knowledge that honestly my brain can't handle it.  I want to learn PhotoShop and do all the things that the kewl kids are doing.  Did you know you can take free tutorials on YouTube?  You can pay a monthly fee to learn just about anything at http://www.lynda.com/  (It took me 10 minutes to remember the name of this site thus adding further frustration in my quest for knowledge.)  

Right now I am still trying to figure out shipping on my shopping cart and I am completely over-thinking the tables and scales mixed with *GASP* International shipping to boot.  My brain is swimming.  Don't even get me started on marketing, small business, and being a WAHM, as well as an artist.  Just the information sites pointing to other information sites completely overwhelm me.  The Internet is crack.  Why can't I quit you?

So yesterday I posted my "25 Random things" and quite honestly most of my Chatty Cathy girlfriends haven't responded and I'm assuming it is because of my #22.  

22. It's retarded to refer to yourself as a MILF. Let other people decide that.

So I am reading book number 4 of Megan McCafferty's series titled Fourth Comings.  I absolutely was enthralled by her first two books.  Number three was a little emo and whiny, and not nearly enough hot sex, but it goes with the age of the character of the time.  Nonetheless, book number 4 so far is right on track.  I truly appreciate the numerous references to pop culture. Megan even goes as far to refer to Dooce whom I have been quasi-following back when Heather had maybe 3 to 10 comments a day.  However, being a lurker doesn't gain me any status or popularity in the Dooce world.   

So, I just read page 111 (Page 109 had me CRACKING up.  I mean, ROFL at her snark comment.  Buy the book.  Only you MUST start with Sloppy Firsts.)

So thank you Megan for your witty and snarky pop culture observances.  I am right on board.

From page 109 that had me belly laughing- As spoken from Jessica, the main character:

"She was still dead serious.  This reveals an elemental cause of all our miscommunications.  I am fluent in snark.  Bethany only notices snark when snarks grabs her off the sidewalk, throws her in the back of a sketchy van with tinted windows, drives to the middle of the Meadowlands in the dead of night, and uses a heavy blunt instrument to smack her repeadly about the head as it screams, "I'M SNARK.  DO YOU FUCKING HEAR ME?  I'M SNARKY SNARKY SNARK!" And even then she's like, "Ohhhhh? Snark?  Is that you?"

From page 111:

"I couldn't expect someone like my sister to understand why the DONUT HO' promotion was just another pathetic example of "feminism" gone wrong.  She has soared, swooped, and glided through life on the gilded wings of her golden good looks.  I mean, it's one thing to be a MILF and have other people refer to you as such in private.  "Now there's a mom I'd like to fuck."  But it is quite another to unapologetically and unironically refer to yourself and your circle of friends as MILFs, as my sister and her friends do."

This is why I read so much.  Way better than the boob tube, ya'll.

So last night, Thursday, I was dead tired at 8 pm.  It was a long day, but regardless, I am NEVER tired at 8 pm.  Eight o'clock is my happy time.  It's in the hours of 4 - 9 pm when I am the most awake.  So when I was plopping down to read at 8 pm, I thought to myself, "Oh good.  Maybe I'll be in bed at a normal time for once!  Yay me for being normal for once!"

So I start reading.  And before you know it my ADHD sets in and I'm reading the same chapter over and over.  Crap.  Reading is SO not working.  I'm getting MORE and MORE awake by the second.  TV is a distraction but I keep pausing the TIVO to do laundry, dishes, sweeping, whatever.  I swear I am not any any sort of stimulant other than coffee and I cut myself off hours and hours ago.  In fact, my coffee maker beeps after 2 hours to let me know I've been cut off.  Coffee maker closing time was a VR VR long time ago.    

So the dork in me suggests dancing around the living room in an attempt to drain energy.  Everybody is asleep, but I am widefuckingawake.  Dancing is stupid.  I can't dance and there isn't enough room to do a flying stag or salchow if I wanted to.  So I get the brilliant idea at 11pm to take "a couple" of my dogs on a walk.  

On many occasion I have taken my two male dogs Maverick and Joey on walks during the sunnier months.  Being two intact males they do well if I, the alpha, is always there to monitor them.  I have a  single leash that attaches multiple leashes so that I can walk a zillion dogs at once if I so desired.  Apparently I felt the need to walk a zillion dogs.  Admittedly, the ADHD mind REALLY wasn't thinking or considering consequences to its full potential.

Maverick in a past life was a sled dog.  The guy is young and scrappy and can make me walk at least 10 mph faster than my legs could normally go.  Joey is big and beefy but has lived with me his full 5 years and knows that I will choke him to death if he pulls.  Joey is half my body weight.  Maverick really doesn't seem to notice or care that oxygen is important so wheezing and coughing doesn't slow him down in the slightest.  I can yank, jerk, verbally commmand him to chill out to no avail.  So basically, the two of them together is manageable.  

My wide awake brain THEN thinks it's a good idea to take two of the females on a walk as well considering that the two males are so easy.

So Dixie whom is really well leash-trained who I have been having a HUGE issue with in regard to loyalty, keeps running off the SECOND I turn my back, decide that she needs the mental stimulation and bonding time.  Can I find her choke chain and leash?  No.  So she gets a regular ole collar and is hooked up to the boys' leash, which makes three of them on a single leash.  The problem with collies is that their necks are bigger than their heads.  Any resistance or stopping and said collar just pops off.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I also decide that Athena would be great to expose to more walks given her limited view of the outside world.  She's a couple weeks pregnant so I thought some exercise and excitement might do her some good.  Okay.  Yeah.  Bringing Athena was retarded.  Not only am I now out of leashes but out of collars.  Being on a ranch there is an overabundance of baling twine.  Oh yeah.  Hello, White Trash with the noose as not only a collar but a leash.  It's 11 pm on a teeny tiny island who the heck is going to notice?

So I have all 4 dogs and I'm ready to go!  The thing is with dogs in general is that the males want to lead me and the girls want to follow me.  Already a clusterfuck of collie dogs and we haven't made it from the barn to the top of the driveway.  So at first it was funny and I'm laughing until Dixie's collar repeatedly pops off and she's heading for the hills like the disloyal bitch that she is.  So trade Athena's homemade deal for Dixie's collar.  Same thing.  So while I'm getting them all straightened out, the males would encircle me literally entangling me like a spider's web.

Why I persevered THIS far is beyond me other than the boundless amount of energy that I had.  Plus, I NEVER back down to a challenge.  So after a few minutes of stepping in and out of spider webs and putting Dixie back in the regular collar a zillion times, we actually made it to the housing development that I had originally intended to take a walk in.   It took me at least 8x's as long as it would have had I just taken the boys.

And then there were the other dogs.  Dogs left free to roam said housing development because they are big fat lab dogs that don't leave the yard, and then there's the barkers behind fences that BARK BARK BARK at people and dogs passing by.  It was all way too much for my ADD intact male dogs.  They were pulling.  They were circling.  This wasn't their turf, but they assumed that all of the island was their turf.  Tails were flagged, they were barking back ready to fight.  The girls got in a panic and were every which way.  All I know is that there were multiple leashes and binder twine EVERYWHERE encircling my legs, midriff, feet, and arms.  For the life of me I felt like a roped calf.  Seriously, throw both your hands up and call for time, Cowboy.  Naturally Dixie is off the collar again and headed to for the hills or to fight or impregnate herself with a big fat lab.  I gathered myself, I gathered my dogs, and I retreated home.

For some odd reason "home" made sense to them.  "Home" was one collie mind working together and that was in complete agreement that they were the Alaskan Bob Sledding Team.  Unfortunately I don't own a bob sled.  There isn't even snow if I did.

So all 4 dogs who now greatly outweigh me have me walking them at a 70 degree angle at 30 MPH.  Then for some reason Athena spazzes out, trips me with her baling twine, and I'm in the rocky ditch clawing to escape. There are no street lamps.  It's me at one with my bob sledding team that lacks any sort of compassion for the person that feeds them.  This would be a photo of being drug through a ditch by 4 collie dogs.  

Don't attempt this at home.  



Oh.  It gets better.

So I limp back home at approximately 30 MPH now uphill and am immediately entangled by dogs again.  I just start unclipping and un-noosing.  I stand erect and both of the male dogs are in a full blown war literally trying to rip each other's necks out.  So you know how you're never supposed to try to break up a dog fight right, right?  You're supposed to hose them down.  So suppose for the sake of argument you don't want to run in the barn, hook up the hose, open the barn doors, and drag the hose out, spray them down because really?  What would be the point?  In this amount of time one or both of them is dead.  So, you do what any sensible farm girl would do.  You start kicking at the aggressor.  Only for arguments sake you were denied soccer as a child/teen and your kick lacks impact.  You have no aim and basically you are kicking at air and screaming like a Banshee.  

Sadly, you are kicking WAY too hard than you imagined physically possible.  All too soon you realize that your kick was something only a Rockette or Dallas cheerleader could do and you feel and HEAR the snap.  That snap would be your ass to leg muscle.  Well played.

Apparently male dogs hear, see, or feel your pain and stop fighting.  You limp them slowly to their designated area and go back inside the house and just lay on the couch starring at the ceiling until WAY after midnight.  

For the love of GOD, if you can't sleep on a Must See TV day,  just stay in and watch The Office.

PS.  The 2 parallel scars above the barrel racing scar would be my first time shaving my legs.  At 10-years-old I imagined that the peach fuzz covering my legs would take quite some time, heft, and pressure from Dad's razor.  I bled like a stuck pig for seemingly forever but didn't say anything to my Mom who said that I was not allowed to shave my legs at the tender age of ten.  In my excuse for the bloody trail, I told her I slipped on a coat hanger.

Okay.  So this little ole painting took me hours longer than most of my paintings.  It's actually a small painting (9" x 12") that I created on paper.  Why I don't create more paintings on paper is beyond me, because it is unbelievably forgiving.  There must be 4 paintings under this and I don't know how many times I redid her face and head-  tilted it this way and that way, re-sized it, you name it I did it to her.  She was a certifiable head case. Oh.  And the horse?  He changed colors at least three times.  (A horse of many colors!  Ha!)

Typically when I have to fight with a painting so much, I either ditch it or end up hating it.  But I always tell myself, if the composition is there, STICK with IT.  So I did and I'm glad.  She's cute, right?  And I'll admit that I don't always like the paintings I create, but that doesn't stop me from shleping them off to you folks at home.  But then I am incredibly hard on myself painting-wise and other.  

Now that you have Lil Miss Godiva's full history, I will share this troublesome and difficult little diva with you.  

So, in an effort to get caught up on one of the very few shows that I do each year, I have been creating paintings to be juried into the Unclad show.  

OMG.  It feels soooooo good to be painting again.  It's like swimming in the Pacific ocean in August, or riding full blast at a gallop, or sleeping 10 hours with vivid dreams, or a full tissue back massage, or really good sex (sorry Mum), or like the BEST fresh gourmet creme brulle to hit your pallet.  It's like I forgot to breathe and then the oxygen hit me at 90 mph and stimulated every cell of my being.  Am I being dramatic?  Perhaps, but then us artistic folk tend to hyper-sensationalize. But rest assured that I am very sincere in my description.

The first two paintings I have done this year flew on to the canvas.  The third one . . . Not so much.  (I'll share that one in another post.  TBA.)  So, I'd like to introduce "Flirty Catwoman"  (Oh yeah.  Running out of creativity on titles for the catwoman series.  SERIOUSLY.)



She is on a confusing very to computers metallic gold background.  She hopes to be a part of an upcoming nudie art show.  I'll give more info if she will be able to grace herself at that particular soiree.  Please stay tuned.  (Stay tuned.  That's funny.  Good thing I'm hear to crack myself up.)