.carolinecblaker.

Oil Paintings, Latex Paintings, Data Art.

Rants and Raves - Opinion

A casual blog reporting on the life and times of Caroline C. Blaker

  • Support an Artist While Spending Nothing

    Support an Artist While Spending Nothing image Many people feel that supporting an artist beyond compliments and verbal encouragement is out of their reach if they don’t have money to buy artwork. While the best way to support an artist is to (buy art and) support their livelihood, here are a few things that are free, that make a huge difference to the artist you would like to support. Share their work ~ Do you have a Facebook account? Twitter? StumbleUpon? Guess what - if you said yes, you also have a network outside of the reach of the artist you would like to help, and chances are your network and you share a lot of common interests, so why not this artist? The options are endless here: share one piece, their portfolio, their blog, their events, their entire website, their facebook page - and the list goes on. Don’t know quite what to share? Ask the Artist! Volunteer time or skills ~ If you live near an artist this is easy - hang a show with him or her. Help set up a studio open-house, or just go to the artist’s events, ...

  • I am a Native European

    I am a Native European image My contemporary struggle with cultural identity began with my husband and ended with my vacation to Europe. Over the span of nearly four years, I examined why my now-husband’s proximity to his (Native American) culture evoked jealousy behind the gratitude I felt for his happiness and sense of identity with his tribes and with the earth. I wanted an identity with the earth. I wanted to be close to a rooted ancestry group. I wanted what he had - but not exactly what he had. No matter how much I wanted, pleaded or begged, I wouldn’t be allowed in anyway. As I began to learn more about the paths and histories of the Native American tribes, the answer was clear: to fully respect them is to leave them alone. While pining after an adopted new identity additionally felt like both a callous waste of time and a dishonest path to the truth, I began to wonder where else to look. Of course, what Buddhism teaches, to look inside oneself for all answers, didn’t seem obvious at the time, but it ca...

  • Bigger than Pink - actually being aware of Breast Cancer

    Bigger than Pink - actually being aware of Breast Cancer image As you and I have both been bombarded with pink fabrics, billboards, store items, and apparel as far as the NFL, we both know that it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It’s a month that is either officially dedicated, or unofficially dedicated, (not quite sure here) to some particular cancer that women get in the breast, and that by buying said pink stuff or by being reminded of some cancer you’ll probably never get (or whatever, you might, but who cares?) you are being told by some charities and some other authorities that by just seeing or spreading pink in any way possible, you are making the world a better place. At the inception of my adult life around 2003, all of this became the rage every October. I mostly ignored it. I did pick up a credit card that promised donations to Komen, without having any idea what Breast Cancer was. So what? Its a charity. They gave me a high limit. That was okay with me. And what was Breast Cancer anyway? I quietly put up with all of this crying a...

  • The Planet Earth: Amazon’s Earth Day gift

    The Planet Earth BBC Series is on sale at Amazon today, Earth Day, only. Here is why I'm going to buy this: The footage covers surface of the earth, pole to pole, covering both the obvious and secret species. The narrator is a succinctly spoken British man, lending the series an aire of sophistication and drama. There's an American narrator version - this is not it. The coverage of the animals is at some of their most emotionally dramatic moments - migration, mating, famine, and fear. The program uses aerial shots and close-ups interchangeably to convey the space of movement and emotions of the scene's participants in an extraordinary perspective. Its on Blu-Ray, so the resolution is as close to real-life as possible. In fact, you might actually believe it IS real. You know, for a second or maybe 10. In other news, a Roadrunner found itself in our back yard this morning, drinking the doggie water and looking for lizards. As much as we like our lizards, we were so happy to see this am...

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