This is Donkey Oatie and Sancho Panda. Helen Burling Ottaway did a series for a book or a show or something in the early 1990s. I do not know if it was ever published. There is no date on this. This is colored pencil and the drawing is 9 by 12 inches. I think she did larger watercolors as the final project.
Is being ridiculous evil? I read that today is National Humorous Day. We need humor to let go of stress and blow off steam and to go from the fight or flight sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic relaxed one. Humor is a really good way to go. So watch those silly cat videos and laugh. Ok, not when you are at work. But even at work, my office manager and I needed to blow off steam and laugh. One day she was playing whale songs. I heard her say very seriously into the phone, “Oh, those are whale songs. Dr. Ottaway insists on whale songs.” I howled, because she had picked them. For revenge I made whale noises at her between patients all day. Anybody walking into clinic might have thought we were loons. I can do loon songs very well, better than whale songs.
I know a slightly different tune for The Dummy Line, a variation. There seem to be a bunch!
I am blogging A to Z about artists, particularly women artists and mostly about my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway.
I find two copies of her resume. One is from 1991 and one from 1993. I will add the 1993 information, but it’s a LOT. My mother was prolific! She complained about getting ready for shows and I did not realize how very many she did! I am so proud of her. She died of ovarian cancer in 2000 and I do miss her still.
Helen Burling Ottaway
Del Ray Atelier
105 E. Monroe Ave
Alexandria, VA 22301
SELECTED SOLO SHOWS
1991 Nov Will have solo show at Bird-in-Hand Gallery, Washington, DC
1989 Sept “Cascades: Watercolors of Washington State”, Bird-in-Hand Gallery, Washington, DC
1988 Nov “Fantasy Etchings”, National Orthopedic Hospital, Arlington, VA
1987 Oct “Spirits to Enforce, Art to Enchant”, Fantasy Art, River Road Uniterian Church, Bethesda, MD
1986 Mar “Prints and Poems”, Poetry by Katy Ottaway, Martin Luther King Library, Washington, DC
1984 Nov “Forests, Flower, and Fantasies”, Sola Gallery, Ithaca, NY
Apr “Birdland and other Lullabies”, Pastels, Gallery West, Alexandria, VA
1981 May “Fantastical Bestiary”, Etchings and Drawings, Gallery West, Alexandria, VA
Mar “The Way of the Brush”, Watercolors, Gallery One, Alexandria, VA
TWO PERSON SHOWS
1986 Nov Two Person Show, “An Occasional Pair of Claws”, Fantasy Art with Omar Dasent, Gallery West, Alexandria, VA
1985 Apr Two person Show, “Figures and Foliage”, Pastels, Capital Centre Gallery, Landover, MD
1982 Nov Two Person Show, “The Four Seasons”, Gallery West, Alexandria, VA
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
1990 Feb “Visions 1990” Westbeth Gallery, New York, NY
1989 Feb “Year in—Year out”, Studio Gallery, Washington, DC
1988 Mar “independent Visions III”, Metro Gallery, Arlington, VA
May Juried Show, Sculpture, The Art League, Alexandria, VA, Juror: Bertold Schmutzart
1987 Dec Juried Show: “The Best of 1987”, Martin Luther King Library, Washington, DC, Jurors: Dr.
Jacqueline Serwer, Sandra Wested, Robert Stewart
1987 Apr “Independent Visions, Fifteen Women Artists”, Metro Gallery, Arlington, VA
Feb “Portraits 1987”, The Art Barn, Washington, DC
1986 Oct “Juried Show, “Printmakers VIII”, The New Art Center, Washington, DC
Jan “Independent Visions”, Metro Gallery, Arlington, VA
1985 Dec Invitational, “Highlights of the Year”, Martin Luther King Library, Washington, DC. Jurors:
Linda Hartigan and Monroe Fabian
Nov Invitational, “The Macadam Nueve-Splintergreen Conspiracy Show”, Gallerie Inti,
Washington, DC. Curated by Omar Dasent and Ann Stein
Oct Juried show, “Printmakers VII”, WWAC, Washington, DC. Juror: Jane Farmer
Mar Invitational, “Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to be Artists”, The Splintergreen
Conspiracy, Martin Luther King Library, Washington, DC. Curated by Omar Dasent
Mar “Shakespearean Images”, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
1984 Nov Juried Show, “Printmakers VI”, WWAC, Washington, DC. Juror: Carol Pulin
July Juried Show, “Printmakers VI”, WWAC, Washington, DC. Juror: Jo Anna Olshonsky
Oct Four Person Show, “Just Four”, Galerie Triangle, Washington, DC
“The First Great American Camel Show”, Gallery West, Alexandria, VA
1983 Mar Juried Show, “Printmakers V”, WWAC, Washington, DC. Juror: Barbara Fiedler
Feb Juried Show, “Artists – Art Historians: A Retrospective 1972-1982”, National Conference, The Women’s Caucus for Art,m Bryce Gallery, Moore College, Philadelphia, PA
1982 May Juried Show, “Woman as Myth and Archetype”, WWAC, Wshington, DC. Juror: Mary Beth Edelson
Feb Invitational, “Art is where the Heart is”, Gallery 805, Fredricksberg, VA
Feb “The Printmakers of the WWAC, The Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, VA
Jan Juried Show, “The Eye of Eleanor Monroe”, WWAC, Washington, DC Juror: Eleanor Monroe
1981 Oct. Juried Show, “Collage and Drawing”, WWAC, Washington, DC Juror: Jan Root
Numerous juried shows, the Art League, Alexandria, VA
Numerous group shows, Gallery West, Alexandria, VA
EDUCATION
1967 B.F.A Cornell University, Ithaca, NW
WORK EXPERIENCE
1992-currently Teach Drawing and Watercolor, Capital Hill Arts Workshop, Washington, DC
Teach Art Class for Seniors, Recreation Department, Alexandria, VA
Teach etching workshops and watercolors at the Delray Atelier, Alexandria, VA
1987-1990 Graphic Artist, Al Porter Graphics, Washington, DC
1985 Fall Co-Director of Gallery West, Alexandria, VA
1982 Director of Exhibitions, WWAC, Washington, DC
1982 Director of Gallery West, Alexandria, VA
1981 Chair of Exhibitions Committee of Gallery West, Alexandia, VA
Taught watercolor classes at Washington Women’s Art Center, Washington, DC
Taught children’s art classes for the Arlington Recreation Department
1967-1970 Assistant Curator at the Ithaca College Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY
Blogging from A to Z, the letter R for rainshadow, rehearsal, raise your voice! Only I did R yesterday and should be on the letter S! Sing, shout and shadow…there, whew!
My father and seven other people started Rainshadow Chorale in 1997. I joined when I moved here. He died in 2013, but we are still singing. Two concerts today and one tomorrow, and by yesterday they were nearly sold out. All three.
We had a dress rehearsal last night, with Rebecca Rottsolk, our brilliant director, doing the final touches. It’s the first time that we rehearsed in the space that we will sing in, so we pay close attention to how we sound there.
And raise your voice in song and praise! We walked this morning and traded songs with the birds: song sparrows, red wing blackbirds and quieter birds…the above photo of the bird slipping quietly through the ripples. Here is another view:
I think that this is a Hooded Merganser, here. Hooray for happy things and the letter r. And the letter s too!
Blogging from A to Z about happy things, the letter r. R for relationship, red and real.
I’ve been down to the same beach twice in the last 2 weeks, and both times there have been a trio of great blue herons. Two adults and a teen? I don’t know, but right before the second one wandered over, I took this shot:
Caught something, hooray! And then the other heron comes to ask, “What did you catch? Tasty? Are there more?”
I love walking outside, it balances clinic. I am just present and real. I don’t speak heron well enough to worry about their blood pressure. Time just to watch.
I took this picture thinking of photrablogger’s Mundane Monday Challenge, now #106. The photograph is from Fort Worden, one of the gun emplacements on the bunkers. But it is returning to moss and green and the sun was out and sky reflected.
Here is Dictionary.com reflective:
adjective
1.that reflects; reflecting.
2.of or relating to reflection.
3.cast by reflection.
4.given to, marked by, or concerned with meditation or deliberation: a reflective person.
Reflections can be beautiful. Not always, though. Thinking of reflection brings this poem up:
Reflections
Sometimes the growing pains
Are hard
Sometimes when you move on
It hurts
Put away childish toys
Friends have gone other ways
Even family
You love them
Still
You’ve changed
They resist
Don’t like the evolution
Upsets the plans
Changes the rules
Don’t you love me
As I really am?
The authentic
True
Real
Me?
Or only the hazy
Image
You had in your head
Of who you thought I was
Friend, daughter, cousin
Suddenly I am eight feet tall
Ogre
Threatening
Stunned by silence
Abandoned by your withdrawal
But my skin is shed
I spread my hood
And rise
And flick my tongue
Not to threaten
But to smell
To taste
Your curious presence
Discover and re-discover Mexico’s cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - Flüchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflüchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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