WEST: First West Austin Studio Tour launches May 19-20
By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin | Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 12:09 PM

Organized by the same folks at Big Medium who’ve made the East Austin Studio Tour one of the most popular arts events in town, the West Austin Studio Tour kicks off Friday with a party at the People’s Gallery at Austin City Hall.

Like EAST, the free, self-guided West Austin tour champions the eclectic abundance of Austin’s artistic talent, offering visitors the chance to take a peek in artists’ working studios to learn about their techniques, tools and inspiration.
If EAST is in a fairly circumscribed area, WEST sprawls out to include a vast swath of Austin west of Interstate 35 and east of MoPac and north and south of the Lady Bird Lake.
There are a whopping 162 designated destinations that are officially part of WEST. And while many destinations on the tour are individual artist’s studios, some are established galleries, some are temporary pop-up galleries and still others are special events.
West Austin Studio Tour
Kickoff party: 6 to 8 p.m. today at the People’s Gallery at Austin City Hall, 201 W. Second St.
Tour: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Tour headquarters: 241 W. Third St.
Cost: Party and tour are free
Information: Catalogs available at Austin Public Library branch locations and tour headquarters.
Downloadable maps and a guide at www.westaustinstudiotour.com

Image: “#195 from “The Wheel Series,’” oil on panel, 2012. Stella Alesi. No. 50 on the WEST map, artists Stella and Leon Alesi will be showing work at their Blackbox Gallery, a residential gallery in South Austin.

http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/seeingthings/entries/2012/05/16/west_first_west_austin_studio.html

here is a glimpse of my latest work in progress.
the title of the series, “the wheels” makes reference to one of buddhism’s eight auspicious symbols, the wheel.
the oil on panel paintings serve to mark the days and give direction.
as well they act as a dharana, a single point of focus for meditation.

All of these paintings are 30×30 inches, oil on panel

So the KLRU Arts in Context program aired last night on public television.
Ed Fuentes created a 30 minute program highlighting some of the GenrousArt.org artists.

You can view the whole episode, (or just my part), here:

http://www.klru.org/artsincontext/

last night i attended a dharma talk with Lama Surya Das. interesting guy.
more entertaining then i imagined he would be.  2 hours certainly wasn’t enough to fully
touch all the areas of his knowledge of buddhism, but it was just enough to allow me
to visualize time in a different way. using horizontal hand gestures he spoke about the linear
aspect of time, and then gesturing his hands vertically he mentioned the present moment,
and going even further he pinpointed this exact point in time, and from there it all opened up.

hmmmm…in can sit in that place for awhile; fully content. my mind exploding into a beautiful
array of visuals.
the talk was titled, “buddhist standard time”

Ed Fuentes of KLRU TV and his camera guy Jarren just left my studio. He came here to interview me. He is doing a 30 minute piece, to be aired sometime in February,
about GenerousArt.org as part of the Arts In Context series. He is interviewing 6 of the generous art artists; Jen Balkan, Jennifer Chenoweth, Virginia Fleck
and myself amongst them. I was seriously nervous, I hope it didn’t show too much. You think talking about my work would be the easiest thing in the world,
but somehow knowing it is all being recorded changes everything. I’ll be sure to post when it is being aired so we all can have a good laugh at this nervous nellie.
(I hope my arms didn’t look fat).

Big thanks to Jennifer Chenoweth once again for all her hard work!

“you flowing through selves toward you.”
audre lord

for the last week or so leon and i have been seriously moving into our new space, and the studio is starting to show itself.
i nearly cried the other day when i walked up the stairs into the space. it’s been in my head for so long, and then pow! there
i was standing in it.

i am trying to stay present to the daily tasks at hand to get it up and running, but it is hard not to let my mind wander to all the
possibilities this new space might allow for us. there is talk of gallery shows as well as photo workshops and classes. and of
course i’m envisioning many hours of creating in this space.

one immediate task on hand is getting a big work table so i can have a place to work on some new collages. i think i
want something on saw horse legs so i can easily move it around and break it down when needed. after that the task at hand
will be to find a place for the many boxes of slides of old painting, film negatives, and journals of my younger years.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),
there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one
definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise
have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents
and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”