Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:05:49 +0000 Dribble Doggie, painted by a 6th grader in a Lowell Public School, who swore up and down he wasn't an artist and had no artistic talent. He is and he does. I'm working on a project with middle schoolers in Lowell Public Schools in Massachusetts. It's my unenviable task to spend two 2-hour sessions with the kids and have a finished mural by the end…

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 20:59:39 +0000 Self portrait: When the Soul Feels Anorexic, acrylic on canvas, www.carolineallen.com A friend once accused me of hiding how hard things have been/are for me in my artistic process. I highlight the successes, rant at the small-mindedness of other people, but never really detail how hard it's been. At the very real risk of exposing my soft underbelly (especially in brutal New England), I'm going…

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:33:53 +0000 One of the best techniques I learned in journalism school and later as a practicing journalist was the ability to see a piece of writing as 'the' writing instead of 'my' writing. With fiction writers, I try to convey this technique for successful revision. If it's 'the' writing, you distance yourself, your likes and dislikes, from the piece of writing and see the writing as…

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:58:18 +0000 Found object sculpture, made of tree branches, and a burlap sack, www.carolineallen.com I've just picked up James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, the 'memoir' that caused such a fuss a few years ago, because it wasn't a memoir but a piece of fiction. If you don't know what I'm talking about, click here to read a Vanity Fair article on Frey, Oprah and the book.…

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 17:45:20 +0000 Doodle, www.carolineallen.com I posted this blog earlier today with a digital photo of verdant nature. After I finished the blog, my inner little girl artist mentioned in the blog below said it wasn't that she wanted me to hang up my 'professional' works of art around the house, she wanted me to hang the hundreds of doodles I make a week and usually throw away…

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:32:56 +0000 Doodle, www.carolineallen.com NPR ran a program recently on community farms in Massachusetts. The gist of the piece was that more and more people are seeking out local farmers and eating local produce. One of the interviewees was a young man who worked on a community farm. He explained that Whole Foods turned down their produce. "They wouldn't take the carrots," he said, laughing, "because they…

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:42:31 +0000 Friends, Budapest, Hungary, www.carolineallen.com I had dinner with a friend last night and she asked if we could set up some time to get together and break some plates. "I really need to smash something," she said, over roast chicken and garlic potatoes. We were both in a rage place with men who dominate conversations, what I call "dominating the storyline". If you don't hear…

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:50:52 +0000 Weeds near a sidewalk, Seattle, www.carolineallen.com Imagine yourself as a field. Well, a clearing really. One one side a muddy expanse, leading to an area of long grass, abutting scrubby low-lying bushes whose branches intertwine like a spider's web. The grass is too tall to mow, and someone has run a tractor over it and it lays on its side like thick lime green hair.…

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:46:49 +0000 life drawing, www.carolineallen.com I have spent the past few days or weeks in a torpor. Is anything worth it? Finding it harder to write, harder to do my visual art. Finding it just plain hard. Beneath me, I feel a sucking undertow, a dark energy yanking at me like a persistent dog. I know this isn't just me. I know my psychic self well enough…

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:57:49 +0000 Republic Square at night, Yerevan, Armenia, 2008, www.carolineallen.com I was sent recently to Yerevan in Armenia on a media development project for a nonprofit. My role on the project was to help several media outlets redesign their websites -- TV, radio, online magazines. There is so much to blog about from the experience of visiting and working in the former Soviet country that I don't…