NEW WEBSITE- NEW ADVENTURES : www.teafly.com

Please visit my new website for my most recent work and happenings! I will not be using this site anymore! See you there! xoxo teafly

www.teafly.com

Why I drive.

I come from a long line of drivers. My great-great grandfather drove a horse-drawn Ice truck, delivering ice door to door. My great-grandfather drove an oil truck and on many snowy, icy, cold New England days, when his employees couldn’t get to work because of the weather, my great-grandmother would jump in one of the trucks and drive, too. “People needed heat!” she’d say in reply to people remarking how crazy that seemed. My father drives a semi and spent the majority of my childhood driving food up and down Interstate 95 busting his ass to make it home for dinner. Me? I drive a Subaru and I deliver Art to kids who need help developing their voice so that they can share their knowledge and insights with the world in a positive and creative way.

I work for an Art program that spreads it arms wide in an attempt to counter balance the massive cuts in Arts funding that have happened in the past 20 years. We provide Arts instruction to under-served communities with high rates of poverty.

I use my car to carry the supplies I teach with: cameras, paints, paper, pens, glue, scissors, pastels, clay, photo printers and more to the schools I teach at.  Without my car, I can’t carry my supplies. Without my supplies, I can’t teach Art.

I believe that having Art in school will help a student love school more. Growing up I counted the minutes until my music and art classes started. I’m not sure my life would be half as good as it is without having access to those classes. I want to give that to other kids as they navigate the difficult world of growing up. To paraphrase my great-grandmother; “People need Art!” In the last 6 years, I estimate that I have driven close to 20,000 miles to teach Art, that's how serious I am about it.

Last week, my Subaru blew its head gasket. It’s sitting in a shop in Portland waiting for me to get it fixed, but I currently don’t have the money to do so.

So, being the creative individual I am, I have decided to have a MASSIVE ART SALE this month to help get my Subaru of Love back on the road. If you have wanted to buy some of my Art but have not gotten around to it or because I haven’t made it easily available, now is your chance! Check out my Etsy store and see what I have: teafly.etsy.com.

I have A LOT of new Art, special deals that will last THIS MONTH ONLY and a special incentive to buy more!

If you buy $85 or more by June 18^th, you will receive this limited edition print “Livin' In The City”.  (100 prints total)

SPECIAL DEALS: This Month Only : Limited Quantities

• $100 Custom Holiday Card Design/ Baby Announcement, Printable file, Print all you want, +25 for signed print of ART  (no portraits)

• $100 Custom Family Portrait (up to 4 people, +25 per additional person)

• $70 Custom Portrait (1 person, +25 each additional person) PDF for return address label, Book label, Avatar for Facebook, Note card PDF

Can you help me get back on the road again? I don't ask you to fix my problems, I just ask that if you believe what I believe to help me out. I have art for you to enjoy and share. If you buy it now, it can help get me back on the road. I can keep sharing Art with the world. If you can help, I thank you. Art will thank you, too.

***The photo above was taken by Emmanuel, an 8th grader at Jason Lee School in Portland, OR. He was very shy, and never looked you in the eye when he spoke. When he snapped this pic of me, I knew he liked me. I knew he liked my class. His teacher told me that she was surprised that he took the time to take a photo of me. Not his style, she told me. Art-- it changes what we do in terms of what others expect of us. This photo means a lot to me when I think about that.

TEAFLY SALE! HELP ME GET BACK ON THE ROAD!

Last week, my Subaru blew it’s head gasket. It’s sitting in a shop in Portland waiting for me to get it fixed, but I currently don’t have the money to do so.

So, being the creative individual I am, I have decided to have a MASSIVE ART SALE this month to help get my Subaru of love back on the road! If you have wanted to buy some of my Art but have not gotten around to it or because I haven’t made it easily available, now is your chance! Check out my Etsy store and see what I have: teafly.etsy.com.

I have A LOT of new Art, special deals that will last THIS MONTH ONLY and a special incentive to buy more!

If you buy $85 or more by June 18^th, you will receive this limited edition print “Livin' In The City”.  (the above design • only 100 prints available • $50.00 value)

SPECIAL DEALS - This Month Only! Limited Quantities!

• $100 Custom Holiday Card Design/ Baby Announcement, Printable file, Print all you want, +25 for signed print of ART (no illustrated portraits, will add photographs)

• $120 Custom Family Portrait (up to 4 people, +25 per additional person) 

(Only 5 Available!)

• $70 Custom Portrait (1 person, +25 each additional person) get a PDF file to use for return address labels, Book labels, Avatar for Facebook, or for a Notecard

Also, if you are a fan of my Facebook page, you can get an additional discount. Visit my page to get the coupon: HERE

Can you help me get back on the road again? Art will thank you for it.

ATC: February 16, 2012

"Never the rose, Without the prick
But tell me how do I say?, I woke up and it was yesterday.
Do I again face this night?"
- Guiding Light by Television

I love this photo. It looks like my sister-in-law is a caterpiller, wrapped up and deciding whether or not to join the world of butterflies. In reality, she was just watching Project Runway, but I feel like how this picture looks a lot of days. Living is hard, especially when you are going through growth stages.

And while this growing never stops, some days it stops you. It makes you stop directly where you are and forces you to choose. It causes you to mourn. You feel up. You feel down. And then just as suddenly as all these emotions came, they leave. You look behind you at the wreckage and you think "Oh, that wasn't really so bad.Why did I get so worked up?" Because growing and changing and emerging ready for something new is hard fucking work.

The last 2 years of my life have felt like this every single day. I look behind me at the wreckage some days and I shudder. Other days, I refuse to look. Piece by piece I take it in, do my best to gather myself and move forward. In the process I am learning I need to forgive others more easily and need I to start forgiving myself, something I rarely do.

In the meantime there is music. Helping us to explain better who we are to the world and giving us an audible hug when we feel un-huggable. Thanks music. You're always there for me.

TODAY'S PLAYLIST:

Oh! Sweet Nuthin'
The Velvet Underground

Guiding Light
Television

Everybody
Drive-By Truckers

Hummingbird
Wilco

Nothing But Our Love
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

Talk To Me
Peaches

As It Comes
Fran Healy

Me and Mr. Wolf
The Real Tuesday Weld

Devil Town
Tony Lucca

I Saw The Light
Hank Williams

My Tennessee Mountain Home
Dolly Parton

Love That Conquers
The Swell Season

Oh Happy Day
Nina Simone

Sixteen
The Heavy

ATC: February 9, 2012

"Can't give up acting tough. It's all I'm made of" - Neko Case, Middle Cyclone

Today I am excited to feature some work by students. I have been lucky to connect with Ian Mouser at My Voice Music. He works with kids to teach them music and how to use it to resolve conflict in their life. Lovely stuff.

I also am including 2 poems created by students in the Caldera program. It is good to remember what it is like to be in middle school, to be in the process of growing. Remember how you thought it would never end? You were right. What you didn't realize is that you eventually figure out how to feel comfortable in clothes, what music you really, really like and how to take a good photo of yourself in the mirror. You eventually began to realize that everyone feels the same way you do, it just might happen on a different day.

Being able to share this student work has allowed me to reflect on what I love about teaching kids ART. It is being able to experience what they create. It becomes this blessing. This little look into how their hearts are growing and how truly complicated that process is. Your heart gets big. It gets hurt. It gets small. It gets big again. Scars begin to form- some you love and some you are shamed by. And while what you feel might be temporary the effect of those feelings is not. You will always base the next love by the previous. Good or bad. (And by the way, you deserve good).

Your heart will never leave you. It is permanent. You have the power to decide how your heart pumps the passion and love that naturally form within it out to the world. Protect it. But not so much you miss something, because those moments, when genius, light, love and passion form, are simply a temporary condition you must grab when you can.

PLAYLIST FOR TODAY'S SHOW:

Heartbreaker
Crazy P.

Don't Got A Lot Of Time
Cotton Jones

Today Is A New Day
My Voice Music

Three Little Birds
Bob Marley
(HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOB!)

You're My Lover Now
Pietra Brown

Middle Cyclone
Neko Case

Come Undone
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan

Tumble Bee
Laura Veirs

Foot Stuming
The Oreganics

Running Mod
Young Generation

Jigsaw
Shawn Lee featuring Nicole Willis

About A Girl
Nirvana

Losing Myself
Brazillian Girls and David Byrne

When We all In
Shawn Hayes featuring Frazey Ford

Periodically Double or Triple
Yo La Tengo

I Was Made To Love Her
Stevie Wonder

A Temporary Condition: FEBRUARY 2

Starting today's set off with Soko in her sweet tone, dropping f-bombs left and right feels like a manifesto of sorts, like dresses with army boots. I feel that way sometimes, I can wear a flowery dress and show of my girly assets while still being able to be strong and frank and swear like a sailor, if that is the point I need to make. Femininity and Toughness are not mutually exclusive.

Then of course, I am also playing some old school gospel, because really, no one sings with such fierceness as Etta James speaking to her lord. I'm also throwing in some Young @ Heart choir, because it reminds me of home. If you don't know about them, learn. They are a senior citizen choir, hailing from my hometown, that sings contemporary music. You have to be 65 to join. I'm counting the days until I can get in, because really this is all temporary, a new horizon and possibility with every aspect of life. Maybe today I will learn and tomorrow I will teach or vice versa. Paint or Sing. Now I will take to the stage and tomorrow I will exit. It's all temporary.

Like ex-boyfriends you want to swear at as Soko sings about, who eventually go away and a new one steps in. You just have to hang on. As The Talking Heads say "Never for money. Always for love." Maybe that can be the permanent amongst this temporary condition of living.

PLAYLIST:

Soko: Ex-Boyfriends

Jessie Baylin: I Feel That, Too

Aloe Blacc: Green Lights

Young @ Heart Choir: Fix You

Voices of Deliverance: Power of God

Talking Heads: This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)

Stew: Statue Song

The Spinners: O-o-h Child

Shirley Ann Lee: How Can I Lose

Roky Erikson: Goodbye Sweet Dreams

Patti Smith: Kimberly

Nina Simone: Children Go Where I Send Thee

Gil Scot-Heron: Where Did The Night Go
I Was Guided
New York Is Killing Me

Etta James: Oh Happy Day