Great News: I received an Honorable Mention award for my painting "Innocence Lost" at the Nineteenth Juried Exhibition of the International Association of Pastel Societies which now qualifies me for the Master Circle status!! The years of entering this show and collecting points from being accepted and awarded have paid off. I am overjoyed and humbled to receive this honor! The actual ceremony will take place at the 2013 convention in Albuquerque, NM. I cannot wait to go! It just really helps to receive affirmations like this that I am on the right track, painting what I love most. The fact that this particular painting of my daughter has had such great success makes it even more special.

This is my latest Up Close & Personal portrait, and is it ever personal! I worked from a photo taken of me kissing my partner-in-life and crime Rich during a visit to Germany last year. The poor guy not only participated in an Ironman Triathlon event in Frankfurt, he also had to meet my whole family for the first time! He did very well under the pressure, I must say. This was during a sightseeing trip to a nearby small town. We were sitting under a red umbrella at a sidewalk café, enjoying the summer weather and down time. I just loved Rich's expression on this picture and couldn't wait to paint it. He is not exactly known for being calm and still (let's just say he can be quite the adrenaline junkie!) so this image of sweet surrender to the moment is near and dear to my heart, as is the man I'm kissing!
These fun, small captures of every day life are my take on portraiture for today's families with our busy schedules. They also work very well for people who do not like having their picture taken (I happen to be one of them!), since I focus in on only the best features, the ones that most express the personality of the person.
If you'd like to see more of these contemporary portraits, please click here.
If you would like to order one or more for your own loved ones, please contact me. There is still time to put one under the Christmas Tree!

Viladrin's portrait found a home this past weekend. A family in Dallas bought it as a Christmas present. This makes 17 of the 31 Moni's Kids portraits are sold! If you are looking for a Christmas gift that is out of the ordinary, please consider purchasing one of these paintings. You'd be gifting the recipient AND the children as well. To see which portraits are still available, please click here. You could also make a donation in any amount to Moni's Kids in someone's name and I will send them a card with an image of one of the paintings. And if you can spare a minute during this very busy time of year, please do share the Moni's Kids facebook page with your friends. Thank you!

During this week of Thanksgiving in America I would like to take a moment to thank all of the people who have supported and helped me on this artistic path of mine. Without them I would not be able to keep doing the work I love and put it out into the world.

A most sincere, heartfelt Thank You to: 

My daughters, Alex and Sam, for their patience while I spend many hours in the studio, drag them to art shows and ask them to pose for endless photos. Thank you for being my muses, my inspiration.

My partner in life and love, Rich, for understanding the odd working hours, distractions of mind and swinging of moods that the roller coaster of a life in the arts tends to bring.

My framer, Brian Hoyt, for always having a smile and good humor ready for me, even if I bring him paintings for framing at midnight to be ready the next day, who goes out of his way to meet tight deadlines and NEVER complains.

My commission clients for trusting me to create heirloom portraits of their precious loved ones, including the ones no longer with them in body, and for their generosity not only financially but verbally, by freely expressing their emotions when seeing the finished work.

My other clients and supporters for following my work, bringing it into their homes, attending my exhibits, reading my newsletters and blog and singing my praises to their family and friends.

My extended family and friends for always having encouraging words especially in times of self doubt, for lending me a hand when needed for hanging art or mailing invitations, and for being such great cheerleaders.

My artist friends for being sounding boards, willing and compassionate critics and partners in crime who understand the highs and lows of creativity.

My art coach, Renée Phillips, for steering me in the right direction and helping me achieve goals by narrowing my focus with her no nonsense  but loving approach.

The gallery owners and directors, like Jamie Labar and Tim Morrison, for believing in my work and giving me a chance to show it to the world.

The many art organizations and jurors for judging my work worthy of  being included in their prestigious shows and bestowing it with a much appreciated award now and again.

The people at FineArtStudioOnline for making it so easy to maintain my web site and write my blog and newsletters, for answering all of my amateur technical questions with such speed and kindness.

My attorney, Victoria Ozimek, for so graciously and patiently working pro bono on the nonprofit paperwork for my charity Moni’s Kids.

My past art teachers, Jane E. Jones, Lorenzo Chavez, Desmond O’Hagan, Bill Hosner, Michael Mentler, Ann Templeton, for teaching me to see in a whole new way, and for sharing their knowledge so generously.

The Masters of art long gone, such as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Dürer, Degas, Cassatt, too many to name, for leaving us such legacies that inspire and move us.

The musicians who fill my studio with their gifts of sound and inspire me to sing along with them at decibels that make my neighbors cringe but that allow me to lose myself easily in the zone of creating.

And a special thank you to whoever or whatever is guiding me on this path to use my gifts in His/Her name, for painting through me to bring to life the images that need to be created at that moment to bring joy to others, to open hearts, eyes and minds.

I am grateful for the gift of art, the people who make it possible to pursue it and strive to be worthy of it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have been absolutely swamped this summer which is why I am so late posting about my upcoming exhibition at Luminarte Design Gallery in Dallas. But here it is October and the reception is tomorrow evening! I did send out email blasts, posted it on Facebook and promoted it in many other ways, but somehow forgot to update the blog.
Oh, well, I hope some of you can make it anyway. I am so grateful to the gallery for not taking a commission from the Moni's Kids paintings, only my other work, so that all of the proceeds from those portraits can go towards the library we started in Haiti this summer.

If you'd like to see a preview of my newest work which will be shown as the second part of this exhibition, you can click here. I was thrilled that the gallery specifically requested work in the Up Close & Personal style, because it allowed me to work up some new images that were not commissioned pieces. I could play with different designs and compositions, adding lettering and text. I definitely plan on creating more paintings in this series. Some of the new work merges the teenage series with the Up Close & Personal series which I think works well.

I welcome your comments and feedback about this new work!

We went back to Haiti last weekend and it was so great to see the kids again! Some of them had changed quite a bit in a year as kids will do and I was nervous. Would they remember us? Did they think we had forgotten about them? Would they recognize themselves in the portraits? My fears were soon quieted.

The presentation to the kids was a success! They loved their portraits and I LOVED seeing their faces when they saw them.  Each child was given a photocopy of their portrait which we framed in colorful frames and displayed on bright blue benches in the chapel where we held the event (see photo).  I also made personal thank you cards for each child with a photo of me in front of my easel, with the original reference photo I had taken of them and the painted finished portrait (like the photo seen here).

Some of the 31 children I painted were not able to be there but will receive theirs when they return.

In addition the kids got goodie bags filled by my daughter Sam. 

We were thrilled to present the kids with the start of the first library at New Life Children’s Home! Originally, we had planned on building shelves to hold the books, but the orphanage is currently in the process of acquiring new land adjacent to the current home, onto which they will erect new buildings. One of those will house a recreational area which will include a study hall/common room where the children can read, study and play board games as well as work on art and craft projects. This will be the perfect place for the library.

In the meantime we came up with a solution to house the books in a flexible way: mobile library carts! We brought three of these with us and filled them with books which we arranged in different categories such as English storybooks, books in French and Creole, flashcards, activity/puzzle books and DVDs.

We also brought along metal shelves and plastic containers with art and craft supplies.

These carts can be wheeled anywhere to make it convenient for the staff at New Life and will fit right into the permanent library later.

We had also collected a lot of stuffed toys, clothing, toiletries and more art and craft supplies to deliver, but were unable to do so due to a summer bag and box embargo imposed by the airline which greatly limited what we could bring along. They are ready to go next time, though!

The owner of the orphanage expressed to us a desperate need for storage of items such as medicine and school supplies. We will be buying dozens of large plastic containers online and shipping them to her within the next week or two.

I will now focus on selling more of the portraits, with the proceeds going to add to the collection of books and setting up the permanent library once the building is in place.

If you would like to help us achieve our goal, please visit the Moni’s Kids portraits page where you can read about each individual child and purchase a painting.

If you have no place on your home or office walls, consider donating the art to your local hospital and deducting it from your taxes. You may also simply donate to the project by clicking here. Any amount is appreciated.

To see the paintings in person please stop by the Lakewood Summer Arts Faire in Dallas the weekend of August 26-28, 2011, where I will have a booth. I would love to visit with you and tell you more about our plans for Moni’s Kids.

In October, there will be an exhibition of the paintings at Luminarte Design Gallery, also in Dallas. More details will follow.

Also, Moni’s Kids now has its own facebook page. I would love it if you “liked” it and help us spread the word. Thank you!

I feel like a year of very hard work has paid off and I've come full circle. Some of the pressure is off. The kids saw that there was a follow up, they were not forgotten. This was so important to me and added to the urgency I felt. Part of my intention with Moni’s Kids is to make the children feel worthy - worthy of having their portrait painted, worthy of an education, worthy of love and attention. I do believe they got a sense of that this past weekend and hope it lasts in their minds and hearts.

Here are some more photos from our trip:

Rich and Sam in front of New Life Children's Home, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Our suitcases full of books

Sam and I had fun filling the library carts with our books!

After my speech Fabien was chosen to thank me on behalf of the kids. He gave a great little speech!

The kids had to find their portrait among all of the 31 on display. Jean sure seemed happy with his!

Getting these incredible hugs made it all worth it!

Playing with the kids

Moni's Kids is now formally a non-profit corporation in the state of Texas!

Thanks to the help of TALA (http://www.talarts.org ) who provide pro-bono legal and accounting services to artists and non-profit arts organizations in Texas. My wonderful lawyer Victoria is also helping me file the paperwork to gain official 501(c)3 tax-exempt status with the IRS which we hope to have approved by the end of the year. It's a ton of work to form a non-profit and I am so grateful to have found some help with this, so I can concentrate on creating the paintings and organizing our trip back to Haiti in just a couple of weeks.

 It can get overwhelming at times trying find the time to get it all done. From the painting of the portraits to the marketing and selling of them, promotion, exhibtions, shipping, staying organized in the office and studio (especially since I still have my other painting obligations and continue to enter a lot of shows). Then there is the whole social media aspect of it hat can be extremely valuable but time consuming. And right now, my spare bedroom/office is full of books and supplies we are delivering to the kids in Haiti soon. Add in my day job which takes up several days a week, plus family obligations....well, let's just say it's not always pleasant to be around me lately, watching me jump through all the hoops!

I am just trying to tackle one step at a time and plow ahead. I did not have all of the answers when I started this process last fall and I still don't. I am learning as I go along and love seeing the many doors open as I approach them. I leapt before I saw the net, and miraculously the net does appear! I followed my heart on this one, and while there have been stumbling blocks, there have also been many new insights and helping hands appearing out of nowhere. New ideas and plans for Moni's Kids are revealing themselves to me all the time and I have faith that I will figure out how to implement them when the time is right.

For now, it's just one baby step at a time, one foot in front of the other, following the path I believe I need to be on, crossing each bridge as I come to it and enjoying the unfolding of each event. All clichés, I know, but oh, so true!

This recent painting is part of my teen series, examining issues of identity and finding one's way in the world. It was quite a challenge taking the reference photos in a steamy bathroom without fogging up the lens!

We are returning to Haiti in about five weeks! 
We will use the funds raised so far from sales of the Moni's Kids portraits to build shelving for a small type of library. I have been buying French children's books while in Paris this month, but also had the great fortune to get free first and second grade reading textbooks from the Richardson Independent School District in Texas donated for FREE!
My goal for Moni's Kids is to make accessible to the children whose portraits I paint as many books and educational materials as possible.
I have loved books all my life and can still remember vividly certain stories that I would read over and over again and illustrations that sparked my interest in creating my own artistic images. I believe books can bring the whole world to us and open our hearts and minds. They teach us languages and about other cultures and let us escape our own situations for a little while.
We will be delivering books in the children's native languages, which in this case is Haitian Creole and French, as well as in English, because learning English will definitely help them with future job prospects. We are also bringing them board games and art and craft supplies. Thanks to Erin Maines for giving us such a good start on those by collecting left over art supplies from her teachers at the end of the school year.
DVDs of English language children's shows and movies are also needed. I know from personal experience how easily one can learn a second language by watching TV and movies. When I first came to the U.S. from Germany I learned more conversational English from "Happy Days" than any of my high school textbooks!
As more portraits are sold I plan to add computers to the list of things Moni's Kids will provide to children in developing countries. If you would like to donate any of the items listed, make a monetary contribution or purchase one of the children's portraits please contact me here or at daggistudio@aol.com.  I thank you for your support!

This is the sister of "Ella". I loved working with this family from Wichita Fallas, TX! Like her sister's portrait it was a challenge to paint large scale portraits from small photos taken by someone else several years earlier, but the family is very pleased with the results, which is what matters most!