Normally, I'd advise against going down a interweb hole, but this is one I highly encourage. This past year, I joined more than than 900 people in 493 cities across 72 countries in playing a game of art telephone. Go on, click here to see my piece, and wander through this amazing interactive web of works. Let me know what you think! I think this might be the coolest art thing I’ve ever participated in. So many kudos, finger snaps, and high fives to the team behind the scenes who organized, managed, and built this amazing specimen o art.

I was sent a photo of a sculpture by my “parent” (LaThoriel Badenhausen) and transcribed my interpretation of it (first, into a poem then…) into a drawing. Then, my “child” (MAJA BOSNIĆ)viewed my artwork and interpreted it as a piece of music!

1. i wanted to write a poem

about the crows, their organized chaos in the morning

i got out my journal, my pen

my coffee and

silence

no noisy, nosey, oily black-feathered bodies to be seen

only a quiet peering from the dark caverns

of trees

like kids in a game of hide-and-seek

when the seeker gets close

2. Good God, Dear Crow

How is your landing so

heavy, so

pounding, uncontrolled, and loud?

I've seen you land with ease

on bended treetops

unable to hold their own weight

let alone your feathered bulk

On flimsy branches I've seen you balance and,

without hands, remove the pits of cherries

dropping them strategically, staining my neighbor’s shirt

as we lounge in chairs and chat over tea

in the shade

I've watched you as I, 

unable to react quickly enough, 

lift juicy steaks off our flaming bbq, your

sleek matte-finished black beak breaking

into a wide grin in your unscathed escape

one beady eye looking back with glee

and, now,

in the quiet of the morning

this landing on our roof

like a small propeller plane landing on a wooden dock 

in a windstorm

wakes my dream-filled child with purring snores

in her sleeping bag below

Available in my Art Shop

One of my favorite things in life is mail. The slow, in and out of mailboxes analog kind. The sending of love and friendship and thank yous and thinking of yous kind. There’s a magic to it that just brings me so much joy. And what better way to send that joy out of my hands and into the universe than creating art out of the envelopes it traveled through time and space in? What was once rectangle is now a beautiful asymmetrical canvas completely unique shape complete with perfectly imperfect creases, wrinkles, and tears. Yay! Below are a few recent creations.

2020 was a rough year to make new human friends, but here are some lovely (albeit feisty) non-humans that I met right on my deck!

Note: Hummingbirds are suckers for sweets and easy to draw in if you’re looking for some quality entertainment (especially if you like a good fight), but feeders can be messy. I highly recommend this one. Be sure to keep the nectar fresh (it’s super easy to make).

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Take a relaxing breath and listen to this story about how art was made on a recent Monday morning.

A while ago, I pulled some photographs and paintings out of my uncle’s (davidkingartist.com) trash. I heard one singing to me from a bin in my studio the other day. Then, my pile of stained tea wrappers joined in the chorus. And finally, I turned to my sewing machine to provide a beat.

My Aunt Patti’s Pojagi work providing heavy influence, I stitched the wrappers to the painting following ghostlike lines from the painting beneath, along wrinkles and edges. Whatever felt right.

Once it felt finished, I flipped it over and after a moment spent with hands on hips, I grabbed my watercolors and filled in the stitched patterns. It was hard not to peek, but my hope that paint was bleeding through the holes left by the sewing needle came true. Beautiful blots of color had joined variations of brown and a reversible painting was born.

The End.

Come see me tonight for the West Seattle Art Walk or swing by West Seattle Grounds anytime this month to see some of my art up on their lovely walls.

One thing leads to another. This is the way art happens in my world. I’ve been unconsciously making piles of tea bags and spoons on counters for years. Sometimes I hang and dry the tea bags. A couple months ago, I paused to examine my thoughts while I was throwing another bag on the heap. I noticed “reusing” was my intention. I pulled apart the layers of the pile, noticing the wonderfully stained papers, and in those stains, wonderful characters.

A few days later, I opened a neighborhood library door and found a bright orange book, “Spanish in Record Time.” Inside was French, not Spanish, instruction. There were letters and notes in all sorts of languages dating back to the 50s - as if it had been sent back and forth between friends and, as it appeared, enemies. My face lit up in a massive grin.

Back at my studio, black ink practically leapt onto the pages of Spanish in Record time and, with it, tea stain characters. There have been many days during this strange time that I either don’t have words or I needed to process words. This journal has become both my punching bag and my welcome mat.

Often, when I paint or draw, I simply follow my breath. Other times, my hands move to music or my heart reacts to words. I welcome whatever comes up, whatever happens, without judgement of good or bad.

Here are some of the things I listed to while creating the pages below:

Podcasts (Spotify Playlist):

10 Percent Happier: #259 How You Can Help Transform America’s Racial Karma | Dr. Larry Ward

Tara Brach: Sustaining Our Caring

10 Percent Happier: #248 How to Be a Good and Sane Citizen in Ugly Times | Ezra Klein

Insights at the Edge: Latham Thomas: Self-Care Is a Radical Act

Tara Brach: A courageous presence with Racism

On Being with Krista Tippett: Thich Nhat Hanh, Cheri Maples, and Larry Ward Being Peace in a World of Trauma

Insights at the Edge: Larry Ward: Mindfulness in Action, in business.

Audiobooks: Alicia Keys, More Myself, Michelle Obama, Becoming

Music: Tupac Shakur (happy birthday, 6/16!), Alicia Keys, hip hop and sultry mixes.

Everyday conversations: “I can’t breathe.”

I love this “challenge” and had to give it a go! To find an image I turned to The Getty Museum and navigated to the photography collection. Recreating this photo was unsurprisingly fun, but surprisingly challenging - in the best and most addicting way. For the next one, I collaborated with my daughter. She chose a Warhol portrait or Marilyn Monroe. At first, we planned to do a magazine cut out mouth, but then realized the missing teeth in her mug were too perfect :)

Here’s how it works:

1. Pic your artwork (lots of museums are opening up their collections online for this challenge: http://getty.edu/art/collection, https://www.metmuseum.org/, www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksmuseum-pubquiz)

2. Use some items you have laying around home to recreate it.

3. Share  @tussenkunstenquarantaine, @gettymuseum, @Rijksmuseum #mettwinning #artwillsaveyou, #betweenartandquarantine, #tussenkunstenquarantaine

The Painter’s Wife (Helene Abelen), 1926, August Sander. The J. Paul Getty Museum. Copyright Paul Getty Trus

The Painter’s Wife, August Sander, recreated by Heather Brincko 2020

I would like to take a moment to thank all the coffee shops of the world (most notably C&P Coffee co and West Seattle Grounds). When I’m gifted time between this and that, running here or there, there’s nothing I enjoy more than slipping into a shop and breaking out an art journal for a little mindless mind mining. Tonight the music at Fresh Flours Bakery and one of those paintbrushes with the water dispenser BUILT IN (!!!) produced this.