I love cement and concrete because my Dad and I used to spend time together in our various backyards pouring little steps and patios.   He was a Civil Engineer.   I love the grey color and the fact that it will be drying and bonding for the next fifty years.  It is a permanent outdoor element.  I just bought a sheet of Wonderboard.  It is a wonder.

   Manipulating cement to form concrete is my task.  Just like an intriguing man it is difficult to control and I like that.  A challenge.  It is a combination of smooth slip and texture.   The concrete is crumbly to mold and paint but it seems to be worth it.  It is also a very masculine activity and toxic to the lungs.   Yet I still love it.

    You can have your fancy paintings on silk and your needlework pillows.  I went thru those phases too and I am sure I will do something different eventually.  My life has been full of canvas and I do enjoy a good painting or hanging but they can't go outside.   I like outdoor art lately.   I like STUCCO.

    Stucco is the cousin of cement.  They have many similar qualities and it is a joy to explore all they can offer.   I like to push the materials I work with to places that are new and different.

    I asked for a Valentine this year who loved to stucco.  I got several offers but no one really seemed to LOVE stucco.   That is the important part.  I do not like to be told that this cement obcession of mine is of no importance.  It is my work.   I take it very seriously and that involves breaking every rule there is about this material and making it beautiful.

   And I am not sure that beauty is the ultimate goal.   Perhaps the goal is to make myself think and in doing that to pass on a good feeling when you  see something I have made.  I am looking for that wow factor.  

   It is just that I haven't convinced people that I can push this envelop and make it work.  They still think of concrete as cold and hard.  I think of all the construction workers who work with this stuff everyday.  Most are men.  It takes lots of upper body strength and it is rough.  Masculine.  I enjoy being a woman wrestling with this medium.  Gritty.

  It IS hard to imagine that anything beautiful could come from a workbench like this one.  Yes, some of the brushes are rubbed to snubs.   And the dust is two inches thick.  But the colors are like painting the earth and the shapes can be anything I can imagine.

     I have been thinking what my goal is for this piece of wonderboard.  I guess I want to transform it into something that shows the light hitting the side of a cactus and glowing like a halo.  The cement board is the armature to make this happen and I will secure them in the pots with some concrete. 

    Then I am going to stucco them and paint them.  So there.