My name is Oona... 

A lot of people ask me how we came up with the name Oona.  Well, it just popped into my head one night driving home from my friends' housewarming party.  Driving is such a great time and place to let your mind take a walk while your lizard brain handles autopilot; it's no surprise that I had yet another of my great ideas while behind the wheel.  When I got home, Aaron and I went to our local corner bodega to get some provisions and I simply turned to him and said, "Oona?"  He slowly bobbed his head up and down and said "...maybe..."
When we got home he googled and showed me this short film by Gunvor Nelson that Stan Brakhage screened for in his class at CU Boulder.  During the remainder of my pregnancy I worried that we weren't doing due diligence by coming up with other names. I wondered if people would assume that we made it up just to be weird.  However, starting with my postpartum nurses, just about everyone we introduce Oona to says, "oh, my cousin's name is Oona," or "I went to elementary school with an Oona."  Turns out Oona not as weird a name as I feared, and Aaron and I are the only 2 people in the world who never met an Oona before our daughter was born.

Most affordable baby toys are hideously ugly, though delightfully stimulating to their intended audience, I'm sure.  Babies 'R Us is a humongous store and yet offers very little choice.  How wonderful would a Morris Louis/Bridget Riley baby-play-world be?

Taking the stroller on the subway is not such a big deal if you are up for a little workout.  I love it when people ask me if I want help carrying the stroller up or down the stairs and then I smile real big and say, "no thanks, I got it."  It's so nice to have the offer, though it's usually more expedient to handle it myself.  However, since the MTA decided to cut costs and get rid of station attendants in many subway entrances, you take a gamble each time you go down the rabbit hole.  Like today, I carried the rig down two sets of stairs at a major entrance to the Union Square station, only to discover there was no attendant down there to open the special entry door.  I was starting to spin on my heel, stroller still in arms, and woefully begin the ascent to the street, when a nice gentleman read my mind and quickly said, "wait!  I'll go through the turnstile and open the door from the inside!"  What an idea!  He even waited for me to buy a new metrocard from the kiosk.  Sometimes New Yorkers are in too much of a hurry;  we are all both victims and perpetrators of road rage, subway rage, sidewalk rage, and well, just rage.  But sometimes New Yorkers can be extra sensitive to when a fellow warrior needs a little help.  Thanks, Dude.

Bridget Riley, perfect artist for babies...

 
I did yoga to this record tonight.

Figuring out how to get back to a studio practice with a newborn takes, well, practice. I am glad to say I managed to complete the final paintings in a long-term body of work during my pregnancy, so I had a sense of closure and accomplishment going into the delivery room. That put me in a position to start something completely new upon my return-- both liberating and terrifying. I need something that I can pick up and put down easily, e.g. not oil paint. So, I am currently trying to discover the painterly language of magic markers.

Today I made a list of subjects that most concern/excite/occupy me these days. The list includes
-laundry
-what to make for dinner
-cleanliness of the apartment
-sandwiches
-Oona's sleep
-Oona's poops
-my body/fitness
-groceries inventory & budget
-wine
-watching tv on dvd/the web
-health insurance
-bills & how to pay them
-vacation/visit to see my family next month

I then realized I don't know how or necessarily want to make art about any of those things, so I'm scaling back to just making shapes/patterns/colors on paper with my new (hopefully) magical markers. Perhaps if I can get funky with the formal, my brain will eventually wake up and join the party.

My desert island has a new castaway... little Oona. The studio now has a population of 3! Last year I finally convinced Aaron to give up his expensive little office near our apartment and consolidate our studios into one family studio. Of course, this was part of my multi-step master plan to make space in our lives to start a family. Now going to and paying for the studio is a shared interest. We each have our own space to hang out and work-- even Oona. Right now she is concentrating on mastering her sleep skills.