cardboard castle

In August we hosted a week-long cardboard castle building party in our back yard. It was even more fun than we had imagined. Walls and towers were built. Children ceaselessly tunneled through all of the constructions.

The best thing about it was watching people find and create their very own cardboard dreams. There were cardboard costumes, cardboard instruments, a cardboard sun dial, a cardboard mail box, a cardboard letter press, a cardboard telephone booth that was also a throne (telethrone) and so much more. 

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today on monster island

Today is the day: the Monster Island show is opening at the Portland Children's Museum. The Oregonian gave it a nice write up. Monsters and rocks were made by me and the kids as part of my artist residency over the last 3 months. If you want to get stuff done, get some kid power: we made over 80 monsters and more rocks than I can count. I will post some pictures of the individual monsters soon. They are all so goshdarn charming.

monster island

In the past 3 months I have had a blast as the artist in residence at the Portland Children’s Museum. I worked with the kids on a monster themed art show that will be opening this Thursday June 29th. I collaborated with museum visitors on more than 80 monster sculptures, some based on kid's drawings (above), others freestyle, all full of that wonderful fresh kid imagination that I adore so much. We will bring it all together for the show in an installation called Monster Island. Opening is 4:15 to 7pm and free to all.

The Oregonion has been making regular visits to the museum studio and did a nice write up.

springtime shows

Some older pieces are getting a new life at a couple of art shows this month. Planet Baaaaa and some other work is part of Clatskanie in Bloom in charming Clatskanie, Oregon. It's a pop-up show in the old Ace Hardware building and benefits the local farmers market. Only open for a little more than a week, March 17th to 26th. Stop by on your way to the coast! Speedy and some other boats will be brightening up city hall in Vancouver, Washington. The Enormous Kraken will also be on display once again! This show will run from March 21st to June 9th. Plenty of time to pop in!

advent calendar day 1

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Last year was so much fun, I'm doing it again. For every day between December 1st and December 24th I will open another door on my advent calendar. If you are not already signed up to receive an email with the Gesine-made image of the day delivered to your email every morning, you can do so here. As always, you can opt out of receiving pictures of cute creatures by unsubscribing . If you happen to like cute creatures-enjoy!

This here is Thompson by the way.

oregon reads aloud

The wonderful Oregon Reads Aloud anthology, put together by SMART (Start Making A Reader Today) is now out in the world. SMART is celebrating 25 years of providing reading support and books to Oregon children with this illustrated book. The book is a compilation of 25 read-aloud stories written and illustrated by Oregon authors and illustrators and I'm so proud to be one of the illustrators. The story I illustrated is called The Day The Puddles Stomped Back, written by Heidi Schulz- so Oregonian!