Andrea Mulder-Slater

by Andrea Mulder-Slater Part of the fun of back-to-school, is all the fresh new supplies! This month, I was thrilled to receive a box of goodies from the Dixon Ticonderoga Company , featuring several of their art supplies (as well as a group of competitor's products) for me to put to the test. I began with a set of Prang Large Triangular Colored Pencils ... These colorful pencils have a unique, chunky triangular shape which makes them easy to hold - for both big and small hands.   OnceI  started working with the pencils, I noticed immediately how "creamy" they were... they seemed to just glide on the paper. By comparison, a leading competitor's brand was kind of "scratchy". The Prang colors were rich and bold and the variety was fantastic. I'm a big fan of metallics so I was especially taken with the inclusion of silver and gold. The pencil sharpener (two pencil sizes) was a nice added bonus. All of that aside, I wanted ...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater It should be fairly obvious to everyone by now, that I am not a people person. It's not that I don't like people (well, most people), it's that I'm just really, really uncomfortable around them.  If you don't believe me, just go ahead and try to strike up a conversation. I'll want to chat (I really will) but in the end, we'll both be hearing crickets. ( Or worse. ) And the thing is, the thoughts in my head are often far more interesting (albeit more inappropriate) than what comes out of my mouth. It is for this reason that painting in public is excruciatingly painful for me. Because, you know... people. And while most folks are delightful, some are less than sublime and others are downright offensive. I get it, they don't know what to say either. I mean, artists are weird and you never know when one of them is going to cut off an ear or develop syphilis, right? Trouble is, I don't have the nerve to speak my mind ...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater On a day not so long ago, I was helping to hang an art show. It was a hot day – much warmer than what had been forecast - and as a result, everyone there was dressed in outfits better suited for a polar vortex than a lava rinse. At some point in the afternoon, I started to smell the faint stench of body odor. My mind was immediately transported back to the summer after I graduated from art school when I worked at a gallery with a woman who eschewed deodorant. It was a particularly challenging time of my life since the office was exceptionally small and had no air-conditioning. I mean honestly, walking into that place was like being surrounded by fifty 9 year old kids,  just developing sweat glands. My colleagues and I had so many questions about our co-worker. Did she not know she reeked like dirty socks soaked in fish goo? Could she not smell herself? Dear god, did we all stink? It was a superficial summer to remember. Meanwhile back at th...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater “I have a reservation.” I was at the front desk of the Fairfield Inn in Smithfield North Carolina – a welcome position after the day’s drive, which had taken us through states crippled by an early ice storm. “You are in room 106” , said the angelic young man behind the counter – who was most certainly fresh out of finishing school – courteous, well mannered and highly manicured. Sigh. The lobby was lovely, with soft colors and an accent wall behind the counter depicting tree limbs. Or a spider web. Or maybe capillaries. Photo: Fairfield Inn Either way, it was stylish and also hypnotic. I felt instantly in harmony with my guest services agent who - in the time it took to write down my license plate number - walked me through three of my past lives. Twice. Then the phone rang. Opposite to the check-in zone, was a seating area, plucked straight out of an episode of Mad Men, season 5. Very modish with a long low table, orange lounger, an...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater My time in art school seems like it happened an eternity ago. Mostly because it's been an eternity since I attended art school. I love to make art, but I also love to write and I find that the words don't ever seem to flow at the same time as the paint. To give you an example, it took me approximately 17 and a half minutes to write that last sentence. In other words, here's what I've been up to lately... Did you spot the disappearing (and reappearing) roof? Artists are magicians. No, really.

by Andrea Mulder-Slater When I'm writing, I'm not painting and when I'm painting, I'm not writing. I haven't been writing much lately...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater It’s approximately five years ago and you - feeling particularly blank and sweaty - are feeding your pudgy infant for the umpteenth time that day when, in an exhausted stupor, it occurs to you that you haven’t changed a poopy diaper in oh I don’t know, two - or maybe six - days. So you panic and immediately call the exclusively-breastfed baby help line at the hospital and the woman on the other end of the phone – who sounds inexplicably like your Aunt Trix – asks you if the baby seems happy. “Yes” , you reply, “I suppose so.” I mean, how are you supposed to know? You’ve never been in charge of a three-month-old before and sure she seems content. I mean, she eats constantly and sleeps whenever she wants, so yeah, she’s freaking ecstatic. Wouldn’t you be Aunt Trix? “Does her belly hurt?” No . “Is she passing wind?” Yes . “Is she curled up and writhing in pain?” No . You’re told that your child is not constipated and her bowel isn’t twisted and no, yo...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater I was in the kitchen, baking a loaf of artisan bread, while clarifying butter and extruding rigatoni pasta from my noodle machine. Probably. Or, I might have just been drinking a glass of water. Ok so I was only sneaking a handful of chocolate chips but really that’s completely irrelevant to this story. I was in the kitchen. That’s when I saw it. Something small and wild was sitting on the deck, peering in through the sliding glass door. By the time I tiptoed over for a closer look, the long tube of white sped off in hot pursuit of a gust of wind and disappeared around the front of our garage. Me : Are rats white? Geoff : What? Me : Or maybe it was a ferret!? Jan : Maybe WHAT was a ferret? Me : The thing that was just on our porch. It was white and long and fast and… The 5 year old : Is it an animal? Can I keep it?!! Pleeeese?! Geoff : Maybe it was a mink. Me : There are no minks around here. Wait, are there minks around here??  ...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater For those of you following my crow adventure , you may be interested to know that Merle (or Haggard) is back. With a vengeance. We might need some more roadkill...   No, really.

by Andrea Mulder-Slater We were under attack again this morning, this time on Jan's end of the house. THUNK. Tap tap-tap-tap. THUNK. THUNK-THUNK-THUNK. Caw. Caw. Caw. Caw! It began innocuously enough last autumn, with one solitary, emotionally damaged crow hurling himself repeatedly against one of our basement windows. The stunt ended as soon as it began, and so we just chalked it up as one of those peculiar things that only happen to us. Like stalkers in a foreign land , blindness brought on by Omega-3 pills and turtles that move like roadrunners . Fast forward to the winter, when not one, but two crows began taking turns dive-bombing our double paned glass, at 5am. Not long after, I watched them case our house. That’s when I named them. Here’s the thing… Crows are smart. Really freaking smart. I know this because I’ve watched The Nature of Things. Crows can make tools. Tools! In addition, they have remarkable memories and possess the ability to recognize fa...