(A)Musings of Auntie Nanuuq ..and We Are Not Very Amused

Wednesday, October 21, 2026

New Exhibition: Enter the Goddess IV: Raven's Gallery

The Woman I've Become

(self portrait)

NFS

Tuesday, October 20, 2026

About Myself As an Artist

As long as I can remember, I have been entranced with creating art and taking photographs. Art was always my favorite subject in school & I can remember standing in front of an easel in 2nd grade & painting.

I remember painting by numbers, but that the areas were so small that I just faked it & expanded many of the areas.

My mother had a Kodak Brownie Bakelite camera, which she never used, I somehow got a hold of it & would spend hours snapping photos, sans film... late on I was given Kodak Instamatic cameras, one was a funky green color. Before automatic focus taking photographs was difficult for me, especially using a camera with a Fresnel lens, as my eyesight is less than, so I could not see the dots in order to focus the camera. I've gone through several 35mm cameras and I wasted a lot of film, so I am grateful for my digital cameras, as I only print out what I deem worthy of printing & framing.

Now I'm using Fuji Fine-pix to photograph my artwork & garden and a Nikon D-3500. Both are refurbished and there really isn't any difference in the quality of prints. The biggest differences are that the Nikon allows for inter-changeable lenses, which the Fine-pix does not, however, they both have the same focal range and due to my vision limitations, with the Fine-pix I have to use the LED screen and the viewfinder with the Nikon.

My current artwork runs a wide range of mediums: I paint with watercolors and acrylic paint, I do own oil paints, but do not use them very often (although I like that they allow for a longer drying time); I use both Caran de'Ache Neo-Colors II & Faber-Castell Gelatos, and when I'm outside of my studio & use watercolor pencils. I create mixed media/collage pieces on paper, in my sketchbooks, on canvas, & cradleboard. More recently my work has extended itself to 3-D and assemblage creations.

I base my decisions on what to create based on the criteria for upcoming juried art exhibitions that pique my interests, hence the different techniques, subjects, & types of materials I use.

Art associations past & present (*) include:

* Arroyo Arts Collective

* Art & Cake (formerly Shoebox)

Buenaventura Art Association

California Creative Arts

Creative Arts Center

Descanso Gardens' Education & Plants Records Departments

* Highway 2 Art Group

* LELA International: Lanterns of East Los Angeles

* Los Angeles Makery

* National Women's Caucus for Art

* Opulent Mobility

* Southern California Women's Caucus for Art

VITA Art Center

Ventura County Council for Art

Verdugo Hills Art Association

Descanso Gardens: Growing Habitat

Online Groups include:

ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) 2 groups

Drawing & Painting Ida Anderson-Lang

Gel Printers Summit

Kaleidoscope

Melanie Rivers Art Community

Postcard Art Swap

Sketchbook Revival

Willowing Arts

Woman Unleashed

Year of Wild Nature

You can view more of my work at:

https://www.instagram.com/la.photo.kat/

https://www.facebook.com/LA.Photo.KAT

The Difference Between AI & Digital Art: Arroyo Arts Collective

Digital Art is Not AI Art:

AI Amalgamations Are Not Art

Digital art is created by a human hand using computer software, whereas, Artificial Intelligence (AI) created art is generated automatically by using text prompts.

Digital Art requites hundreds of manual brushstrokes, color choices, and years of practiced skill on programs like Photoshop or Procreate. AI art relies on algorithms that predict and assemble pixels based on commands without personal physical input.

Human Intent: Digital pieces reflect a person's lived experiences, emotions, and choices. AI models lack consciousness and merely merge pre-existing patterns from training data.

Skill Development: digital artists build transferrable foundations in anatomy, perspective, and stroke control that apply directly to traditional mediums such as paint or pencil.

AI art does not requite human skill or creativity: it is merely gleaned pre-created images created and owned by humans that have been located on the Internet/World Wide Web.

Sunday, October 18, 2026

LELA International's Art Without Borders Online Exhibition

My artwork has been accepted into LELA International's Art Without Borders online exhibition, juried by the distinguished art juror Betty Brown.

Calavera y Gorrión

Outdoor Seating in Red

Tijuana Border Wall

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place awards, along with the Honorable Mentions, will be announced during the online opening reception on November 6th @ 5:00 PM, via Zoom. Please join us using the link below:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/8630260641?pwd=cWFhZnE5OGkydUg0OFdMT1JYbXMxQT09