Ongoing SoulCollage® Journey

My journey with the SoulCollage® process continues......

It's a very, very rainy day here in Northern California. More of a winter than a spring.   It is a great time tolose myself in reverie and let Image, Imagination and Intuition reign.  Here are some of my most recent SoulCollage® cards, that I have made  during each one of my bi-monthly SoulCollage® groups..  I love the intuitive nature of this process. I am always astounded at what comes through.

I am the one who seeks the source,  the maiden self, journeying over hill and dale, carrying my baggage with me, however, by now i have learned to empty my basket, so I can renew and fill myself up when I arrive at the water's source. One part of me, often questions the journey, and has regrets for lost time, but the other part of me, revels in arriving at the deep healing springs, where I can wash the dust from my soul, and drink deeply of inspiration.  I am the seeker, the water bearer, the questioning one.

I am the old peasant wise woman, the sage, the bruja, the healer.  I have lived a long life, and seen many things.  I know the struggles of those here on this plane and have the remedies to help them.  I do not offer my services, but wait for the seekers to approach me.  I take the pain of life experiences and turn them into pearls of wisdom, that are food for the soul.

I am the one who walks with awareness, one foot after the other, in the moment with my breath.  I am the one who meditates through doing and making, and organizing the elements of life into beauty and pattern. I am the pattern maker, the calm one, who takes life's challenges with a grain of sand, and transforms matter into powerful pattern.  I am in alignment with myself and the universe.

I am the one who, honors the connection between the spirit realm and the world of matter.  I salute and welcome the ability to turn matter into gold.  I am the realm of the archetypes, connecting and making sense of the images that spin from my reveries into my conscious mind.  I drink to the beauty of images, I drink to the beauty of imagination.  I salute the magic of life.  

I am the Goddess of Intuition.  I link by the umbilical cord of life force ,to all those  who trust and open to the unconscious.  I stand on the connection, the cord or web that links me to the waters of the unconscious, and to the hearts and minds of the open ones. I am protected by beauty and power even though I hover over the edge.  I wait for the jewels of wisdom and magic to offer up their gifts and then link those gifts to the world.  I am one of the Wise Ones..  I am the Muse.

If you are intrigued, perhaps you might be interested in joining in one of my SoulCollage® groups here in Sonoma County, Northern CA.  ... or you can check www.soulcollage®.com for facilitators near where you live.

Until next time..  ciao.

It's been a while-Healing Art making

It's really been quite a while since I last posted here.  My life has flowed into new directions...since my dear friend and cofacilitator, Patricia's  death.  I have been almost obsessively, making Mandala Amulets, from both her mandala's and mine.  Working with her Illuminated Mandala images, has been a healing process for me.  Gathering, cropping, working with the images in Iphoto and turning them into amulets has taken over almost all my other art endeavors, except creating SoulCollage® cards, in my groups.  

Here is the backstory;   I had been making pendants from my art as well as found art, since the fall.  They turned out so lovely that I began to sell them and found them to be quite popular.  Plus the whole process appealed to my love of making things in multiples.  I am  maker.

Healing Star Mandala

Universal Shapes

I made a pendant of one of Patricia's mandala's as a Christmas gift for her. It actually was of her Star Mandala...which is this one here.  She wound up giving it to her caregiver as a gift.  A dear friend of hers, who was at the house during her last month of life, commissioned me to make a series of these for all the women in the loving circle of friends that surrounded her during that time...and I have continued to create them along with Amulets from my own mandala images.So one  thing has led to another, and another and I have continued this artmaking journey for months.  The interesting thing is that this whole process has brought me closer to Patricia, and led me full circle back to viewing all of my mandala's in another light.

Flowering Color Wheel

In order to get an image to be strong in a smaller format, there must be a lot of contrast and not a lot of detail in order to reduce the image  to a contact sheet size. So I am viewing my work with a different lens.  

Heart Healing

I also have realized that I am always soothed by doing things in multiples, which is why I love creating mandalas. Mandalas, have repeating patterns in them, and creating repetitions makes one feel safe and comforted.  Kind of like a visual fence that encircles what is important, what is in the center,  the heart of the matter.  

Goddess of Balance

I have also found more of her  original mandala's, as we  a community of women friends, now go through her art and her possessions, and I have photographed them with an idea to reproducing them in the future.  It has allowed me to really and truely see and appreciate her art, in a deeper light.  And when I work with the images, she is in my mind in a different way, which has taken a lot of the edge off of my grief around losing her.  Healing Indeed!

Soul Mother

Another thing has happened, and that is that this whole process, which has included making the Amulets from all of my mandalas, ( I am now calling them amulets instead of pendants, which alludes to the power inherent in these images) has begun to  bring me a greater sense of abundance, and a new direction for making money.  

I have always felt that my art, and in particular my Mandala drawings, have work to do in the world. That these images enhance and support others, separate from the healing power of creating them,  that the images are meant to inspire others. This has become clearer with this process.  I am grateful and blessed by this entire process and my sadness has been a process of personal transformation.  

Thank you to all who have been following my  musings, in this blog over time, and who find their way here synchronistically.  Always remember that doing Art heals, in subtle and profound ways, whether you feel you can do it or not,  --- JUST DO IT!  you never know where a process will lead you.

Until the next time...when I plan to post my new series of SoulCollage® cards.

Namaste'  

Caterina

Healing heART - waxing poetic

This past week, I finally got into my studio and began to do some encaustic painting, 

after a very, very long hiatus. 

 So much has been going on, with my dear friends decline, and trying to fit life into my life, that making art and especially cranking up the hot plate and doing encaustic painting, has totally fallen by the way side.

 But it was exactly what the doctor ordered, so to speak.  I decided to create some loosely related Valentine encaustic paintings, with the thought of having some of it   being  included in a group show.   around Valentines Day,  but what really happened was my opening up to HEART energy.

 Working on these pieces, had the effect of not only opening my heart, but soothing my heart, which has been in various stages of grief for over 6 weeks now.  I lost track of time, slowing down and being engulfed in color, image and playful exploration.  Trying to get in touch with what was I trying to say, or express and then letting go.  To say it way healing for me is an understatement.  I found myself in bliss, happier than I had been in months....at the very least.  I loved what I was doing, and found myself returning to the studio even in the evening, when it is cold, cold, cold out there.  Happy as a clam ( a clam being enclosed in a protective shell, which is what I was doing with my art making...)

This final one, of the series so far, really brought me in touch with release, letting go and letting love guide me.  I love how each of these is so filled with vibrant color, which of course is one of the beauties of encaustic paint, as well of how much they speak to what is going on for me right now, as well as love in all its varieties and depths.

No one has to remind me of how creating art is healing, but I had to remind myself again, as I became immersed in this process, finding happiness and joy in the moment, self soothing myself through color combinations, and the placement of images that called to me.  I am thankful and can't wait to get back into my studio again this week, and let the molten hot colors take me away to another land, a land of joyful creative abandon.  Blessings to all... Ciao

As Promised a Few more Pocket Shrines to see...

And so, without further ado, here are some more photos of pocket shrines that members of the Medicine Art Group made.  Weeks ago I promised to post these.  Since it has been about a month since the time that we made these, we are now onto new directions and art processes.  As a natural evolution we are exploring themes in cigar boxes, dream boxes, intention boxes, dia de los muertes altars and...who knows where it will go..

When those are completed I will share them as well.

Enjoy these little gems~

Each one has a story to tell......

                                                        As well as an intention or focus......

              And some were made just for the pure fun of embellishment and decoration......

I am now off to cleaning and reorganizing my studio once again, to get ready for a SoulCollage® workshop on this Friday morning and then our Seasonal  Fall Equinox Mandala Retreat day on Sunday, which this time is focusing on the Tree of Life.. What fun ...until next time.   Ciao..Caterina

A wish for us All

Oh please do watch this sweet and short video by Lynn Whipple posted on Lanie Garriety's 14 Secrets for a Happy Artists Life.

14 Secrets for a Happy Artist's Life: A sweet video from Lynn Whipple

Yes!
and now go make something,
do it for you, do it for me, create it for the whole wide world. Amen.