The World Offers Itself

"This turning deeply towards what you love, saves you."  Rumi

Wild Geese

"You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes, 

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting  

over and over announcing your place 

in the family of things."

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver 

published by Atlantic Monthly Press

© Mary Oliver

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

Let's keep it simple.

I am not sure where I came across this quote, so I can't give anyone credit.  

Maybe it was somewhere on facebook.  None the less, 

this fits for me today...

it made me think of one of my affirmation cards, 

so here it simply is.

Let`s keep it simple.

Stay soft and quiet inside

Meet everything as a friend

Forget how anything "should" look

Forget how anyone "should" behave

Especially "yourself"

Forget how you "should" feel

Make no modifications at all

This is the "secret" to true happiness.

The Best Laid Plans - can run amok-

So, even though my artist self, was biting at the chafe to go to the SoulCollage training this past weekend,  the universe obviously had something else in mind for me.  The night before I was going to leave and drive down to Los Gatos, my cat Bobby,  jumped into my arms, being threatened by a newly adopted alpha cat we have, Petit Caramel.  I tried to avert a cat fight between them, and wound up being, bit, clawed and scratched so bad I had to go to the ER.  

My hand swelled up so bad,  I couldn't hold a steering wheel, let alone drive 3 hours down to the workshop.  I was disappointed, in pain, and a bit bummed out.  But by the next a.m., I knew it wasn't meant to be.  So I had to let it go.  

 Even though, a deep part of me knew that I was being led on some level to take this training, to incorporate another approach into my work with others and collage, I also knew that I had been pushing to do this all along, and I needed to trust the process of what was going on, and not resist that.  I had to let go.  And throughout the following days, again and again, I was grateful for my decision to stay home.  I really needed to baby my hand, especially with a swollen red hot hand from a cat cut.  

So, I will do the training in June, and just keep making my soul muse cards, and perhaps begin to gather others for a small SoulCollage group at my studio.  Letting go, is a big one for me. 

I continually get lessons in going with the flow again and again, and this was a prime example of a time when I had to go with the flow.  My lesson is to trust, and flow through life like the wind.  

So, I will keep posting my SoulCollage cards as I make them, but I will let go of the push to complete and get there, and become one, and do it.  Rather I will trust, let it happen in its own time, and not worry or sweat the small stuff.  

So, now that it is getting easier for me to use my hand again, I have found myself drawn to complete the mandala that I started at the New Years Mandala day, especially since in 2 weeks we are doing another mandala making day at the studio.

Trust, Go with the Flow and Don't worry, be Happy.  Ciao, 

The Thrill is Gone- Still making postcards..

As I continue to make postcards for the Art Therapy without Borders, post card swap,  I have to say, tthat the thrill is gone.  Gone is the excitement of creating, being replaced with a sense of the obsessive need to complete the project.  

I know, ..... I know that I have 6 months to complete the postcards... but I feel the weight of the commitment to it haunting me, and keeping me from doing other things.

So, I have been creating postcards in bits and pieces over the past week, and now I only have 3 more to make and I am done.  

The other day I mailed off the last of the cards to go to the US and  as soon as I finish making the last three I will mail off all the international cards and be on to something new.  I am often like that when some creative process turns into a creative commitments, something shifts for me and....somewhere along the line, the excitement of the initial creative response leads to the feeling of the grass is always greener syndrome...only in this case the greener longing for another art engagement of some sort.  Maybe it is the colder weather, but encaustic is calling me.

So these are the last few cards that I haven't shared here yet.  Once again, using rice papers and collage bits and pieces of ephemera, to create a visual ground and then adding words.   The words for the  Raw Soul Art Card came from a little box of words and letters that I keep adding to.  I just pulled words from it and tried to find some wisdom from the random words.

I love this Pablo Picasso quote, which I added to several postcards...."Art washes form the soul, the dust of everyday life."

Art Heals...

                                                                            Inspire....

So  artists and art therapists, and all creative beings, are explorers of spirit.

May you all find the way to explore spirit through creativity in your own unique ways.

Thanks for visiting, and sharing in my art process.  

Post Card Exchange- Art Therapy Without Borders

Well, I have been busy making mail art postcards, for the Art Therapy Without Borders Post Card Exchange.  I will be making and mailing over 25 Art postcards to be sent to a list of art therapists all over the world

Add caption

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This art exchange includes over 350 art therapists and art therapy students participating from Singapore, India, France, Scotland, Slovac Republic, Canada, Ireland, Australia, the UK, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan, Belgium, New Zealand, Malaysia, Hungary, Honduras, Chile, the United States, South Africa, Germany, Peru, Spain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Indonesia, Jamaica, Portugal, and Hong Kong.


"The goal of this collaborative art project is to allow community members from the Art Therapy Alliance, International Art Therapy Organization, and Art Therapy Without Borders to receive postcard art from art therapists and art therapy students living all over the world." ~ ATWB

Here is the entry way to my studio and some of the supplies that I have been using for my mail art - mixed media post cards....

So   I  have finished 11 of them and mailed them out yesterday.   I am posting the mixed media cards I sent out as well as my process here, for your viewing        Here are the 11 postcards that I sent out yesterday , to art therapists in the USA.   I plan on doing the international ones all in a group, so I only have to go once to the post office for the correct postage.

My process....  I started with a large sheet of watercolor paper, I  measured the size for each postcard on the back....then I created washes and played with it without any specific focus.  

 I then cut out each postcard (and I found out that the size given on the directions was a little to small)
I loved the idea  cutting out each section and letting only a part of the whole be the postcard.  Here is one of the watercolor postcard sections.  I love the combination of orange and blue...so vibrant.

 Here is the card that this section eventually became.   I took a folder of laser prints of some of my mandalas, that weren't extremely high quality prints and cut parts and pieces of my original art out.

                                         Then I glued pieces onto my watercolors randomly...

              I took irrdescent and metallic watercolor paints and doodled on each of  the watercolors.....

                        All of this was done in stages, watercoloring, doodling, collaging and then

                                        stamping....all around, once again randomly.
                                     my intention was to have fun, without judgement or plan.

                    The last step in the process was adding words with rubber stamp alphabets.

 I really like this quote by Norman Vincent Peale.

"Imagination is the true magic carpet" 

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Well for some reason, I am not being successful in uploading the last several images...so I will leave it be for now.  At least this gives an idea of my process and the fun I have been having.

My next series will be done a bit differently.  I am looking forward to getting started soon and will share not only what I do, but what I receive here.   Until the next time.

On going work- Inspiration - What do you think?

I continually return to pieces I have worked on as a matter of course.  A painting, collage, mandala or encaustic sits around my studio for a while and then suddenly calls to me for the next step.  I posted this painting a while ago as part of a way I have been playfully using up paints, that my clients leave on their palettes after a session or a group.

Here is the original painting that I posted a  while back.

 I have now taken it into another direction, adding some collage imagery, (birds which is a continuing motif and theme in my art) as well as wording.   The colors have changed somewhat and it has become less subtle.  What do you think?

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INSPIRE   12"X12" on canvas                         

For some reason the colors are different than the original in this photo.  The blues are still more subtle and the bottom is actually purple.  I will retake the photo in different light and post it again.
This painting Inspire is now posted in my etsy store Soul Arte Eclectica.  

So my question is a request for feedback, should I have left it alone or does this work as an inspiration piece.  Thanks in advance.

INSPIRE: to fill (someone) with the urge or ability to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative 
To  create (a feeling, esp. a positive one) in a person

Almost a Month....since Last I posted.

It has been almost a month since I have last posted anything here.  Creatively I continue to flit from art process to art process.  My encaustic painting has for the moment, fallen by the way side, in favor of mixed media collage.  I have been making cards, working in my various journals, doodling around collages and just plain playing with the art process in small doses.

I love to work small on card stock, begining with  a loose watercolor, or cutting up and old watercolor that never really worked.  

Then looking for images that seem to fit the background, adding them and then doodling around them in pen, ink and rubber stamps.

One thing leads to another and I play with them until I am satisfied.  Then I glue them onto a blank card form and walla....art with a purpose, a card to send someone or a small collage to be framed.

Occasionally I fold up one of my watercolor rejects and collage on them as well.

They take on a life of their own, becoming whatever they turn into.

Then I doodle around them as well.  What a wonderful soothing past time

for someone with energy to burn creatively, without worry about product.

I spend many an evening in the studio, chatting with my husband, on the phone or visiting with friends while I do this.  Serious art, NO, but fun, soothing and Happy Making. YES.

Sometimes I stop before I go to far, letting these small card collages be sweet simple 

statements, that can be sent to friends or maybe sold on my etsy shop.

Other times they become enigmatic visual storylines, that please me just for the sake of being.

Or they are just ways to reconfigure images that live in my expanding image bank....

in my journals awaiting more work to be done on them.  So this is what I have been up to this month, as well as being a bit addicted to my facebook mandala page where I have been posting mandala images almost every other day.  

All of this work is simply self soothing, life enhancing, art making, that takes the edges of off my day, and fills me with joy.  

Happy Artmaking to All!