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!

Imagination is the true Magic Carpet....

As we open to the energy of spring, it is important to remember to use its energy to open to the imaginal realm as we create our visions for our lives.   We create it whether we want to or not, know it or not, believe it on not, so why not create consciously.  This is a thought that comes to me again and again as I step into the greening of the spring.

As I travel through my day, I have found myself imagining the green of the earth, the grasses that are sprouting all around my house and my life, growing up into my body and invigorating me with their life force.  Health, vitality, new growth streaming into my body, teaching me how to be in my life with newness and a sense of possibility.

Pay attention to what is right in front of you, take the time, even if its 30 seconds, to cherish the moments of your day, simple, complex, frustrating, and the  challenging as well as the sweet and tangible ones.
These are my spring thoughts, my prayers for balance and a renewed physical engagement with life.

Build a structure of belief whether you believe it or not, let consistency be the ritual that transforms the day and the world into one that fits my dreams.   Send these thoughts on wings of dreamy reverie, put the postage stamp of approval on them, open, hope, suspend judgement.

Honor the imagination.  As Einstein said "Imagination is more important than knowledge"

Because our imagination is like a magic carpet that can take us away, and fill us with hope, and reframe the present so unlike a bitter pill, life is much easier to swallow.

So as the landscape of this season unfolds in my creativity and my dreams and my fantasies, I offer these images and thoughts for bringing spring into your life .

                                               Happy Spring Dream Time to all...

New Look for my Blog.

Well, I have been messing around with my blog settings and have lost my old settings, so I now have a new look to my blog. Not sure if I am totally happy with it, but this is it for now.  Let me know what you think, if you even think about it, or view my blog on a regular basis.  It often seems like I am  rambling off to the universe, and I am never sure who views it or if it touches anyone.  Although I often get lovely comments, so I do know that people can be impacted by my images, if not my words.

I recently watched the film Julie and Julia, and became motivated by it to set some new intentions for this endeavor.  My original intention when I first began was to share my students work, my art and anything that inspired me.  Art Full Musings... ta dah!  But since I lost my teaching job, I have been trying many different ways to bring in monetary reimbursement for my creative engagements, besides facilitating workshops and doing art sessions with people.

Many years ago, I realized that I was rich in images, ABUNDANTLY SO, so now I am making a new effort to move my images out into the world and have them do their work and pay their way.  So, in that light I am going to begin to showcase some of my art here that I would love to sell and send on their way into the world.  I will begin with my encaustic paintings that lie hither and yon around my house, so I hope to weekly begin this project, showing, sharing, and hoping that someone out in the great web of this inter netted universe might love to send some money my way for my art.

The first piece I am sharing in this light is a sweet little (5"x7") encaustic mixed media collage painting called...Flowering Sea.

This is an earlier piece, that integrates collage imagery and alot of carved texture.  The wave of course is familiar to many, but hopefully repurposed, recycled into a new statement.

I love the full moon over the water, and the flowering sea.  I am reminded of the flowers floating in the sea of Hawaii, the scent of ceremony and ritual honoring, filling the night sky.

This piece will be offered up in my etsy site for purchase, or you can contact me here as well.  It is painted on hardboard.


Many blessings...

On-going Journal pages....Show and Tell

I haven't been posting much lately,  because I have been trying to focus on doing my taxes in bits and pieces, as well as just starting a new art therapy journaling  group for teenage girls, so my time and energy has been diverted a bit.

However, I still have been working in my on-going mixed media collage journal.  I love how I can sit for 15 minutes or more and embellish. doodle around an image, add words on glue a border piece or new image on and feel the satisfaction of the process.  So here are some pages that have changed, evolved, reformed or are in the process of being birthed in the journal I am putting energy into these days..

So here is a little show and tell just for the sake of it..

I often Dream of Release.......

As I began this journal, I began to collect quotations that spoke to me in the moment, so many of these mixed media collage pieces incorporate the quotes that fit them.

Trusting, trusting the process, trusting life, trusting the universe, trusting myself, seems to be an important musing that comes up again and again.  

The Geography of the Heart III

I love how this process evolves and becomes more than I ever imagined in the beginning of the process.

                                              "To Be an Artist is to Believe in Life"  Henry Moore

I love this quote by Bertole Brecht....

Unfortunately the colors on these images have not come through very well, maybe if I make the size of the image smaller....

And to end this series is the thought that it is all about ...believing in yourself.  
Believe in Your Self!!!

Happy Valentines.........

                                                            Some Kiss We Want 

There is some kiss we want with our whole lives,

the touch of spirit on the body.

Seawater begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately it needs some wild darling!

At night, I open the window

and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine.

Breathe into me. Close the language door and open the love window.

The moon won't use the door, only the window.

by Rumi 

Beware the 10,000 Beautiful Things

This week I went to see the Encaustic show Working with Wax: Contemporary Encaustic Painting in Northern California, at Santa Rosa Junior College's Art Gallery.  After an inspiring talk from Mark Perlman, an SSU professor and remarkable encaustic artist, I began talking to some acquaintances at the show about my doing so many things and going  in so many directions creatively that I have gotten side tracked from my love and commitment to working/playing in Encaustic.

One person mentioned a teacher who once said "Beware the 10,000 Beautiful Things" That statement really touched me and  I have been mulling over that statement all week, as I witness all my creative projects tugging at me like  my many children calling out for attention, as I neglect them by sitting in front of the computer, looking at the beautiful inspiring art and creativity posted from all over the cyber universe.

Can I find time for my one true love, or can I not shame/blame/judge myself for my lovely, affairs with other media, my quickies into others art on line, and flitting from media to media.

I am working on this and am curious about other peoples  ability or lack of it to focus on one thing.  So if you are reading this and struggle with this challenge, let me know how you make peace with it.

As an art therapist, and creativity facilitator, being able to teach, inspire and support people in many way of creative expression is a benefit, as an artist it keeps me from delving deeply into the exploration of one process and the infinite variety of ways I can explore theme.

I am also pondering over the fact that using computers has made me, or rather exacerbated my tendencies towards being ADD.  I used to be able to lose myself for hours in my artmaking, but now, I am lured more and more by the computer and have to set boundaries, in order to do art, read books, take walks, etc.  Does anyone else feel this way, that traveling at the speed of light online, makes it more difficult to stay focused?  I am concerned by this.

One of the ways I have been flitting is in my mixed media art journals.  So these photos are from a journal I have been working on since the holidays.

For me working in this journal is a process of inviting in the muse, priming the pump, nurturing my soul, playing with possibilities without  worrying about outcome or product.

I am curious to hear of how others approach, invite, explore or set boundaries on the 10,000 Beautiful Things.  Let me know.  Ciao

Mandala Monday Morning

I just received another mandala photo from Sarah who was also in the Workshop.  I love opening my computer and finding  images of mandala's that have flown to me across cyberspace.  They are each so unique and stunning.  Here is Sarah's Illuminated Mandala.  It reminds me of a crystalized gem of color.

 
And while I am uploading mandala's here is the mandala that I drew finally completed  as well.

Enjoy your day, moment by moment, as if your life were a beautiful mandala unfolding second by second right before your eyes. Ciao.