Making Encaustics again...

Whenever I finally get back to cranking up the hot plate and waxing some panels 

with encaustic medium, I am so happy.  

  It seems I work in cycles, and put aside one media for another, and then resurrect it based on what inspires me, or if I have a specific idea or goal to work on.

 I wanted to create a series of wine themed encaustic paintings, to have available for a Trade Show for the wineries represented by an organization called The Wine Road, here in Sonoma County. I live in Wine Country if you don't already know that.

  So I resurrected a series of images of wine themed encaustic paintings that I did and sold when I was represented by a gallery called ARt and All the Jazz in Healdsburg several years ago.

 I have my art and my Art pendants at a store called Made Local, here in Santa Rosa, and they are hosting this trade show at the beginning of August.  I decided to take advantage of the opportunity.

 I made high quality prints of my original pieces, and then saturated the images in encaustic medium, adhering them to the 6"x6" panels I had.

 After fusing them, I added more medium and painted over and around them with encaustic paints

 some more so than others, and walla they turned out exquisite....at least to me they did.  Each one of the pieces in these series are charming, rather folksy looking and some of my favorite pieces I have done. The beauty of this medium is that I can make them anew, revise them, add on to them and bring these originals back to life in new pieces.    Now the question arose from someone, are these true encaustics... and my answer is yes they are encaustic collages, in a way, from my own original art.  So rather than sell prints, I can sell actual pieces of my favorites.  We shall see if anyone is interested in these sweet little paintings.

The last piece that I did  during this time frame, was this  encaustic. I did a photo transfer of a photo  of a  winery landscape that I took a while back.  Then I painted over the transfer with encaustic paints, bringing it to life with color and more depth. (12"x12" cradled hardboard).  Subtle but successful, letting the unique quality of this medium and the beauty of the landscape around here, be the  emphasis of this encaustic painting.  I think I took this photo on a road in Alexander Valley.

I intend to create more encaustics of the Sonoma County Landscape soon. We shall see if I get any of my pieces in any winery tasting room gifts shops or not, I hope so, but we shall see.  By the way, I also created a line of pendants using the  my La Dolce Vino imagery as well. I will post some of those photos soon.   Now I have reason to get out into the country side to take more photos of the beauty all around me.  There are those, who lament the mono culture of vineyards that have taken over Sonoma county, but I love the repeating pattern of the fields of grape vineyards, and taking photos of them.
Ciao.

Mandala Day - Opening to What is Flowering...

This past weekend I taught a Mandala Workshop at the lovely Journey Center in Santa Rosa.  

 This was the first workshop I facilitated, without my dear  friend and partner in the Mandala Workshop Process, Patricia Waters, who passed away in February.

 Although I have taught many mandala workshops without her over the years, our shared teaching of this process for over 20 years, was a delight and something I was very comfortable with.

 I was worried before this workshop that I would be emotional and felt as though it was a day I had to get through, kind of like getting back on a horse after you fall. But,...

 it turned out to be a wonderfully healing day for me and for everyone who attended.  I was very blessed to have several dear friends participate, who also were close to Patricia, so I felt very held by them.  But more than that, I felt held by my friend Patricia and Judith as well.  Judith Cornell, created this deep work, and  was my teacher in the Mandala Process.

 I felt support on many levels as I continued to share this work with others.

 These photos show a bit of the days process and each person's work, with some exploring  this healing art process for the first time

 I came away, recommitted to continuing to doing and sharing this approach in the future.

 It is always so satisfying to have people participate who feel they can't draw at all and leave feeling transformed by this gentle work.

 We worked surrounded by flowers and each person have a personal vase of flowers that they picked for themselves.

                               Opening to what was flowering in our lives at the moment,

                    and  to  what we wanted to come through more clearly in our personal gardens,

                                                  the drawings emerged and developed,

                                        like mystical flowers from the  procreative darkness of the paper

                                          Each unique mandala unfolding like a flower,

                                          like we unfold from the center  of our being .

                                                                 out in our lives

                                                I am grateful to have this opportunity

                                               to express the inner sacred through art

                                                              with others....

Each of these mandala's have a story to tell, just as the process was an inner journey for each person as well.

                           But best of all    I have  a  new mandala to work on and that always makes me happy.

                                       and also helps to ground and center me in my daily life.

                             What a blessing, I am so lucky to be able to be with others

                                                         and share this work as

                                                             my right livelihood..

         I am now considering offering a Second Sunday of the Month - Mandala Morning at my studio...

 Get in touch if you are drawn to learn this work.  I will post more about it another time.

                                                 Until next time  Namaste'......Caterina

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

Playing around with mixed Media.....makes me happy

This is what I have been just recently up to. ....and the process makes me happy. Art making is life enhancing and its like second nature to me.

One thing always leads to another.... and that is how it is with these little collage's I make

 I love to play around with this and that.  A little bit of image, a splattering of paint, outlines and accents, papers and words.

I start with watercolor paper, and very very, loose and wet watercolors.


I love to flick and splatter and watch what happens spontaneously to the pain as it is randomly flicked across the page.

After the paint dry's, I add washes, and rubber

stamps, and a world begins to emerge,

images suggest themselves...and I articulate them.

 Then come the words, sometimes I write them in cursive, or print them,  but lately I love the look of stamped letters on the paper.  I give myself permission with these words.

 Permission to Enjoy Life and Believe in Myself.  Trust in this process of random expression, and witnessing what it becomes.

 

The words that come are ones that give me permission,


remind me of what is important

make my inner child happy


and take me to other lands...




Allowing me to imagine the worlds that the pictures form and make up stories to fill the worlds, and then try to make sense of these myths in my daily
real life.

Then I begin to wonder what to do with all of these pages, sell them, would anyone want them??? hold onto them, hide them away.

I have recently been going through all of the art of my dear friend Patricia, who recently passed away. It is an honor and an over whleming task, and there is so much of it, an amazing and beautiful legacy to who she was and how she experienced the world.  


Ahhh, so this is what  this rambling post has lead to.  Like I said, this is what I have been up to.
Until next time, to who so ever reads this.  Ciao...




PLEASE FORGIVE THE WIERD SPACING IN THIS POST. ....they changed the format to this blogspot site and it is confusing...scusi.

Fun with Matchbook Shrines

This past week I went to my good friend Lizette's house, with another  friend Yolanda.  

We had a wonderful morning in which Lizette taught us how to make Matchbook Shrines.  Lizette, who is a clown and has a circus with her husband Todd, Jest In Time Circus, has been making these magical small shrines for quite a while now. 

 Her enthusiasm and wonderful little altars were an inspiration to both of us.   

So here is the first step, taking apart a small matchbox, and reconfiguring it on a template we cut out of card stock.

Putting a photo or an image in the center of the glued together altar that sets the intention for the shrine.

I decided through synchronicity, ( ie: this was the first image I came across in my collage scrap box that interested me) to do a shrine to Frida Kahlo and here is the beginning of my shrine.

                                                       My Shrine to Frida in process......

                                  And the completed little shrine!  Isn't this adorable.  I love it.

Here is Yolanda's shrine to her dog Serena, who lives on in her memory and heart, loving and sweet.

                              The rest of these shrines are Lizette's, this is her personal inner child.

               Each one so unique and dedicated to someone or a part of her inner self.

This one is very close to my heart. It is the one she completed the day we met, it is dedicated to Jason Brownlie, Lizette's son, who passed away over 6 years ago.  He loved trains, everything about them including riding in  them.   He was an amazing spirit filled being and is deeply missed.

            And another one of Lizette's Matchbook shrines.  They are  little vignettes.

This one is in honor of her clown self, and the role of clowning in her life.

                                           This shrine is in honor of Lizettes's mother.

This process is so simple, yet can be so sophisticated, magical and such a healing process.  I can't wait to do more, and I am playing with the idea of offering a class to people in my SoulCollage® groups, a day of taking one of their Companion (personal guides)  or  Council (archetypes activated in their lives) cards and using a photocopy of it as the base for a shrine.  It is a great idea.  If it happens I will post the process here.  Until next time. Ciao..Caterina