Entries from: July 2007
Lotus Heart
July 10th, 2007, Comments (14)
While working on the sketches for this, I wrote in the margins:
She closed her eyes
took a deep breath
and her heart opened like a lotus flower.
Each petal,
one more layer shed
one more veil lifted
one more secret whispered
one more door unlocked
opening, opening
I started the background for this piece before I left for Colorado and finished it today. The image has been in my head for awhile. As I've mentioned before, lotuses have been popping up everywhere for me. As I was working on it today I was thinking about the theme for Inspire Me Thursday which is "seven." The wedding we went to this weekend was on 7/7/07, apparently a very popular day for weddings this year. Seven and Seventeen in various combinations are numbers that I see everywhere. I consider them winks from the Universe, so I was happy to apply the number 7 in some art, but I wasn't sure where. Then working on the "Lotus Heart" I thought about how the initial lotus had actually landed in the throat area and then a second at the heart which called to mind the fourth and fifth chakra centers. The throat chakra happens to be an important one for me. The throat is often where I feel blocked and it also happens to be the chakra of my age group. Coincidentally (or not) there are 7 chakras, so this worked quite well for the IT theme. I included the color green in her dress to match up with the color of the heart chakra and included seven circles on the right side of the painting to further play upon the chakras and the number 7. And speaking of sevens, it happens to be 7 days til my birthday (the 17th). I'll be 31.
The painting itself is 8"x8" on cradled wood with layers of acylic paint, ink and colored pencil. I'll have it up in the store soon.
I had the odd experience this afternoon of doing a marketing survey. I felt so bad for the woman with the clipboard that I agreed to spend 10 minutes and make 10 bucks watching some commercials and sharing my opinion. It was kind of funny to see the ads they had chosen that were aimed directly at my demographic. There was a Nissan ad that had all these different "hip" drivers around the age of 30 who were looking so cool as they put their baby in the car seat in the back or drove to work while age appropriate (but funky) music played. Hehe. It cracked me up. They offered me the opportunity to do another survey that involved bringing oreo cookies home and coming back in four days. I declined. Although those cookies and a nice glass of milk sounds very yummy right about now.
After working away the remaining hours of the day, right now, I'm most excited about a little late night excursion I've got planned. At 12:03 tonight, I'll be seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix! Yay! Call me a dork, but I am in love with this series of books and movies. I've been re-reading the books to prepare for the final book that comes out later this month. Yay! Best to keep some (or a lot) of that childlike joy and love of magic. 
Angels for Brianna
July 7th, 2007, Comments (3)
Quick post before I head out to a wedding (Boulder is such a great city!! Love it!) I wanted to let you know that I put up my art on the Blue Tree Blog that was created for an art auction called Angels for Brianna. More info about the cause and the auction over on the other blog. Ciao for now!
Destruction/Construction
July 4th, 2007, Comments (13)
I spent most of yesterday digging through my studio space, moving furniture to make room for a new scanner, and throwing away loads of trash. I've been avoiding this job, but it had to be done. A studio space outside the house hasn't yet worked out, so I decided to let that go for now (it'll show up when it's right) and fix up the space that I have right now. I'm so grateful to have this space in our apartment. The room I have now, is a decent size, it's main fault being that it is the holding space for many different things such as files for business, all my life files (health insurance, car insurance, warranties, tax info, the cats' veterinary stuff and so on), rubbermaid containers of old journals and stationery, a big bookshelf full of books, photo albums and all sorts of paraphenalia, my nicer clothing (dresses and formal stuff for the obligatory events), my shoes (not a very big collection, but enough to take up space), desk with computer and printer, my sewing machine, and then there's all my art stuff...finished and unfinished art, full portfolios, art in frames, art on the walls, art supplies in boxes and rolling plastic carts, and an easel. Pack this all into a 10'x10' space and there isn't a lot of room left. But with some arranging and purging yesterday and some more to come, I know I'll have the space in enough working order to work in, which is very good. Plus, there's something very satisfying about a newly reconfigured, organized space. It's a good feeling. I'm only half-way there and I already feel a good bit of that satisfaction.
I've been at a loss lately as to where to keep my lists and calendar info. I have a nifty calendar thing on my computer, but for me it's out of sight, out of mind, and I forget to look at it. Plus, I like being able to physically write on a calendar, to doodle and play in the margins. For a long time, I used a sketchbook as an all-in-one organizer. It was my journal for morning pages, keeper of to-do lists, and sketchbook for ideas and inspiration, plus there were great little pockets to keep bits of paper, postcards, or whatever I came upon and wanted to hold onto for later. I haven't been using my sketchbooks for this in quite awhile, they've only been used as places to draw and doodle, and my to-do lists have been spreading all over the place from my mini-calendar and moleskin that I keep in my purse to my computer calendar to the little sketchbook I keep by my bed, to the bigger sketchbook, to scraps of paper. As you can imagine, this isn't the most efficient process. I need more organization in my life.
All this was rolling around in my brain when I came upon Mindy's fabulous post about her homemade life book. She put together a binder with a calendar that suits her needs with loads of space for catching inspirations. I love, love, love this idea and perhaps I'll try and put something like this together. I don't know what it is, but my mind doesn't think three dimensionally. I can't see spaces put together (which shows in my lack of interior design sense in my own home. It's rather frightening.) And this leaks over into how I organize things. I can't see in my mind how to arrange things. I need to see a layout. I can't picture how things will go together. Another example of this: I took wheel throwing in college and was so hopelessly bad at it. (I still loved it, but I made the ugliest teapot known to man.) So, for things like this, I really need to lean on those organizational innovators like Mindy to get inspiration from. So, thank you to Mindy and all the great 3-D designers for helping me out! Later, I saw a similar type of binder, this one for organizing fabrics, at "Cut Out and Paste" which reminded me of Mindy's binder a bit, but more specialized. Very cool. I've got some more organizing and mailing out of art to do tomorrow and then we're off to a wedding in Colorado (Boulder and Denver) for one of the fiansor's childhood friends. This summer has been full of so many fun adventures and I'm looking forward to traveling to a new place.
p.s. Ladders is up for sale on my website now (update: It has sold. Thank you!), Wind in Her Hair has already sold, and I should have prints of both available next week. The above kitty helpers are Emma and Tabbers. Happy 4th!!
Climbing
July 2nd, 2007, Comments (16)
I'm slowly climbing through the tasks that lay before me in the months leading up to my wedding. By the way, a big congratulations to Staz on her recent wedding and to Jana on her engagement! Seems to be in the air.
Today I had my first wedding dress fitting. I was nervous about it, but it went fine. My stomach paid the price for my anxiousness though. Uck. It was no big deal though, just a long drive, then some time to pick out a pair of shoes (I found a very pretty pair of white silk strappy shoes with a little bit of sparkle on the buckle around the ankle and that's it. If I find a pic later, I'll post it.), and then into the proper undergarments (a long line bra and a slip), up on a pedestal and then pinned by a sweet woman who asked me questions about this and that. Next time, not for another month, we'll work on the bustle.
I was up so early and got home tired and hungry. I may just squeeze in a nap. In the meantime, here's one of those art pieces I mentioned that I was working on. It's 8"x8", cradled wood with acrylic and a bit of collage. I had a lot of fun with this one, played a lot with texture and working up the background in layers and fun techniques. This image seems to be connected to a lot of the other ones lately. None of the sketches had ladders in them, but as the painting came into being, a ladder wanted to be there, so I went with it. Fainter ladders are also in the sky, reminding me of a ladder in a much earlier painting. And a bucket appeared in her hands, like the one in "Catching Stars." Here's a detail for you:
There seems to be a narrative forming, but I don't know what it is precisely, I'm trying not to pin it down and just let it flow out as it will. It does seem to be a journey of some kind though.
I hope your weekend was a lovely one and your week is full of beauty and creativity!
Update: Found a pic of the shoes. Not what I had originally pictured myself wearing at all...which seems to be a theme with this wedding. If I saw these shoes in a picture and hadn't tried them on, I might think them plain, but they were just right. Plus, they're surprisingly comfortable and super sexy and they're simple and elegant and look fabulous with the dress. I'm not a heels wearing girl, so hopefully I won't regret it! I'm just going to have to break those suckers in before the big day. And I can play at being average height (or close to it) for a little while. Hehe.
