Entries Tagged as: synchronicity
Letting Go and Making Art
August 5th, 2007, Comments (11)
One of the things I try hard to do when making art, is to find the place where I let go. It doesn't always lead to great art, but it's still important because it's how I get in touch with that quiet inner well within me. When I can let go, I feel like I'm on a path with an unknown ending point. And me, the planner, the one with trouble letting go of all the ifs and buts, I finally feel at ease with not knowing. When I allow art to come through me without forcing, I'm often surprised, but that's half the fun, really. It's an adventure, an unplanned road trip, the only way to fly.
Carla at Zena Musings quoted Jennifer Louden in her blog saying, "Our job is simply to show up and let go." I totally agree. Seems funny how hard it can be yet how lovely it can feel to truly let go.
Today, I wanted to let myself be playful. I wanted to let go and release after a stressful evening. I gathered art materials around me, including little cups and straws (yes, straws!) and paint and paper. I used a method I learned last year of putting a little dish soap, water and paint in a cup and then using a straw to blow bubbles which I then dip the paper into or push the bubbles onto the paper to create cool patterns. I let my intuition guide me and saw shapes or figures in the way the paint landed, so I started to draw them in with pencil and then with ink and this is what resulted. I resisted it at first. A centaur? But that's what came, so here it is. It felt like the centaur was making some kind of offering or sending some kind of wordless message through the bubbles that floated up through the sky and blew the young woman's hair into a frenzy. "The Centaur's Message" is 9"x12" with acrylic and pen and ink on watercolor paper.
And then there's the moon piece that I mentioned awhile back. This was also a playful piece. This time I was playful with a new material, some Pearl Mica from Golden. So sparkly! It's a little hard to see the sparkle in a picture, but I think it comes across pretty well. I laid it on thick in the moon and then lightly around it for the stars. Little did I know as I painted it that I was painting a full moon on the night of the full moon. Funny how things happen like that. My cancer sensibilities must have been picking up on my favorite planet. "Full Moon" is 6"x6" on gallery wrapped canvas.
And lastly, a piece I posted earlier over at the Blue Tree Blog, "Fly Away", which is up at the store, here. Another improvisation that I'm loving; she's 6"x6" on cradled wood board with cut paper collage, acrylic and ink.
Ok, that's all the art I've got for you today. I hope the rest of your weekend is a creative one!
As I started to picture the trees in the storm, the answer began to dawn on me. The trees in the storm don't try to stand up straight and tall and erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown with the wind. They understand the power of letting go. Those trees and those branches that try too hard to stand up strong and straight are the ones that break. Now is not the time for you to be strong, Julia, or you, too, will break. - Julia Butterfly Hill
The Pleiades and further Synchronicity
July 14th, 2007, Comments (8)
Here's the piece of art that I mentioned yesterday, "Dreaming of the Seven Sisters":
With the Inspire Me Thursday theme of 7 last week, I popped around at the response of others and over at Bee Creative, I read about the Seven Sisters constellation (the Pleiades.) I did a little more research about them and the story just stuck in my head. In the Greek myth, seven beautiful sisters were pursued by Orion. Zeus helps them to escape by turning them into seven doves. You can read more about what I discovered in researching this story and see some details of the painting over at the Blue Tree Blog.
I had a very cool bit of synchronicity as I discovered last night that among the names that the constellation was given in different cultures, it was also called "Freya's hens." This cracked me up after all that I wrote about Freya and Friday the 13th yesterday. Hehe. Circles and circles and circles again.
Who? Who!
June 26th, 2007, Comments (2)
I think owls are totally adorable. This may be partly due to the fact that my kitty, Emma, looks so much like a big-eyed owl. Hehe. Anyways, I purchased a series of smaller canvases and I intend do do a bunch of smaller pieces this week and next for $100 each. "Purple Owl" will be up in my store shortly.
I took a side view shot, so you can see how it goes around the sides. It's about 6"x6" with acrylic and collage on canvas. Blue tissue paper has been collaged into the sky.
I heard from an old friend today and when I say old, I mean I've known her since I was teeny-tiny. We don't speak to eachother often, but it's nice to catch up. She was telling me about how her three cats are all different colors so she can't cheat and get furniture and clothes to match all the fur they shed. I wrote back about how my cat Tabbers, our fluffy orange boy cat, is the biggest shedding culprit and how it made me laugh to think about dressing and furnishing my space entirely in orange. I tried to picture it and it made me giggle. But it also made me think about how much orange I've been using in my art lately. In fact, my art website is currently based around an orange and blue theme. I was never a huge fan of orange, but it seems lately that I've taken quite a liking to it. Then, I happened to click over to decor8 and was taken aback by all the orange. In a bit of synchronicity, Holly had posted a whole series on the color orange and its use in design on her blog today. I especially loved the orange pillows from Joom, and orange koi glasses from Anthropologie. I'm kinda crazy for pillows at the moment. Anyways, there's loads of orange inspiration! Yummy. It's making me crave an orange creamsicle.
Well, it seems like I may be slowly phasing out of the orange phase myself. I enjoyed working in dreamy purples last night. But one never knows. I follow my whims wherever they may lead (at least with color.) Ok, I've got loads of art to upload to the shop, so toodaloo for now!
Antevasin – Living at the Border
June 15th, 2007, Comments (18)
"Betwixt and Between" is 12"x12" with collaged elements and acrylic paint on cradled clayboard. I was up late last night working on this one because sometimes once I get started it's hard to stop. I even got up ridiculously early to finish it, varnish it and take a picture. I need to get into a better rhythm with art-making, so that I'm not always up in the middle of the night painting. Perhaps it has just been the feeling of the last few paintings that have made them want to come out at night. The fiansor calls the last three women (Winter Moon, The Lighthouse, and this one), Castlevania I, II, and III because the shape of the figure reminds him of a character on an old video game that he downloaded for his x-box awhile ago. Oy. But they're not at all related to that character.
I had a funny bit of synchronicity with this one. I was in bed sketching this image that kept popping into my head and then I opened up Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (which I finished this week. Great book.) And there I read about the word she had chosen for herself, "antevasin," a sanskrit word meaning "one who lives at the border." Apparently, in ancient times this was a person who left the bustling city life to live at the edge of the forest where the spiritual masters dwelled. Gilbert relates to this word as one who is between worlds. And I laughed thinking of how the woman in my sketch was there at the edge of the forest, in between worlds.
In a comment regarding "The Lighthouse", Tammy mentioned the divine feminine, which she relates to "having gone into dark places and brought back what you found." This made me think of the story of Demeter and Persephone and resonated for me as I looked at that painting. Here in this new painting, the feeling is similar, of a guide that leads the way through the dark forest. She is an in-between figure. The idea of being betwixt and between reminds me of a passage from Rumi:
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
The crow appeared in later sketches, as I was thinking about Jessie's question regarding a crow that speaks to me and my response. The crow is also an in-between worlds sort of character. And because the crow gave me the world "trust" I included that word in the collage near him. Oh, and Tammigirl, I used some of your collage elements in this one! Thank you! 
Tonight, I'm off to NYC for the fiansor's brother's wedding. I'm feeling totally anxious about it for some odd reason. I'm nervous for them (it's going to be a really wild wedding) and then there's just the general anxiety around travel and family events with large groups. But I also know it will be lots of fun. I hope your weekend is a wonderfully creative one!
Lighthouse
May 30th, 2007, Comments (27)
I'm knee deep in website land, but oh so close to having it up and running. Wee! It's exciting! I'm happy with the way it's all coming together. The last couple days I've been working obessively, feeling the energy to be gung ho about it. I need to take advantage of the energy bursts when they come. I'm not one of those people who are always on fire...everyone knows someone like this, maybe you are someone like this, the person who can't sit still, who is always being productive, getting things done, amazing others with all they do. My last boss was like this and I was always so impressed with all she did. I'm a bit more ocean-like, I come in waves of intense storms with long lulls in between of slower, softer waves. Neither way is bad or good. I'm learning that you just have to accept your strengths and weaknesses and make them both work for you. Learning to do this, comes with age and experience I think and I'm getting to know myself better every year.
Saturday night I was on the low end of the spectrum. I felt tired and sluggish, like my body was full of mud. In the afternoon I tried to take a nap, but it wasn't happening, I was just laying there. In the evening, I realized I was itching to be creative, but I didn't have a lot of energy. I didn't really want to get all my art supplies out and set up. So, I opted to make it as cozy and comfy as I could, as easy and relaxed as possible. No need for anything extravagant. I pulled some magazines, my sketchbook, some pencils and colored pencils into bed with me. I propped up a bunch of pillows so I could lean back into them. I looked through a file of magazine images I'd torn recently for a little fun project I'm working on and then opened my sketchbook and drew for pure pleasure, imaginary spaces. When I tired of that, I started to doodle and along came a figure. She wore a scarf around her head, her hair blew back, she was on a cliff by the ocean holding a lantern. Ahh. I felt so much better. I was still tired and went to bed early that night, but after getting out this figure, I felt a million times more connected, I understood a little better where I was at, and although I can't really put into words why or how she expressed to me what she did, it's enough to just feel it. Before I went to bed that night, I read a bit in The Book of Awakening and I laughed because it was so appropriate. It read:
Look with your sad eyes on things new to you that will give you something to do with your sadness. Your sadness is the paint. You must find the canvas.
Last night, after a full day and evening of working away at the website, mixed in with a vet appointment for Emma (whose paw is all better. yay!), I was itching to bring my woman with the lantern to life. It was pretty late at this point, probably around 10, but I started gathering supplies, figuring I could just start it. I wasn't sure how I was going to bring her to life, but I wanted to allow my intuition to guide me. So, I started collecting images from my various supplies, old books, photocopies, scraps of paper, an old Christmas card, someone's hand lettering on tracing paper, a bag from a music store, etc...I pulled an unused canvas and began to lay out the images on the canvas in a way that felt right and then started gluing them down. I showed the fiansor how I did a transfer of a photocopy of an old photo onto a piece of sheet music. He liked the transfer , but not the smell of the chartpak marker I used. The fiansor went to bed , but I stayed up. I put on an audio book took out my paint brushes and started to get the figure in. She began to develop slowly. Once I saw her face, I got all excited. I kept going, taking occasional breaks to look at the painting from across the room. The sky turned out much different than I was expecting, but I was really loving it all. I felt like I had to keep going until it was done and I worked into the wee hours of the night. It was fun and I'm pleased with the results. I included the transfer because of some inspiration from Inspire Me Thursday from last week and I'm glad I did. It adds an interesting element to her dress. As I collected images, I noticed I was collecting a lot of woman's faces. I think they are her history, her unseen supporters.
I'm calling her "The Lighthouse" and she's 12"x16" with collage and acrylic on canvas. I still need to paint her sides.
Right before I went to bed last night, I got my horoscope from Rob Brezsny in my email. It also seemed wildly appropriate:
CANCER (June 21-July 22): In her CD *Spiritual Madness: The Necessity of
Meeting God in Darkness,* Caroline Myss tells us that wading through
messy darkness is an essential part of our search for meaning. She
doesn't recommend that we avoid chaos at all costs, or even just accept
it with resignation. Rather, we should welcome it as a gift that can teach
us crucial secrets about how to become ourselves. I agree with Myss.
That's why I advise you not to resent the confusion before you. And don't
just mindlessly clean it up as fast as you can, either. Instead, dive into it.
Celebrate it. Allow it to change you into a riper, wiser, more beautiful soul.
Synchronicity abounds. Have a beautiful day!
Ding Dong Bell, Fell Down the Well
May 23rd, 2007, Comments (8)
I was inspired by one of the Inspire me Thursday exercises from last Thursday to play in my art journal with the idea of dreams. I took a nightmare I had last night and pieced parts of it together here across two pages of the journal. Dreams are sometimes hard to remember in terms of sequence, partly because they're rarely logical and can freely skip around in the plot without worry about some film critic tearing it to shreds. So, here's the basics of the dream, which was very vivid: It took place in my childhood home (which we no longer own), but in present time. My sister was missing. She'd gone to get some water (I think the power was out because of a storm) and didn't come back. My mother and step-father went to look for her in a helicopter, so they could look into the forests around our home. I was on the street, running and yelling her name. I ran into the forest down a winding path and went to the water plant, (an imagined place) where I told the men there about my missing sister. And in one of the filter systems we found her baseball cap. I started crying, just bawling my eyes out. Flashes of calling my father, a funeral, feeling very angry and upset. But wait! She had rung the bell. Hadn't these men heard it? Perhaps she was still there! In the basement of our neighbor's home, the well had a bell attached to let people know if they fell down it. And she was barely holding on to the rope, helping to keep her above water, but alive. And I was so relieved. In the moments when I thought she was gone, I felt like I hadn't been as loving to her as I could have been and felt terribly. The dream ended happily anyways. My dreams are pretty wacky. I think that's why I'm tired a lot. I'm dreaming instead of really resting. I can't really shut it off though and sometimes my dreams have messages in them, sometimes bits of intuitive information, and sometimes inspiration for art. The fun thing about creating in an art journal, is the freedom to totally play without worry about needing it to serve some purpose. It's just for me. Play is so important. Go now, go play! Or keep reading a bit and then go play. Hehe.
Pink lotuses continue to show up everywhere, even in an ad for a fuel company. Ha! Perhaps they should appear in some art soon? I sketched last night for fun, all sorts of silly kitties. I've got a real silly kitty in my lap at the moment. Last night, I noticed that my kitty Emma has one claw that has curled and stuck into her paw. Poor baby! I couldn't get it out. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be hurting her, but I was hoping to take her in to the vet today and noone is picking up the phone there. Garr. Not looking forward to that visit. She already hates the vet with a burning passion. He's such a nice vet too. He only sees cats and really cares about them, but my sweet, quiet, gentle Emma, who never made a fuss at any other vet, turns into a menace at this vet's office with howls and growls. Oy. This probably won't help things.
In other news here at the zoo, our anemone has reproduced by splitting itself in two! The fiansor was all freaked out about it at first, thinking something was wrong, but I had read about it before and explained that this is a natural process. So, now we have one anemone for each clown! Our little Nemo somehow made it into the filter again this morning (oy!), but I'm getting more skilled at retreiving him and it only took a couple minutes. I guess my temporary barrier has failed. Hopefully, in time he'll get too big for these escape acts.
Ok, you can go play now. Shoo! 
