anonyrrie

Whatever it was... I've forgotten

Asphodel - 12" x 12" x 1" - acrylic & ink on wood panel

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

- Wendell Berry (1934 - )

Asphodel is the last of five paintings I delivered this afternoon to the IO Gallery for their Girls, Girls, Girls show that opens next Saturday.  I was in a bit of a tizzy this morning putting the finishing touches on two paintings and getting all five wired for hanging, but I made the wise decision to take a break and go for a long walk with my dog Heidi.  It was just beginning to get hot, but we stayed mostly under the canopy of trees that line the road where we live and it was perfectly lovely.  We saw birds and squirrels and chipmunks and butterflies and bees and even heard our resident red-winged hawk screeching overhead... and by the time we got home, my agitation had vanished, forgotten. 

If you live anywhere in the area of Cornwall Bridge, CT, please stop by for the opening reception of Girls,Girls, Girls on June 14 from 5 - 7 pm. I would love to see you! The show runs through July 20.

Living Like the Lilies

digital collage created from two older paintings

Lilies

I have been thinking
about living
like the lilies
that blow in the fields.

They rise and fall
in the edge of the wind,
and have no shelter
from the tongues of the cattle,

and have no closets or cupboards,
and have no legs.
Still I would like to be
as wonderful

as the old idea.
But if I were a lily
I think I would wait all day
for the green face

of the hummingbird
to touch me.
What I mean is,
could I forget myself

even in those feathery fields?
When Van Gogh
preached to the poor
of course he wanted to save someone--

most of all himself.
He wasn't a lily,
and wandering through the bright fields
only gave him more ideas

it would take his life to solve.
I think I will always be lonely
in this world, where the cattle
graze like a black and white river--

where the vanishing lilies
melt, without protest, on their tongues--
where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,
just rises and floats away.

- Mary Oliver (1935 - )

Still to Be

journal page - 5/29/08

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,
smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,
and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment
my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars
and the soft rain –
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.

- Mary Oliver (1935 - )

 

Wide-Eyed

journal page - 5/17/08

...a quick break from big paintings to do another journal page. This one was inspired by Illustration Friday's topic "wide," and Inspire Me Thursday's challenge to use crayons to make art. I made this with acrylics, Caran d'Ache Neocolor II artist's crayons, and ink. And... two finished paintings.. finally!

Flora - 24" x 36" x 1.5" - acrylic & ink on wood panel

Vernal Spirit- 18" x 24" x 1" - acrylic & ink on wood panel

It's all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

- Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

Well, I also have great news! I am excited to announce an interview at my Wings 4 You Coaching blog with Susan Tuttle in celebration of her new book, Exhibition 36: A Gallery of Mixed-Media Inspiration . I am honored to have contributed a painting and article to her book, available for preorder prior to its release in November 2008. Please stop by and read about Susan's inspiring creative journey!

To wrinkle... or not

journal page - 4/26/08

Within Us #6

From the wrinkle between my brows
You watch till day breaks
On my face

The waxen night
Is beginning to singe
The fingers of dawn

Black bricks
Have already tiled
The whole dome of the sky

- Vasko Popa (1922 - 1991)

After a long, delightful, but sometimes stressful week, I am almost finished with a painting I started weeks and weeks ago. I took a break from the big work this afternoon to paint a bit in my journal, hoping I would end up with something I could post for this week's Illustration Friday topic - wrinkles. I don't have much to say about wrinkles... I have a few I call dear friends and some I wish would disappear... but like everything else I have collected along the way, they are markers of where and who I've been. Even so, all that came to mind was the seemingly constant warning I got from my grandmother when I was a child - don't frown; you'll get wrinkles! It must have made quite an (ahem) impression on me, because to this day, I really do avoid frowning as much as possible! Somehow I got it fixed in my head that if I frowned or scowled too often, my face would freeze in that expression. So, I looked for inspiration elsewhere, and went with a wrinkle-free interpretation.

How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew! - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

P.S. -  Please accept my invitation to stop by Wings 4 You Coaching and participate in my Weekly Wings challenges.  There's a new challenge posted each Sunday.  I'd love to have you along on the journey!

Love Your Mother

journal page - 4/20/08

Earth Day is a reminder of how important it is to love our Mother Earth every day, and this very primitive little doodle from my journal is in honor of her special day. I have been working, working, and working on some large paintings for a show in June, but when I need a break, I recycle some runny paints from my palette in my journal and play a bit... and with the warm weather, sunny skies, chirping birds, and blooming spring flowers as inspiration, today this is what I got!

Next Time

Next time what I'd do is look at
the earth before saying anything. I'd stop
just before going into a house
and be an emperor for a minute
and listen better to the wind
or to the air being still.

When anyone talked to me, whether
blame or praise or just passing time,
I'd watch the face, how the mouth
has to work, and see any strain, any
sign of what lifted the voice.

And for all, I'd know more -- the earth
bracing itself and soaring, the air
finding every leaf and feather over
forest and water, and for every person
the body glowing inside the clothes
like a light.

- Mary Oliver (1935 - )

P.S. -  Please accept my invitation to stop by Wings 4 You Coaching and participate in my Weekly Wings challenges.  There's a new challenge posted each Sunday.  I'd love to have you along on the journey!

Flower Power

journal page - 4/4/08

Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people. - Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 - 1964)

When I saw the topics for Inspire Me Thursday (the peace sign) and Illustration Friday (save), the first thing that came to mind was an illustration and post about how peace can save the world. And it's true... until we can find peace - within ourselves, our societies, and among nations - we will live in a constant state of strife and destruction. But as I started thinking about what I would write, all that came forth was that peace must originate from the individual. There are innumerable things each person can do to promote peace, starting from within... for a person who has inner peace will not make war with another.

Hug o' War

I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.

- Shel Silverstein (1930 - 1999)

This journal page is inspired by peace signs and flower power... and my true desire to wish all of you peace, love, and happiness!

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P.S. -  Please accept my invitation to stop by Wings 4 You Coaching and participate in my Weekly Wings challenges.  There's a new challenge posted each Sunday.  I'd love to have you along on the journey!

Touches of Green and Gold

journal page - 3/22/08

Spring officially arrived in New England on Friday, and already Nature has begun to wallpaper the land with touches of green and gold. With the sun shining and the birds visiting the feeder outside my kitchen window,   it's hard to think of having any peeves.  All I feel is a wonderful whisper of promise in the air.  I have learned over time how much better my experience of the world is when I let go of the things that annoy me... and concentrate on the things that delight me.  Today, I am delighted to just be... here, in the moment.  Tomorrow I will go back to pondering the unknown fields before me.  Happy Spring, my friends!

First Georgic

When spring begins and the ice-locked streams begin
To flow down from the snowy hills above
And the clods begin to crumble in the breeze,
The time has come for my groaning ox to drag
My heavy plow across the fields, so that
The plow blade shines as the furrow rubs against it.

Not till the earth has been twice plowed, so twice
Exposed to sun and twice to coolness will
It yield what the farmer prays for; then will the barn
Be full to bursting with the gathered grain.

And yet if the field's unknown and new to us,
Before our plow breaks open the soil at all,
It's necessary to study the ways of the winds
And the changing ways of the skies, and also to know
The history of the planting in that ground,
What crops will prosper there and what will not.

In one place grain grows best, in another, vines;
Another's good for the cultivation of trees;
In still another the grain turns green unbidden.

- Virgil, translated by David Ferry

P.S. -  Please accept my invitation to stop by Wings 4 You Coaching and participate in my Weekly Wings challenges.  There's a new challenge posted each Sunday.  I'd love to have you along on the journey!

Lifting off into Flight

journal page - 3/16/08

I am deeply touched by the affirmation of possibility and rebirth this poem expresses through the imagery of the heavy-bodied heron lifting off into flight.

Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond

So heavy
is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,
always it is a surprise
when her smoke-colored wings

open
and she turns
from the thick water,
from the black sticks

of the summer pond,
and slowly
rises into the air
and is gone.

Then, not for the first or the last time,
I take the deep breath
of happiness, and I think
how unlikely it is

that death is a hole in the ground,
how improbable
that ascension is not possible,
though everything seems so inert, so nailed

back into itself--
the muskrat and his lumpy lodge,
the turtle,
the fallen gate.

And especially it is wonderful
that the summers are long
and the ponds so dark and so many,
and therefore it isn't a miracle

but the common thing,
this decision,
this trailing of the long legs in the water,
this opening up of the heavy body

into a new life: see how the sudden
gray-blue sheets of her wings
strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing
takes her in.

- Mary Oliver (1935 - )

Lift off into your own flight! Please accept my invitation to stop by Wings 4 You Coaching and participate in my Weekly Wings challenges. I'd love to have you along on the journey!

Planting & Growing

Vernal Spirit - 18" x 24" x 1" - acrylic & ink on wood

This painting is not completely finished (It's based on an earlier journal page, and I need to do more work on the hair detail), but I wanted to share it for both Inspire Me Thursday's "Kitchen" topic and Illustration Friday's "Garden" topic.

The background has at least eight layers, several of which are built with washes of paint that I sprinkled with salt. This is a great technique for creating pattern and texture. When the salt dries, I rub it off to find the small dots and stars that are left where the salt has lifted the paint. This method works really well if you build several very thin glaze layers - in person, the background of this painting has such beautiful depth and texture.

The garden connection is both visual and conceptual. For a long time, I have been focusing on making positive changes in my life that will give me space to express myself more genuinely. That means aligning my life with my most important values - individuality, creativity, family, learning, and sharing. I think of these values as the seeds I must plant to grow my own beautiful life-garden... and so, I am currently in the process of becoming a certified life coach.

I have always been a believer in big dreams, and I love working with people to help them find constructive and viable ways to create a vision and then turn it into reality. I've been doing this for almost 24 years as a teacher, and now I want to share my passion outside a school setting. I have recently launched a blog where I offer motivational articles and weekly challenges, and within the next few months, I will be offering personal, creativity, and career coaching, tele-seminars and live workshops.

Please accept my invitation to stop by Wings 4 You Coaching and participate in my Weekly Wings challenges. I'd love to have you along on the journey!