anonyrrie

Spring Planting

It seems like Spring brings the best art exhibits!  Among these shows is one that has the potential to expand the participating artists' opportunities. Every year at this time,  Artwell Gallery in Torrington, CT holds their Show for a Show exhibition.  During the show, more than 50 major art museums and galleries from the tri-state region view the submissions and select works and artists to exhibit in their galleries.

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

I have decided to enter Flora, a painting I did for the Girls,Girls, Girls show at the IO gallery last spring.  She didn't sell and has been hanging on the wall of my office, mesmerizing me with her huge eyes and mysterious beauty.  I almost don't want to part with her, but...  she may plant some seeds of opportunity for me!

The Show for a Show exhibition runs from April 4 through May 17 with the opening reception on April 4 from 6 - 9 p.m.

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Edit - 3/38/09 - I'm also submitting her for Illustration Friday's topic, Poise.  She does seem very poised, yes?  

Medusa: It's Intricate

Medusa - 9" x 12" - micron pen/digital color

Whenever I read Greek mythology, I am always intrigued by the intricacies of the gods' relationships!  This is a drawing I posted a few years ago, along with the story of Medusa.

The Gorgons of Greek mythology were so hideous that the mere sight of them would turn anyone who gazed their way to stone. They were, according to the poet Hesiod, so frighteningly repulsive to the senses that they "were not to be approached and not to be described." Medusa, the only one of the three who was mortal, was born beautiful with a head of luxuriant, shining hair. The lusty Poseidon took a fancy to her, and disguised as a horse, seduced her in the temple of Athena. Enraged, Athena transformed Medusa into a monster whose most common portrayal shows her once beautiful hair as a mass of writhing snakes.

Medusa

 

She is the gypsy

Whose young have rooted

In the very flesh of her scalp.

Her eyes are drill-holes where

Your senses spin, and you are stone

Even as you stand before her.

She opens her lips to speak,

And have you believe.

She has more tongues to deceive

Than you can deafen your ears to.

If you could look away, the voices

From the heads of her vipers

Would be hard to argue.

If you could look away,

The pedestals of your feet might move.

If you could look away, 

The song from the cathedral of her mouth

Would fall to the floor like a lie.

- Frieda Hughes (1960 - )

Silver & Gold

work in progress - 12" x 16" x 1" - mixed media on wood

It's been one of those weeks... and I feel like I've had one foot in the twilight zone.  There's been such a surreal aura around me - weird synchronicities and strange happenings, but somehow I have managed to hold on to my calm center.  

Perhaps all the turmoil has stirred up some creativity, because I've started a new painting that I hope to finish by the end of the weekend.  The story is evolving... two friends, a secret, who knows?  I guess I'll have some idea by the time it's all finished.  I'll simply let instinct and intuition guide the way.

Here's what's I've been hearing in my head as I've been painting:

Make new friends but keep the old,

One is silver and the other is gold.

- from the Girl Scout song 

2/21 - here's some progress on the painting, which I worked on yesterday.  

I still need to do the background and finish up the detail work on the figures and the foreground, both of which are still rough.  The flowers in the foreground are collaged from paper napkins, a technique I first learned about from my friend Lenna Andrews and more recently was reminded of by Sharon Tomlinson's  article in Cloth Paper Scissors. I'm going to need to paint them in, but I really love the fine layer they add!

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2/22

I did a bit more today... I layered on some decorative papers for background texture, and then painted over them.  I also did some more detail work on the figures. Now it's time to let it sit while I ponder the rest of the background.

 

 

Be Present

be present - 10" x 10" x 1" - acrylic/mixed media on wood panel

{from the Mantras & Meditations series - available for purchase in my etsy shop}

To the Moon

   

Art thou pale for weariness

Of climbing Heaven, and gazing on the earth,

   Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth,--

And ever changing, like a joyless eye

That finds no object worth its constancy?

- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)

Climbing, climbing, always wanting more, or something just beyond reach... living for the future... believing in "if only"... not stopping to breathe and see and touch and understand that everything in this moment is perfect and as it should be... 

Sunrise

You can

die for it-

an idea, 

or the world. People 

have done so, 

brilliantly, 

letting

their small bodies be bound 

to the stake, 

creating

an unforgettable

fury of light. But 

this morning, 

climbing the familiar hills

in the familiar

fabric of dawn, I thought 

of China, 

and India

and Europe, and I thought

how the sun 

blazes

for everyone just

so joyfully

as it rises

under the lashes

of my own eyes, and I thought

I am so many! 

What is my name? 

What is the name

of the deep breath I would take

over and over

for all of us? Call it 

whatever you want, it is

happiness, it is another one

of the ways to enter

fire.  

- Mary Oliver (1935 - )

Winter Blossoms

blossom - 9" x 12" x 1" - acrylic - mixed media on wood panel 

{from the Mantras & Meditations series - available for purchase in my etsy shop}

We all have contained within us seeds of beauty, strength, compassion, understanding, creativity, love...  seeds that must be nurtured in order to blossom.  The trick is to discover the right environment within which to grow.  It's not necessarily a place, but more a state of mind.  

What does it take to get it just right?  Well, for me it all starts with honesty and self-acceptance; knowing that if I stay true to who I am, that is more than enough.  

The Jewel

There is this cave

In the air behind my body

That nobody is going to touch:

A cloister, a silence

Closing around a blossom of fire.

When I stand upright in the wind,

My bones turn to dark emeralds.

- James Wright (1927 - 1980)

Listen and Reach

listen - 10" x 10" x 1" - acrylic - mixed media on wood panel

{from the Mantras & Meditations series - available for purchase in my etsy shop}

I have been thinking a lot lately about what's most important to me and where I want to go next on this life-journey. Although I am energized by setting goals and making plans, I've never been one to make New Year's resolutions.  If something seems like a good thing to do, I either go for it or put it on the back burner until the time is right; if it's meant to be, it will happen.  Nonetheless, there's something to be said for rituals that challenge us to step back and reflect on who we are –  our values, our dreams, and our intentions to bring the two together - and so I've been thinking about what kind of ritual would help me move forward in 2009.

It's funny how sometimes that universal magic of synchronicity can weave together so many random threads.  As I've been working on my Mantras & Meditations  series of paintings, I've been focusing on being still and simply listening to my inner voice for words and affirmations that are meaningful and inspiring. The practice of creating art around mantras and meditations has been very grounding for me, and I have been sensing myself opening up to new ideas and possibilities.  In the midst of this focusing on words that shape being and action,  I came across a post that Leah, host of Creative Every Day and Art Every Day Month, wrote about Christine Kane's practice of choosing a defining word for the year.  Instead of creating a long, onerous "To-Do" list of resolutions that inevitably fall by the wayside, Christine suggests that we create a one word theme that will serve as a guide and inspiration throughout the year - an annual mantra! 

I chose two words, because they represent a process that is very important to me.  First, I want to learn to Listen more deeply and fully, both to my inner voice and to the unspoken words of others. I want to turn off the static that surrounds me and tune into the messages that come in silence. Then I want to Reach - reach within, reach out, reach for, reach above, reach below, reach beyond the limits I have intentionally and unintentionally set for myself. Listen ~ Reach... my mantra for 2009.  It makes me feel that anything is possible.

What word would you choose? 

Listening

shine within - 10" x 10" x 1" - acrylic/mixed media on wood panel

{from the Mantras & Meditations series - available for purchase in my etsy shop}

The snow falls, the world is silent; yet there are voices that speak if we will only quiet ourselves and listen...

Sojourns in the Parallel World

We live our lives of human passions,

cruelties, dreams, concepts,

crimes and the exercise of virtue

in and beside a world devoid

of our preoccupations, free

from apprehension--though affected,

certainly, by our actions. A world

parallel to our own though overlapping.

We call it "Nature"; only reluctantly

admitting ourselves to be "Nature" too.

Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,

our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,

an hour even, of pure (almost pure)

response to that insouciant life:

cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing

pilgrimage of water, vast stillness

of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,

animal voices, mineral hum, wind

conversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering

of fire to coal--then something tethered

in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch

of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.

No one discovers

just where we've been, when we're caught up again

into our own sphere (where we must

return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)

--but we have changed, a little.

- Denise Levertrov (1923 - 1997)

The painting above is one of a series called Mantras & Meditations.  I will be offering that series, along with other smaller paintings and prints of larger works for sale when I open my Etsy shop in January. Happy Holidays!  ♥

Late for the Sky

journal page - 10/18/08

October is the month of small migrations, when the air moves with restless, nervous energy.  The wind picks up, sending down a tumbling shower of ochre, carnelian, and diarylide yellow that collects on the ground like a richly-woven Persian carpet.  The sky, now broader through the thinning canopy, changes face hourly; misty in the morning, baby blue with streaks of clouds by midday, searing acid blue in the afternoon, pink-tinged charcoal near evening. Even on still days, some leaves (they know it's time) let go and drift earthward on gentle currents.

Grackles in great noisy flocks populate the land beneath the trees, conversing loudly with one another as they pick berries and seeds from among the leaves.  Suddenly spooked by a movement,  they rise in a flapping cacophony of screeches into the trees and wait warily as I pass along the path, silhouetted against the sky like black-cloaked beadles.  Geese move overhead in v-formations and sparrow flocks dance through the air in brown waves before landing in a line along a wire.  Clinging and falling, noise and silence, movement and waiting, formation and breaking rank...  

The ancient maple behind the house creaks in the breeze as if to say... you want to stay, but it's time to go.

I see my own soul in Nature, every day, every season.

How long have I been sleeping

How long have I been drifting alone through the night

How long have I been running for that morning flight

Through the whispered promises and the changing light

Of the bed where we both lie

Late for the sky

- Jackson Browne

The 8" x 10" journal page above - which is part of a special Autumn book I've been working on - was done with oil paint-sticks and acrylics. The background contains some collage elements and the nature printing technique I recently learned in a workshop with my friend Lenna Andrews.

O my soul...

unfinished & untitled - 12" x 12" x 1" - acrylic on wood panel

A noiseless patient spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul

- Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

Time to let go...

Detach from...
outcomes,
expectations,
fears,
misunderstandings,
preconceived notions,
stale practices,
negative energy,
the inner critic...

Time to fly.

Burning Through the Fog

digital manipulation of a painting

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and follow where they lead. - Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888)

This week's Illustration Friday and Inspire Me Thursday topics are quite appropriate. I've not done any new art nor posted anything at all in over a month, and it makes the artist in me feel foggy and distant. That's when my spirits start to fall a bit, but I lift them with the healing power of my dreams and my goals.  It's all about putting one foot in front of the other and understanding that the priorities of now will make the dreams of tomorrow come true.

So what have I been doing?  Well...

• I was away at an intensive life coach training program and am still doing coursework... lots of reading and writing!
• I'm building a new website for Wings 4 You Coaching - my creative life coaching business.  I should be going live with it in a few days.
• I'm writing a group coaching tele-workshop that I will be offering in the fall.
• I'm in the process of moving my studio to another building on our property so I will have dedicated space for art and a dedicated office for coaching... and yes, that means more art again, real soon!
• And I am getting ready to go away on vacation (whew) to Northern California.  Ahhhh... I can't wait!

What do you do when things seem a bit overwhelming and future goals look foggy?  How do you get your spirits back into positive energy mode?