anonyrrie

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!

__________________________________________________________

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.

 

 

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)

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.

A Story of Abundance

journal page - 9/23/08

Vegetable-Life

Where the pulp lifts its germ and the sludge of beauty sighs,

where the leaf pulls the branch to the breathy earth,

where the rind cracks and buds rust into petals,

where the clove steams and cinnamon bark spits out cinnamon air,

where roots sweat and the earth boils in curds of steaming mud,

where the stem draws up the seed and holds it like a lamb to the sun,

where flowers rest their animal heads,

there, full throated, limp with seed, lush and smiling is

Vegetable-Life.

To come upon her you must journey through the rains,

and sleep through a night of fish smells;

there must be a dead man in a hot room,

there must be a basket of figs and plums on the pier,

there must be no new ship in the harbor,

there must be the sound of flowers falling upon flowers,

there must be no children swimming in the salt pools.

Where the Flamboyant spills into the vulcan dust,

where the wild pig chews up the door frames,

where the leper kneads his bones,

where the sun is stuffed with guns,

where the water flows like honey from the tap,

where black flies swell in the gecko's translucent belly,

where these are, there is

Vegetable-Life: The Sultana of the Vine,

The Goddess of the Harvest Gone Bad, The Spectrum Swallower.

In an ointment of wild saps, ripe fronds and mosses, tumid wheat,

and bareley, Abundance pours down over the head, heavy with pollen

and in the puce interrogation of the harvest

the intellect sprouts leaves.

- Ned Gorman (1929 - )

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.

Back in the Day

Although I have nothing new to share, this week's Inspire Me Thursday prompt reminded me of two very, very old journal drawings that feature period-correct clothing styles (and bad habits...). Can you guess the year of these drawings?

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?

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!