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Showing posts from March, 2009

Hope Springs Eternal

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April Showers Bring May Flowers The thing with feathers that perches in your soul, and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all (Emily Dickinson). Grounds for believing something good will happen (my dictionary). The one virtue that keeps us believing that, if the sun isn't shining on life today, then the rain must be bringing a healing, restorative power that will brighten our tomorrow (me).  Lani Gerity Glanville , group leader of the 14 Secrets for a Happy Artist's Life, is also an art therapist. She finds ways to enrich, enlighten, further the understanding, empathy and wisdom in our lives as artists humans, which are inextricably interwoven. One of her latest endeavors is a course on  Resilience and Art .  one I plan to take for sure. While researching, she discovered a wonderful site,  Wisdom Commons  the source for many of the quotes I used in this post. It explores the character qualities valued by secular and religious traditions across the globe. Listed

Healing Tag - Listen

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Who Turned the Lights Off?!

Well, we did it; promptly at 8:30 we powered down for an hour of, well, darkness. My husband and son are already headed off on to the cabin, where my daughter and I will join them in between ballet rehearsals; she has a friend over so the two excited girls and I darted around hitting all the switches.  I did wish that I'd located the flashlight before turning them all off; a quick call to Jim confirmed that he had, indeed packed up the reliable ones for the trip. So, we lit candles. Then, we thought, how magical, we'll go outside. The entire neighborhood was lit up; one house a few doors up still has Christmas lights dangling from the eves. Huh. Apparently they didn't know about the Hour of Darkness. I felt the sting, a tiny dart of disappointment, as I wondered - to myself - if we could really make any difference.  But I'd seen it pop up so many times on Facebook, in posts and videos... Then it occurred to me that an entirely separate consciousness exists, that being t

Vote for Planet Earth - Tonight!

Thanks to Sharmond , The Adventures of an Art Addict , I saw this video and remembered that Earth Hour is tonight! By turning off our lights f or an hour, we cast our vote for planet earth. The organizers are hoping for a billion votes - make yours count! 8:30!

The Law of Attraction

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The only thing more fun than raiding the fridge is decorating it. Making magnets is one of my favorite art projects and I just shipped this small batch off to Third Street Stuff, in downtown Lexington, to see if they attract any passers-by.  I don't know about yours, but my ancient white Kenmore looks like a study in some subcultural group that, if found in hundreds of years, would likely cause super-genius scientists to scratch their big, green, globe-shaped heads. I mean, We specialize in beans, with a vintage Texan couple? Mother heads bobbing in a coffee cup with wings - what does that have to do with finest fit and quality?! A large-headed chick in curlers and a prom dress...    I guess the point is that they don't make sense and that's why making them is so darned much fun. Finding old puzzles with pieces big enough to fit all the 'stuff' on isn't easy, so if anyone has a stash, I'll be glad to take them off your hands! I have enough found objects, but

Spring Cleaning

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I asked Al (my daughter, Alice) if she'd like to help me organize the Altered Attic, where there's hardly a path to walk, an empty space to squeeze in one more container, so many piles - of paper, books and magazines, bottles and tins and jewelry repair pieces and watch parts, buttons, images clipped that I clipped but didn't use during the last project, or the dozen before that...  One of the downsides, maybe the only one, of having a studio is that it doesn't serve double duty. So, it's really easy to let old beeswax sit in the pot on the table next to the heat gun and dremel, jars of various media stacked like beer cans, paints and prepped substrates, the beginnings of a zillion brilliant ideas. Or two.  She had just the solution. It was a bit late and we had just finished making Cinderella's gown and veil, complete with tiara, mounted on cardboard for her Humanities class. Yawning, we looked around and I sighed and once again decided against tackling anythin

Birds and Coffee

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Space in the Altered Attic is at a premium, the bins are overflowing  and there's stuff every where I turn, piles, stacks, boxes full of trinkets and other found objects spilling out over the tops of shelves. Spring cleaning? Heck no, but I can hear the birds singing outside the windows, on the days that it's 65 instead of 35 degrees. So, I continue to ignore the obvious, which is the enormous amount of time I'd probably save by getting organized, and use all my 'extra' time to play. Last week I posted a small collage I'd done - a coffee cup filled with flowers, coffee beans, buttons... everything but coffee. And, what's with the birds? I don't know that the two necessarily 'go' together, but I wanted to find some elements I could use to experiment with color, texture and process. Using the same color themes to create different finished pieces, like a magnet made from a recycled puzzle piece and trimmed with beads and charms. I also love altering

Seeing Red

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I don't normally associate red with late winter, pre-tulip season that is; but when I went for a walk around the neighborhood, I noticed a swatch here, stroke there. Then I began looking for the color red. That's how it often is; we find bits of what we didn't realize we were seeking, in places obvious and subtle.  Walking with my eyes open, awake, aware, I captured the brilliance of a red birdhouse on an otherwise drab morning. The plane of a shutter sweeping out from a window, chimes thoughtfully placed in a spot where the light catches, splattering an array of larger circles across a wood floor. We notice if we're lucky, in tune with the wonders that are too easily buried, tossed in with the unusable, leftovers, the rinds pitched in with compost that loses all color.  Days ago we emerged, blinking like groundhogs in t-shirts reveling in the glory of the long-anticipated warmth, only to wake the next morning to a carpet of fresh snow, again, clumping on buds that foll

Vision Board Update! Any of y'all in Texas??

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Joyce Schwarz, author of The Vision Board, the basis for the class I'm preparing to take was kind enough to leave a comment on my blog. In it, she mentioned that she is presenting the book at a reading tonight at SXSW. For those of you, like me, who live east of the Mississippi and have no clue what the heck it is, SXSW is South by Southwest, an annual art, music and media event held in Austin, Texas. She's working to raise funds for an ATX charity - scareforacure.com, and asked if I'd tell all my friends. If I were anywhere close I'd be there in a New York minute. Wrong direction:) but you get the idea. Also, you can take a peek inside her book at Amazon or the publisher's site, Harper Collins .  I'm totally psyched and though I won't meet Joyce in person - tonight anyway, I look forward to starting on my vision - especially after reading  Chaska Peacock's  (who will be teaching) comment about the class on my earlier post!

A little birdy told me...

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I spend a lot of studio time making light switch plates and magnets, ostensibly because they generate a (very) little cash - enough to help offset my supply bill, again, a very little. I recently decided to vary my substrates, add some excitement to my creative day.  The visual journal workshop rekindled my love for creating backgrounds, and techniques I learned from Pam Carriker came in very handy (I'll never run out of baby wipes again!). Though I didn't have a clue what the image would be, I knew I wanted to use shades of blue. And, I've been stuck on coffee and birds lately. Maybe because I discovered that I can draw both and I'm thrilled, albeit behind the curve a decade or so:); everything I touch will probably have a bird, or coffee cups and beans on or in it - for a time anyway.  A while back, in the letters section of several Somerset Magazines, readers made mention of the possible overuse of certain embellishments/ephemera in art pieces. Like crowns and wings,

Altered Vision

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wheeee. what better way to usher in a new week (read monday, first day of spring forward, like I had an extra hour to begin with), than to receive an email notifying me that I won the complimentary slot! yes! starting march 15th, I'll be a happy participant in the Vision Board workshop, so I'll get the hands-on I need to unearth my deepest desires, artistic longings, painterly passion.  I've never been one to look to the future, to dream, to plan even. that's not a good thing. it comes with fear of change which stems from... well, I won't go into all that here; suffice it to say, it's about time I started! my daughter is the wind dancer on the far right - this photo doesn't relate, except for the part about wind, freedom to grow and become... gratitude.  

It Takes Vision

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Hopping around, I found Art Alchemy Studio , and an intriguing class about creating vision boards based on the book by Joyce Schwarz. I haven't read the book, but not long after I plunged headlong into the mixed media world, I made a small, quickie (8-1/2 x 11) dream board using magazine phrases and photos that represented what I most wanted in my art and personal (is there a difference???) life.  I haven't looked to see if any of my deepest longings have risen closer to the surface, but I am interested in Chaska's class, which promises powerful change rather than my cut and paste exercise.  Has anyone read the book or taken a class? Results? I'd really be interested in knowing...

harbingers of spring

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There are signs of spring.... crocuses frozen in clusters of tiny pearls, the slant of light not nearly as harsh in the late afternoon, the remnants of our ice storm finally cleared. I photographed this piece of ice a week or so ago, still in the yard plastered to the leaf that gives it its shape. Up at 1:30 this morning, for some unknown and unusual reason, I messed with it a bit in photoshop, thought I'd present it, an offering to the receding winter, one that has been a real dandy. The ice on my front porch did make a nice backdrop for the bracelet that broke... slid off my wrist as I was flinging my keys in the direction of the front door. boo. One of my favorites, though I must admit, I do love this photograph. Having found most all the parts, one day I may repair it so that I can enjoy wearing it again. I suppose that making a cool photo from a broken bracelet is one way of finding treasure where I stumble (no, I didn't fall:). Blessings can be difficult to spot amid the