Patti Edmon Artist

This is the fifth of seven in the Seeking Sanctuary series I completed a few weeks ago. The pieces are currently hanging at The Nest: Center for Women, Children and Families (until I pick them up tomorrow!) and they couldn't have found a more appropriate setting. Each piece is deeply, specifically personal, with so much symbolism that it's amusing when I hear a comment like, "Oh, that's so pretty!" In this piece for example, Cinderella, there is a rusty razor blade, a gun and a stick pin, albeit masked amid pearls and a gorgeous Frozen Charlotte.  Most of us know the pain of rejection, humiliation, falling short, abuse, neglect and other sorrows and I wanted to express darker moments in these, a sweeping out of the old bones, per se. So, as you can see, the shoe doesn't fit Cinderella after all... no happy ending.  In (her fourth volume of) The Diary of Anais Nin , she wrote about the creative's need for emotional excess; in other words, my ...

I made this 6x6 collage for a class I'm taking called Resilience Through Art, taught by Lani Gerity , art therapist, leader of the 14 Secrets for a Happy Artist's Life group I'm in and a wise, wonderful artist. Our challenge for the week was to create a piece of art based on a resilience strategy; mine addresses more than one - voice your wishes, take charge of life whenever you can, look for good things... Living with a chronic illness has a unique set of challenges, maybe the same ones everyone faces, just amplified a bit. Springtime is so beautiful, but for me, it brings barometric pressure fluctuations that yank me around like a theme park ride. And I'm really trying to get off the prednisone that has fueled me through the last four years. Lower energy and higher pain levels make every day daunting... I think about what I used to accomplish in a day's time, now  spread it over a week, and shake my head. Well, nobody likes a whiner and I'm not wallowing in se...

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...