Breath Deeply & Repeat....

I have been having fun creating a few illustrated versions of some of my fave quotes:

whoooo?

owl |oul|
noun
a nocturnal bird of prey with large forward-facing eyes surrounded by facial disks, a hooked beak, and typically a loud call. •

In early Indian folklore, Owls personify wisdom and helpfulness, and have powers of prophecy. This thread recurs in Aesop's fables and in Greek myths and beliefs.

One of the earliest human drawings dating back to the early Paleolithic period was of a family of Snowy Owls (Nyctea scandiaca) painted on a cave wall in France ......

Birds on my Mind

a small study for a larger piece I'm now working on.....(I am so determined to finish at least one piece of artwork while I am here in Alaska!)

couple of postcards : flowers on my mind

Mottoes for Life

My personal mottoes change fairly often--but this summer my motto has been the one you see here---I made this sign for the kitchen after on particularly hectic day. One member of our crew had a fairly serious accident (cut off the tip of his finger), the resident toddler was fussy and under foot, I got behind on my preps and the oven quit in the middle of baking oven fries for dinner...

the next day I sat down and painted this sign, and just having it in the kitchen has served as a great reminder....

what is your current favorite motto????

Sketchbook Exchange (again)

Musings on Love and Happiness

Over the years, I have learned that you cannot make someone love you…all you can do is be someone who can be loved….the rest is up to them. I have learned that no matter how much I care, some people just don’t care back. I have learned that no matter how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades and there had better be something else to take its place. I have learned that relationships cannot be controlled—no matter how hard I try and that love is a gift which I am also not in charge of—no matter what I do.

I believe that our background and circumstances may shape who we are, but we are responsible for who become, and we are responsible for our behavior toward others. I am aware that we are responsible for our lives---and when we accept that responsibility, our lives are much easier. Experience has also taught me that it takes years to build up trust---and only seconds to destroy trust. I have learned that loss is one price I pay for living fully, but that loss can also be a source of personal growth.




Helen Keller once said: “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” Open that new door—and happiness is there---regardless of the circumstances. I have learned that happiness is a process –not a thing—it comes and goes, and this process is ok. I know that a cheerful disposition can beget happiness--- and that if I pay attention I see I am having many moments of happiness every day. I read somewhere that it takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three muscles to frown---smiling is a lot less work---plus a friendly smile always makes me feel good.



Right now, I am endeavoring to forgive myself for being human, and then passing this forgiveness on to others. I have learned that forgiving myself involves accepting myself for who I really am, and telling the truth. I now know that whatever happens to me—for me or against me—it is what I do with that experience that makes the experience what it was.

“Last night as I lay sleeping, I dreamt
O, marvelous error---
That there was a beehive here in side my heart
And the golden bees were making white combs
And sweet honey from all my failures”

----Machadi de Assis

37 days to wake up

I had been blogging here about a year or so when I stumbled on Patti Digh's wonderful soulful blog: 37 DAYS. Patti posed this question on her blog: "What would you be doing today if you only had 37 days to live? The death of her stepfather just 37 days after being diagnosed with cancer woke Patti Digh up, scared her, and made her examine her own life..." One result was her blog--37 DAYS--where she has touched thousands of readers lives with her inspiring life stories---and recipes for "living without regrets, no matter how many days you have left."

Now Patti has created a book--LIFE IS A VERB--- from her many inspirational blog posts. In the process of writing and creating her book she also invited her blog readers to contribute the art work for the book. Inspired by an artist trading card that blog reader Donna B. Miller sent her--she posted an invitation on her blog for others to create art---in the same artist trading card format---for various essays in the book. She received over 120 pieces of art in 2 weeks.

I was one of those artists who responded to Patti's invitation and created 2 illustrations--which I am proud to say are in this book (pp. 22 & 49).

Rather than explain the images and words I used in these two illustrations---I am instead urging you to buy Patti's book--LIFE IS A VERB--- and read the two essays that these accompany. This is one book you will never be sorry you purchased--one you will want to read over and over and write in the margins and dog-ear as it accompanies you through your life. Thanks Patti! for such a wonderful gift to us all and for being you.

the SKETCHBOOK EXCHANGE

I'm participating in a SKETCHBOOK EXCHANGE--- started by artist Jim Doran ---where all the artists who signed up (13 of us) buy a new sketchbook (like a Moleskin) and draw on the first 7 or so pages then mail it off to the next person on the list---and when you receive someone's sketchbook you draw on the next 7 pages, then mail it on--until you receive your own sketchbook back.....so I will be drawing at least 7 pages in 13 different sketchbooks before we are through.

I realized today as I was drawing in the new sketchbook---how very little drawing I have been doing lately. So, this will be very good, for me since it will force me to draw...

Here is my first page---the entrance to my traveling sketchbook....(---I will be posting pages from these sketchbooks here from time to time..)

Wise Owls

Creative Every Day : SILENT WISDOM

I once had an art and Jungian psychology teacher who told me it was especially important to pay attention to animals that show up in one's dreams--an animal in your dream usually has special significance. For some reason--unknown to me--I have been attracted lately to images of owls, and so they have been showing up in my artwork and my dreams. In my research of owls and the mythology a surrounding them I have learned that owls are a symbol of the feminine, the moon, and night---a bird of magic and darkness, of prophecy and wisdom. To the ancient Greeks the owl was a symbol of higher wisdom and associated with the Goddess Athena.

To early Christians the owl was associated with Lilith---the wife of Adam who refused to be submissive to him.

Owls have excellent night vision and are nocturnal--and so owls are considered be able to see what others are hiding, or into someone's "dark soul."



My owl artwork here, titled : SILENT WISDOM is on archival paper with pen and ink and prisma colored pencils, and is 9" x 6"

Mermaid Dreaming : Creative Every Day

Painted with gouache, pen and ink details, and prismacolor pencils on archival cream colored paper. She's up on my Etsy shop --- so stop by there.

Mermaids have always had a special meaning for me--for many years working on the sea I always "dreamed" I might catch a glimpse of one.....

Biblio-fun @ the Book Fair

papercut from the 19th century from the ephemera dealers ECLECTIBLES from Tolland, CT

I took my digital point-and-shoot camera to the San Francisco Antiquarian Book, Print, and Paper Fair this weekend ---and I just wandered around the Fair taking some photos of images that I thought were interesting. This Book Fair--as the title suggests---is so much more than just books! The artist/craftswomen part of me loves all the wonderful images at this Fair---from old maps, to gorgeous botanical prints, to illuminated manuscripts, to vintage valentines---this Fair has all of these and more.

I fell in love with these hand-drawn paperdolls from the 1950's---so quirky, with handlettered notes, and an "outsider art" type of appeal...also from ECLECTIBLES booth.

More movable ephemera from the ECLECTIBLES

and from ANTIQUARIAT BOTANICUM ---located in Lydnen, Washington --a lovely image from a BOOK OF PEONIES


plus, some lovely bindings from Turtle Island Books, Berkeley, Ca --the booth where I was working....why don't they make hardbacks with these lovely bindings now?



Here is a partial shot of Serendipity Books booth---a Berkeley landmark bookshop on University Ave.


There were many posters and vintage photos --like this one of poet Allen Ginsberg that Serendipity Books had for sale.


And original paintings...this one from Serendipity Books...I thought the folk art style in this painting was intriguing.



More ephemera---(and oops! I'm not sure whose booth this was)--but you can get a notion of how much paper ephemera treasures there were to look at...if you like ephemera and vintage paper, or old trade cards, greeting cards, or postcards--you might check out the Ephemera Society of America's website.


Cobblestone Books from Sacramento, Ca had a trunk full of colorful vintage OZ books...(when I was child in the '50's I read every Oz book our local library had in stock--about 20 of them)


and some lovely lurid dime mystery magazines....


There were numerous antique maps, both large and small.......these ones from Alexandre Antique Prints, Maps & Books from Toronto, Cananda




and rare maps in books....this one from Antiquariaat FORUM from the Netherlands. This map is from a Folio --GEOGRAPHIA by Claudius PTOLEMAEUS, published in 1490. "One of the most important early editions of the world-famous atlas, based on Ptolemy's description of the world..."

Walking through the Book Fair and looking at historical treasures like this---is a stroll through history...one I never tire of. I am acutely aware I have the privilege of looking at museum quality books that are truly "rare."

Then we have the illuminated books and manuscripts--my most favorite part! This book from Phillip J. Pirages of McMinnville, Oregon.

He also has numerous illuminated vellum manuscript leafs....


and lastly, these "fine bindings" ---also from Phillip Pirages




I hope this has been a visual feast for you--blog reader! like the past weekend was for me...

2008 New Year Intentions

"When it’s over, I want to say: All my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms."
---------Mary Oliver

I don't do new years resolutions---somehow, things never really change when I "resolve" to do something or to change something. Instead, I set an intention. Last year, I set the intention of buying nothing new for 6 months. That intention proved to be a very good consciousness raising tool for me, plus I saved money ;-)

This year my intention is less materially oriented, and more psychological. I intend to live my life more fully, to not hold back, to leap into the unknown....with awareness. I want to live my life with more attention to being here, with more conscious awareness of everyday actions, with the notion that life always gives me the teacher (or teaching) I need at that very moment. The trick is to be aware I was just handed a life lesson....and to not be afraid to grasp the lesson and run with it.

Since I always feel compelled to create art about my life, I'm working on an altered book (---one page you see here above---) in which I intend to document some of the "lessons" life hands me in 2008.

37 Days Art

Over on her blog 37 Days, Patti Digh sent out an invite to artists to illustrate some of the essays from her blog for her forthcoming book. If you have never read her blog---get right on over there and check it out! she has some of the best thoughtful and poetic essay writing on the web, in my opinion.

I decided to try this challenge (as she termed it) and she sent me this essay titled Just Wave to illustrate. She wanted the illustrations to be ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) in size--and we had to have 37 days and the name of the essay somewhere in the illustration.

I chose to make mine a mixed media piece--with my own drawing and artwork, and lace and sewing on the papers with my sewing machine.

I created the art for this essay, Just Wave, in a "creative frenzy"---I just started selecting images from my stash of papers and old sketches, and added lace and started sewing. I sewed on more layers, cut off parts and sewed more--- the piece basically grew as I made it. I did start with an image in my mind, but only a vague image---which included hands and a house---or the shape of a house. The bird is a photocopy of a small part of another painting I made---and I'm still not sure how the bird relates to this essay, but it fit with the art, so into the piece it went. I worked on this all day without stopping at all--even to eat--until it was done, and I was totally absorbed in the creative process the whole time---"in the zone" is how I think of this state. This is one of the highest pleasures for me--finding that creative zone--completely in the moment, creating one piece of art. So for me, most of the time---art making is more about the process than the end product. I found this essay an inspiration, and so slipped into the zone easily and the piece just formed without much real effort like sometimes happens in the studio--on a very good day.

I created a computer illustration for another of her essays the next day; I created this one totally on the computer and I never quite got into "the creative zone." Upon reflecting on the 2 very different creative processes, I began to wonder if I require working with more tactile materials than a computer to find that zone.