Re-Vision and the Past 93-95/100

 re-vision
acrylic on paper
93/100

I spent all morning and afternoon painting yesterday and then ran out of time to post. I am slowly catching up to my 100 works in 100 days goal. Of course, I've been neglecting other things. Well, life is about sacrifices isn't it?

I feel like today's post shows a departure for me. I'm not quite sure where it's going. Maybe it is more intentional and less improvisational. I'm okay with that, although it takes a lot longer to do. Thus all day painting and running out of time.

I did start with a symbol, the eye, one that has been a common refrain through out my artistic life. Mostly doodled on notebooks when I was a kid. I read somewhere that it was something about "being seen." I don't know. Maybe that's go something to do with where my head is at nowadays.

I know when I got intentional with it, I began to think about what I KNOW my life is about nowadays, and that is reviewing my life, my work and my goals, and revising and re-visioning it all. I kind of like that I am taking symbols from the past and rethinking them again. Or art supplies from the past and seeing what I can do with them. Or vintage photos from the past and recreating them from my perspective. (I found piles of photo albums from my own family, my ancestors. I should really try to incorporate them.)

this bowl is full of hope
acrylic and graphite on paper
94/100

I saw an illustration of a bowl somewhere and since then, I have been slightly obsessed with the symbolism of the bowl.

It is an empty receptacle. It holds whatever it is you put in it. It is also used to hold offerings, to other people, to the gods, to yourself. You can not fill the bowl unless it starts out empty. The emptiness of the bowl is what allows it to hold the gift, the sustenance.

I drew it in pencil and painted half of it. It is not unfinished. That was intentional. There's something about the bare bones of pencil drawing that I like. As if it is being created. It is also without color. It is work a day, functional, not really meant to be shown. It is what belongs underneath the surface.

I also wanted to show the marking lines for the words. This bowl is laid down to it's essence, this is what it is made of.

The inside of the bowl is the color of a spring sky. Hope. The outside is a pattern of pencil circles that remind me of stones.

The background is half painted with the swirls, kind of reminiscent of steam, or vines. Something growing, something rising. I painted it with titan buff, because I wanted it to still be white, but a white with color, as if it was hope alone that changed the plain white paper of the table to the color.

head of a girl 13 (tori amos)
ink wash on paper
95/100

I saw a High School picture of Tori Amos, and although she was not "quite" as vintage as the other photo sources I've been using, there was something about the loveliness, the imperfections, the romantic curly hair, the youth and hope of a girl who would become something powerful and darker as she grew... I just wanted to paint it.

And I wanted it to be pink and girly and dreamy.

She doesn't really look like her, but I wasn't really trying to make her look like Tori Amos. It was the feel that got me and the feel I was trying to convey. I thought a too-close portrait of Tori would be distracting.

Well that's what I did yesterday. Hopefully I will be able to paint some more today so I can keep my momentum going. I have four more days of my self imposed challenge, and only five more pieces to do.

I CAN DO IT!

Revisiting and Working, 78 and 79/100

This Shore
acrylic on paper, moleskine
78/100

This is a revisitation of an idea from the beginning of the challenge.(The Other Side of the River). I just thought I'd see what would happen if I did it again, after playing with the ideas and colors for the last few months. It seems a little deeper, if less spontaneous.

Selfie (revised) Blue and Gold
ink and acrylic on paper
79/100

Here's another revisitation. I didn't like the ink wash self portrait I did yesterday, so as I had nothing to lose, I thought I'd see what would happen if I added paint to it. I stuck with the color scheme of prussian blue and quinacridone gold. Adding a touch of titan buff. I like the painting better now. I think I fixed the flaws. I'm kind of hard on my self portraits though. It's hard to deal with your vanity, looks wise and painting wise, and see the ways you fall short. But whatever, it's an exercise, right?

It's interesting how these portraits have gotten more realistic. I haven't really done representational art for a while, going with the more abstract or illustrative styles, but I spent many years painting and drawing real life, and it is kind of like getting back to my roots.

Do I know where I will go with this? Nope.

It's enough to do it, right now. It's enough to step out on the creative journey. I don't need answers yet, I just need to keep working.

Still 21 pieces to go before I finish my self challenge. It's about 2 pieces a day. I've caught up a bit. Just got to keep working, though.

Pulling it Together 67-71/100

 Head of a Girl 8 (Tilly Losch)
ink on vintage Alice in Wonderland Page
67/100

Like I said before, I am trying to put my house together, trying to pull together all the pieces of myself and my art and make it whole again.

It's remarkable how confusing and disorganized things can get. Or sometimes maybe we just need a break. Maybe we just need to step back and get some distance so that we can look at things and say "yes, this is what I want," or "no, this is not where I want to go."

So sometimes it helps to stop the go go going and be silent, to see what once was there, what is there now, and what you want to be there.

Found Still Life
(flowers, pencil, miniature houses, toy leash, and vintage contact paper on the counter)
68/100

This one is a case of looking and seeing what is already there.

I looked down at the corner of my craft cabinet counter, and saw this little still life, just sitting there. I gasped and grabbed my camera and started snapping away. It's where I'd tossed a few things that I was done with, the little houses from yesterday, the handful of garden flowers that my daughter gave me, whose stems were too short for a vase, the yellow pencil, and the broken purple toy leash that I told my daughter I'd fix.

It's interesting, because although it took me a few tries to frame it right, and I did remove extraneous items away from the composition, when I tried to "make it right", when I took away the junky purple toy leash, the composition went flat.

It was there. And I needed to pay attention to it, to see it for what it was, a snap shot of life, color, line and texture. Movement in stillness and discards. There's something about those bleeding heart flowers that seem to me to be always moving, even when they are just sitting there, wilting.

"Day" Flying Girl Articulated Paper Doll
acrylic on paper, metal brads
69/100

And then, sometimes, you have to work and think about something, plan it out and put it together.

I've been thinking about making a Flying Girl Paper Doll for a while, but never got around to it, because I knew it would be a bit of work and commitment.  Sometimes life is like that. You take ideas from the past and finally sit down to work on them, make them into something, even if you're not sure that they really will work out.

 Reveal
Pen and watercolor on paper
70/100

Here's a sketch I made, without real plans, just allowing it to come to be, although, again, I am pulling on past sketches and motifs.  I don't think that everything is actually revealed, here, even though it's called reveal. Perhaps time will be the big reveal.

Belated Bunny with Big Legs
Repurposed velour, cotton knit, buttons, thread, polyfill
71/100

And here's the stuffed bunny I started almost three years ago and never got around to finishing. It went three years without eyes or legs.

Even now, my daughter tells me that the legs are wrong and I need to make them smaller. I guess she's right, they don't really fit this bunny.

Belated Bunny (detail)

But she's kinda cute anyway.

Well, I continue to try to pull together my house, and my art and my writing. I'm working on my synopsis for my novel and my query letter... something that has needed to be done for quite some time.

Like I said, sometimes it takes a commitment to pull together all the disparate efforts, all the history and the knowledge and the ideas. And sometimes it takes a re-commitment, after a period of silence.

We shall see.

It's In Your Hands (Creating a Creative Practice)

"it's in your hands"

This coming September, when my kids are both in school full time, I am planning to take my creative career more fully in hand.

Truth be told, I've taken a bit of a hiatus.

I've had kid duties and work duties and household duties, and many of my creative duties have fallen by the way side. 

I am looking forward to re-committing to being a serious artist and writer, not just in the off hours when I'm not too exhausted from my long day, or while the kids are playing outside, before they come back in to ask for my attention in 15 minutes.

I'll still be working, and I'll still be taking care of my kids, but there will be more time to focus without distraction or multi tasking or kids every where. I'll be able to focus on my own personal work for at least a couple of hours a day, and for the whole day twice a week! It seems like such a luxury to me now, after all my years of raising infants/babies/toddlers/preschoolers. I am hoping that those years will have taught me how valuable my time is now, and that I shouldn't waste it.

And I'm going to do it.

It's only a few weeks away, but I am starting my process of organizing and planning and psyching myself up and getting the ideas flowing.

I've learned that it helps to psych yourself up before you even start, to plan and set goals for yourself. Like with Nanowrimo. If I think about it months before, I can start dreaming of my story and characters and plots. Then I can do an outline. And I can schedule in work times and write out logs and graphs to keep track of my work.

Really, I should learn from myself and write out my graphs and log books and such. I have plans for reorganizing and prettifying my "studio" which is really more like part of the kitchen, but has turned out to be a good place for me to work in the past, at least part of the time. 

The truth is that being creative is a lot more work than it seems sometimes, because so much goes on under the surface, before creativity happens, while you're staring out the window or in your psyche every minute of the day, even while you're doing other things. 

It often takes more preparation and planning than one would suspect. I often have to almost "go into training"  as I build up my work habits and practice my craft and coax the ideas into being. 

 In one way, this is comforting to me.

Even though I don't feel all that creative right now (particularly after burning out a bit with the craft intensive Harry Potter birthday party) I know that if I take my baby steps, I will soon be ready to get that creative engine going.

In another way, it's kind of exhausting, because I know how much work I have to do and how much I am going to have to commit to the work.

But then, that's exciting too, the idea of being able to commit real time and energy to work after so many years of naptime writing and painting while the kids are watching tv and being satisfied with arts and crafts instead of the larger projects that have been calling to me for the last few years (which I have been putting off.)

I drew this journal entry to remind myself of the work it takes to take your life into your own hands. It often doesn't seem like I am getting anywhere while I am in the middle of the small actions, but when I look back on it, I can see how far I've come and how much I've done.

It reminds me that I have the power to create things, to make life the way I want it, if I am only willing to do the work, commit to the end product, and trust the process.

Oh yes, that trust of the process. It can be very difficult, but it makes a big difference.

Rose Tinted Girl and some thoughts about Leonor Fini

Rose Tinted Girl
3"x4" acrylic on paper

I did another mini portrait, playing with the underpaintings and bright colors. This is orange, green and pink.

I saw a painting of Leonor Fini's Splendid Devils a few weeks ago, and I guess something about it stuck in my mind. The hair, the bright colors. I didn't use it as a source, but it was definitely in my mind when I painted her hair. I remember when I first encountered Leonor Fini. It was over 20 years ago, when I was in college and I was doing a report on female surrealist artists. I remember particularly Leonor Fini, Meret Oppenheimer, and of course, Frida Kahlo. I think I found Leonor Fini a bit strange,  and at the same time I was enamored of Frida Kahlo, so Fini kind of fell by the way side as I explored more of Kahlo and was  influenced by her in my own art work.

But I think Leonor Fini is worth some attention. Just in writing this blog, I have been amazed, astonished, amused and sometimes a little bit bothered by not just her work, but also her life, which was lived in an exceedingly dramatic way and far ahead of her time. She was a powerful and talented surrealist artist at a time when women simply weren't allowed to be that. In fact, she refused the title of "surrealist" because Andre Breton decided that she should be a muse, subservient, not an artist in her own right. And after her death, Salvador Dali said about her,  'Better than most, perhaps. But talent is in the balls', thereby ensuring that her stock as an artist sank quickly, in large part because she was a woman. Oy. I guess I am glad to be a woman in this time, rather than back then.

Well, I'm no Leonor Fini, but I am Rowena Murillo, and I am going about living in my own way. I've never even thought about whether I was ahead of my own time, I'm just smack dab in the middle of it and too close to the matter to worry about it. I am, however, interested in the influence that Leonor Fini might have upon my painting. Her life is a bit too dramatic for me, but the paintings? I think I like.

In Transition, Traveling, or The Creative Process

 In Transition, Traveling

I have found that the process of creativity is a very fluid one. When you are creative, it feels unstoppable, as if it could go on forever and never end. This is just who you are. A creative machine.

But it is an illusion. Creativity ebbs and flows and it has its own journey that is not just about moving forward and being a genius. Creativity is a lot of silence. A lot of waiting. A lot of staring out of the window. A lot of quiet periods where things are growing, developing, and making their way into the light.

I think some people call these creative blocks, but I don't look at it like that. Calling it a block gives the blockage too much power. You focus only on what is not happening, and that is a sure bet that it won't. Instead, I look at these silent periods as fallow periods, part of the natural progression of the creative process.

To me, it is very natural, it is a kind of seasonal thing, although your fallow periods may not coincide with winter/spring/summer/fall. Mine kind of do. I think they are influenced by the mad crafting of the holiday season, the long days of summer, the get back to work time of the fall, and the... well... okay, spring is meant to be renewal and rebirth and all, but to me, so much of it is labor and letting the dark earth and cold rain do its job, while I wait for things to grow.

Hey, look. This is a picture of fields in spring. You notice that the grass is lush and green, but those fields are nowhere near harvest. They're barely even sprouting. I love when my photo/artwork sort of magically starts to fit with my ruminations of the day.

Well let me take my metaphor even farther. I don't feel very much like my fields of creativity are abundant right now. They're not, in fact. They're kind of just little germs of ideas, sprouts of inspiration. I want to be expressive and productive and bountiful in my creating, but right now, I'm just kind of picking at whatever is well formed enough to be something, even if it is not what I want.

But I am not doing nothing. I am thinking an awful lot about who I am, what I want, what I have done and learned and made in my whole life. I am tilling that soil. I am tending it. Fertilizing it with ideas that might work or things I want to try, even if they are not directly related to my long term goals. I am trying to get rid of the destructive or negative things in my life, purging things that are not useful, pulling weeds and clearing the space to allow things to grow. I am planting seeds, organizing those plans, starting work, trying different things, taking the first steps to make my creative goals come to fruition. (I just realized that you can really tell that I am the granddaughter of a farmer, even if I'm such a city girl, I learned a lot from him.)

This season in my creativity is a very frustrating one, knowing that I have to wait to get to the full fruited productivity I want. But at the same time, it feels good, itchy and antsy, but good, to know that the process has started over again, the first steps have been made, the journey has begun.

I think the most important thing about this stage of creativity, or about creativity in general, is to remember that you need to TRUST THE PROCESS. The silence is not wrong. It is a sign that something is growing underground and you need to sit back and let it. It is a sign that you need to prepare yourself for the hard work of tending and watering and harvesting. Don't resist the process, don't despair because you feel like you can't break through. Have faith that this is the way it works. Don't give up, keep working at it, keep looking for ideas, keep practicing new skills, keep organizing and planning, keep trying new things, keep being inspired by the world around you and the world inside of you. Keep showing up to the page. Trust and don't give up. This whole post is beginning to remind me of this one, from years back. But that doesn't surprise me, the lessons I need to learn keep popping up in my life.

What are some ways you've managed to break through those fallow periods and get back to creating?

Flying Girl and the Wave, or I Am a Part of It All

Flying Girl and the Waves, or I Am a Part of It All (revised)
Acrylic Paint on Moleskine, 8"x5"


This painting is actually a revision of a previous painting, done almost three years ago. I was not comfortable with the original green in all those years, I'd look at the painting and then put it away again. There was something I liked, yes, but also something that I just didn't like.

Flying Girl and the Waves, or Go With the Flow

Oh, okay. Here it is. I didn't change that much except I painted over the green with various shades of blue. And then, all of a sudden, I was not only okay with it, but I really liked it.  The problem was the color scheme, I'm sure. It was all too hot, and too close, with the yellow green and the yellow gold and the goldy brown. There wasn't enough contrast, or something.

Sometimes I takes a while for me to get a handle on what is not exactly working. Sometimes I need to take a break from whatever it is, ignore it, put it away and just not bother with it.

There's nothing wrong with failures. Isn't that an odd thought?

It's okay to fail.

Getting things wrong is good.

I'm just trying to get a handle on this concept. But how? you say. How is it okay to fail? Failure is bad, isn't it? Failure means you can't do it, you messed up, you didn't live up to expectation, you got it all wrong, oh woe is me I'm just not good enough. Right?

But here's the thing... from failures, we learn. When we make a mistake, we learn what DOESN'T work. By understanding the not-no-negative, we can discover the outline of the positive. Just like you can draw a chair by focusing on what the chair is not, the air around it, the negative space. What isn't the negative space is, ta-da! The Chair.

And here's the other thing. Just because something doesn't turn out doesn't mean it's a dead end. Once you have something to work on, you have the ability to work on it. Sometimes a blank page is much harder to tackle. I took out this old painting and I had a place to start. I fixed it up and started to love it. If you can look at something old with new eyes, if you can objectively see the good in something, and also see what fails, then you can work on making it succeed. Sometimes the distance of time allows you to see things without all your old feelings and thoughts and preconceived notions attached. You can re-vision it. You can revise it.

I am comforted by the fact that I can look back on my archive, on my history, on my past and find things that I can use today. I can learn from past mistakes and bring those lessons into the present. I can also use what I've learned in the intervening years and improve on the failures of the past. I can go back to the things that I have done and bring them back. I can do it with an old painting or I can do it with an experience. For instance, I am not teaching High School anymore, but I learned so much from the experience, and I can pull on those skills I learned, in many, many areas of my life.

Think back in your life to an experience or project or lesson that did not work out the way you expected it to, something you gave up on or put away. Are there things that you can take from that and bring into today? Are there unfinished projects that you gave up on that are ready to see the light of day again? Any trunk novels or afghan squares that need to be crocheted into a blanket?  Are there "bad" projects that you can now give a new life to? Take some time and look at your own archive, your own history. Is anything ready for your re-vision?

Self Portrait, or I Am Made of Lessons

Self Portrait, or I Am Made of Lessons

gesso, torn vintage book pages with drawings, acrylic paint, moleskine notebook

Yesterday, while dinner was cooking, after blogging and browsing pinterest and planning and organizing, I had the sudden urge to paint. And then I laid out my stuff and painted. Just painted. No fuss, no talking, no worries, no self doubt, no questions. I just painted. 

I had an idea, which bubbled up after looking at this and this, after many weeks of thinking I wanted to give some interest to my grounds, but not really knowing what to do. After many weeks of letting the desire to take up painting again simmer on the back burner while I lived my life and went on organizing my thoughts and my work space and my supplies.  

I grabbed an old moleskine notebook, and opened, not to a blank page, but to one that had already been prepped with a wash of blue.  Then I went to my collection of scrap papers and found an old Alice in Wonderland page that I'd already started to draw on but had never been satisfied with.  Then I gessoed the painted page, and I ripped up the Alice in Wonderland altered page and fixed it to the gessoed, painted page, then I gessoed that. 

And then I took a quick snapshot of my face... which is often much easier than using a mirror... and started painting, quickly, almost carelessly. First the eye, then the other eye, then the hairline swooping around to the cheekbone, jaw, the other cheekbone. Place the nose, the lips, the hair. Adjust the eyes. Add some pink, some warmer colors, shadows, hilights. Touch ups. Done.

It went so fast and so easily that I never even thought to take process photos. It was done before dinner was ready. And voila. Almost effortless. As if it came out of nowhere.  But that is an illusion. 

I'm really happy with this painting and I impressed myself with the way it came out. Paying attention to only those few minutes when I was painting makes it look like magic. Looking at the end point only, as we do so often with things that are successful, makes it seem like these accomplishments are miraculous, the gift of genius, something that is unreachable for us lowly people here on the ground.

But the truth is, I didn't just paint this in 15 minutes. The act of painting, took 15 minutes, but so much went into this painting, it was actually 40 years in the making. Without even considering my last few weeks of thought and organizing and browsing and intending and wishing, there are years of observing and practicing and failures and struggles and art classes and photography and playing and doodling and self assessing and museum going and reading and sketching and finding out what I like and color matching and collaging and journaling and so on and so on. 

Anyone who achieves at anything has been working on it for a very long thing and putting into it the result of many different lessons learned. No one starts out knowing how to be a great artist or a great anything. 

You just keep at it and you get better and better the more you are willing to fail.

I show you this one successful painting, but you do not see the pages that failed, the sketches that were covered over, the drawings hidden in folders or deep in journals from years ago. You don't see the 10 years of self portrait practice in my twenties, where I could often be found with a mirror and some drawing tools. You don't see the other pages in that same moleskine where self portraits hide because they're just not right. Actually... sometimes you do see those, because I have a tendency to show even some of my failures here on my blog, because I believe in showing the man behind the curtain of the wizardry. I believe in transparency and process. I believe it helps us to know that no one is perfect and failure and struggle is part of the process... not just of art, but also of life.

We fall down. We make mistakes. We get up and keep trying until we figure it out. Until it starts to make sense. Until we start moving forward. Until we find success.

Just like this painting, we are made of the failures and successes that came before. The stories read, the extra paint that we didn't know what to do with. The discards and the yucks. They make us what we are. Just like this painting, you almost can't see what was on the original ground. You almost can't see what was behind the painting.... but it's there.

What He Loves

Animal Bookmarks

repurposed menus, ink, yarn

94-98/100 in 100 days creative challenge

Today is my son's first show and tell. He's been shy still, in Kindergarten, and hasn't made his friends yet. I tell him to talk about the things he loves, to ask people about things that that they love. But he is still shy.

I suppose it is normal.

But when his weekly scheduled show and tell came up, I told him to pick something that he loves to share to the other kids. Maybe they will love it too.

He picked his HUGE book of animals. It barely fits in his backpack, and there are hundreds of animals in it.

I asked him which animals he wanted to show, and he picked Shark, Snake, Whale, Platypus and Fire Fly.
Indian Cobra

repurposed menu, ink, yarn

94/100 in 100

Then I realized that in that big book, he was never going to be able to find the pages to show at show and tell, and he can't read yet, so pieces of paper with words on them would be meaningless.

And being me, I thought, I have all those scrap menus. I'd already thought of making bookmarks. Why not make him some animal bookmarks so he'd know which favorite was where.

(Full disclosure. I don't love this cobra. But I didn't have time or the reference photo for something better. But I like this cobra enough for it to serve the purpose.)

Firefly

repurposed menu, ink, yarn

95/100 in 100

I really like the way they turned out.

I thought first that I might make them clip on bookmarks, but when I drew them out, I thought simplicity was best, and to just leave them uncut.

Besides, just the black and white pen is interesting, and graphic enough.
Duck Billed Platypus

repurposed menus, ink, yarn

96/100 in 100

I punched little holes and threaded color coded yarn through. (White for the white shark, blue for the whale, because there are blue whales although this is a sperm whale, green for the lightning bug because bugs are green although a lightning bug isn't, purple for the platypus because Perry from Phineas and Ferb is purple, okay he's blue, but I used blue, and pink for the snake because I didn't have black and green was used. Okay. There's no code. But go with it.)

I photographed them lined up. If you turn them over, they still say things like "cherry wood smoked salmon salad," and "chicken club sandwich" but I didn't have time or extra scraps to cut out more paper and glue it to the back to make them smooth and stronger.

If the bookmarks come back from school in decent shape, I might do this. I might print them out and make reproductions, too. That's how much I like them. Or perhaps I'll make different versions. I don't know, but I am pleased with them.

Sperm Whale

repurposed menus, ink, yarn

97/100 in 100

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say.

I had a need. I needed to fill it. I created something

Sometimes I am glad that I do not have the unlimited funds and/or freedom to just go out and buy stuff for every need.

Because of those constraints, I have learned to look around me to find something I can turn to my solution. If I was used to just buying everything when I need came up, would I even be practiced enough to make it instead? Or would my first impulse be to purchase it? So then, when I had no time for the searching or the buying, like last night, I would end up just using the library bookmarks and the strips of paper.

And honestly, they would have served the purpose just as well.
White Shark

repurposed menus, ink, yarn

98/100 in 100

But these are special.

I think it goes back to my last post, about bliss.

It also goes back to my advice to my son, about finding something he loves and sharing that with his new classmates.

It's all about the love. It's about following your loves, your bliss. It's about trusting that those loves are lovely. It's about trusting that YOU are lovely, and that other people will love you, too.

Do what you love. Create what you love. Share what you love. Love those you share it with enough put care into it. Love yourself enough to accept your flaws. Love what you've got. Love where you are. Love who you are. It's not just about romantic love or familial love, but all types of love, and is both the hardest and the easiest thing you can ever do. But this is where bliss comes from.

Love. Love. Love.

I guess John Lennon was right.

Dream Roll, Sully's Black Irish Public House

Dream Roll, Sully's Black Irish Public House

Acrylic Paint, Gesso, on Found Wood approx 11.5" by 19"

68/100 in 100 days Creative Challenge, day 20 August everyday

I have been very resistant. I don't WANT to post every day. I don't WANT to be creative everyday. I want to be a big baby and do nothing. Maybe surf the web all day. Pooh.

But that isn't what I want in the long run.

In the long run, what I want is to reach my dreams, to create, to be happy, to raise strong happy kids, to enjoy my life.

So basically I have to suck it up and keep going, even though sometimes my eventual dreams, the destination I am aiming for, seems to be so far away and hard to grasp as an actuality.

I made this Dream Roll for S, like the bus rolls you've seen around here and there, one that says the stops and destination of the bus route. But the dream roll is not about a bus route, but the route we take to reach our dreams. He's decided he'd like to open up a pub some day. It doesn't seem like it is in the cards for the near future, but I made this remind him of the destination of HIS dream. I wrote down some of the places he's been, a reminder that where we've been gets us to where we're going. And then I wrote the dream, the final destination.

Does writing something down, declaring it for yourself as a reality make it more likely that it will become a reality? Does it help you focus on your dreams? Does it draw your dreams to you?

The Painted Lady, or You Have Something To Give

The Painted Lady, or You Have Something To Give

Acrylic paint and watercolor pencils on paper

8 1/2" x 8 1/2"

This is a painting that I did a while ago. I forgot to post it. Ooops. I posted a sneak peek once and then I think I got caught up in the drama of packing and moving and just forgot. It was posted over here at Magpie Girl, and then I just plum forgot.

So here she is.

She seems so gentle to me, although usually, a tatooed girl would be seen as tough or strange or counterculture.

But maybe not posting her was okay. I've finally gotten prints of her up in my shop, along with some older work, and some even newer, never seen before, work that you have to go over there to see. Oh, how sneaky of me.

Not only that, but the extra day gives me time to get my butterfly tutorial together. Stay tuned.

Dream. Work In Progress.

Dream Head. Work in progress.

I have been experimenting in Paperclay for a couple of weeks now.

I don't know what I am doing.

There is a place in not knowing that allows for deeper things to come through.

After practicing with the simpler shapes, the houses, the pears, the birdies, the hearts, I felt the urge to push myself. To try for something that I didn't know how to do. That I wasn't sure I was up to.

Last night I sat with a ball of paper clay and decided I wanted to try to make a doll head. It was hard. I worked on the features, the nose, the lips. I mashed them down and started again, feeling that it wasn't right, it wasn't the feeling I wanted, it didn't look the way I wanted it to. I pushed and pulled and smoothed and pinched and used my tiny tools (bobby pin, nail, push pin, x-acto knife, fingers) to bring it into a semblance of a face. Then I tried for the ears, and they were all wrong, messing up what I had done before. Gosh darn it, I realized the entire head was too small for the face, and I would have to add on hair or more clay or something to enlarge it so it didn't look like a pin head.

And then I realized.

Why do I have to do what is expected? Why do I have to create a doll head that looked like a regular doll head, or even a person at all. And then I realized... I don't really create what is in real life. I like to draw what I see, it's fun. It's journalistic, but more than journaling my life or reality, I love exploring the internal reality much more.

So my doll head became a dream head. Something not quite right, not quite real. Something that is reminiscent of reality, but also conjures up a dream, a fairy tale, the subconscious.

Yes. I went away from reality. I went away from the expected, the routine.

I took a chance on something meaningful, something that risks failure.

I found something important.

I don't know what it is yet... but it's coming.

Have you ever reached your edge of knowing?

Do you pull back and keep yourself safe?

Or do you jump and see what happens? (Gosh, that question is the exact description for my very first Flying Girl painting, which I did right before I graduated from college.)

Ode to A Journal

I always talk about creativity and creating, art and crafts, the process of being creative, the struggles of being creative... but I realized yesterday that one of the things I don't talk about much is something that has been with me, in my process, almost as long as I have been creating.

My journal.

Maybe the reason why I haven't written much about the joys of journaling is because since getting seriously involved with my blog, much of my journaling energy has been diverted to this space here.

But it's not the same. Not at all.

Blogs are great for sharing your life and your projects, for developing your voice, for discussing important things, for learning how to show up to your writing every day, but a journal... ah, a journal is a friend.

I started keeping a journal in Junior High School, when I was about 13. Except for one break, after my brother found my diary and read it, I have been writing in journals since then. Almost 27 years. I have about 60 journals. They are in storage now, like Anais Nin's journals, although not nearly so racy, and not quite so neurotic, I hope.

My journal has taught me so much, given me so much, provided a great service to me as a person and an artist.

What have I gained? I'd like to share an incomplete list.

Someone to talk to when I had no one to talk with.
Documentation of my past and my past self when I don't have the greatest memory.
A place to explore new thoughts and deepen my understanding of the world.
A place to share secrets that I was not ready to release into the world.
A place to practice new skills and goals.
Something to do when I had nothing to do.
Company for when I was wandering out on my own.
A place to document adventures.
A place to explore my expanding concept of the world.
A place to play and joke and say silly things.
A place to be irreverent without offending anyone.
A spot to collect ephemera, like movie tickets, flower pressings, old notes.
A place for sketches of life as it goes by.
A place for trying out new ideas before they flit away.
A place to hold conversations between me and my fictional characters.
A place to hide my poetry that I don't want to show anyone.
A place to rehearse difficult conversations that I am not ready to have yet, with real people.
A way to get up my bravery.
A place to obsess about things without annoying real people.
A place to obsess about my imperfections, fears, upsets and pains, before finally letting go of them because I am sick and tired of obsessing.
A place to plan my day.
A place to plan my goals.
A place to dream of my life.
A place to vent because sometimes people in real life are really fucking annoying.
A place to curse without offending people. (sorry)
A place to remember who I am and where I come from.
A place to be inspired.
A place to focus on being positive.
A place to write down notes from books, movies, magazines, tarot, menus, or what have you.
A place to write dreams, which I always forget.
A place to write schedules, notes, phone numbers, addresses, and all sorts of things I don't want to lose.
A place to write good inspiring quotes that I find.
A place to list books I want to read or music I want to explore, or places I want to go.
A place to write down baby names, years before I had any babies at all. Pretty sure I didn't choose any of those names, but who cares.
A place to get the thoughts out and away. So I don't have to obsess about them and can do better things.
A place to write novels.
A place to write poetry.
A place to sketch out future paintings.
A place to paint small paintings, lowering the stakes and with out freaking myself out about being a "painter".
A place to explore different artistic media, like acrylics, gel pens, pastels, crayons, white out, tape, or whatever is on hand.
A place to find spare pieces of paper that I can tear out if I need to.
A place to recover from heart break.
A place to write random words when organized words are too hard.
A thing to share with very special others, to help them, or to connect, or just because.
A thing that makes a warm summer morning on the fire escape with a cup of coffee feel like a vacation.
An accessory that fits in right along with garden cafes, Greenwich Village, a single girl, and possibly a beret.
Something to do, wherever I go, whenever I go there.
A time passer on the subway or waiting in line.
A place to create collages.
A place to sketch out city scenes.
A place to explore the inner landscape.
A place to write notes and pass them to other people during boring meetings.
A doodle pad for meetings, classes or phone calls.
A planner for creating books, classes, workshops, projects, moves, and all sorts of large projects.
A thing to go back over, every year, to look at who I was, where I am from and how far I have come.
A habit, a compulsion, a task, an obsession, a defining trait.
An unshakable writing habit.
A place where I could learn to turn off my internal editor and just write.
A place to practice writing well and writing fast.
A place to keep my nervous fingers busy.
A place and time to breathe deeply, metaphorically and literally.
A thing that has helped me become a writer.

I could go on and on. My journal has also helped me to be a prolific writer, you see... but I thought that I'd stop and ask you guys to share what you have gained from your journal.

What have you gained from your Journal?

Cardboard Pirate Sword Tutorial, or The Hero of Your Own Story

I have so much to say today, so many ideas about art and life and being a woman and owning our own stories, I'm afraid I may get a little bit long winded. And these thoughts are all wrapped around the context of this little boy, and his desire to have a Pirate Penny Carnival. Now I don't know if that Pirate Penny Carnival is going to be the extravaganza he imagines (one that will make him money, too, he thinks). It might be closer to a barbecue with a cardboard pirate ship, costumes, a hideout and a treasure hunt.... but I'm pretty sure he will still be happy with it.

That's a cardboard sword in his hand, and it is only one in the myriad projects we have planned for his Pirate Penny Carnival, and I will sort of give you a tutorial on making your own really sturdy cardboard pirate sword.
(Trace on a piece of cardboard TWO matching sword shapes. Cut them out with scissors. Trace and cut out also TWO long narrow semi pointed cardboard shapes to act as braces along the sides of the sword, from the hilt to about 4/5ths up the blade of the sword.)


How did this sword come into being?

He asked. He told me what he wanted in his life, and he told me again and again until I did something about it to make it happen.


(Glue the two matching sword cutouts together. I used acrylic gel medium, but I'm sure white glue would work, too. Then glue the narrow brace pieces to either side of the sword blades. These will keep the sword from flopping too easily. Clip the pieces together or weight down so that the glue can dry. Let dry. There should be FOUR layers of cardboard glued together.)

I want to learn a lesson from this. If there are things I want in my life (like to be a writer and an artist) then I have to declare to the world that this is my intention. I have to enlist the people around me in my goals. I have to say, "dear S, I need to have two hours, without children, every day in which I can revise the third draft of my novel, so I can send it out to agents and become the published author I have always dreamed of being."

The truth is I may not get everything I want. Perhaps I will only get those two hours every other day, or only one hour. Or two days a week completely to myself to work. I don't know... but I do know one thing, I won't get anything if I don't ask.


(Once the glue is dry, take a roll of duct tape and carefully and slowly wrap the sword, starting at the point. Try to keep the tape straight to avoid wrinkles and bumps. Smooth as you go.)

I think it is particularly hard for women to ask for things, especially when they are mothers, but not always. A long time ago, I decided to give up the "selfish" dream of being a novelist/poet/artist in order to become a teacher. Now, I also wanted to be a teacher and help kids, but I really wanted to be a writer and artist. But I thought it was selfish, and perhaps a little (a lot) scary.

I was only in grad school for teaching for a couple days when I realized that writing, the arts, literature and all that were absolutely not selfish things, but by then I was off on a passionate adventure in teaching.

And while I was teaching, I learned the power that art (and music, and theater, and literature, and poetry, and dance) had to save. Truly. Salvation. Kids with no motivation were lit on fire by poetry. Children who thought they were incapable of anything became artists, and interested in school. Girls who were afraid of their own beings began to believe in themselves. Boys who had never had a voice learned to speak.


(When you get to the hilt and cross pieces, cut angles in the tape so that you can fold it around the edges without wrinkles and bumps. You can also cut angles at the end of the hilt and cross pieces, so that the tape can go around those edges without bumps. Try to makes sure no cardboard is visible, for strength and water resistance. Because Pirate Swords must face the high seas.)


But flash forward another eight years, and here I am feeling guilty about taking time out of the busy life of a mom, taking care of kids, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, family obligations, work, sleep, in order to take care of my art. Feeling like, unless it was earning a living, my art was an indulgence and, yes, selfish.

Maybe in a way, taking time away from taking care of others is selfish. But maybe women aren't selfish enough in the right kinds of ways.

Maybe this kind of selfishness is about finding a center within ourselves, understanding who we are, and honoring ourselves. Maybe this kind of time taken for ourselves is about finding possibilities and hope in the world. Maybe it's about showing ourselves and our kids that we can create the world that we want to live in, and be the person that we want to be.

(Here is the sword. You can see there are indeed lumps and wrinkles. You can smooth some more tape over it longwise if you'd like to gentle the tape edges. It is surprisingly heavy and sturdy. WARNING: If you have two kids, you must make two swords, or there will be fights over who gets to play with the sword and the sword will have to live on the top of the refrigerator until it gets a mate.)


Like a Pirate. In a Pirate's Penny Carnival.

Or the hero in our own story.

This Is Where Love Resides, or Flying Girl Blessing in the Branches

This Is Where Love Resides, or Flying Girl Blessing in the Branches
cotton, felt, embroidery floss, polyfill, beads, paper, acrylic paint, acrylic gel medium

Here she is. This is the finished sneak peak I showed you yesterday.

She is a stuffed flying girl, a mobile, I suppose.
This is Where Love Resides, or Flying Girl Blessings in the Branches

Here is the whole of her, from the top of her cotton thread, to the felt birdie, to the million times worked on girl to the paper banner that was not changed from the original.
Here is the original. Well one side of her, because I didn't like her very much and she wouldn't fly straight, having wonky fiber fill and arms that kept flopping and bending. The other side was embroidered with branches in silver and black and appliqued with a felt heart and leaf. So you see... I kept the inspiration in the piece, I just painted over everything else.

First of all I didn't like the color. It just didn't feel right to me. Second of all, there were problems with the sewing. It was at this point that I gave up making the tiny dolls out of cotton and just went to straight felt, where I didn't have to turn delicate arms and get that head caught in the spindly neck. SOOO frustrating. Oh yeah, and did I mention the wonky not flying straight and floppy arms? Ugh.

However, I still had this Flying Girl, and there was something about her I liked, not to mention all the work I put into her. And I did want to try painting on fabric, if you remember.

So one day I just stopped stalling and took out the long neglected paints and gave it a shot.

I was surprised to find that this project felt very familiar. Painting the doll wasn't that different from painting on paper, honestly. Yes it's three dimensional, but I found myself doing the same techniques on fabric as I do on paper. I guess when you find something that feels right, it keeps popping up. Like the layering of colors. I find I am layering colors whether it's felt or paint.

After layering the blues and whites and creams, and adding the branches, shifting the colors around a bit, I finally felt satisfied.

I think this experimentation of mine might lead somewhere.

This is why I love taking something old and turning it into something new and unknown. Your stakes are low, because the original wasn't what you wanted, but the payouts are potentially limitless.

What are some things that you have given up on that you could take up anew? Look at them without all the attachment and create something potentially awesome.

Yearning For Spring... Like for real, with green stuff, not just on the calendar

Today on Design*Sponge, amy m writes about plant propagation, and about being an apartment dweller who gets her garden jones in with her window sill plants.

When I was growing up in Morningside Heights in New York City, my mother was a transplanted farm girl who got her greenery with whatever would grow in little plants in her sunny bedroom windows.

We weren't rich, so these were all propagated from cuttings, or seeds (each of us kids had our own avocado tree grown from dinner's leftovers). They were planted in coffee cans and milk jugs. The curtains that covered these sunny windows were nothing but white cotton sheets hung on rods... but you know what? There is something about the sun shining through the translucent cotton, with shadows of green leaves behind it that still makes me feel at ease and alive.

Right now, I'm living life in a rather gypsy like manner, so I haven't got any house plants really. I like to keep my houseplants for a long time. Let them grow, get to know them, so I haven't risked getting any started. I miss houseplants. I miss green things in general. I even named my daughter Ivy, interestingly. I will probably start collecting ivy plants soon. I had one, a welcoming gift from my college for years. I wonder what happened to that plant? Did I kill it or give it to a friend?

I've been watching the tree outside of my living room window bud red leaves. I'm just waiting for the chlorophyll to kick in.

Gosh I wish Spring would go ahead and sprung already.
Well, until then, perhaps I can make some plants out of fabric, felt and embroidery. (Gosh aren't those cute embroidery scissors?) Here is Geninne, and one of her beautiful birds. Interestingly, just yesterday, my daughter said that her Barbie doll (I know. Barbies. What kind of feminist am I?) needed a book and that I should make one for her. Here I am, working with felt and embroidery. I don't know why I didn't think of making a little book out of that? I wanted also to give a shout out to Geninne for pointing me to a tutorial on doing the chain stitch... because my grandma taught me how when I was seven, but I'd forgotten, and had been trying to fake it... er... recreate it from my head. Thanks Geninne.

I Have Been Enchanted

Enchanted by this sweet little etsy shop. Sweetbestiary and her darling dolls, puppets, masks... whatever exactly it is that they are. I couldn't turn away from her shop. No I couldn't, even a favoriting left me feeling like it would be too far away from me in the breadth of the wide internet sea. So I thought I would post some of her little creatures here. So they could be nearer to me.

Then I went to her blog and continued to be enchanted. Her name is Flor and she's from Argentina but lives in London. She's starting over with her art after many lifetimes, well 20 years according to her, but I know how that feels like a lifetime. Her blog is new, her shop is new. Her art is new. And she writes in both Spanish and English, so I can practice my pitiful Spanish.
This Deer Boy is so charming. I love the stag antler boy/man thing. I once made a sculpture out of a found box and sculpee and a photo I took. He was an antler/god man thing and I gave him away as a present. But I still think about him.
These lovers are sold out already. But I couldn't help but post them here. I love the way they are looking at each other. And I love the box they are living in. Reminds me of the assemblages I used to make out of boxes, like the antler/god man I talked about above. Or a broken music box that turned into a meditation on the journey to love.

I miss doing stuff like that.

I guess with how this little shop has just swept me away, maybe I need to follow that feeling, back to something I used to do, on to something just a bit new. I'm enjoying the felt constructions I'm doing now (still must post these) but I miss the sculpting/shaping aspect of clay or papier mache.

I'm trying to gear myself up to do some papier mache, I think. How coincidental that the front page of etsy would have this little papier mache doll/creature shop.

Isn't it interesting to see how inspiration works, how it weaves back and forth between the past and wishes and chance and old loves. I love the burbling feeling of brewing inspiration.

What's inspiring you lately?

Lost In The Wild, or Do You Trust Yourself Enough?

Lost in the Wild Flying Girl Brooch Set
wool and polyester felt, thread, acrylic paint, pin backings
(that black one is lizard patterned. Funky.)


I have lots older stuff to show you, but I've been completely taken away by this new project of mine. I'm making felt pins!

I've been cutting out silhouettes, painting, embroidering, appliqueing, sewing, stitching, arranging. It's been lots of fun. I have a bunch of this beautiful gray wool felt, and have been spicing it up with the brighter colors of regular felt.

I've been playing with embroidery, which I really haven't done since my seamstress grandma taught me back when I was seven.

(As a little side story, after my sister and I moved into our apartment on Elizabeth Street in Nolita in 1994, an incredibly "hip" New York neighborhood, my grandmother came to visit us and told us that the sweat shop she sewed in all day was right across the street. And thus does a grimy, industrial and ghetto neighborhood become chi chi.)

I do not know where I am going with these little pins, although I have already branched out into more images and brighter colors, but I am doing them because I am having fun. I like putting the colors together. I like arranging the pins into little stories. I like that each pin I make, I like better than the last. I like that my sewing and embroidering is getting better with each one. I like the way each pin is at least three layers of felt, and you can see just a hint of color of the inside layer. Just like my paintings, interestingly.

I am planning to put these pins up in my etsy shop, but I haven't figured out the details yet. Gosh. I have so many things to list, but no time/focus to do it. Someday, I will just have half a million new works up, over night.

Now... all I need is the etsy fairy to come and put it all together for me.

Ah, well.

As I said, I am enjoying them, but I have no idea if anyone else will. I have no idea what will come of them. Maybe I'll move off into other kinds of jewelry... rings, necklaces. OH MY GOD now I want a felt cuff. I can't stop coming up with ideas here. So I'm just going to go with it, even if it might not lead anywhere at all.

I believe that if you follow your heart, and face your dreams bravely and honestly, you can't really go wrong. Even if something doesn't work out... well, you gain so much knowledge, wisdom and understanding from failure that you still end up ahead of the game.

So, now I'm asking you... where does your heart tell you to go, even if your brain is afraid it's a bad idea? If you think honestly about what would happen if you failed at that goal, is it really all that bad? Would you be able to pick yourself up and dust yourself off if your heart-goal collapsed? Do you think you are strong enough, resilient enough, brave enough to aim for what you really want, and possibly fail?

I think the real question here is, "Do you trust yourself enough to follow your heart?"

Back to School and A Little Spacey

The set of Space Toys I created for G for Christmas: Rocket, Astronaut, two robot finger puppets, Alien and Spaceship (the alien comes out) and a Laser Shooter.
Made out of felt and cotton fabric.

Last night, I dreamed I was back in college again. Yes attending college, not as a 19 year old, but as a 39 year old. S and the kids were with me, even.

All morning, I was wondering why I have these recurring dreams of being back in college, attending way after I have my bachelors and even after my masters. I have these dreams often enough that when I'm sleepy or perhaps have a little head cold (like today) sometimes I get confused and think I've actually spent an extra year or two in college, as an adult and a student.

It's bizarre.

And then after some wondering and despite the head cold that clouds my brain, I realized (there's that word again) that perhaps I have these dreams when I am embarking on a new lesson to learn. When I am engaged in learning new skills, opening up new worlds, researching new steps... basically growing.

In order to realize my dreams, I am going to need to expand my education.

Just because it won't be on a traditional campus does not mean it won't be an education.

Ah, life, the ultimate teacher.

Does this mean life is going to hand me a syllabus to follow? I wouldn't mind, it would help me to know which way to go... oh wait... that is exactly what my little Realize Journal is attempting to do.

See, now, you can take the girl out of the Federation of Teachers, but you can't take the Teacher out of the girl.

Flying Girl Jumps Into The Night, or "Oh, You Foolish Alice. How Can You Learn Lessons In Here?"

Flying Girls Jumps into the Night, or "Oh, you foolish Alice. How can you learn lessons in here?"
pencil, ink and acrylic paint on vintage book page
11/18/09

I dug out my old Alice In Wonderland book that I started altering years ago and put away as other things took over. This page fell out of it.

I thought, boy, I like that quote from Alice talking to herself.

And I thought, you can't stay safe and protected and confined and still learn the lessons you need to learn.

In order to grow, you need to take risks. You need to not always be so safe. You need to go on adventures. You need to have your equilibrium knocked around a bit.

Yes? Maybe.

All I know is that I want something out of my life, and if I were to continue with the comfort and ease of my old patterns, I won't get it.

Ease is not how we find success, I don't think. Struggle is. Because struggle makes us stronger. Struggle teaches us new skills and makes us try new things, and take chances.

I keep hoping that I can have a couple of hours kid free to do my writing. I keep wishing that I could just write for more than ten minutes without interruption.

I never can, and I get frustrated and angry every time I have to take care of a tantrum or a potty accident or yet another snack or a little girl getting into the baby shampoo and doing a little hairsalon on the bathroom bench. Yes. Every single one of those happened while I was trying to get my word count done in my novel for the day.

But here's the thing I'm learning here. There is no perfect writing day for me. Not right now. Not in this place at this time. There is no perfection at all, and yet, I am still getting my words in. Almost every day, interruptions or not, tantrums, accidents, holy messes, my own upsets and anger and depressions... none of it has stopped me.

I keep going.

10 years ago, I would have thought it would be impossible to write at all in these circumstances. 15 years ago, with my carefully cultivated uninterrupted all morning long daily writing sessions in my study with my door closed and complete focus, I managed a regular 3 pages a day and never thought that I could do anything better than that. Now I look back on that in amazement. With that much time to myself, I feel like I could write 20 pages a day!

Something about my life right now, and all its interruptions and all it's responsibilities and upheavals, and all it's focus on being a mom and a caretaker it's made me some thing much stronger.

What? I don't know.

But it happened because I dove in, despite the mess of it all. Maybe because of the mess. Because I took my mess and created the life.


Don't let the mess stop you.