05/04/2011
T'aint always a bowl of cherries...
“Self images that contain unlivable ideals not only produce guilt,
they make it nigh impossible to see yourself clearly.”
Joel Kramer
How's that for a grumpy look?
Well a few weeks ago I had a monumental bad mood,
grey cloud - kick the dog (never!) kinda day.
And I wondered - what do I look like MAD? What do other people see when I am ANGRY?
So, um...that's what I look like! Kinda scary really. Gave me pause.
I had no idea how much my face gives away - I mean, I thought I had it pretty bottled up - even though I had decided to let it all hang out for the photo.
If that sounds like a contradiction - welcome.
Yeah...
Welcome! Welcome to the world of shadow & persona.
Welcome to the world of unlivable ideals.
What we show and what we hide. What is no longer clear.
I was already steamin in my own cranky juices when I took the "Welcome" photo above - but I needed a happy looking photo for the workshop at 21 Secrets.
We need those faces. We just do. They have their place.
But how good it felt to sit in front of the camera - and really let it show - how I was truly feeling.
And then live with it for awhile.
Not try to wipe it away, sweep it under the carpet or
put lipstick on it.
It's real.
We get angry. We have bad days.
Women are taught to be nice.
Can you be nice and really angry? Without feeling guilty or self indulgent?
Well I went for the full on nicely angry. Cathartic. No wallowing. Just out there.
In creating The Self Portrait Experience, I am learning to see clearly.
And I'm not so darn mad anymore! (just an aside, the dog is fine, really)
Thank you to all of the brave women who, with me, are working
with their own self portrait experience!
I am in awe of your creativity, art work and honesty! You inspire me!
04/01/2011
Better duck Medusa!
I'd like you to meet my friend, Rubin. He's my art teacher.
He gives daily intensives on the art of life.
All for the price of an apple and some oats.
But he'd do it for free too, because that's his nature.
Ever just struggle against something like crazy and then wake up one day to find, whatever it was you were resisting, doesn't really matter anymore?
Sometimes I get to this place when I am creating. It happens in my art journals.
It also happens when I ride.
Today, on the back of Rubin,
I woke up and realized that I am right where I want to be.
Sometimes living as an expat is like living a double life - you may not be completely at home in your adopted country,
nor entirely home when you go back to where you came from.
But today, in the sunshine, on the track - all resistance left my body and together we flew.
I was reminded of Pegasus.
Born from the body of Medusa, a monster whose gaze would turn all who saw it instantly into stone, Pegasus sprang from the blood in her neck as Perseus cut off her head.
Pegasus's mythical gifts are inspiration and creativity. Using his glossy shield to see Medusa's reflection without looking her directly in the eyes,
Perseus beheaded the monster and released creativity.
Mythically, this describes my own creative process with self portraits.
Facing resistance and fears, facing myself, is like facing Medusa - often looking them straight in the eye turns me to stone.
But in creating self portraits, using art as a way of reflecting,
I can behead them and release all the inspiration
and creativity I need to live an artful life.
There's something else!
DOORS OPEN on 21 Secrets today!
I am so lucky to be a part of this amazing group of women - the workshops are really incredible and so unique.
There's nothing like it! Can't wait to meet the students today!!!
03/31/2011
The still point...
A lot of change all around us, around me. Today I lay my head down for a beat or two...to find the still point.
The place of timelessness and restoration, before the next shift and change.
A form of prayer I want to share with you.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.
Excerpt from T.S Eliot's The Four Quartets
You can read the rest here.
03/15/2011
The Self Portrait Experience
Vincent Van Gogh felt that he could more clearly express what he felt in his self portrait, than he could in a letter.
When I’m stuck in a rut or struggling with conflicting emotions - like Vincent, I create a self portrait as a way of checking in with what I really feel - because I can see it on my face.
In the self portrait we are author, subject and spectator.
The dynamics of seeing from these three perspectives invites a deeper self awareness as we experience and sift through layers of identity, memory and emotion.
Our history is in our body, in our eyes. Self portraiture can give us distance from critical judgements and the painful self image we may see in the mirror. The distance we have as subject and spectator invites clarity about what is below the surface and how it is expressed on our faces. The self portrait opens us to dialogue and curiosity and a new perspective on who we are.
I find myself sometimes leaning in and wondering - have we met?
$59 (less than what some of these artists can charge for only ONE of their classes!), downloadable PDF's, videos galore, 5 months to work at your own pace... GO! Sign Up!! Classes begin April 1st.
Join me and the 20 artists below by just click the button above -- this will direct you to dirty footprints studio, where your transaction will be smooth and secure!
Here are the 20 other artists - check out what they are teaching!
Aimee Myers Dolich of Artsyville (Three Little Words)
Alma Stoller of Alma Stoller (Childs Play Workshop)
Connie Hozvicka of Dirty Footprints™ Studio (Abstract Adventure)
Debra Cooper of A Little Imagination & A Pile Of Junk (Playing with Patterns)
Erin Kenepp of Erin Kenepp Mixed Media Art (Becoming Brave)
Goddess Leonie of Goddess Guidebook (Connecting With The Goddess Inside You...)
Gretchen Miller of Gretchen Miller (Ready for Revo'lution)
Heather Plett of Sophia Leadership (Body Art Journaling)
Ingrid Murray of My Peacetree (Beautiful You, Radiant You)
Jane Davenport of Jane Davenport (Drawing Happy)
Jeniffer Hutchins of Joyful Arts Studio (Emotional Evolution)
Kelley Brown of Art Journaling As A Creative Process (Adding Dimension)
Lisa Dieken of Wild Creative Heart (The Fragrant Art Journal)
Lisa Wilson of Life Unity (YOGA+ART:Journaling Into Awareness)
Natasha Reilly of Creative Nachos (Improvisation Station)
Rachel Whetzel of A Year In The Life Of An Art Journal (Silent Messages: How Saying Nothing Can Say It All....)
Silky Hart of Expressive Hart (Paint Writing)
Tamara Laporte of Willowing (Collage, Paint, and Soul)
Tammy Garcia of Daisy Yellow (Creative Grungification)
Violette Clark of Violette’s Creative Juice (Me and My Shadow)
03/03/2011
21 Secrets...
I was going to list 21 Secrets...we all have them...and I most certainly have 21...but it started to get a little... repetitive.
Good to see a pattern I guess. But would make a boring post!
So here's my top 5 blog proof secrets.
(in fine print)
It was me, I stole the box of chocolates off of Mrs. Clark's desk...
I've eaten a worm...once was enough
I'm scared of getting old
I stepped on the back of my strapless graduation dress...and was called "tits" for the rest of the year
I'd like to read the classics, but I'm too lazy
One of my favorite sites is PostSecret.
An ongoing community art project, people use art to anonymously
express and reveal secrets that burden them.
I love the creative way
truths are expressed and released.
All of our complex humanity is present, nothing is hidden away.
I have been hidden away over the past few days,
creating a workshop for the 21 Secrets art journal workshop
sponsored by Dirty Footprints Studio!
More details including all 21 workshop descriptions will be available soon!
Registration will begin March 14, 2011 and the workshops will be available April 1, 2011 - August 1, 2011...the cost? Just $59 for all 21 Secrets art journaling classes which include videos and pdf files. Sign up for the Dirty Footprints Studio Newsletter and Facebook page to keep updated on all 21 Secrets news!
02/22/2011
I can't find my lipstick...
I can't find my lipstick...
I've always had conflicted feelings about how I look.
How much I weigh, how my hair is, etc..
I never wanted anyone to know I was fussed about it, but secretly I was.
And like many of us, I learned to fake it on the outside, when I felt like crap on the inside. Something I got so good at, I lost touch.
Courtesy of 1000 Artworks to see before you die...read more here.
Self portraits grab me. Painting them teaches me.
I'm captivated by the look in those eyes.
Something quite intense happens in the eyes of a self portrait.
A longing for connection, to be seen.
The artist is looking so intensely at us, outward it seems.
An illusion, because what the artist is really looking at
is a reflection, intensely inward.
This play with the inside and outside self captivates as
we recognize the game.
There is also an element of intimacy as we look into the eyes.
Are we seeing the artist's soul?
All the while, we are aware that self portraiture is also performance.
What is the artist hiding or exaggerating?
I found myself reaching for the lipstick before taking photos today.
Something, I rarely do. Unless I am going out.
I see my face aging and know I can't stop time's dutiful march.
I don't really want to. I like the grey, I like the wrinkles.
Yet I do feel a little loss when I think of the years that I could not look myself
lovingly in the eye when I was younger.
I am learning to now though, through the art of self portraiture.
02/14/2011
Love for poetry
Valentines Day...
A day where many people cherish passionate and romantic connections...
while others feel even more isolated.
Thinking of this, I wondered what passionate or romantic connections do I have outside my relationships - inside myself?
Poetry
Poetry is the place I go for rest, restoration, reflection. To look for answers. To find I am not alone. To find passion and longing. To find depth and humanity. To find humility and humor. To SEE myself.
In school, poetry was stupid. Riddles. Metaphor didn't seep in too deep back then. Today I realize what was really going on.
I was scared of feeling stupid, of looking stupid, of not getting it.
So I dismissed it.
A defense mechanism I am much more aware of today!
A few years ago, a wonderful teacher re-introduced me to poetry. The focus of the class was to wallow in the images poetry brought forth,
rather than make a grade with analysis or critique.
No pressure to UNDERSTAND the poem - my imagination was set free!
Intellect took a coffee break. Bliss!
I invite you to step into poetry, to play with it. Take a poem that confounds you, or that you love and using WORDLE create a word cloud like the one I created
based on several of Rumi's love poems.
Passion catches you. You are drawn to it, but you are also caught by it.
It can free you, and it can shackle you.
For me, the poet Rumi captures this tension beautifully - and so does this word cloud! And there is tension - the tension between following what you love and obligations in the outside world.
Right now my daughter is starving on the sofa,
near death I believe (she's a teen) - as I follow my need to create this blog! I need to be attentive to my creative passion, she needs to get off the sofa and make something herself. Tension. : )
What do you love? What inner passions call to you?
What tensions arise when you follow them?
Here's another way you can play with what you love!
Sharing ART JOURNAL LOVE!
Connie at Dirty Footprints Studio is always up to something!
Celebrating with her, are some amazing artists who've donated all kinds of prizes - from art work, to journals to workshops!
To celebrate with her
I've donated a pack of ephemera LOVE that you can win!
Ahuh...the Swiss Sweet Heart Pack! Full of vintage originals and chocolate!
Click on the ART Journal Love Button
to find out how to play along!
02/09/2011
Decaffeinated...
Really dipped into my journal today. Reveal, conceal, uncover, discover.
Sometimes painful, always a lesson in awe. Creating restores me.
Things have been a bit hectic - this is my wish.
Presence.
Where I feel at ease, quiet, decaffeinated.
Casting that wish artfully, soothes me.
The colors inspire me. Presence arrives.
I can see more clearly.
And I don't
want to "chuck a wobbly" quite so bad
any more ( for today).
02/06/2011
Deep thoughts...
Dookie and I were hitting the books this afternoon.
You can see what happens to Dookie when he reads too much.
Duke, as he is more formally known (only in his dreams)
is what the Swiss here would call a Lebenskünstler
which means in English
a master of the art of living
(at the moment he is the master of sun spot napping)
Imagine
making art with your life
as your medium
Danny Gregory writes in his book Creative Licence (the one Dookie is napping with)
"We are in the middle of an enormous renaissance of creativity. Look around you. People are taking digital pictures. They're recording they're own songs. They're shooting, editing, scoring movies. They're scanning artwork. They're writing essays. They're sharing stories and recipes and patterns and ideas. They're supporting each other, inspiring each other, feeding and cheering and promoting each other."
I felt a jolt of excitement when I read this. Creativity is essential to me. Access and expression of my creativity keeps me healthy and happy.
The sun was shining and all this got to me
and a wave of hope for humanity took me for a ride.
Sure, there's the dark side to the internet.
But the sense of community, inspiration, sharing of experience and support amongst artists online has inspired me, taught me, given me access to friendships, ideas, techniques, skills and materials I would not have had only a few years ago.
And because of it...there are ripples in my life away from the computer.
I am making art with a community of artists.
I bring these experiences into my daily life
As a stronger sense of my own resources and strengths
With slightly more patience and flexibility (no point in exagerating)
as I LOVE what I do.
I share what I learn with those who come to paint with me in my studio.
I share my studio with my daughter.
I feel closer to making art with my life.
How has the internet influenced your creativity?
When did I start to look like my dog...he's 10 now.
I know when he was a puppy, there was no resemblence...
01/31/2011
Guess what? I got a secret...
actually...I got 21 Secrets!
Connie over at Dirty Footprints Studio is leading the way.
So you see...I took this amazing online painting workshop one day
...and before I knew it...
my world cracked OPEN!
I met Connie - an inspirational teacher and her tribe of FEARLESS artists
and got rolling.
And now we are playing in the sand box together!
Teaching the 21 Secrets online workshop!
Turn on the color - that's what I'm talking about.
(You know to click on this icon, right? It'll take you to Connie's fabulous place)
21 Secrets is a collaboration between 21 amazing artists
bringing you 21 techniques, creative styles, approaches to art journalling
online instruction with video, pdf files and online discussions
go at your own pace, share and discuss your work with a creative community
as it suits your schedule
Art journalling is collage, doodling, painting (often with your fingers!)
journalling and playing around
Way more fun than watching TV! : )
21 Secrets goes on sale on March 14 and virtual door opens on April 1st (that's no joke!)
Whether you are a beginner or advanced,
there will be plenty of creativity, challenge and support for you!
I am really excited to share this with you. Check back for updates.
