Flow me to the moon

Many artists talk about the idea of Flow.  It is often described as the experience where you are totally lost in what you are doing, to the point that you forget to eat, pee, etc.  And during this process, creating art is blissful, euphoric.  We have all been there; you lose track of time, the paint moves as if by magic, you look up and suddenly there is a work in front of you and you are unsure how it even happened.  For me, Flow is a drug that I want more and more.  I wish there was a switch I could flip so I were in Flow instantly.

Years ago, as I contemplated this idea of Flow, I became interested in the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi(brilliant psychologist!).  I bought his book Flow The Psychology of Optimal Experience hoping it would explain a shortcut or some step by step process I could employ anytime I wanted to be in Flow.  Ah, yes, I really am that naive.  But the book was pretty highbrow, scientific to be sure, and I just couldn't get into it.

Today on TED, I watched a fantastic video by the man himself.  He is smart and funny and his talk dumbed it down enough for me to really get it.  Having heard him talk about Flow, I now think I am more likely in a state of Arousal.  I think my learning curve remains pretty steep.  Sure, I feel expert at certain things, but I am always (and I do mean always) still learning things about each and every part of my art making process.  It was possibly presumptuous of me to think I had achieved true Flow at this point in my artistic path.  Critics may say that it is just a label, it doesn't matter, etc.  Perhaps I have more science in me than I care to admit, but this stuff is interesting to me.  

And I also have to say, a state or Arousal is pretty sweet.  But now it reallyreallyreally makes me want to Flow.  Watch the video yourself and this will all make sense.  

and then she slept

and slept and slept.  

Geez Louise, I can not get enough.  Sleep, that is.  It's as if I pushed myself through my entire outdoor art season nearly running on empty.  And now I am getting my refill.  Of course it doesn't help that it is such great sleeping weather here in the Midwest.  Just so lovely and brisk. 

I did manage to make a little bit of art during my class the other day.  I started some pieces as demos and then kept working them along with my brilliant students.  Hopefully I will be able to post them soon.  I've spent most of this week (when I wasn't sleeping, tee, hee) catching up on paperwork, apps for next year, follow up with potential wholesale stores,  etc.  The good news is that I can see the surface of my desk again, hooray.

We gallery hopped last night in Chesterfield and I caught up with some friends (Heather!) who are in local shows - it was a lot of fun to see what people are up to and I loved the chance to relax and chat.  Tonight, it's over to phd for an opening.  In addition to the featured artist, my work is on display since I am one of the "stable."  So to speak.  

Naaaaayyyyy....snort.....snort.....

  

I'm a big girl now

All my friends in the "art fair circuit" call me the princess because John schleps all my stuff, drives the truck, puts up the tent, tears it down, etc, etc.  In fact, until recently, I didn't even know how to put up my own tent.  

That changed this past weekend when I went to a show entirely BY MYSELF.  Yep, it's true, I drove to Kentuck (in Alabama); set up my tent; staged my art; worked the entire show; calculated & paid the taxes; and then tore it all down and drove home.  

Twelve hundred miles.

One left over tent piece.  

And who knows how many sore muscles.  

I feel a great sense of accomplishment and am very proud of myself.   Sadly, sales were low for many artists, including me.  It was a very fun show though and I made solid contacts that will hopefully lead to more work down the road.  

True Confessions

I am in love with Warren Sapp.  John knows about it of course and he just rolls his eyes because he witnesses this happen every time I watch a dancing show.  It's a vice of mine, dancing shows.  Omg, I am addicted to them.  I think I must have been a dancer in a previous life.  These days I am just a private dancer, not *that* kind; I am a wannabee - I dance ALONE while in my studio.  There are certain songs that simply demand a dance break and I find my painting gets better if I just give in to it.  I was really embarrassed a couple weeks ago when John "caught" me dancing.  Geez, I'm so inhibited, how sad is that!?!?!

Anyhoo, back to Warren Sapp.  He reminds me of a Christmas ornament that I own.  It's this fabulous pear shaped bear, all dressed up for the holiday.  That is Warren to me, one big lovable dancing bear.  And so funny (for me) because I was certainly never a Raider's (or Buccaneer's)fan, ha!  

Color my world

Our San Francisco/Napa trip was marvelous, just the little bit of escape that we needed.  I mean, don't get me wrong, our life is pretty darn sweet, but we do work our butts off (not that you can tell, because mine is definitely still back there).  But you know what I mean.

We visited lots of old fave spots from when we lived in SF.  Museums, restaurants, shops.  We ate, we walked, we ate, we walked, we ate and then we walked some more.  It felt wonderful to use my legs (again) for transportation - I simply LOVE that!!!  And we saw plenty of new spots, The Ferry Building for one, which has been completed since we moved away.  I liked it a lot, so much that I was there 3 times during 2 days.  Fantastic food from a variety of well known and lesser known vendors, restaurants, shops and a Farmer's market on the weekend.  The fruits and veggies so perfect they look like something from a photo shoot.  

It was Fleet Week, so we saw the air show from our hotel window - can you say Blue Angels!?!? So wildly synchronistic as we used to love Fleet Week and didn't realize it would take place during our visit.  

I caught up with the dearest of dear friends, my soul sisters - the girls who nurtured me through the beginning years of my artistic journey - they know where the bodies are buried (so to speak) and I love them for their unfailing support.  

So Blue and Green and fresh and crisp with PEACE for all.  That's how I would color my world.  

Yep, you betcha (to quote my friend Joan)

Saturday, Oct 11th, 2008 -- You are dreaming in Technicolor today, even when you wake up and open your eyes. But as long as you don't try to be overly concrete now, you could be on a creative high. Do your best to capture this magical energy through whatever form of art and craft suits you best. And if you must be accurate in your reporting of details, tell others that it may take you a few days before you have all your facts in order.

This is so true it is freakish. San Francisco, once again, delivers more inspiration that I could ever dream. Actually, our entire trip has been that way. The wine country seemed more glorious than ever, and I found myself filled with new ideas at ever turn. And no, I wasn't drunk, lol. I've been journaling, but it is still slightly vague in my head, more of a feeling than anything, like I'm on the cusp of something big.

Today is my 15th Anniversary. It is a record for me, the girl who seemingly could never maintain a relationship (long story for another day). All I can say is I am incredibly blissed to have such a wonderful husband. John is my rock and my foundation. He is a man who believes in me with all his heart and his encouragement has allowed me to blossom in more directions that I could ever imagine. His intellect and wit never cease to amaze me. I respect so many things about him, but especially his patience and kindness. I think that he and I seem (to many) like an odd couple, but we are lucky in that we bring out the best in one another. He really does complete me.

Happy Anniversary sweetie.

Hometown bliss

The Hyde Park Art Fair was wonderful!  Gosh, such perfect weather, we Midwesterners are certainly getting spoiled, aren't we?  

Anyhoo, I had a mixed booth of abstracts and Common Denominator work.  I was lucky to get a corner location  
which was lovely for display and I hung things a little differently than normal.  I won a prize?!?!?  Can you believe!?!?  Mom & Dad were there when it was announced and it was so cute to see my Mom spontaneously telling anyone who walked by, "my daughter won an award."  Just hilarious.  It was an Honorable Mention, came with some moulah (yippee)  and also means that I get invited back next year without having to jury.  

These adorable costumed girls are Stacey and Jen (I covet Jen's tattoo hose btw) from Indigenous, my gallery in Cincinnati.   They were walking around the show promoting their upcoming Halloween Hullabaloo which is an event they hold each year.  If you are in Cincinnati, you should check it out, sounds waaayyyy fun!!  You can also find my work there; last time I visited, I was delighted to see a "MB wall" of sorts, tee, hee.

 

And since I was in Cincy, of course I got together with my cousin, Amber.  We had lunch with our moms, pretending we were ladies who lunch routinely.  It was a kick.  Moms and cousins both had a really good time.  Amber's a doll, isn't she?  

And finally, here is a picture from my last Studio Workshop which was held with women from The Joy Foundation.  The purpose of the workshop was to train their volunteer staff in a couple simple projects that could be done with hospitalized children in Cancer wards.  I am honored to be working with them.  

Which reminds me (short promo here), I have a few openings for upcoming Studio workshops.

There's a Claybord class on October 23rd with a couple spots and the Collage Class on November 8th has a few.  Email me for more details and I will send you a brochure if you are interested. 

I am heading out in the morning to San Francisco, woo hoo!!!  John and I are celebrating our 15th anniversary; we are going to Napa and to the City (of course), visiting old haunts and dear friends.   More on that later.......

Adios amigos. 

Cincinnati Bound

Hyde Park Square.

Sunday.

10-5.

I'll be at the corner of Edwards & Erie.

Be there or be square.

Sound Bites

The plaque shown in the previous post is one of my "Sound Bites." They are brief smart ass phrases that I find amusing.  Some of them come from pop culture or the media; others I make up myself.  I wanted to present my own version of the live laugh dream create messages that we see everywhere (not that I don't like those, they have just been overdone). 

I've been making the Sound Bites for over a year now and they are suddenly quite popular as it seems folks relate to cynicism, tee, hee, hee.  I could go on and on about the idea of sound bites in general, as they perpetrate every part of our lives and sometimes I fear decisions are made based based on them.  But alas (smacks self in head), I won't bore you with another rant. 

After all, these are just for fun!  It's my intent to put them on Etsy.  I want to open a shop once my shows are over - this will definitely happen in time for holiday gift giving.   

So consider this your preview.  And if you gotta have one earlier, let me know.  They are $20 each which includes shipping.  Email me fmi.

God help us all

I vowed to myself no political rants on my blog, so I'm going to tell this story without revealing my "choice".  I think that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I would not impose my opinion on others.  

That being said, I have - or had, I should say - a political sign in my side yard.  I'm sure you see where this is going.  

We left our house at about 4:00 to babysit our grandkids.  Afterward we spent a really lovely evening with our family.  We were gone about 4 hours or so.  And yep, you guessed it.....we returned to find that our political sign was gone. 

Nice.  Really a class act, whoever you are.  I realize I am taking this way too seriously, but it makes me question my neighbors.  Honestly, I can't believe it was one of my neighbors, I prefer to think it was some random act by an unknown person.  I have to believe that to maintain any sanity whatsoever.  But I do wonder about who would have done this and why they are seemingly unable to tolerate freedom of expression!??!  Does someone really believe that removal of a political sign will somehow influence the election and/or change my vote!?!?!  

So, here is my message.....pretty mature, huh?

I mailed gifts to a couple friends this week.  Taking a cue from one of my clever buddies, I decided to wrap presents in discarded paper towels and other odd scraps of painted stuff; truth be told, I have an enormous bin of these things.  Scavenging around is actually quite fun.  

And here is how the packages turned out.  I hope the recipients like them. 

Ties that Bind

Here's a charm that I made for the Ties that Bind Project, a fund raiser for Ovarian cancer.  First time I've attempted this.......I took a section of a collage and enlarged and adapted it in Photoshop, then added the text.  I sized the circle in PS and glued it behind my optical lens, added the wire and ribbon and voila!  I was happy with the result and you just might see more of these from me.  Check out the other contributions and find out more about this project here.  

You asked....

Several people have asked about our kitchen project, how it turned out, specifically all that refinishing I did earlier this year (remember when I was afraid all I would have to put in my booth was cabinet doors?).  Anyhoo, here are some pics.......I had to wait until I cleaned today to take some pictures.  

And yes, I refinished and distressed every single one of these cabinets, even the new ones that we bought to match the pre-existing ones.  Our contractor thought I was stark raving nuts.

See the stained glass lamp above our table?  That belonged to my grandparents and is quite special to me - it was sort of the inspiration piece for the room.  The bar stools are a total kick, aren't they? The color is the same red from my Coke machine which is in our living room and you can actually see it from some angles (not shown in these pics).  The recessed lights are all new and completely transformed the space, oh how I love them.  That boxy area on the other side of the table is the powder room (which is entered from the hall on the left.  The hall on the right has a utility pantry.  We doubled the width of the hall on the left and the hall on the right wasn't even there before (that used to be a large walk-in pantry & wet bar on the family room side).  I wanted "gallery" walls since we have sort of a moving display of art around here.  

Anyway, that is the tour of my new kitchen.  I love it so much, it was quite a project, something that John and I conceptualized and luckily our brilliant contractor figured out how to make it a reality for us.  

(I think the pictures enlarge if you click on them)

I will not feel sorry for Damien Hirst

Just because his auction started the same day the market tanked.  No I won't.  Despite all the world's financial worries with banks failing and AIG about to declare bankruptcy, Sotheby's London made 111 million pounds (over 197 million US dollars) on the Hirst auction.   Who knows what Hirst will get but you can bet it's a bunch.  It is incredible to think that Hirst completely bypassed his galleries.  For someone who is thrilled to obtain gallery representation (that would be me!), it's hard to understand.  

But the sale of all this art just confirms that the rich are still really really rich (duh, like we had any doubt).  If they weren't, I might have had a chance to bid on that pickled shark for my grand kids....

Couldn't have said it better myself

Sunday's NY Times featured an article on digital scrapbooking.  It wasn't that long an article, but there was a section that grabbed me.  It was about Ali Edwards - who is friends w/my friend Dona, I am name dropping here, tee,hee.  I met her, Ali that is, at Artfest last year and she is a total doll, so very nice.  

Anyhoo, here it is....

"Edwards's fans praise her layouts precisely because of their personal touches - her handwriting across photographs and pages, in particular.  Yet when she teaches workshops, she encounters scrappers so wrapped up in buying embellishments that their work becomes "product heavy" and so concerned with achieving the "right" look (like the popular layouts they have seen online) that it "completely stalls them."  She encourages workshop attendees to think of the process as its own reward and to focus on telling a personal story."  

Yep, that pretty much applies to all art, doesn't it?  

Very good advice indeed.  

Rain, rain, rain

I just got back from Cincinnati.  My dad had cataract surgery last week and I drove over to make sure he was OK (it was wildly successful and he doesn't even need glasses now!).  Plus I wanted to pick up an antique table that my parents gave to me.  I drove the truck  and it is embarrassing how much stuff I managed to jam into it (can you say Ikea!?!?).  I think I am doing my part to stimulate the economy.

Luckily, I got back home before the rain started here.  I know I shouldn't complain, when folks in TX have such a horrible situation.  Based on the tiny bit of "Ike" that we have seen, I cannot imagine what Galveston and Houston residents have been through.  This is one nasty storm.  You can see from the first picture that a humming bird rode out the storm on our feeder.  There were actually 3 of the little birds all perched on the feeders; about the only time they've been social with one another.   I think the overhang of our roof offered them a little protection, but you can see this one is all puffed up trying to stay warm.

And later today this spider appeared with it's massive web.  Not to mention all the earthworms trying to flee the water.  Ugh, they crawled under our garage door.  And somehow one managed to get in to our foyer.  Yuckyuckyuck, you should have heard me scream.

I am so glad to be home, even with all these crazy critters; I even have a a few days to make some art, yippee!! Hopefully I'll be able to share some more pictures soon. 

The guts of my biz

I've meant to show this picture forever and keep forgetting about it.  This is how I re-organized my office with the new computer.  I love my mac.  Can't believe I didn't do it earlier.  It is just so great.  

But I also love my office.  It is probably the only room in the house (other than my studio) where I did exactly what I wanted without discussion.  I seriously feel it has helped my business for me to have this special space to work on the mind numbing paper stuff, you know what I mean?

That wave pattern on the wall?  Yeah, well that was free form.  I grabbed a paint roller and just went at it.  Sooooo much fun, I would definitely recommend this sort of painting release!  And my desk?  It's an old distressed table I bought at a local store.  Of course it wouldn't come apart (for some crazy reason) and we couldn't wrestle it through the doorway, so John had to saw part of it's feet off.  But I use those feet to decorate another area which I will show you later....

And yeah, that is an apron draped over my reading chair - so fabulous I just like having it out.  The pencil holder on the desk is a ceramic piece I made when I was a kid.  

The art continues to build across the wall as I collect more pieces from artists I admire.  There are also a few of mine up there and you can probably see the Misty piece that I look at every single day.  It has my favorite word on it.  Cherish.  That word sums it up for me.  

What a show

 Wow, it was so much fun doing a show at home!  So many welcoming faces - friends, collectors, and artist buddies.  

You know those pieces from the last post?  

All gone.  Plus many others as well, including all those greeting cards and more that I made up during the show.  Geez, I never dreamed they would be so popular.  I definitely need to find a manufacturer.

I am also jazzed at the positive feedback regarding my abstracts.  I sold 5 of them which was quite a thrill.  I can't wait to start painting for my show next year, I just want to immerse myself and hole up in the studio.  Unfortunately, I have at least 2 more months of shows and classes until that is possible. 

And oh, the ideas I have!  Just loads of them, but really, play is the best direction (for me at least) because then I will make loads of new discoveries.  And most likely end up moving in a completely different direction than where I thought I was going.  But that just makes it fun.

Beth & Frank brought the grand kids to the show and it was wonderful to have them hanging out behind my booth, both working on drawings.  Aidan is writing and illustrating his own book about fish and dinosaurs.  I am perhaps a little biased, but I think it's pretty fantastic for any child, but especially a 6 year old.  The commitment he has made to this project is unbelievable.  Hopefully I will be able to share some pics one day.

Anyhoo, it was a perfect weekend.  I need to sleep for about a week except I have a studio class on Tuesday and then I leave for Cincinnati on Wednesday, so I will have to make do with a 24 hour rest.  

Thanks so much to all of you who support my path.  It means more than you could even imagine.  I am incredibly blissed.

Of birds and babes

Schlafly Art Outside

Starting today!!!!

I have lots of birds

and babes...

plus some cowboys

and clowns 

thrown in for 

good measure.

Hope to see you there!