Pink Coyote

East with Eagle

What a lovely and temperature friendly day today. The kids and I checked out twenty seven books at the library on Friday because the scorchers of the week (110 two days in a row) kept us indoors, but the oven door opened this weekend and so we were able to go out and adventure today.

I found a Golden Eagle feather on our adventure and I'm holding it close as I explore what gifts its brought. I am awaiting some Eagle feathers to come (from the Repository in Colorado), but this was a nice treat in the interim.

Golden Eagle symbolizes the direction of the East, which is the place of new beginnings and the rising sun. When I think of the East, I think of the Fool in the tarot deck, which is also akin to Coyote medicine in some ways. The Fool is shown in my Rider-Waite deck as getting ready to step over a cliff's edge, looking completely naive and blindly trusting of what comes next. To be a Fool is to be a gift, for if I can kick my ego to the curb, I am completely open, vulnerable, full of trust and the light of the new journey. I wonder if Eagle will reveal himself to me more this week as I prepare for my long west to east plane ride...

Autumn feels like my New Year. A message of a new beginning feels true. Though the sun is moving and changing the way the daylight falls, it is even more golden than in Spring. I know you all know what I'm talking about. Fall is a shift into trust, comfort and warmth. I'm totally feeling it. I'm ready.

Tell me about how you experience Fall. Do you wind up? Wind down? Change your diet? Harvest what you've sown?

Here is a quick reminder of where you can find me and what I have to offer in the next little while:

Spots are still open for my Spirit Dolls class in the Wish Playgroup, September 27th.

The Nahcotta website has been updated featuring my newest work, as well as the work of countless brilliant artists.

I'll be attending the opening reception for ETA 8 at Nahcotta this Friday, Sept 3rd, in the land of the sea nymphs: Portsmouth, NH-please come over and say hello!

The Buy One Get One print sale runs until Sunday, September 4th in my etsy shop, and lots of new ones have been added. 

I've added several original paintings to the shop as well!

 

Call of the Wild, 2010. Mixed-media collage on 6" x 8" maple panel.

I'm looking forward to boarding the big blue bird and heading east to see friends and rest a bit at the end of the week.

Bless and *new beginnings*

What It Was Like

This month I had the incredible opportunity to sublet a corner of an artist's studio in Los Angeles. While working on the pieces for ETA 8, I was able to feel what it was like to work in a space meant for getting down to business. The space belongs to Gus Harper, a sweet and extremely gifted artist, who was kind enough to allow me to jump on the bandwagon with a few other prolific creatives and utilize his workspace while he was away on summer travels abroad.

I love this video of Gus at work on one of his grid paintings:

I drove a three hour round trip to get there, and put in about eight hours a day while I was there twice a week. Sometimes I wore my headphones, blasting my favorite energetic painting mixes, or I'd put in a pair of earplugs to get that ambient seashore sound to really get into a trance.

One of the benefits of being there was that there is little-to-no art movement in the town in I reside in. So to work among such motivated creatives, such as my spacemate and friend Christine was very inspiring. A set designer came by one day and bought four of our pieces straight off the walls, bound for a new midseason series soon airing on FOX. So L.A.-so fun.

Having lived there for eleven years, I recall the energy of being in a city like this. It was great fun to come home to peace, after thriving and energizing amidst the urban chaos-the best of both worlds.

It was really splendid to not care about spilling paint on the floor, being able to get really messy, leave my table set up covered in disorganized madness and know that no one in my home would be bothered by it or painting the walls when I wasn't looking. I was also able to play more, put some time into experimenting with textures and colors with all of the time I had, rather than feeling pinched to work only after the children's bedtimes.

It was an unforgettable and productive experience, one I hope to be able to create again before the holidays.

Sing Up

Sing Up the Stars, mixed-media on maple panel, 2010.

Readying for another ETA and will have a postcard up very soon. If you will be in New England September 3rd, I'd love to see you at the reception at Nahcotta in Portsmouth, NH. Ahhh, NE in the fall....my fave. I'm slowly moving out of crazy work mode and into back to school and recovery mode. There will plenty to tell when the sun comes up...

L. A., Baby!

Nahcotta is opening ETA 3 at The Living Room on Sunset in Silverlake on June 12th... and work is officially up on the site. Yay!

Will I see you at the opening? So many of my favey fave West Coast artists will be hanging together. It's truly unbelievable. And sure to be a magically fun night!

Hope to see you there!

Coyotes & New Work

I've been creating away here in my studio for the past month, preparing for my next adventure with Nahcotta and the Enormous Tiny Art Show. I really feel so grateful to continue to be in this show-so many great artists all in one room-heaven to stand among. ETA 3 will be held in Los Angeles, at the Living Room in Silverlake- and I'll put the flyer up here very soon for more details.

Some common threads run through this work. I'm always amazed to see the themes emerge up from my own subconscious. In the end, my head wraps around the messages, seeking ways to understand the applications in my own life, while preparing to let the medicine go out into the world to work its magic.

There are some new aspects about my work that is leaving me feeling a bit more raw, open and vulnerable and so these pieces are special to me. I feel as if I'm connecting more with the medicine of the creatures and their energies. This is a departure from some of the smaller drawings I've created for my paintings in the past. Now the subjects are right up front and center.  (And I actually feel more centered, too)

I've made two of the new pieces available as prints so far in the shop.

This animals in this series are all intriguing to me, friends I've been working with for years, however, I've never seen the connections they share. All are considered to be pests, all are extremely prolific (ie. not soon to be on any endangered species lists), and all are a call to look at my shadow aspects, and turn my perspective upside down to get a better view. I've so enjoyed working with these creatures.

Today, as I journeyed for the messages that accompany each of them, I felt seriously weepy about how much they have helped me on my path. Such strong medicine, from all of them.

I will leave you with an image, my favorite of the group. My inspiration is a Coyote called Clyde, who lives at our local native creature rehab center. He is very special, yet very old. He comes to the fenceline and stretches each time I visit him and we connect and I thank him for his messages. He has a lovely partner, Poppy, who nervously trots about in the pen and occasionally stops to kiss and harrass him (that's her in yesterday's post). But Clyde is at ease in his surroundings. He is the king of his makeshift den and he seems to know that he is getting up in years. 

 

Makes You Stronger, 2010. Mixed-media on 6x6 board.

Coyote travels the rough terrain, establishing territories everywhere. He learns his lessons the hard way, keeping a sense of humor about him as he goes. He turns rigid thinking upside down, preferring to keep it light, while adapting in order to survive. He is a humble teacher, a blissed out fool, an accidental genius. His song carries over mountaintops to find his kind. He is persistent, enduring and prolific. There is nothing he can't do, nowhere he won't go. He is fearless. Coyote outlasts bad weather, yipping contentedly through his long days and many journeys.

And here is a photo I snapped of handsome Clyde earlier this year:

I'm so grateful for this space to share my work, and my thoughts. I'm grateful for this life-in which we are all so blessed to be awake and connected to each other.

Aho, sisters.

Return of the Goddess

If you are anywhere near the state of New Hampshire, please stop in and celebrate the return of Spring and the work of eleven goddesses and one Pan (for good measure)!

This beautiful collection has been curated by Elizabeth MacCrellish (of Squam Art Workshops) in honor of the love and light that inspires her own journey. I'm so grateful for this show and for Elizabeth :)

Happy Mother's Day! To all that you nurture and create...

ETA

I can't tell you how much I love this show. LOVE IT. I love the gallery, I love the people who work there, I love that it is located across the street from my favorite place to eat in the whole world, I love that our family has stayed around the corner from it two years in a row on our journey up to Squam Lakes. Can I love it any more?

My paintings are up, along with loads of work by some truly fantastic artists. Peek around! If you are in the area, give yourself a treat and stop in. The room is so warm and sweet, it fills my heart up with art-date-y goodness.

I have decided I need a full media cleanse. I will be unplugging tonite after purging my studio in a pre-Spring cleaning root-through and not plugging back in until Sunday night. I have to pack the laptop away and may have to have the man of the house hide it from me. My eyes are burning in their sockets, people. Just when the world goes crazy about some new iGadget, I am yearning for simplifying my electronic life. I have to pull away! Just for a short time.

I'll miss you!

*sniff*

"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of

perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's."

- J.D. Salinger

Off You Go, Out Into the World

I drove her down to Santa Monica today, to introduce her to Anne, who will carry her to her esteemed destination. I'm talking about someone I've come to call Addeline, and though that isn't her official "title", it's this that I've called her when I've needed to connect to find out more about what it is this mannequin wants to say.

I'll be writing more about the mannequin phenomenon known as CORE this week, but here are my initial late-Sunday night-zombified thoughts:

She wanted to teach me about integrating some of my forgotten and neglected parts; the light, dark, the shadow, the wisewoman, the crone, the reborn, the wild, the innocent and vulnerable, the feminine, the gritty, the vibrant. Her title, "Concurrence" speaks of these types of aspects converging at one significant point, or specifically, on one curvy fiberglass torso. 

CORE has stirred many thoughts for me about how we split off from the parts of ourselves that frighten us or carry negative connotation. Working in 3D has also been a real challenge! Everyone I've spoken with seemed to hit points where they were lacking in confidence about their piece. Only one of us has worked with this surface before, so each experience with the mannequins was full of "firsts". I learned the hard way not to stick my arm into something made of fiberglass, among other things.

I leapt at the chance to work with this medium and there were many times when I wondered what the EFF was I thinking!? Today, over lunch with two of the participating artists and one just plain amazing lady, it became clear. Being an artist doesn't mean creating safe little works of art, it means hanging my ass out on the line and taking risks.

The funny thing about this whole trying ordeal: I highly recommend it. *Grin*

Now if I can just allow myself to celebrate that she's complete and not stress myself out with all of the new work on my plate that I'm so excited about! It's important to take a rest and recharge a bit, which isn't easy for me, but part of my self-care challenge.