Tag: painting

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Thrive

I’m very excited to announce… my art, artcards, calendars, and other artful items will be with me at Thrive Festival at Silverside Farm in Cobble Hill August 26, 2018. Come visit me there and pick up some tips for how you can ‘Thrive’ along with something special for yourself.

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It’s going to be a great day of music, sun, speakers, and inspiration.

 

Every morning I offer up a little prayer for forgiveness, gratitude, and open heartedness. (Its available on the blog) Often I’ll ask what is needed from me that day and I’m usually met with a little thought that I have come to know as wisdom from the universe.

When I find myself awakened at night, repeating my prayer through allows me to find sleep again. Essentially, instead of counting sheep I’m counting my blessings.

This is a little practice that I have created for myself based on seeking, reading, finding, trying, sifting sorting and finally, elimination. It’s a simple practice among others I utilize that helps me to thrive.

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Joy- Available 22 1/2″ by 30″ Acrylic on Paper

Can you name the practices you engage in to maintain your best self?

Have you even thought about what your best self feels like?

I used to think I was my best self when I was exhausted…

when I’d ‘given it everything I got’ … to work and family

when I’d ‘given 110%’ … to others

when I’d ‘sucked it up’ … and pushed beyond my limits for the team

when I ‘put it behind me and kept moving forward’…for the wellbeing of others

Those mantras, the ones we are sold to motivate us to produce more and more and more… they put ‘my best self’ in harms way.

What are the mantras you have adopted to drive yourself to exhaustion?

I now know that my best self feels light, airy, spacious, as well as loving.  My best self is well rested, playful, golden! My best self knows that boundaries are not just okay, but in fact, a necessity.

… Come visit me at Thrive and ask for your free gift!

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The Quarry – Available 20″ by 26″ Acrylic on Paper

 

 

 

 

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An Art Residency in France

Today I’ve been working on what will likely be the last painting I create at my Art Residency at Chateau Orquevaux. As I painted, the last in what has become a connected series, I began to examine why it was important for me to do such a thing. Here they are, in order of importance for me.

1. Connection

I’ve been painting in relative isolation for the past years, in my home studio, and loving it. I realize now that I applied for the residency not just for the place to paint but for connection with like minded people. I love the artists I’ve met; they are my extended family. We share ideas, philosophies, dreams, and aspirations easily and without judgement. We see the world as possibility in colour, shape, line, texture and design. Picasso’s wordless book of bridesmaids has a storyline we can interpret easily together. Between us, there is only support and sharing, competition just isn’t a thing here. We laugh together when we could be crying and we cry together when we could be laughing. Everyone here is whole and rich and perfect because that’s what we notice about each other first and foremost. We just generally get each other.

Having a tribe, a tribe that I’ve lived communally with for a month, that I’ve shared meals and wine with and created with, who come from all over the world, who are a variety of ages, who have distinctly different styles and experiences, who came with the same awe and excitement I came with, who have the same reverence for art and creating, well, that’s as golden as it gets in the work world. And yes, making art, creating, is work. Important work. Valuable work. The French get that.  Connection is belonging.

2. Learning


I’ve loved the studio spaces just above the bedrooms, the rhythm of each artist’s working days, and the chats about creations and processes when studio doors are open. Learning is one of my drivers. When I’m learning, I feel alive. Yesterday, I found out about the brute art movement in broken English. My heart was filling up as I listened. I’d already viewed the exhibit. I knew how it made me feel. Yes, I feel art. At lunch today, while articulating how my painting morning was going, I generally like to paint uninterrupted from 9:00-2:00, I understood how much more exhausting it is for me to paint a series than it is to paint completely intuitively. Intentional painting, for me is less enjoyable. My bucket gets filled when I feel free. April, a writer in residence, understood this feeling and expressed how she noticed it come up for her in her practice as well. Having an opportunity to discuss our inner observations really helped me to consider freedom as one of my basic human needs even beyond art.

3. Change


I have new rituals that I will integrate into my home practice. Eating breakfast, slowly, as well as drinking coffee every morning, is going to happen everyday even without the croissants. I will put more attention into line and into learning about the New York art scene and emerging artists. Opening my home to artist gatherings and work stays will be on my radar. A residency or two every year will become a regular part of who I am and what I do.

4. Joy

I always say, gratitude paves the road to joy. I feel it here x’s 10. This place, Orquevaux, is beautiful. Discovering it and each other; I am so grateful. This is magic and coincidence at its very best! Thank you Ziggy Attias, for your vision and your invitation.

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Chateau Orquevaux Artist Residency

After Paris, I rented a little car. Doing this from home, before I left, was much more economical than doing it as a walk up. I used sixt and this was what was waiting for me when I arrived. A brand new Citroen.

The Chateau is a dream! It’s the vision of Ziggy Atticus. He’s an artist, originally from New York, who is now creating an oasis for artists in this beautiful French hamlet.

A family of coypus are what create the dirt piles in the foreground.

The bedroom I’m in is just gorgeous!

It looks out over and beyond the scene above.

There are chickens for fresh eggs and goats for cuddling. (They smell exactly like goat cheese)

When I’m not enjoying the little village and the grounds,

I paint! That’s why I received the scholarship to be here, after all!

Ziggy jokingly said that he changes the locks after every residency but I think he actually might have to. It’s a perfect spot for anyone who loves to create!

I’m so grateful to have been chosen to attend while also receiving a scholarship to do so!

If you are interested in the residency you can apply through Instagram. Just post your work and tag Chateau Orquevaux. Dreams can come true.

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How I Paint

  1. I like Golden paints. Their rich colours and variety are ready to go. I always start with heavy bodied paint and keep the colour wheel in mind. No mud. Drying time between layers.
  2. I begin by just making marks to get what is inside of me out. Sometimes I begin with collage. Sometimes I begin with huge charcoal toned sticks. I don’t usually need music in the background if I’m expressing what’s in my body. ‘It’ wants out. My hands want to dance the canvas. I can do this for as many layers as I have angst or joy.
  3. Music, the kind I find soul soothing, comes in handy for this next step of intentional paint play. Still using heavy body paint. Still just mark making fun.
  4. Dry now, the canvas has some life to it. Texture, colour, shapes. Usually, a lot of life! Sometimes too much life. At this point, I sit with it for a bit and see what comes up. I might see/feel something right away but I’m not disappointed to have to put it aside for weeks or months. I trust that something will eventually emerge.
  5. I set the content free. This is the exciting part. Sometimes it’s related to the layers before but sometimes it’s not. I just never really know what will show up or what will withdraw from the work.
  6. I add high viscosity colours, glazes, and drips. More play!
  7.  Finishing touches…edges, sides, details, etc… are my least favourite part. I usually feel ‘done’ before the canvas is finished. For me, this finishing is the drudgery that must happen for the viewer’s sake and I don’t paint for the viewer. I paint because I have to; it’s a birthing process that creates space and well being. It’s beautiful, cyclical, and creative, and very much like how a bulb or tuber, tree or flower sends forth it’s seed.cropped-img_31021.jpg
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Art Heals

Paint, especially acrylic, is my favorite medium. It flows, it inspires me, it responds to my energy, it blends and surprises, it can be made to be malleable, it is forgiving, it drys quickly, it’s

IMG_1842 removable up to a point, and I can use big or small movements with it. A few quick strokes, with any mark making tool can release a monumental build up of ‘feeling’ in me

 

and work to ground me again. For that reason, I keep a canvas ready to work on at all times.

When I say work on, I don’t mean that I have a plan. I have no plan. Ever. Even when a series is pouring out it’s completely intuitive work. I am the conduit for what is passing through me. My job, it seems, is to get out of the way. That’s super easy when I have those times of energy fullness, but more difficult when I’m feeling calm and just wanting to spend time painting. IMG_2112

In the zone, for me, is getting out of the way; It’s mind quieting. It’s beginning with the monkey mind fully engaged and becoming meditative thanks to the process of moving paint. it’s often solution finding. It’s always increases my self-awareness.

And the work is layers and layers of this mark making, color splaying, texture creating, healing expression. Layers of patiently becoming.

When you hang my art, what you see is the beauty and grace and questions I’m left with after process and more process. It is a piece of me.

When you work with me through the process I’ve developed, you will explore your inner landscape to find a method for releasing feeling and to achieve calm and a personal state of grace. You will become aware of you strength and faith and inner healing.

Are you ready to find out how art can move you out of pain and toward a state of grace? Do you want more ease and peace in your life? I’d love to talk to you about how I can help.

 When people are invited to work with creative and artistic processes that affect more than their identity with illness, they are more able to “create congruence between their affective states and their conceptual sense making.”104(p53) Through creativity and imagination, we find our identity and our reservoir of healing.