Fear Itself

So difficult to photograph this black box...I finally took it outside in the sunshine. This was my first box and it's made of cardboard, tape, acrylic black paint, collaged items include black feathers,assorted pieces of cloth. The inside is photo collage and painted sky and clouds. I am a great believer in looking inside for answers and realizing fear...dark fear of outside circumstances holds no solutions. I don't want to sound Pollyanna but holding to clear thoughts and not allowing fear to overcome is a way to go through situations. This box has been a sweet reminder of this philosophy. I will post one other box when the owner, Karen sends me a photo as she purchased it. I have no way of finding the owner of the last box, called prayer, it was silver leaf with wire. I would be interested in making more boxes someday but of course, very different in shape and vision.

We have been renting "Weeds" a series from Showtime. I like watching series and this one has some interesting characters...very quirky.

Also enjoying preparing hearty meals...last night was mushroom chili, tonight spaghetti squash with chicken sausage and I'm also going to try Willow's cabbage dish. I always add to these dishes a crusty bread or biscuits...love the bread part!

New work starting, can't let it be easy, always happiest with some angst. My working titles are: Restoration of the Soul or Angels Remarks or Mapping the Unknowable. This could be a bumpy ride!

"Forlorn" at the Met

This has been so much fun, thank you Willow for the link Modern Art Museum Effect
I have to be a little crazy to put this portrait up but I felt a little crazy this morning. Ever so often I review one of my favorite book shelf art books "Life, Paint and Passion" by Michell Cassou & Stewart Cubley. I took a weekend class with Stewart Cubley in San Francisco years and years ago and it was wonderful! I call this one "Forlorn" and it measures 20"x26" on paper with acrylic. I began this piece with a blue shape that looked like an eyebrow and that began paint stroke after paint stroke until this image was complete. The lesson is to keep painting, stay out of judgement, analysis, or correction...just paint...no message, no art, only the experience of painting. That said, I'm sharing it in just that mind set. I like her, she has two tear drops and an assortment of spiders in what looks like hair and a heart tattoo on her jugular vein? She has no real message for me nor am I asking, not like my muse, this is the experience of painting...the passion of mixing paint and application! I needed that! I've been writing about my next series and I've tied myself up in knots with too many choices and some confusion so this was a perfect time to just let loose and now I'm hanging it at the Met!! Pablo was so smart, he said nothing...the handyman this morning did the same! ha

Meditation 101

Meditation: constructed with foam core, tape, and gesso. acrylic, bamboo and photo collage. 11"x 5", interior black acrylic with quote written with gold ink: "Just remain in the center, watching and then forget that you are there." Lao Tzu. Also in the box, fragments of broken incense.

To fill in the holes about my move to this beach town alone: It was our dream to move to the beach after our youngest son moved out on his own. My husband of 26 years died suddenly at 51 and that is when I sold everything and moved here with a heart-full of "could haves" and "would haves" but with time and painting ,journaling, the grief was healed. When my mother became a widow, I moved her here at the beach and when she passed on, I then decided to meet, love, and marry again...enter Pablo! I was never really alone, as I had old friends, new friends, my studio and joined numerous study, book and art groups...it has all been good.