Dissolving the Blocks

Breathing The Night

I've been struggling with another round of creative block and finally realized it earlier this year. It's funny how it can sneak up on you! You go through daily life and weeks or months go by before you realize that it's been ages since you came to the page (digital or otherwise) to create and play and dream. BAM! You're blocked! How did that happen?

The last time it was this bad, I went through Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" and found it effective in pushing the walls down for a while. Eventually they grew back. I'm probably always going to have to fight this – always have to keep an eye out for blocks and walls creeping up on me.

So, I'm going through The Artist's Way again, writing morning pages, doing exercise, repeating creative affirmations, mocking their mystic woo-woo-ness, even as I marvel at how impactful they can be. These two collages are the first full-blown digital art I've made in months. And I just now, putting them together on the same page, realized how night and day they are!

The hard work of being an artist continues. It's not all in the making of the art, either, but in the making of the person who makes the art. Stay tuned...

Balancing The Sun And Moon

The Show Goes On

My work is up at the Azure Gallery in Corvallis, Oregon! Come see it through October 10, 2015.

Deb, the amazing gallery owner, suggested that we arrange one wall as a collage of images, which I think turned out wonderfully. I got locked into a design viewpoint where I wanted to make (and break) a grid and that made me rather freeze up, but Deb just started placing things at random. She created this amazing arrangement, which suits the nature of my work so very well.

The other wall has a more formal arrangement. I added the soft netting drape to help to capture the ethereal nature of my collage work. Sometimes I picture all of it hanging in a mist of clouds and starlight.

I added a few things throughout the gallery's lounge as artifacts from the world where my artwork lives and comes from. As I ramble through the world, I tend to pick up rocks and feathers. Sometimes, I find it so comforting to cradle a good river rock in my hands, with its smoothness and solidness.

Visible Light, one of my favorite pieces and a highlight of the show.

Her Journey, another favorite, my love-letter to the new year.

The Painter Dreams of Spring, in print for the first time! I reworked the piece a bit to show more of his wings, which is why I love working digitally – that ability to go back and make the piece grow or change without fear of destroying the work. 

Me! With Visible Light. It was such a great event. I must have spoken with at least a hundred people. As a natural introvert, it was a bit of a challenge, but everyone was so kind, and so fun to chat with. Barret (my other half), Deb, and the artist with whom I'm sharing the space, Rinnee Merritt (a really nifty glass artist and graphic designer, so you can imagine we had a lot to talk about!), made the evening so pleasant that I almost wish I could do it again next month.  Ah, but in the next months, there will be other things coming up, and I'm looking forward to them.

Contemplating the Stars

Sarah Contemplates The Stars

I love starry skies. I love those rare times when we're in so dark a landscape, the milky way appears arching across a sky scattered with more stars than we can count. It's one of those things we tend to miss as modern humans. We talk about the stars "appearing" at night as if they were absent during the day, but they're always with us; it's just that the daylight draws a veil over them. I love that.

I think that's why I put stars in so many of my collages, that and nature is the best artist, which is why I borrow from her so often. Sarah Contemplates The Stars involved Hubble photography (altered quite a bit), multiple hand-painted grunge layers, a vintage photo of the great Sarah Bernhardt, flower photography, and one of my own landscape photographs.

When we gaze into the night sky or across a landscape in quiet contemplation, I think we become more a part of them and they become a part of us. That's what I wanted to convey in this piece.

Calling Out Winter

Calling Out Winter

Sometimes I have to remember to make art just for the joy of it. This one will never be a commercial piece. It's an illustration for one of my favorite songs lately, Joshua Radin's Winter.

Sometimes, when I get so bogged down in other things that I can't make myself create, it helps to do it just for the sake of creation, without any other agenda besides the doing of it.

Other stuff I'm doing lately? Decluttering. Riding my bike. Learning Swedish. Learning linen stitch. Good general winter things.

PS. Look for the ghosts.

The Flowers In Her Stars

Her Journey - Happy 2015!

Her Journey

First collage of the year! Oh, so many things I love about this piece.

I love the starry background and the rich texture. I love the bird and egg and nests for their beautiful symbolism – hope and rebirth and new beginnings and flight and home all at once. I love the sweet pops of color in the flowers against the serene background.

One of the things I thought about as I made this collage is our journey through conscious life. First, we are eggs, precious, fragile, unformed – waiting to be born into our real lives. Then, we are people, with all our hopes and fears and uncertainties. Finally, we are spirit, ready to launch into the unknown, to reach for the stars. From egg to wing, in one lifetime – we are all on a journey.

In The Sea Of Stars

Print available in my InPrnt gallery.

Visible Light

Visible Light

In my imaginary worlds, pretty much everyone and everything can fly, in one way or another.

Available as a print in my InPrnt store.

Reading Love Letters Written On The Wind

The Painter Dreams of Spring

My riff on August Sander's "The Painter".

Alone With Her Egrets