Pocket ATC

Hello, to those of you still reading my not up-to-date blog. The holidays had me on my toes, and it seems things haven't slowed down much since. i am still regularly making art, but finding the time to post it or write about it has been difficult. Here's a little snippet for today. This was for a swap entitled "Interactive ATC: Pocket". i love how it turned out, and my partner was very happy, so it's all good.



 These are the tags i made to slide in the pocket.

i love the softness of the colors, and a French vintage theme is always fun.

i hope to update this more, but you know how these things go...

Resolute.

i never make New Year's resolutions. Maybe i made a few a long time ago, i don't remember, but i just don't do it. i think it's because i strive (without always succeeding) to work on myself and set goals on a regular basis, not based on a date on a calendar. A fresh start can happen anytime, as necessary.


Having said that, i was thinking of resolutions today, and how most often, people's resolutions fall into similar categories:


* weight loss/diet/health
* job-related/financial success and well-being
* personal emotional improvement/changing bad habits
* personal goals for "more" - do more, make more, travel more, etc.


i'm sure there's more, but these were the ones i had in mind. i'd like to point out that i cheer for someone anytime they are trying to improve themselves or better their lives - we are all works in progress. But if i made resolutions, i asked myself, What would they be?


For one, weight loss is not on that list, though clinically, i am overweight, and according to textbooks, possibly "obese" (rolls eyes). Sure, i could stand to lose some weight. i'd probably have more energy (pity on those that know me and know i'm borderline hyper sometimes as it is). i'd find more clothes that fit well and i'd feel better wearing them. i'd probably have more spring in my step and a bit of a self-esteem boost. All good things.


But i know my body. i may be over my "ideal" size, but that size is not a 6, or 8. Or even a 10. As one of my friends said a long time ago, i'm "buxom". i have curves and i will not apologize. i also have a great love of preparing and eating delicious foods, foods my grandmother made, laden with carbs. i have Italian heritage - it would be akin to sacrilege to not partake of pasta. But the key, for me, is i love a variety of foods. A salad of fresh greens is high on the list of favorites, but so is mac and cheese. i love fruits and vegetables, but also most anything pork. i think moderation and variety are ideal. Plus, i make a lot of food homemade, and even if it's loaded with butter, at least there's none of those pesky preservatives or artificial colors and flavors.


So, weight loss would not be on my list. As far as financially, i'd love to have more money. Ofcourse i would! But i have a roof over my head, a fantastic art studio, and though my car is on its way out, there's little else i could ask for. A bigger travel budget would be nice... But i'm good.


Bad habits? Oh, yes. i have a few...and i'll take those one at a time, but they wouldn't really be on my list.


What would be on my list? First and foremost, being a better mom. Parenting is a learning process, and sometimes i joke that i'll have got it halfway figured out, maybe, by the time my son is 18. i want to be the mom my son needs me to be.


Second, pulling out the art that i know is inside me. As creative as i am on a daily basis, i always feel like there's much left unsaid, or unpainted/collaged/created. i may never get it all out, but i damn sure am going to try!


Third, being a kinder, more thoughtful, better person. Try to reign in anger, or expectation, or judgement. Be more self-aware of my effect on others and alter my actions to bring joy and gratitude and not disappointment or hurt.


And fourth, seek to find the joy in everyday, to always see the magic, even in the darkest fog (magic in itself), to live with passion and without restraint (except where it may hurt others), to enjoy this too brief life to the fullest.


i'm going to bundle that list together into one word - resolute. My resolution is to be resolute in who i am, what i believe, what i know to be right and what i hope to achieve in my life.


Thanks for listening. And happy new year's!

Hello, Mojo.

It seems that just the act of writing out my frustration here helped release the block i was feeling. It could also be looming deadlines that did it, or both. Whatever it was, hallelujah! i'm back in the flow.

Mostly i've been working on swaps, but also some Christmas cards for my mom, and an altered book for a round robin group i'm in on flickr. Generally, i feel most inspired in the fall/winter. i'm not sure exactly why...something about the cold. And even more so if it's overcast or raining or snowing. There's magic in making a hot cup of coffee on a late afternoon in the midst of winter, and walking into my studio ready to play.

And when it gets colder, i drink a lot more coffee. That evening cup is my favorite - that's when it tastes the best to me. Why does it taste better than in the morning? i've always wondered that.

Lately i've been making lots of ATCs, or Artist Trading Cards. It's been fun doing these little works of art, and many of the ideas put forth there will eventually be put onto canvas. i have an idea for a large piece to hang on the wall based on the ATC below.

i made this for a swap based on the Paleolithic era. i could have hand-drawn the images rather than carve, but i liked the idea of having these as little stamps. The title of the ATC is pretty obvious - "Cave Wall". Hey, sometimes you just gotta' tell it like it is, no muss, no fuss.

i love texture, and i love acrylic mediums. Here i used Liquitex Flexible Modeling Paste. i've only touched the surface of what it can do. Apparently, due to its flexible nature, i can use it on fabric. Oh, imagine the possibilities!

Ancient fish carving and wallowing in the mire

i have been working lately, but things are moving slowly. i don't know what's wrong with my creativity, but it's as if i can't count on my muses, as if i've lost some of my mojo. Artistically, 2010 was a full year for me, laden with discovery about myself as an artist, my style and my process. There was a distinct point in the spring where the ideas were pouring out of me, and i remember thinking, This is it! This is my voice! i may never be without an idea again! And really, right now, it's not a lack of ideas that's the problem, it's the implementation of said ideas. i sit down to work and everything feels wrong. i struggle with things that should be easy. i find myself stepping away from my studio after only a few minutes, and finding some other outlet, but this is eating up precious time i could be creating!

i am frustrated because i can't find the source of my frustration. i am struggling and i don't know why...

But, like i said, i am working. Every few days or maybe once a week i manage to create something i feel good or even great about, something i'm proud of, but this is not the norm unfortunately.

i know this is a phase. i know this too shall pass, but right now that doesn't make me feel much better.

These images show one of the few projects that wasn't a struggle recently. i carved the fish image (a depiction of ancient Mexican art) for an ATC swap with the theme of "ancient". This stamp is one of my favorite carvings that i've done to date. i have ideas for a series of carvings with a similar theme.

Included in each partners' swap (there were 2 partners total) was the ATC featured in the first two photos, the bookmark you see in photo one (i love how that turned out - has a batik feel to it) and the card shown above. For the card, i used my Liquitex inks and they did the job quite nicely.

So, for now, i'm going to keep plowing through. i've been here before, in the artistic muck, and i'll be here again. i will break out of this, i just hope it happens soon.

Celebrate snail mail!

Wow, almost a month since my last post. Didn't i mention something a few posts ago about wanting to update this more often? Yeah. And the main reason i've been MIA? Swap-bot. 

i used to swap a couple of years ago on other forums, but my artistic journey led me towards discovering new mediums and finding my own voice, and making art mostly for me. But, i missed swapping, for so many reasons - the anticipation of getting something fun in the mail, meeting other artists and crafters, finding inspiration and having a goal to work towards. i almost always work better with a goal, and that creativity spills into other artwork, and i am inspired more than i am not. i hate feeling blocked, almost as much as i hate boredom. On a side note, i've not felt bored in years. i remember as a teenager not liking to feel bored and seeing it as a waste of what precious little time we have on this planet. For as long as i can remember, my problem hasn't been having nothing to do, it's been not having enough time in a single day to act on all the things i want to do. Anyone who knows me fairly well, knows i always have an art project (or 10) in the works. Add to that a love of cooking and baking, reading, gardening, writing and the daily demands of housework and who has time to be bored? i don't accept boredom; life's too short.

So, i've been swapping, and having a lot of fun. And i'm thinking more about an etsy shop. The only thing stopping me from opening right now is not having a name. i want a name that's me, that's interesting and reflects the fact that i will be selling everything from handmade greeting cards to polymer clay jewelry to handmade blank journals. Oh, and it should be easy to spell and pronounce - that's important! Some people recommend finding a focus for your shop, but i don't see how i could limit myself to one or two items. There's so much i enjoy doing. See? Boredom can't live here. It wouldn't have breathing space.

Page after page.

The journal has always been there. It is a constant, and has been since i was maybe 9 years old. Early on, it was the written word only, page after page in spiral notebooks, the same type of notebook i used for class. Later i added doodles or the occasional photograph, pasted in with rubber cement, which by the way is terrible for posterity. Photos and ephemera fall out of those old journals where i exclusively used rubber cement. (Live and learn.) Then i stopped using notebooks and gravitated towards hard cover, decorated journals. Sometimes i make my own books. Doodles and photos evolved into painted and collaged pages. Soon anything i could glue or attach to my journal was fair game.

My journal can be whatever i want it to be. i can share it with everyone or no one. i can be as open and honest as i want. i can be fully me.

Currently i'm working between two journals, one a Hand Book and the other a Strathmore Field Watercolor Sketch Book. The former doesn't have a single blank page left, so now i'm adding bits and pieces to pages, painting over pages i don't like and journaling on completed pages. The Watercolor Sketch Book is newer and has several blank pages left, though maybe not for long...

When once my journals contained pages and pages of mostly words with little artwork, the opposite is now the norm. It's harder these days to find the words, but the visual pours out onto the pages. What i want to say these days i can't find words to express, so i let the art speak for me.

i need this - a place to make art just for me, a place to record the moments in life that may be forgotten a few years from now. i find peace between these covers.

Reclaiming the magic.

Remember when you were young and you felt the world was full of possibility? You hadn't yet been jaded or had your heart broken or saw what horrors people could inflict upon one another. Your entire life lay out before you, brimming with potential. There existed a certain feeling inside you, hard to describe, but it was there. You heard a favorite song or read a wonderful book and you could feel it. You could sense it in the change of seasons, smell it in the air when summer turned to autumn. It's a feeling that's hard to pin down with language, but i refer to it as magic. That's how it felt, as if there were magic all around me, inside me, and anything was possible.

i lived with this feeling up into my early 20's, and then one day i realized i had lost it. i struggled with depression for a long time, and wondered if the path i had chosen (or had chosen me) was the right one. i adore my family, but i worried all i would ever be was a wife, a mom, a housekeeper. Being a mom is a great joy in my life and something i cherish, but i feared i had put aside my own dreams to raise a family. i had aspirations to be a travel photographer, an archeologist, a writer. i didn't want to be famous (i don't like the spotlight on me), i just wanted to act on my passions and make them into a career. i wanted to see the world and discover different cultures, meet new people, take amazing photographs, write the stories that were in my head. i doubted that these dreams would ever come to fruition, and i felt trapped.

And then one day, i was working on a piece; i don't even remember what it was, but everything was flowing just right, i was in the zone and i felt giddy. And it hit me, here it is, here's the magic, it's back! It was there all along really, in my son's laugh, in the winter sunrise, in my true love's face when he smiled at me that certain way, in the first blossoms of spring...it was all around me, i just wasn't paying attention. But art helped me see it again, feel it again. Some days it's only a low hum underneath the daily obstacles in life - the bill paying, housework, grocery shopping - and other days it's a chorus. The quickest way to tap into it, for me, is through art. In art i can create my own playground, fulfill my own dreams, craft my own little bits of magic. It can be whatever i mold it to be, whatever i dream up. And it's always there, waiting for me to fulfill its potential. Art is part therapy for me; without it i would be lost.

i think we are all trying to reclaim the magic we felt as a child. We do a lot of what we do just to have that feeling again, to feel free and excited about what's to come, what lay ahead, to feel like anything is possible and all our dreams will come true. So today i urge you to tap into that magic - make art, or listen to a song you loved when you were young, or re-read a favorite book, or go outside and watch the clouds, or sit down with your child and fingerpaint, or take a leisurely drive down a road you've never been on. Because what is life without magic, without joy? Open yourself up to the magic and i promise you'll see the world in a whole new way. And if you already have, hold tight; don't let anyone or anything steal that feeling from you. Keep it going and spread it around. Because the world could use a lot more magic.