Rebirth

Standing in front of the white, blank, sheet....of paper or fabric or wall. A coming back to that blank page. What? Why? How do I lift my pen or brush? Feel the urge. Eternally the question, what next? What has come before? What shall be different? What shall remain? What is unfinished? Should I bother? Is it worthless? Is it brilliant? This moment thumps itself over and over using me as it's drum. Again, I find myself here. Even my computer freaks out periodically and offers me only a white screen. Does it conspire with all the other blank sheets that wait, expectant to receive the image, the message, the word? What's the word on the street?

Today...ripple. The thought comes to just do it. Just put out there the things I love. Feel the love sister! What do I love? What is worth remembering and reforming into color and pattern?

OK

Mushroom gills, compost, ripples, gods, frailty, webs, potato bugs, roots, growth rings, usnea, ease, puffs of smoke, fat trees, traffic jams on epic bridges, dry firewood, empty highways in vast land, persian carpets, children dancing.

Thankyou Life

Splotch

Dragon 1

Muse Infused

Yikes! My muses are on a bender. Yup, I'm pretty convinced based upon solid information from a reliable source, that my muses are getting ripped. They have been sited in a seedy part of town at a juke joint...yes, a bar, a pub of ill repute and sho'nuff they are tying one on. I can see them in my mind's eye, pounding the bar, reeling with laughter, chortling their hearts out to the lone bartender as they regale him with the antics and hoops they are making me leap through. The reason I'm certain of their debauchery is because I am being twirled like a marionette who's strings are being jerked by drunken puppeteers.

Clarification? Last week, I was stopped in my tracks by the certain realization that I must change all of my production process and designs for the clothing by which I make my living. This was a huge, breath taking realization with no small repercussions to my schedule or life style. I'm still reeling. I canceled the Fremont Fair, which I have been a vendor at for the past 20 years. And I have been working with a furor. The Oregon Country Fair is upon me in the next few weeks. My favorite and most beloved gathering of friends and family that I attend and work at annually. So, I have decided to give a title to the body of work I am producing for the Country Fair. I deem it "Muse Infused". I am throwing myself into the fire and asking the muses for their mercy. I intend to deliver new work which is produced without care for income or practicality. I am allowing my drunken muses to have free reign. I am painting silly and sublime images and slapping them into odd corners of garments. I am making things unlike anything I've done before. Drink up muses! We only have 15 working days left! Yikes! I am off the computer now and back to work.

Find my booth at M68 in Chela Mela Meadow at the Oregon Country Fair. July 9,10,11.

Blessings

Escape From the Garden

I think this cicada is stealing this apple. Can't decide if it is the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or from the tree of life. I mean, we never hear about the fruit of the tree of life, do we? Probably because the insects stole off with it before the serpent even got there. All that the serpent could offer Eve was the one last apple from the tree of good and evil. Oh well, and here we are, the fallen, while the insects have immortal life.

Red Rising

My serpent painting evolves. I was so delighted and surprised by the red snake. For me, the process of creating images is very similar to dreaming. I often don't know what is going to come next and I can be totally taken aback by what arrives on the canvas. Although I have been visualizing this painting for a while and shifting color options in my mind's eye, I had never seen a bright red snake. But now, I love it. It is fueling my desire and energy to work further upon this piece to see what else is going to appear.

Serpent Dreams

Here is the beginning of the process. I sketched the initial idea for this painting while I was at a slow festival in Humboldt County. The back of my booth opened up to the banks of the Eel River. It was a beautiful sunny day and a stunning venue for a festival. In the heart of the Redwoods and the heart of a fiercely independent community of renegades who still harbor the spirit of those who lived amongst the trees centuries ago. I made a quick sketch of this idea of the primordial snake who's tongue extends through spirals of DNA strands to split into the equal sided cross at the top. Did something in the spirit of the Eel lick my consciousness there and ask to be rendered?