fifty thousand?

Hard to imagine, but this week my blog will probably reach the 50,000 hit mark.
and this year, I will reach the milestone half century mark in years.
It has been a tremendous year of change for me, moving across the country, redefining my work and what I want to do with this one short life.
Thanks to Spirit and a very supportive husband, I have had time for rest, research, and recharging the batteries, and now I am starting to formulate a plan.
Coming up with a mission statement has been key for me to know I am really doing authentic work for my truest self.
(That's sounds a bit Oprah-ish, doesn't it?)
My work right now is very hard to define, and doesn't fit into normal boundaries.
My work is this: to connect with Spirit, and share that connection through art, and Shamanism.
A big chunk of this, as you dear readers know all too well, is Creative Journaling -- the practice of making messy, extravagantly expressive books and filling them with this and that, color and image, ephemera, collage and words.
Other ways I communicate this connection is by making and sending mail art, making and sending Artist Trading Cards, sharing here, and doing lots of Shamanism with colleagues and with the occasional client.
I have two new job opportunities I am pondering, waiting on Spirit to show me the way.
Also, there are so many amazing art groups here in Colorado, it is hard to pick which ones help me with my truest path, so I am in the research phase of all this as well.
To sum it all up:
50,000 hits this week means you are out there - thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming here and noticing what I do.
(and if you ever want me to send you some mail art, or artist trading cards, shoot me your mailing address and they will be on their way.)
By the time I turn 50 in July, I know I will be firmly planted on this new and exciting path.
It's been a long road to figure all this out, and without my journal practice I don't think it would have happened - so if you are wondering where to go in life?
Grab your journal, some collage bits and pieces, maybe a shoebox of lovely paper scraps, add some juicy markers, and an inkstamp or two.
Put on some music you love.
take a deep breath,
and PLAY!
NaMaStE!

"We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world." --Howard Zinn

using a journal to find your Truth

How in the world do those that don't journal find anything out?
I need this practice to know what's what in my life, to access those inner secret parts that don't easily rise to the surface.
By playing in a journal, all kinds of things are revealed.
and I do find that if I focus too much on making a "pretty page" I lose some of this discovery.
So make a mess, play around, experiment, try this and that and this again.
You will be surprised what treasures you fine in the ruins.

"Some men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish that they are after." --Henry David Thoreau

***class news***

I think I found a new art space here in Denver to teach in.
HOORAY!
and in anticipation, I am going to let you peek my latest journal around which I will build the class; random paper scraps and ephemera sewn into a converted jean skirt, then collaged and journaled with paper, pen, thread, fabric, etc.
***Journals Gone Wild***
Sneak Preview:











"Art should astonish, transmute, transfix. One must work at the tissue between truth and paranoia." --Brett Whiteley

Where ever you go, there you are.

"As David lifted a suitcase on to the conveyor belt, he came to an unexpected and troubling realisation: that he was bringing himself with him on his holiday… He had booked the trip in the expectation of being able to enjoy his children, his wife, the Mediterranean, some spanakopita and the Attic skies, but it was evident that he would be forced to apprehend all of these through the distorting filter of his own being."
--Alain de Botton, "A Week at the Airport"

the cupcake time of year

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." --Robert Brault

just. do. it.

"The world is divided into two classes: those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable." --Oscar Wilde

Monday Musings

Things I like:
* French menus, stamps, papers, museums, Paris
* sweet potato fries
* really good coffee
* bed
* how I feel after I work out (not during.)
* cutting paper, gluing it down, adding some paint and markers, scanning this and then playing with it in photoshop, printing again and adding yet more paper and markers
* layers, layers, layers
* a great book - and it is so sad when it ends
* when the recycling gets picked up
* my red bike
* the idea of adventure travel
* sharing all this with artists from around the world, and hearing their feedback, knowing we can learn and grow from each other!

"People who are not artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired." --John Cage

Shaman Collage

"Indian Art broadened my seeing, loosened the formal tightness I had learned in England's schools. Its bigness and stark reality baffled my white man's understanding... I had been schooled to see outsides only, not struggle to pierce." --Emily Carr

more mail art. . . .

"The only difference between an artist and a lunatic is, perhaps, that the artist has the restraint or courtesy to conceal the intensity of his obsession from all except those similarly afflicted." --Osbert Sitwell

taking flight

"This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival; a joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and attend them all. Even if they're a crowd of sorrows... still, treat each guest honorable. He may be clearing you out for some new delight." --Rumi

mail art Friday

"Cease trying to work everything out with your minds. It will get you nowhere. Live by intuition and inspiration and let your whole life be Revelation." --Eileen Caddy

Winter quiet, hidden life

So this new year one of my resolutions has to do with conncecting more deeply to the outdoors, to plants and trees and the slow cycles of nature.
I have this amazing garden in our new house that I will be getting to know this year as it re-emerges from winter's darkness; I am sure these plants will be showing up in my journal, my collage paintings, and even my food! (lots of herbs abound.)
I dried tons of sage in November when we first moved in, and now I am gathering seeds and planning what to grow. I love the idea of growing more of our food, and letting the local plants that thrive here naturally inform more of what we eat. I also am learning more about herbs as medicine, and I have a sneaking suspicion that some of these herbs will have healing powers for me, and lessons to teach me. My journal will be helping me document all this, and moving me into a healthier place in 2011.
Under the snow, the seeds and plants are there, waiting in Spirit for their rebirth, like all of us, as Spring comes, welcoming new life.

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."
--Albert Einstein

you can never have too much orange and pink

"I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream." --Vincent van Gogh

Welcome 2011!

My son says he goes on Facebook once a month, and that seems like the right amount of time to be there to me.
This spanking brand new year, I am vowing to do more Mail Art, more Artist Trading Cards, and of course, lots more journaling.
There are too many ways to waste time (internet and non-internet) that don't involve making something wonderful, even if that wonderful thing lasts only for a magnificent burst of inspiration.
So that's how I want to spend my one brief life here, making wonderfulness!
Wonderfulness that I can share freely, without worrying about the marketplace.
I am renewing my Goddess Mail Art call, and some of the images here will show what turns up in my mailbox, and my journal pages, too, will be probably secretly (and not so secretly) be infiltrated with collage material from other artists - which is really just collaboration, after all!
Hooray for new beginnings, renewed focus, more art made and shared and sent into the world!

"They just wanted them as objects. 'Aren't these nice! Put them in a museum with nice lighting.' Not the idea ... I wanted to paste things on railroad cars. Nothing to be seen by anyone except coyotes. But when the Pop Art gravy train appeared instead, I consciously burned everything in Cy Twombly's fireplace. Those were early nothings ... Destroying them was the logical thing to do as a statement".
--Ray Johnson about his mail art work