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Lately, I have been focusing on making mixed media collage, and I've fallen in love with monoprints. The variations of color, texture, depth of image, you name it -- monoprints can do it! If I don't already have one made that fits my purpose, then it's time to make another one! I am finding the possibilities for their use are vast.  Almost any project requiring original artwork benefits from their use. At times, the image is one that stands on its own, and needs nothing more than a mat and frame. Other times, I cut/tear/fold them into the shapes I need to create something completely new. They become so original that I cannot begin to make two just alike. The images I create are sometimes made into prints, cards, or applied to three dimensional objects to bring them to life in a new way. What an adventure! 

I will say that I have no intention of setting aside my paints, or my sculpting tools, but what a ride! Like a kid who has ridden the wild roller coaster, I want to do it again! Check back to my Facebook postings, Instagram images, or on this website. There will be more to come!  Comments/questions are welcome!

I'm enjoying an expansion of mixed media creations, and especially creating original, one of a kind, monoprints. Some of these prints are a work of art in their own right, and are presented as such. But most of the prints are destined to be ripped and cut and used in collage. What freedom to create using colors of your own design and texture, the possibilities are endless, and exciting. Today I am sharing a work of mixed media, using monoprints and direct painting. I'd would appreciate your comments. Feedback is useful and helps me step beyond my own critical eye. Looking forward to your responses!

Enjoy "I'll BEE Seeing You".

As a creative person, I am always drawn to learn new and different means of expression. Sometimes it manifests in three dimensions and sometimes two. Sometimes in handwrought clay and other times pressing found objects into patterns and designs. Sometimes it is picking up a brush and spreading oil or acrylic on a surface. So many ways to make -- how to decide?!

If you are "in the groove", creating successfully, and your attention is caught by another way of expression, it takes real discipline to stay the course.  I am very much as a beagle, chasing each rabbit that comes along.  At this point in my artistic life, I am often focusing on what feels right, what brings satisfaction, rather than what a gallery might be interested in hanging. I look at my art past as having spent a large amount of time doing just that - focusing on what others want.  Lucrative, and maybe satisfying because of that, with little time to spare on exploring new things.  I've transitioned from a life of heavy responsibility, working in the world nine to five, caregiving for an ill spouse, running a household, and keeping an artistic career alive.  It wasn't easy. Now I am widowed, living almost 800 miles from the place I called home for life.  Building a new art career in an unfamiliar place.  But completely free to create whatever I want to make, should I choose to make anything.  It has brought me to a new view of my world.

So roots are growing, ever so slowly. My senses are enjoying a world very different from my other life, and it is full of inspiration. Going where I am led, listening to that still, small voice.

Recently a friend gave me some cardboard, shaped and pressed into material for shipping electronics. Amazingly lightweight and strong. I could tell it was just asking to be used for something creative. After collecting some junk metal pieces, music sheets, and alcohol ink sample sheets, I began adding pieces to the shapes. No plan in mind, just adding color, a shape here and there, balancing the design. Creating as the muse led.  The result:

Sometimes it is just right to work on something that conveys the peace of the holidays. A warm fire, decorated tree, soft blankets, flowers, candles and treats.

The time seems to fly by these days, and it is time for some attention to the blog.

After some extended time in the lowcountry, I'm heading north with a sizeable stock of new paintings created on this visit. Landscapes of the Charleston area of South Carolina, even a portrait of a "cheeseburger in Paradise".  I found my old strengths in painting this venue, and learned some new innovations. Mostly, it was simply pleasure to do what I do. 

I was listening to Matthew McConaughey's weekly podcast, and he was speaking of the difference between "happiness" and "joy".  He asserted that happiness was based on outcome of effort. But the essence of joy was action, without regard for outcome. It made me think about how I view creating art, was I experiencing "joy"? I believe I am.

When I paint, as I was during my time away, I had no goal, or market for the work, in mind. I was painting for the pleasure of using my skills. Some were strong reflections of what I was viewing along the lowcountry. Others, not so strong. But each brought a smile, taught a lesson, or sparked a memory.  They brought joy.

What will happen when I am back at my home in Pennsylvania?  There is work to be done to meet requests for pieces, ceramics to make, seasonal art, a series of impressionist works to continue. While I am directing effort to these creations, I hope I can create them in the spirit of joy. Doing so takes their creation to a higher level of being one with the beautiful things they are. I like that.. 

Time to put down the clay, paintbrush and mats and frames.  How long it has been since a blog entry! 

This was supposed to be my sabbatical year, a time of quiet and reflection, but of course, it hasn't ended that way.  I have said "no" to a few things, and been selective on the "yes" responses, but as far as a real time of quiet, it has been sporadic.  The year started out well, and left me here in Pennsylvania to face a lightly snowy week after week.  I took a trip to Scotland to visit our family castle, Crathes Castle, in Banchory. A deep, moving experience to walk where my ancestors walked. What a beautiful country, and the natural beauty and manmade architecture made one feel they were traveling through time's pages. At once in modern, thriving cities, and then you find yourself walking a path that was laid a thousand years ago, still speaking. I thought I would return to the US and be painting Scotland forever, but those images are mostly brewing in the mind for now.  

In July, I had what was supposed to be a simple eye surgery, but turned into a summer of struggling to see clearly at all.  I am finally on the other side of that, and my vision is now better than it has ever been, but it was a scary time. Don't ever take your sight for granted!

So here we are at November, and I wonder where the time has gone. I created a series of holiday pottery that I am pleased with, and created a body of small collages that will come in handy over the coming months. I had a show in October in a new venue that was beautifully shown and attended well. A pop up show locally is on the calendar, and then it will be a time of family and enjoying the season.

For next year? I'm finding one can plan, but events and circumstances can lead you here one day and another the next. I'd like to continue the idea of a sabbatical, of taking time to think, to experiment, and to revel in life. Maybe it will be like that.  Some travel is on the horizon of Southern shores, and I am sure there are other places to be.  So we will see, won't we?

There are times when a place becomes so familiar, so part of your heart and soul, that you can conjure it up in a moment.  The smells, the breeze on your skin, the sun's warmth, the rustle of the marsh grass, the gentle lapping of tidal water as it fills the marsh.  There is nothing like it, no matter where you look.  It is your place. 

You may have gathered from my previous blogs that I am a native of the American South, a quickly disappearing culture being swallowed up by a chaotic and hurried world.  As I lived all my life there, among my familiar landscapes, assorted cousins and friends, life moved pretty slow.  As I grew up, the area I lived in grew, too. 

Development, technology and money came to town.  People from all over came to live there from many ethnic and economic backgrounds.  At first it was just a sprinkling, then became a flow, then a flood, and finally a tsunami!  Former sandlots and fields we played in became shopping centers, technology parks, and small town life became history. The roads changed their names to politically correct thoroughfares, historic markers were removed and the story of those small towns became buried under the asphalt of yet another highway.  

When I left the South for my Pennsylvania home, it was with little more than a few belongings and a heart broken in grief over the loss of my husband.  My southern home was far away and my new home was strange and foreign, and it was only a few months before a pandemic isolated me even more.  I started building a new life, despite everything.  I forced myself to meet people, got my shots and wore my mask, learned about my new home, and treasured the incredible, seasonal, rural beauty all around me.  The town where I now live has about 2500 residents, so truly a small town with three or four traffic lights and a Dunkin' Donuts.  The high school is down the hill, and I can listen to football games being played on fall Friday nights.  I've made friends, embraced my singleness, and continue to build what has become a pretty happy life on my own. 

With family still in the South, a recent trip to Atlanta was a surreal experience.  There were cars and trucks and tractor-trailers in the thousands, hurrying here and there. The highways were ten lanes and more, each direction filled to capacity. People crowded the stores and markets. So much frantic activity!  The business cathedrals in glass and metal towered at each intersection, and the landscaping, while beautiful, was so perfect it didn't look alive.  What had happened in my absence?  My home county was eagerly counting down to their 1,000,000th resident.  Chaos, controlled, but chaos.

When my visit ended, I eagerly traveled home, and upon arrival at my little house in the country, I reflected on where I had been and contrasted it with where I am now.  My southern homeland was transformed into a place I barely recognized, its pace of life so frenetic, it inspired anxiety.  For a Southern lady, it was a hard realization.  My beloved city was truly gone with the wind, and would not come again. So here I am in my new normal, a small town where life moves at a leisurely pace, and traffic means the line at the traffic light has more than a couple of cars.  Neighbors talk over the fences, and the farm stands are filled with fruits and vegetables grown in the fields.  At night, the stars shine, and the breeze brings an occasional train whistle from over on the mountain.  Incredible sunrises and sunsets are daily occurrences and peace reigns above the chaos of the big cities.  

Before I retired from my 9-5 job, I often joked that I just wanted to live quietly and create art.  I never foresaw the road that would bring me here, but I am grateful where I find myself.  Life is a long, strange ride, isn't it?

The Bob Dylan song has always been a mystery...why tangled up in blue?  What did it mean?  My own interpretation of that theme resulted in the piece below: 

My original thought was a person who is tangled up in dreams, in memories, in possibilities.  Rising up from this mass, the figure is not afraid, not panicked, but straining upward toward clarity.  There is almost a look of joy on the face, turned upward.  A sensitive piece, that speaks to the viewer, engaging them to reflect on their own tangle of life.