Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 - 1944)

My perfect space...

I have been working in my studio for about 5 months now and I LOVE it. Right across the street is the school that my children attend—out my front window you can see the school, the park, the playground and our community hall. My kids come for lunch at the studio and sit at the front counter, watching the world of our neighborhood go by. We play their favourite hip hop music, eat lunch, talk about the morning at school and watch for the kids who stay for lunch, to come out to the playground to play. Now that we have snow (TONS of snow), we have been tobogganing at the hill on the playground and soon will be skating at the community hall and then rushing back to the studio for hot chocolate.

When I tell people who come for classes at my studio about how I only live a block and a half away from the studio and that my kids go to school across the street, they inevitably say "Wow that is so perfect"....and you know what...it really is!

Having the studio has allowed my "roles" in life, as a mother and an artist, to finally begin to compliment instead of struggle against each other.

Timeless As we look deeply within,
we understand our perfect balance.
There is no fear of the cycle of birth, life and death.
For when you stand in the present moment,
you are timeless.
~Rodney Yee

That is what marriage really means:
helping one another to reach the full status of being persons,
responsible and autonomous beings who
do not run away from life.

~Paul Tournier

Happy Anniversary Mark!

Of all the great things in my life
(and there are many)
meeting you 18 years ago today,
and then marrying you 16 years ago today,
tops the list.

You are the most amazing man I have ever known.
and I love you deeply.

My hands caught in an act of love...

photo by Jeremy Schindel

I love drawing people. When I draw,

my whole body smiles.

Wine and Cartoon Portraits...
every year Che hires me to draw at his Christmas customer appreciation evening at Baseline Wine and Spirits, in Sherwood Park.
Its a wonderful and enjoyable drawing event every year.
Here are some pics...

These two dripped into the studio last night...

Reaching for...

I am impressed by the amount of definitions attributed to the word "reach". How wonderful that a simple 5 letter word can adapt itself to millions of sentences, each with its own flavor of the word.
My favorites:

• To make an excessive effort, as in drawing a conclusion or making a joke
• To have extension in space or time: a coat that reaches to the knee; a career that reached over several decades.
• To succeed in getting in contact with or communicating with: They reached us by phone. Our newsletter reaches a specialized readership.
• An expanse: a reach of prairie; the lower reaches of the food chain.
• To try to grasp or touch something: reached for a book.

I always need to be reaching for something...

You are a product of your environment.
So choose the environment that will
best develop you toward your objective.
Analyze your life in terms of its environment.
Are the things around you helping you toward success
- or are they holding you back
~Clement Stone

I just LOVE my studio!

Verba volant scripta manent

"spoken words fly. written words remain"
Words...

bursting from within...
caressing her,
filling her,
begging to provide
what life does not.

So many words.

She craved to share them with those
who might understand,
not only what they meant
but more importantly,
why they needed
to be said.

The energy
created in those
secret conversations
fed her artistic soul.

You know, I have been thinking a lot about the word "focus" lately. Since getting back from the ISCA convention in Ohio, my focus has mostly refused to return to work and instead has been wandering around the internet, enjoying the convention afterglow, soaking up distraction like a sponge, in a creative, yet undisciplined and headstrong way.

In art or more specifically in a painting, the focus is the area of the painting with the highest level of contrast or conflict. However in life, we demand our focus to be the area that we select, on any given day, at the whim of our responsibilities. The thing is, sometimes the areas in our life of bright contrast or conflict often have something valuable to teach us when we actually do take the time to really allow our attention to rest there. Sometimes we need to crawl up and snuggle right into that distraction even if its not instantly "profitable" or time "justifiable", because the elements of personal investment and/or career enhancement are not always recognizable in advance.

Now at 45, when I look back at all the things that pulled my attention away from the things I thought I should be focusing on, I realize that allowing myself to be distracted by what moves me is what has gotten me to where I am today.

Feeling alive...There are rules in art.
It takes knowledge and skill
to know what those rules are and why they exist.
It takes mastery to know
when you can break or alter them
without destroying your piece of art.

Life
is exactly the same....

A quick felt pen commission piece...

Mosaic tile mural in my bathroom... (someday)...this is what happens when I procrastinate on getting my computer layout work done.

Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky.
When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth.

~ Diane Ackerman

I was given the Kreativ Blogger award by Belgian artist Jan Baptist.
(Thanks Jan!)

Here is how it works:
Remember the rules for the Kreativ Blogger award is to list 7 things about you
(so we can get to know you a bit better)
and pick 7 deserving artists to pass it along to.

So first... 7 things about me:

1). My arms do not straighten completely.
2). I was the president of my High School in my final year.
3). I wore large metal and wooden braces on my legs 24 hours a day for an entire year when I was 3, and if I hadn't, I would have had one leg significantly longer than the other.
4). I played basketball 3-4 hours a day between the ages of 12-20, and I was a starting player on my college basketball team.
5). I believe anything is possible.
6). My hair is naturally almost black in colour.
7). I love to be around (or talk to) people who know secret things.

Now 7 blogs of people who have inspired me:

1. Michelle Allen
2. Misty Mawn
3. Jason Seiler
4. Kelly Rae Roberts
   
5. Steven Silver
6. Teesha Moore
7. Keri Smith
   

Please check out their sites —absolutely amazing work, thoughts and inspiration.

Ohio

Cleveland airport Sunday night.

What a week! I just arrived home early this morning from Sandusky, Ohio where I attended the annual ISCA (International Society of Caricature Artists) convention. I am exhausted but still vibrating with inspiration of being around such unbelievable talent for the last 7 days. I can't deny that its also about the energy of being around people that you really connect with.

I spent 1o hours in airports and on planes yesterday and since I resolved in Sandusky to start sketching more, I started a new sketchbook...
I already can't wait till next year...

Express your self...

Life is just so much fun.

"We can know nothing about what is outside us if we overlook ourselves," he thinks now. "The universe is the mirror in which we can contemplate only what we have learned to know in ourselves"

~Italo Calvino's Mr. Palomar

Even the fear of death is nothing compared to
the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.

~Frances Moore Lappe,

"The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience"

~ Emily Dickinson

I'm silently restless

because unfortunately

no words feel comfortable

being captured

between thought and revelation.

The best part of my

crazy busy,
task filled,
responsibility saturated
day
was finding this written
on a scrap piece of paper in the kitchen tonight...
I want a mango tree...

"Out of clutter, find simplicity."
--Albert Einstein

A home is not a mere transient shelter:

its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.

~H. L. Mencken

LIFE IS...
SO MUCH MORE THAN WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE....SO MUCH LESS THAN WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE...
SO INTENSE...YET MUNDANE...YET OCCASIONALLY INTOXICATING AND EXCITING ...YET DEMANDING AND DEAFENING..
ITS JUST SOMETIMES SO SO MUCH....

Some days I have EVERYTHING under control

and then some days I feel like this...

As an artist running a business I feel as though I am often teetering on an edge of potential unreliability. I live in a relatively small but constant state of fear that my left brain will not always show up for work on time to get done what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Most days its there early—planning, thinking and responding to emails and phone calls with such a fervour of dedication that you wouldn't even think to question that it would EVER be negligent or absent. And then, well...right brain takes over and convinces lefty that it would be just fine for it to take that long bubble bath or that plane to Prague—we will be able to hold down the fort perfectly fine without it.

Then all hell breaks loose...painting, writing, drawing, no sleep, and a constant feeling that there are things everywhere being forgotten or left undone, all of it totally beyond my control. I would love to know how to handle this better than the constant scrambling I do...any suggestions?

We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.

~Lynn Hall

Piper received this skirt as a present at her "Princess"
birthday party yesterday and it actually
plays the song "the Hokey Pokey""...you put your whole body in
...you take your whole body out
...you put your whole body in and you shake it all about
...you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around
...THAT'S what its all about!"

...come to think of it,
I agree, that IS what its all about"

When something moves you,
you need to pay attention.
Sit down there.
Be there with what moves you,
no matter what it is or
how it moves you;
in anger, in passion, in sadness, or in thought.

Grab your shovel and pail
and dig right there in that sand.
There are answers there to the questions you seek.
Make a sandcastle, make a tunnel, find the clay underneath...
that is where you will find yourself.

...everyone should live with a little sand in their shoes.

A couple weeks ago I began attending my regular critique group at Sutton Art again. I have been going on and off for about 13 years to Eileen Raucher Sutton's group, and I am still constantly amazed at how much I learn about painting (and life) from looking at and discussing art.

A fellow artist, Iris, brought a painting that she was working on and as soon as she put it up you could sense that everyone felt there was something wrong in it. Before anyone said anything she pulled out some brown painted paper and stuck it to the canvas in a place that she figured would "fix" the problem...and it did. We discussed why the change made the painting work and we were all quick to agree that she should just do that right on the painting.

But then Eileen told Iris to take the brown paper off the painting and let us look at what the problem really was. You see, there was an area under the paper that had yellow and purple touching each other and was causing a very exciting energy in the painting. The problem was this area was not the actual focus of the painting so it was distracting. However, it was also the most interesting part of the painting. We talked for about 10 minutes about how she could create another intense colour dynamic somewhere else and perhaps balance out the painting that way. We spent another 5 minutes playing with some other bits of paper and visualizing what it might look like that way.

Then, Eileen told Iris to put the original brown paper back on the painting, once again covering the yellow/purple dynamic. This time when she did it, we all were amazed at how the vibrant energy of the painting was instantly gone. Yes, her initial "solution" would solve the problem, but we could easily see now that it would also take away the most exciting part of the painting.

Now her painting looked fine, but it was very safe and quite uninteresting.

Life is so much like that painting. Exciting and sometimes disruptive elements do occasionally arise in our lives and are distracting, especially if a lot of the elements in our lives are safe, routine and appear to be working on the surface. These distractions aren't part of the "plan" but they are exciting, interesting and quite possibly are telling us something important about what we want from life.

The question comes down to how you solve your painting. I wonder if Iris will choose to challenge herself and try to find a way to balance that exciting colour dynamic with something as equally exciting or just paint the brown over the yellow/purple?

What would you do?

another new journal...because...well...I can't just have only one...

Pipes, Piperonie, Pippi, Pip the hip, The Pipester...
I love how you vibrate and squeal with excitement at least 10 times a day.

I love how one of your favourite games is
to "pretend" that I am your "Mom" and that you are my "daughter".

I love how you giggle in your sleep.

I love how you call your grandma and grandpa everyday to make sure they know when Little Bear and Franklin are on because you are sure they watch it even when you aren't with them.

I love how you taped a song for me every night to listen to when I got home from drawing at the Fringe, just in case I missed hearing your voice.

I love the "invisible" friends that visit everyday —Buja and Girl to name a few.

I love how much you like to cuddle and how you assure me that you will ALWAYS want to cuddle with me that much

I love you
Piper Kensington!
Happy 5th birthday!

~love, mom

Some recent commission work and party gigs...

A conversation tonight over a glass of wine...

Jan: "You know, I think I am one of the most intuitive people I know."
Me: "Really? What makes you think that?"
Jan: "I don't know, its just a feeling..."

..and then we laughed and laughed and laughed....
and then drank another glass of wine.

Its not lightness afterall...
it was something else

Thank you to everyone who came to my Open House yesterday!

What a great time!
I especially want to thank Karen Horne for your wonderful hosting duties and for the great conversation during the clean up.
Also thanks Mom and Dad
and of course Mark, Ryllan, Kieran and Piper
for all your excitement and support
in making this dream of mine come true.

A Very Busy weekend coming up...

Friday evening I will be drawing at
the Taste of Old Strathcona —7 -9:30 pm

Saturday I will be drawing at
Callingwood’s annual Cornfest —noon -5 pm
This is in support of the Fire Fighter's Burn Unit which is a great cause!

And then on Sunday I will be having the
Grand Opening
Open House at my new studio
The Quirky Art Cafe
1-4 pm.
If you have a chance, please come by say Hi
and see my new studio.
I am really proud of how it has all come together and can't wait to share it with you.

wring

v. wrung (rng), wring·ing, wringsv.tr.

1. To extract by twisting or compressing. Often used with out.

Every morning she would get up and wring out all of the thoughts that had been absorbed overnight...

My new altered book journal...

This past summer I have done very little "visual" journaling. I have been drawn more to words and thoughts on their own (and the realizations that come with them), than finding the pictures and images within the thoughts.

This fantastic little hardcover book had called out to me at a garage sale in the spring and I knew it would be my next visual journal, when I was ready to create it. I am very discriminating when it comes to what books I use for my own personal use. The weight, the dimensions and the thickness are all very important qualities to me and help make up the decision of what each book will become for me; whether it be a daily journal or a sketchbook, a travel journal or a demo journal.

Friday night I wandered over to my studio after dinner and this little book practically jumped into my arms. With all my kids now officially in school, it was time... so I sanded and gessoed the cover and then allowed it to tell me what it needed to become.
Here is the back cover...

On the inside front cover, I always like to begin with a thought that is relevant to my life at the moment. Since I am currently reading the book Exuberance, the passion for life by Kay Redfield Jamison, the thoughts within it are very much in my mind at the moment.

Here is an excerpt from the book...

Yet it is the infectious energies of exuberance that proclaim and disperse much of what is marvelous in life. Exuberance carries us to places we would not otherwise go—across the savannah, to the moon, into the imagination—and if we ourselves are not so exuberant we will, caught up in the contagious joy of those who are, be inclined collectively to go yonder. By its pleasures, exuberance lures us from our common places and quieter moods; and —after the victory, the harvest, the discovery of a new idea or an unfamiliar place—its gives ascendant reason to venture forth all over again. Delight is it own reward, adventure its own pleasure.

If you are interested in creating an altered book like this, we will be making one in my altered book classes this fall at my studio.

The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world.
~Leonard Cohen

Live Each Moment Beautifully

You cannot just sit there and write the story or the novel. You have to do other things as well. You drink tea, cook breakfast, wash your clothes,water the vegetables. The time spent doing these things is extremely important. You have to do them well. You have to put one hundred percent of yourself into the act of cooking, watering the vegetable garden, of dish washing. You just enjoy whatever you are doing and you do it deeply. This is very important for your story, your letter, or anything else you want to produce.

Enlightenment is not separate from washing dishes or growing lettuce. To learn how to live each moment of our daily life in deep mindfulness and concentration is the practice. The conception and unfolding of a piece of art take place exactly in these moments of our daily life.

...by Thich Nhat Hanh, from his book Anger

Happy Birthday Mom!
Mom, your focus and dedication
to what moves you passionately
has been the inspiration and guiding light in my life.
Thank you for all you have done for me.
I love you.