stephanie lee - Semiprecious Salvage

Wild pony goes to Nashville

Everyday I am so deeply grateful that the Allthatis gifted me with these two beautiful, powerful, intelligent daughters and everyday I hope to be the kind of mom who invites them to stand in their divinity. It feels like a feeble offering considering how much they inspire me to remember that the world is a safe and beautiful place just by way of being who they are. 

See this here kid? This one is my oldest. She's a whole box of firecrackers. 

She has this earthy thing about her that might be easy to miss on account of her mad hair-doing, glamming up skills.

Her soul is deep waters.

Mysterious, wise, quick, wild, funny, devoted, and kind...with an edge that keeps you on the lookout for leprachauns. When she was little, she could sneak up on a bird in the grass and nearly catch it. She'd scootch slowly on her belly, patiently waiting for just the right moment to reach out and catch her new friend. I asked, in wonder, once how she does it? She said "I just suck all my energy in so it doesn't feel me coming. Except I'm not scary about it." This was at a time in her life when she didn't quite yet know how to tie her shoes. From the mouths of babes.

She also found four leaf clovers by asking the grass to make her see them. At one point she had quite a collection pressed in the pages of books.

This girl - my "Wild Pony #1" came into this world singing and hasn't stopped since. I've heard her bellow her own homespun tunes in muffled, back-of-the-car, road tripping, pillowed beds and gloriously echo-y public restrooms. She leaves a humming trail wherever she goes and if you tune in, it will take you to the Emerald City.

She wants to go to the National FFA Convention next month something fierce...and she wants me to come with her. She. Me. And 5 farmer/cowboy types (some of whom have never be out of state) will stuff ourselves in a suburban + plane + van to get ourselves to Lousiville, KY and Nashville, TN to take in sights we've never seen.

The thing she's most looking forward to? Setting foot in the Grand Ole Opry house to take in a live show. See, she has it in her mind that she'll someday get on that stage and offer up her song to the rafters to join the decades of artists who have gone before her. I think it's a most beautiful dream and for her to get the chance to FEEL what it's like to be in that room, to breathe the air and feel the lights and imagine her boots clipping along that stage...well, that seems like the best way to feed that dream that I can think of. It'll put the real feeling in her bones. It will make it as real in her mind as it is in her dreams.

I know that, in you, I have a huge network of miracle workers and so, if you are inspired to share and support in this way, I would love for you to check out Melissa's Gofundme project and read her own story of this adventure!

As a thank you, all those who donate will receive a professional recording of one of her original songs -recorded and filled with gratitude and love, just for you. To hear a sample, click on the play bar below:

A Time Too Many Sample

She has many more up her sleeve + in the works that I can't wait to share with you in the near future!

If you're feeling particularly generous and would like to support the whole group's fundraising efforts - not just Pony's, you can check out the other campaign we have going here. 

Thank you. A thousand and one thank you's to all who have donated already and for the energy of support you have shared with us privately both in words and in donations. We are so, so grateful. 

 

 

Raise your upper limit, baby

Let me ask you something. 

What’s your limit? How much are you willing to take? How bad does it have to get before you pull the plug?

“I can’t take this anymore”, in and of itself, doesn’t really mean anything in terms of real change. It just means I’m tired, I’m afraid, I’m hurt. Rarely does it actually mean “I’m going to do whatever it takes, right here, right now, to change this.” 

Why? Because it’s risky and what we have going on is evidence of what we think we deserve unless we challenge that. I know you’ve heard this before…and you’re probably rolling your eyes or wanting to stab a pencil in mine. But hear me out. It’s not always as direct as it’s presented.

If you’re in a toxic relationship, I’m not implying that you think you only deserve toxic relationships. Or if you’re treated unfairly at work, it’s not that you think you only deserve to be treated unfairly. To assume such things would be isolating these experiences separate from the whole of who you are and the life you are making. Our belief of our deservingness doesn't always show up where the belief is rooted.

We THINK we have these separate compartments in life - love, work, relationships, money, body image - but the reality is that there is a giant happiness quotient that all those things reside within and we’ve inadvertently crafted that happiness quotient to be a certain size - big or small -  according to whatever amazing or not so amazing ideas we grew up having about ourselves and how much we deserve to feel happiness in life. If any of those compartments swell (with happiness and goodness and this-is-a-perfect-life-ness) to the point that it might exceed the size of our quotient, without knowing it we find some way, somewhere to shrink the happiness of something down to size to stay within the bounds of “this is how happy I am allowed to be.”

Sometimes we shrink the very thing that is growing the happiness. Sometimes we trim off of something else to make room for the growing happiness. 

Getting that raise turns to missing a deadline at work. Or getting that raise might mean picking a fight at home. Finding the real truelove of your life might mean picking a fight with that gift of a soul…or it might mean blowing all your savings on a romantic getaway. We work out and eat right for the first time in our lives, and then we get sick…or we choose the workaholic route to exhaust ourselves mentally and physically. We engage in meaningful work and then give our hearts over to the endless struggle to “find our passion”. An amazing opportunity comes along and we say “sounds too good to be true”. (How small does the good have to be for us to decide it’s an acceptable amount of good to be true for us?)

The happiness lives in our hearts as a single, whole entity. The ideal is to increase the size of our quotient, to raise the upper limit on what we think is the maximum amount of bliss we believe we deserve.

But that’s hard work and doubt plows in and we might find ourselves choosing cynicism as a means of protection.

For good reason.

We can find evidence a’plenty of people who have been tossed about on rough waters and we believe that it was just bad luck. We don’t see the belly of the whale where they wrestle with their own upper limits.

So how do we stay awake? How do we do the work of raising the ceiling on our happy quotient? When the sails of our hearts are torn and coming loose, how to we mend them so that we can reach the shores of brave, conscious living?

First off, ditch the cynicism. 

Stop wearing it like a badge of honor. I get that you’re wounded and afraid and unsure and for good reason. But is that who you want to keep being?

Resculpt that to be cautious optimism. It is far more reliable, generous, and empowering.

Cynicism assumes the worst and makes ‘bad’ end results if it cant find them in the thing itself. It’s a know it all. It raises a suspecting eyebrow to anything good - especially if that good is the very thing that might bump into your ceiling and cause you to reach your maximum allowed happiness. Cynicism says things like “it sounds too good to be true” because whatever “it” is has within it the solutions to resolving the things that are keeping you from busting through the ceiling and expanding your happiness quotient ten fold. 

Cynicism thinks it’s keeping your safe when really it’s just keeping you scared.

Cautious optimism is not blind trust. It is not just “leap and the net will appear”. It is not deceived, irresponsible, or dangerous.

It’s awake. It’s open. It’s smart. It considers all possibilities - without assumption - and then weighs them against each other for the specific purpose of examining how the happiness quotient can be expanded. Even if that expansion means going through a little temporary discomfort. It looks at the bigger picture.

We think that cynicism prevents us from risk but that is a lie too. It’s a lie told to us by fear and its goal is to keep us small.

In the best writing I’ve ever read about risk, Stephen Palmer says:

Cynicism keeps us blind and stuck and limited and afraid. It touts that what we have going on is the best thing out there and that anything that might build on that good thing we have going on, is somehow flawed because it wasn't our idea. We forget that when we open the door to a tiny bit of growth, other opportunities to grow even more will beat a path to our door. 

Why would we invite the realm of possibility to live in our hearts and then decide what belongs there and what doesn’t?

Cautious optimism removes the film of fear from our eyes and opens the door to greater vision because it WANTS growth, it INVITES expansion, it SEEKS the very risks that cause us to open to greater joy, love, abundance, and expression. 

Cynicism paints the ceiling to look like the sky.

Cautious optimism opens the front door so you can take in the whole, wide, REAL horizon.

So when I ask you “what’s your limit?” I’m really asking deeper questions. Mostly of myself:

How deep are you willing to go?
How high are you willing to raise that upper limit?
What risks are you willing to take to blow the roof of your happiness?

 

New Paintings

I've been feeling the itch to blog more regularly again. Thoughts are backing up by the minute...things I want to share. I've just returned from two weeks away from home and, with only two days between my return home and the first day of school, I'm sure you can understand that I'm still in re-entry mode. I posted on facebook today the following:

"Today is the first day of school...a.k.a "Momma's New Year that feels more like New Year's Day than the actual New Year's Day". 
This time brings intense urges to purge my home of unnecessary items, overhaul my office/desk area, rid myself of five million bits and pieces in my studio and the cobwebs they are hiding, set a hundred thousand goals to be accomplished by my next birthday, schedule in crazy fun vacations and plenty of lucrative opportunities in 2015, meditate for 6 hours a day to keep on track, and once and for all devote myself to re-learning Spanish + practicing the piano & guitar + learning cello + writing a book + weekly menu planning + growing a winter garden + read 5 mind-expanding books a week + finding my abs + falling in love all over again with waking up early every day to a new adventure.
I'm no over achiever but I think it might be smart just to start with doing a batch of laundry from start to finish today. Yes...me thinks this is a very good place to start."

It's true. This time of year awakens that part of me that is brought to life by new beginnings. I don't find it odd that my desire to dive into those new beginnings includes the urge to make room for them in any and all areas of life.

Incidentally, I actually did get a load of laundry done from start to finish - all put away and everything. I consider this worthy of a mini celebration.

As I work to resolve some slightly inconvenient Etsy issues I'm having, I'm offering a few paintings directly from my blog here. I've popped up here today to show them to you as well as some jewelry I recently listed on my etsy shop here.

Sweet little pieces like this porcelain boat necklace

 

or this leather and lace cuff that reminds me of a well loved arm chair perched next to a leaded glass window.

And if you ask me, one can NEVER have too many simple, elegant pearl necklaces to wear alone or layered with other necklaces. I like mine slightly left of traditional - hence the varied sizes and undulating color variations. I've created them in "sky", "river stones", "moss", and "cloud". 

You'll find other one of a kind pieces when you visit the shop and maybe, just maybe, something will speak JUST to you.

While I'm sorting all those backing-up-blog toughts, you can take a look at the paintings I have available here. Though I meant to list them before I left town, I'm just getting around to sharing them now. All paintings are ready to ship in 1 business day via UPS Ground (for shipping out of the US, please email me for details at stephanieleestudios at gmail dot com. To learn how to make your own one of a kind jewelry using my signature metalsmithing techniques, you can check out my Homesteader's Metalsmithing: Revamped eBook here.)

 

"They Walked Until Morning"

12" x 36" x 2"

Plaster, acrylic, encaustic on wood

***SOLD***
(thank you, M!)

 

"Good Sign"

12" x 24" x 2"

Plaster, acrylic, encaustic, metalic paint on wood

$250.00 + shipping

 

"Brambles" 

6" x 48" x 1.5"

(full image above, detail sections below)

Plaster, acrylic, collage, encaustic

$195.00 + shipping

 

"Moon Garden"

16" x 48" x 2"

 

(full image above, detail images below)

plaster, acrylic, collage on wood

***SOLD***
(thank you, L!)

 

All paintings can be hung vertically or horizontally and shipping prices are estimated at checkout for US addresses. Once I have your painting packaged and ready to ship, I will refund you any amount over the estimation but will not charge you extra if my estimation is low. 

*****

In other news, in just a couple of weeks I'll be in beautiful North Carolina to teach an intensive three day workshop where we'll dive deep into the exploration of plaster + paint + wax. Donna Downey and her awesome husband, Bill, are hosting me in their studio and I'm SO looking forward to being there among other creatives! There are still a few seats left in this workshop.
I've heard amazing things about Bill and Donna. They are incredibly generous, talented, and go above and beyond to facilitate all their workshop participants in immersing deep into creative play. Not only do they provide a wonderful facility, but

ALL MEALS AND MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED!!

Yep. You just show up with the clothes on your back and be hassle-free & ready to play!

(Talk about a true, creativity-cultivating retreat!)

September 18-21st, 2014

Go here where you can read all about this luxurious gathering!

I would LOVE to see you there!

 

Thank you, 36. Hello 37.

Dear 36,

You entered my life without much fanfare and so, I supposed, shouldn't expect much from you than what your younger siblings had to offer. Art, family, a bit of dreaming but not really doing to much with the wild dream parts. And there were other things that were pretty present when 34 and 35 were attached to me. Jealousy was one. Fear, of course. Uncertainy, without question. And resentments...resentments leaked through a bit too and a whole lotta wondering what this whole creative life was for. Like, REALLY. "To bring beauty into people's lives" was an answer that no longer sufficed. I wanted to do something...to BE someone who changed things for the better. 

And then, JUST before your arrival, 36, we experienced a pretty life + perspective altering experience. My sweet man injured his back and our whole job + income + future plans were all turned on their head. I'm kind of sure that this may be the last time I really need to revisit that occurance as an explanation for anything I'm navigating. It will remain a trailmarker, for sure, but not as something current. 

When I was little and I'd hear someone speak of a job loss or house fire or car wreck as the best thing that ever happened to them, it didn't compute. Like, yeah. Whatever. There's no way you really mean that. When I wonder if I've grown up at all since those thoughts, I take comfort in knowing that I actually get what they meant now. I really, truly am so, so grateful for that terrifying experience. The intimacy of my relationship with myself came from the deep desire I had not to be so consumed with fear that I would totally blow any chance of learning anything from that time. I learned, more than ever, how to just be. How to lie next to someone I love who is suffering and pray for peace until it was over. I NEEDED to feel like a conduit for peace.

I can, with total honesty and clarity (and a list a mile long of the "why's") say that was one of the best things that ever happened to me. To us. Theman has his own relationship with that experience but I'd almost bet that it's true for him to. At least to some degree. There's nothing like being incapable of generating "more", of being forced to be in the slow moment of now, that invites you to be super grateful for the abundance of your life. For the abundance of love. For all the things that have magically gone right for the past 50 years that this thing, this one injury, is such strange and new territory. 

Thanks for the compassionate wake up, 36. Thank you for bringing with you the deep desire for me to stay awake and to choose to engage more in what my heart is telling me is a more mature version of myself. I had spent so many years being fearful and juvenile and naive and inaccurately called it "creativity". I passed the buck, denied my superpowers, cultivated envy, and dropped balls and told myself it was all part of the sentimental artist persona that didn't waste creative energy on even learning practical things, let alone doing them with confidence. 

When you, 36, took your turn in the line up of "Shouldn't I know more for being this old?", it's evident now that I was ripe for harvest. I was ready to be done with waiting for my life to take an acceptable, unmovable shape. I was ready to surrender the belief that being a creative being meant being too fluid to have much shape at all. I cast no shadow in which tender seedlings of expansion could be sheltered from the scortching sun until they were hardened off and ready to explode and bear fruit and nourish me. I see now how tender, life saving mercies often appear in the form of a hardship and if we miss the gift of that time, the Universe will hold them in trust for us until we are ready. 

What a powerful year of awakening you were for me. I might forget some things you taught me but I will never be who I was before you came. I can't unsee the gloriousness which you showed me time and time again. Every day you sang to me the perfection of my life until I could harmonize with you. 

Thank you for bringing with you the unrelenting invitation to grow up and stand in my power, in gratitude, and in my zone of genius.

Now, to you dear 37, we have a lot to do together. I have big plans for us. And I'm certain we are going to be blown away by how much our life will change for the better as we prepare the way for 38. One of the reasons I'm so certain is that I realized that fear has had way too much power in my life. Like it does for so many. But I'm not going to war against fear, I'm going to try to eliminate it from my life because, frankly, it's not realistic. Fear comes with having the short term vision that being a human brings with it and every time we reach a place of expansion, our ego responds with fear.

Instead, I have looked long and hard at what form fear has taken in my life because THAT is where my power is. Fear has kept me from speaking up when speaking up would have saved my world. Fear has kept me clinging to some friendships where the other parties don't easily accept ones who rise above. Fear has kept me making very small choices.

So, I'm going right to where the fear rubber has met the life road and I'm choosing to resculpt the form that fear takes. I'm speaking up when fear would have be keep quiet. I'm giving my whole heart and soul to relationships with people who understand that helping others expand is the meaning of life. I'm making bigger choices in my favor. In favor of a more consciously created life. I may not be able to eliminate fear, but i KNOW I can change the form that fear takes and use it as fuel to be driven by it less and less.

37, thank you for coming. Thank you for all that we will be together. Thank you for the bright hope and for the knowing of possibility - real, solid, unshakable possibility - that you hold in your outstretched hand. 

I'm all in.

xo

3 words to eliminate from all conversations

I recently put out a little request on facebook for opinions about hair color. Other than a summer stint with sun-in and red henna when I was a teenager, I've spent my life my natural color. Born with a head covered in strawberry blonde (my birthfather is a red-head through and through and my birth mother is of native american ancestry) I have been totally happy with sporting around in the color that magically happens to be exactly what color I'm supposed to sport around in. About ten years ago, a few shimmering strands of silver started popping up all over my head and, though I do not mind them taking up residence one speck, I've wondered if the mass collection right at the edge of my forehead where my natural part lies might be contributing to the occasional greeting I get that includes "you look tired". Like maybe it washes out my face flush or brings out the dark circles under my eyes. You know, like bad color combinations. The suggestions, opinions, and comments were all over the place.

Anyway, even before I received this penny-sized comment enough times that I could collect them all and tile my entire kitchen floor with them, I always knew that it didn't feel good for ME to say to others. I did it a time or two and immediately felt like I just threw a little stink bomb and then ran. Because that's exactly what that comment does (which can also be substituted with "you look sick")

Let's explore this penny-tiled room for a minute, shall we?

There are countless reasons why someone might look tired:

They are raising a large herd of childrenThe one child they are raising is giving them hell
They are lonely/overwhelmed/worried/afraid and it shows up in their eyes
They ate a dinner with way too much salt the night before
Their lovedone is going through something very difficult
Their schedule is cram packed with enough for an army to do
They are fighting a sinus infection
They are part of a family pathology of exhausting co-dependence
They might have been generously gifted with genetic fat pockets under their eyes
They need more sleep...they ARE tired. Because we all live in a world where being well rested is getting harder and harder (hello social media pull, 24 hour electromagnetic waves, chemicals in the air/food, societal pressures to meet certain ever-rising bench marks of worthiness, etc.)

The list goes on. Not one of these problems is helped by saying "you look tired" and never, in my opinion, is it the kind thing to say even if you are a devotee of brutal honesty. I find it interesting that so many of us think that it is okay to say it to our closest kindreds - our family, our best friends, our spouse - because we are the ones who they lean on the most to honor them. We are the ones who they trust to see through the surface layer of tired to the heart of what they really need and when we don't, when we let the trap of what they look like in that moment cause us to be blind to see what might be underneath it, it can feel like a tiny, almost intelligable, betrayal.

We don't mean to, certainly. We care. We want those we love to feel vibrant, alive, rested, capable, beautiful. So, if you happen to be interested in some other (more truthful and kind) options to say to someone when your auto-response might be "you look tired", here's a little list of some alternatives:

How are you?Is there anything I can do for you in this moment to bring a little sunshine to your day?
Would it help if I __________ so you could rest for a while?
I can see that you have a lot on your plate. You're doing amazing.
I can see that you have a lot on your plate. Is there anything I can do to ease the load?
Thank you for all you do.
It's obvious that you care so deeply for others. What do you do to care for yourself?
What makes you feel alive?
Can I bring you a glass of water?
Let me take care of that.
You do so much. It's more than enough.
It is so. good. to see you.

Refrain from launching into your schpeel about how your new $80 eye cream keep your eyes so bright and vibrant, about how your workout routine is the best, about how ridding your diet of meat/grains/sugar/cocaine has really made you look incredible, about how you have this amazing plastic surgeon that could get you in and out in no time. Refrain from finding villians in their life you think they need to set straight/kick out/turn in. It's not your journey.

These people...us...we who look tired, we're figuring all that stuff out. We're playing with all the cards we have on the table that started collecting there from maybe before we were even born. We might be in a season of life that is just plain exhausting that just has to play itself out. We want to feel alive and vibrant and at home in our own bright eyes and we want to trust that you see that person we are before we even do. We'll come to new insights and ideas of better self care by watching you do the same for yourself.  We'll ask about it when we're ready to digest it. We'll pick your brain for menus/potions/schedule adjustments to the degree we see them working for you. Our tired eyes are still open, taking notes, and looking for a better way.

Mostly, it's not that big of a deal if it slips out. I can shake off "you look tired" even it if stings a little (because i know it's true) AND I can still like the person who says "you look tired" just as much as I did the second before she said it because I know it isn't intended to sting. We're all on the learning curve of communication. Even still, I challenge all who read this, to rid those three words from your vocabulary and replace them with something kinder. Something softer. Something useful.

 

 

 

 

On Saying "I love you"

Saying "I love you" has always been easy when speaking to my family but when I was in the fifth grade, I was on the phone with a friend and accidentally said it when we were hanging up.

I. was. mortified.

Sitting at the kitchen peninsula...on the canvas textured olive green + cream floral printed dining chair with a thick plastic ruffle and a seat the weight of lead...I dropped my head into my arms and almost cried. I was so sure that my soon to be ex-friend was sitting in her house laughing uncontrollably at my slip and would certainly fire up the phone tree to spread the word about how weird I was. (It was back in the 80's and the speed of texting was not yet there to hang me in a blink. I hoped only that the fire would come to a dead halt when all the callers would come up against busy signals. Remember those?)

The next morning at school, nothing was different. She said hi. I said hi. We gathered with our other friends and I waited for it to come up. It didn't. Life went on as usual. Maybe she hadn't heard me. Maybe she had...and didn't care.

I had a boyfriend in high school - a kind, and compassionate kid - that I had deep affection for (as deep as a 16 year old can have) and I'm not sure that I ever told him that I loved him but I know I tested his affections and was certainly more work than I was worth. I was young and had more than my share of confusing life experiences digesting so maybe I didn't really know how to connect with love to someone outside my family. I loved him as well as I knew how and his kindness lingered even so.

Fast forward almost 20 years and here I am with two teenage daughters who say "i love you" to everyone. Every single one of their friends. It's been the strangest thing to witness and when I first became aware of it, I squirmed in my skin. I may have even given them a little motherly lecture (in all my perfect wisdom) about how it's really important not to throw that phrase around lightly and about how it takes the potentcy out of it and to save it for someone special.

It may all be true in some way, in some seasons, for some souls, but I wasn't coming fully from a place of truth. Fear was walking around in there too and so it was truth from a wounded heart.

But for the grace of God they raised one eyebrow and shifted to lean on one hip in that unique "are you kidding me?" way, as per usual, told me I didn't know what I was talking about, as per usual, and continued doing what they wanted to do in spite of my specific instruction. As per usual.

With this life of art + teaching I have had the priveledge of connecting with people who have become so very dear to me for various reasons. Some of their smiles are dancing across my mind even now and tears of gratitude well up. Every single one of these spectacular humans has gifted me in such profound and personal...and individual ways. Some know it. Some don't. I feel, in some regards, that I owe them my life. My spiritual life, my creative life, whatever life I have that has anything to give the world. It is because of these people that I take little bold steps here and there, that I speak what's real in my heart when I'm teaching a class, that I am able to hold space for someone struggling without it knocking me out of the boat, that I mother with more compassion and allow for more breadth of the journey of my beloved man. I have come in touch with my own strength because of these people and my body doesn't know how to hold all the gratitude and affection I have for them.

Sometimes it spills out as tears.

And it occured to me not long ago that this is one way love lives in me.

So I agreed to give it a voice...or at least not squelch the voice if it wants to speak. It feels better to say "i love you" rather than some other pleasant compliment when what I'm really feeling is that all-encompassing, body-cavity-filling love. I am not qualified to pontificate on the technicalities of what love "really" is. All I know is that I feel it and I feel it hard...and I'm happy that now I am easing in to saying in those times when that is the most honest thing that can be said.

My daughters...my brilliant, beautiful, deeply compassionate, accepting daughters THANKFULLY do not have any qualms about naming love when they feel what they know to be love. It will evolve for them, it will certainly continue to be offered as a golden token of connection and I'm amazed at how well they zero right in on the heart of someone before they decide that someone may not be deserving of their effervescent love.

I'm still growing into that clear vision and if you are my friend, and you tell me you love me and I don't tell you back, it's only because I'm still learning that what I offer freely and without hesitation to my famliy of origin, I can also give freely and without hesitation to my family of the heart without fear of driving you off. Like I said, I love hard and if you are in the width of that love, there is no escaping. I keep my body just big enough to throw it over you when the sky rains fire and as war is on the horizon and I will bury you in my love so that I can turn and fight the battle for both our sakes.

And if I feel love from you so deeply in who you are and what you do and how you open your arms and soul and smile to me and those words never dance in the air between us, know that I see it and am better by it and give all I have to you too and my all is made more by knowing you.

Saying I love you isn't just keeping up with a trend for me. It's where the rubber meets the road in my committment to live with integrity, to be impeccable with my word. It is my way of living in gratitude and my best chance at knowing I'm safe as I continue to crack open to all this life has to teach me.

 

 

 

An Artful Journey - The final experience

Winter.

Long nights, low light days.

Fires in the stove, the sound of the rain on the roof, cozy lights and quiet evenings that come with the winter.

and...

Cold, wet air that cuts to the bone. Our land becomes a sponge of mud and moss and a skin of water.

On along about February, I get the itch. The itch to shed the grey skies and water suit.  February gets me bad in this way. Bad.

Not much cures my ailes like a road trip into sunshine and it’s that much better if I know that friends – new and remembered – will be there too.

I have that to look forward to at the end of this coming February and I’m near rumbling with anticipation. I get to go be with people I love, meet new ones to fall in love with, share what I love doing, and watch that same love expand through shared creative exploration.

The many faces of love shine big and bright in a space dedicated to sacred creative exploration. This is the very last An Artful Journey retreat and I’m so deeply honored and grateful to be a part of it. Cindy is an organizer extraordinaire and the high caliber of students this retreat attracts is match only by amazing open hearts and generous spirits they are as human beings.

If you’ve never been to one of the An Artful Journey retreats, I invite you to jump in while you can. Join me in the northern California mountains, breathe in the promising sun and the sweet redwood perfume.  Dive into a perfect balance of intensive creative exploration and release of any need to perform. Shed any low-light funk that might be trying to sink its claws into you and come play. This retreat is all about honoring the part of you that needs time to percolate on ideas knowing that there is no lack of material and instruction to choose from. This retreat is all about meeting each other to share and share generously.

The instructors that will be there bring their A game, full on, and so do the students. You’ll be among amazingly generous company and it’s all one big happy fest.

With killer cookies in the mix.

I'd love to have you in my class (just a couple of you-sized seats are available).
I'd love to get to know you.

Bonus: All registrants of my An Artful Journey class also get a FREE seat in my Homesteader's Metalsmithing Revamped course that starts Jan. 20 and includes four weeks of cram packed instruction and inspiration followed by an (included) ebook of all course content after the class is over.

 

My thoughts on choosing a word for the year

Unless you have been living in a hole in the ground…a very deep hole, or, like a busyraisingkidsandkeepingupthehustle hole…you’re probably aware of the movement of choosing a word for the year. I’m not talking about the American Dialect Society’s choice for 2013 (“lean in”) or the Oxford Dictionary’s choice (“selfie”). sigh. I’m talking about the individual “this is the word I’m going to use as my mantra for the year” word to steer you, guide your choices, and help you feel more conscious.

Depending on the word and how it relates to the complex web of your own life,  your word may invite you to rest, to take better care of your body, to connect, to set boundaries, to play. Awesome. Remembering good stuff is good stuff.

But, man. I’m just having a hard time jumping on the word wagon this year! Not that I’ve ever really fully embraced the practice of word choosing. I did it a couple of times and it was fun but it’s not like I always remembered it when stuff got hard. I mean, dang…there are way too many good words to pick just one that may feel like a perfect fit right now but that, in six months or even tomorrow morning, might not fit at all.

I have so much respect for folks who can identify a single word that resonates with them so deeply and applies so directly most of their days to their thought processes and the challenges they are facing. This is no small feat. It requires an intense amount of introspection and, if shared publicly, vulnerability. Our languages are so confining and limiting (when we can’t find the right words) and complex and liberating (when we can find the right words).

I also honor those who extend the invitation to choose a word because I know some of those people personally and they (you) are deeply compassionate, highly creative, eternally open to possibilitiy, wholehearted people who want others to feel totally at peace and on purpose. I salute and admire your valiant and loving invitation and want to be more like you - bold and open about getting clear and being kinder to oneself.

I’ll admit that occasionally I feel a slight twinge of benign envy when someone declares they have found their word (or even more envy inducing, that their word found them). I don’t mean the kind of envy that directs any kind of ill will towards the word finder, but more like the kind that sneaks up every now and then with that voice of “what’s wrong with you, self, that you can’t just pick a word and stick with it already?!?!” or “are you really that emotionally deaf that you don’t hear your word screaming ‘pick me, pick me!!!’?”

This is the point at which someone might suggest I embrace the word “gentle” as a mantra. But you know what? Gentle isn’t always what I need. Sometimes I need a little kick in the pants, a little wake-up slap on the cheek. Gentle is kind. And so is the hard work, the sometimes very ungentle work, of waking up. And I want to be very awake.

So then perhaps awake is the word that could be stitched on my heart. I want to be awake at all times. I want to see where and how I can help. But sometimes being awake is confused with hyper focus on “reality” and the parts of reality that don’t leave much room for imagination and new creation. Sometimes “awake” looks like hyper vigilant assessment of the warning signs that say the other shoe is about to drop. I want to be awake to all the good stuff but not give all my waking energy to the cruddy stuff in life. But I DO want to be awake enough to the crud to know it has something to teach me. There’s something about being awake that is so susceptible to being tossed around on the sea of individual interpretation. Even to all the various parts of myself.

So my inner rebel is speaking up here. She’s kindly resisting the timeline of choosing anything right now to declare. She wants to declare a word for the year in the middle of June if she feels so inclined and only if she wants to choose one at all. But I’m really totally cool with YOU choosing a word. If it feels good to you, I’m totally cheering you on!

Here’s the thing, I kinda think that if you’re going to choose a word in the most kind-to-self way, it would be good to be open to you changing your mind a day, a week, a month or six months in. (What a bout a word for the week?) Life might throw you a curve ball and you’re going to have to adapt in big ways.  I learned this this past summer when my sweet man injured his back and was laid up + out of work for darn near three months. (bed to couch to toilet to bed. Repeat with no variation in pattern and no relief of the excruciating pain.) This time required adjustments not just in our day to day life (bills wait for no injury to heal) but also in our thinking, how we talked to each other as a family, how much more being outside under the canopy of the trees meant to him and us. How many chores around the land became worth of neglect with total peace of mind.

But I digress.

If you feel called to choose a word, if it feels good to, I say go for it. Seriously, I’m all for the game! I love (and often need) a place to zero my focus in on when things start to feel a bit like the tornado scene in the Wizard of Oz – internally or externally. I need to get my bearings to navigate the storm and if that’s what choosing a word does for you, then do it. For yourself, your body, your heart, your beloveds, your beautifully unfolding life.

But if it feels like a struggle (and even if it doesn’t) I propose an alternative:

Choose a feeling. A feeling.  What do you want to FEEL? Heck, choose a few. I have five that keep surfacing and distilling that are printed on small paper and taped to my computer, my car dashboard, the bookmark I use for whatever current book I’m feeling. They are:

And they mean what they mean to me, which may not be what they would mean for you. And I do not recite them in front of the mirror or chant them while frantically wringing my hands or use them as affirmations for something not real. I only relate to them as truths.

The truth is that no matter what is going on in my life, no matter what internal or external challenge I’m facing, focusing on one or all of the feelings for a few minutes and how I can feel them RIGHT THEN, always applies. Always.

I’ve turned to my attention for an instant to “at ease” and “connected” many times when I have the opportunity to engage in an emotional food fight with my daughters and want a more loving alternative. I’ve also used them when assessing my to-do lists for the day. “Productive” has included both blowing through emails like a beast and taking a nap. “Abundant” sometimes has to do with money (and not spending it unnecessarily) but more so with counting my blessings and keeping my house clean (because very little feels like a fancy house replacement to me like an organized, unfancy house). “Inspired” sometimes looks like remembering to pray or meditate or go for a walk. Sometimes it looks like honoring the split-second inclination to turn the car radio off and have a light conversation with those I’m in the car with.  Sometimes it looks like crying or painting or being in a funk for a while or doing whatever I need to do to keep the portal open to being emotionally “awake” (or letting myself go to sleep for a while too).

The things that I’ve found to be the most beautiful part of choosing to focus on these feelings is that a) there is no situation in which one or all doesn’t give me clear and solid guidance and b) they all play up and off each other.

Always.

They are always true for me in some way if I’m willing to ask them to show me how.

When I’m noticing and honoring the inclinations of inspiration, I feel connected, I feel clearer about how to spend my energy to feel more productive. When I step into gratitude and honor the abundance already in my life, I feel at ease with the knowns and unknowns in my life and even when things are unpleasant, the guideposts are always there and I don't have to beat myself up for forgetting a word.

So, choose a word.

If it feels good.

Choose it now, if it feels good.
Choose it later if that feels better.
Don’t choose one at all if that feels even better.
Wear it around your neck or tattoo it on your arm or stitch it on a pillow or paint it on your wall. Just do whatever feels good to you when you close your eyes, get off line, inquire within and unplug from what you might be believing makes you fit in. If you do what feels good, truly + deeply, you’ll automatically claim your right as belonging to a member of the beautiful tribe of those who want to be awake to feeling what they want to feel...whether or not we have words to define it.

 

 

 

 

 

Studying Under The Masters: Becoming An Apprentice - A new online course

A new online course from Jeanne Oliver

 

I'm thrilled to be a part of this small group of artists who are collaborating with the talented Jeanne Oliver in exploring the work and techniques of the masters!

The concept or apprenticeship is brilliant and brings the practice of working artists today together with the experiences and approaches of artists from the past. Each of the 9 participating artists will be focusing on the works, techniques, mentorship, and perspectives of 9 different master artists. During the week that that you will be working with me, we will explore the transportative magic of Edward Hopper's work. I'm so drawn in by the way he uses structure, light, and the intentional presence of open space to bring you into a half-told story. (I always feel a slight breeze when I view his works).


Here's what Jeanne has to say about the concept and inspiration of the course:

There is a lost art of studying the works of others to find your own style. All of the "masters" were first apprentices and were given the freedom to find their creative voice by literally sitting next to those who inspired them. The apprentice sat beside them, listening to their descriptions of process, picking up their paintbrush and mixing their paint, creating a series of strokes that created something that told a story, and stirred their creative spirit.

And, with practice, the apprentice became a master in their own right - mixing together the old and the new. Somewhere, over the course of time (and certainly with current social media) we have lost sight of openly emulating those who inspire us most.  Have you ever taken an online course, gone to a retreat, purchased an art technique book and were taught an artist's techniques and mediums?  Have you ever been worried about what is your style and what is "their" style?  Have you ever been afraid to create art that was inspired by another artist?  This course is for you!

I want to offer a course that gives you some of the most amazing artists in history and how each of us can learn from them. And that openly learning from them is a good thing.

Join nine artists as we become the "apprentice". We will share how we became a modern-day apprentice to those who came before us and those who work beside us now. Through discussion and technique videos, each artist will share their week with a "master" as if they are sitting next to them. You'll learn who their "master" artist studied under, who influenced their work and what techniques and mediums they used.

 

An integral part of the artistic process was to "copy" the master artist until the apprentice could confidently integrate pieces of it into their own creative process. In this course, you will watch as these artists "copy" the works of another artist. You will then learn as they create art in their own style incorporating the techniques and/or medium of their chosen artist.

My hope is that you will leave this course with freedom in your creativity.

Freedom to pull from everything around you that inspires you and how to incorporate it into your art.

The confidence to realize that nothing is new under the sun and how to build upon others that have come before you.

The courage to share who inspires your creative works.

And most importantly, to know that we all learn in the same way.

This is the Art of Practicing.

The course begins on

*This is a nine week course with over 60 discussion and technique videos.

All videos are pre-recorded and available to watch at your convenience.  None of our videos are live so you can access them any time you are ready. You have access to this course for over one full year and you will have plenty of time to watch everything again and again if you wish.

 

We will have a live, written Q&A time once a week with one of the instructors.  If you miss this time slot you will still be able to read all the discussions on the website. 

 

*Supply lists, prompts, book suggestions

*Weekly live chats on this site

*All content is viewable on both computers and ipad!! (yay for compatibility!)

Early bird registration is open NOW. The early bird price is only $48. After December 2nd, the regular registration price of $62 will be in effect. Use the paypal button below to secure your place in what is sure to be an apprenticeship adventure like no other!

*****

The Instructors

Katie Kendrick, Stephanie Lee, Kate Thompson, Christy Tomlinson, Junelle Jacobsen, Danielle Donaldson, Teresa Sheeley, Jenny Wentworth and Jeanne Oliver

Seth's always ready to give me a high five (even though he doesn't know it)

Many of you know Seth Apter of The Altered Page but what you don't know is that I have kind of an internet crush on him/his work/his way of writing about the life of an artists. (It's easy for me to crush on brilliant, creative, generous, funny people). He's someone I look forward to meeting some day and having a long chat about art and life and all that is in the weaving of the two. I have two of his tiny hand sculptures on my mantle with very few other things. Precious things. Things that make me smile. This little hands are always ready to give me a high five.

He has a new book out that I'm very happy to have been included in. There are other contributing artists that Seth introduces you to in his post today. I'm looking forward to getting to know the work of the other artists better - some I know, some I don't know - as the journey of sharing this book continues.

Thank you, Seth, for including me in this compillation! I'm happy that you are spreading even more of your creative expression in the world in this way!

Wanna free seat in my Homesteader's Metalsmithing class?

Hey you's. Good to see you.

I just wanted to pop in on your busy day to tell you something that I think you might like to know. I've told you about my upcoming three day workshop at An Artful Journey in February and I'm getting more and more excited as it gets closer. I really love the venue, the people that come, the other instructors, and how detail oriented Cindy is at organizing. When you come, you'll feel spoiled in all the best, creativity-inducing ways. The retreats she creates have an energy of calm and yet the creative productivity that results is astounding. Like, mountains of amazing work! I'm jazzed about all the fabricating we'll do. We're gonna play with sticks and gemstones and metal and fabric and all sorts of tools to make personal, story-holding works of jewelry art!

I have just a few seats left in my workshop and wanted to let you know that all those who register for my workshop at An Artful Journey will also receive a free seat in my Homesteader's Metalsmithing Revamped class that starts in January as well as the companion ebook. I figure it's a good way to get the creative juices really flowing leading up to the February retreat.

Here are the answers to a few questions I've had come my way about the online offering. I'm working on a detailed FAQ page for the workshop and will holla when I have it ready for you.

You do not need to be at a certain place at a specific time to participate in the online course. I post the info and then you can go access it whenever you want.

The ebook will contain ALL the content from the live course. Every video, every written word, every resource link. Everything. When you have the ebook in your posession, you have it forever.

The materials list for both the An Artful Journey reatreat and the online course are very similar. With the exception of a very few specific items, you will not have to purchase two long separate supply lists worth of stuff. I like to keep things simple, inexpensive, and super accessible.

There is nothing that can take place of a face to face classroom experience and the one-on-one guidance I can give you there...and there's nothing like an online offering to give you the maximum amount of information in the most short-term, digestable format. Really, it would be impossible to choose! Now you don't have to. :)

To gift yourself with a winter creative rejuvination, register for An Artful Journey.

For more information about Homesteader's Metalsmithing: Revamped, go here.

Now, my aching tooth and I are off for a rainy day adventure of errand running and meal exchanging. It's a good day to be busy!

 

 

doubt your doubts

"Quiet the critic."

The stale breath of the inner critic rhythmically grates along the back of your brain like a catching cat's tounge grooming itself. That voice thinks it has a job, and important role: to preserve safety, to stay ahead of failure, to keep you from tripping up.

I don't think it knows the difference between unkind and kind, true and untrue, inspiring or paralyzing. It's not that smart. We work so hard to quiet the critic but our criticism of it is just as a pervasive poison. This is our work - to not match the critic's toxicity with our own criticism of it...because it's just a well-meaning dope with a very poor vocabulary on repeat again and again.

What if we turned every self-criticism into a message of truth and love? What if we tried less to quiet the critic and more to hear what it would actually tell us if it spoke with a loving voice? Rather than attempt to banish the hurtful messages, what if we gave ourselves the gift of closer examination?

Would we then see our self-labeled faults as beacon's of truth?

Our "I can never get anything right" might be revealed as "I'm willing to try a lot of things to know what feels most truthful to me."

"I'm such a failure" would be "I am persistent".

"Why do I keep making the same mistakes?" is really "I'm gathering really good data about how to listen to my intuition."

"I'm never going to get this right" is not true. You can't know that for sure. It's more true that YOU are right. You are all-right. "Getting something right" is about checking all the boxes on the list of requirements that may not be aligned with your soul's calling. The "right" you think you keep blowing might actually not be right for you.

"Not good enough" would be illuminated and we would see that we value the giving and receiving of unconditional love above all else.

Intuition is the soul's guidance - the version of direction that is so much more helpful than what the critic has to offer.

This is an invitation.

Turn every self criticism into a kinder truth today. And when you doubt them right away, doubt your doubts before you doubt yourself.

 

 

Hello October: thoughts on creative back burn

Hello Autumn. Hello bluer skies and slanting, golden light, watching movies, and going to bed earlier.

I've spent recent days in my long-neglected studio. The sun cuts in sideways and on the other end of the room from where I sit there are five border collie/australian shepherd puppies growing into little growlers. Vicious beasts, they are, at only three weeks old. I can't help but smile when I look at them.

The past few months have been a season of wildfires...literally and figuratively. My husband's recent injury ignited an unanticipated spiritual and emotional back burn. I put all non-essentials on hold. I conserved my energy for prayer and laughter and taking on a bit more manual labor around the place. Fear edged it's way in plenty too. I didn't object to any of that but I did worry that the back burn would never die out.

Turns out, there were seeds on the wilderness of my soul that could not sprout without the crack of a fire to awaken the life force in them. They are awake now, sending down deep tap roots. My own tap root has drilled through a layer of bedrock and has found another vein of water.

I'm easing back into the version of my creativity that means making stuff. It feels good. Almost two years have gone by since I made much jewelry. I supposed you could say another fire ripped through back then. It hurt so good at the time. It made me question many things about my creative process. It pushed me to close up, to stop inventing, to give myself to the very energy that was trying to burn me into invisibility. I pushed hard against that and even though I honored the need to stop making things for a while, I channeled all that creative energy, instead into

practicing openness

inquiring into the fear of disappearing

encouraging and supporting others who are blazing creative trails

It is good medicine to go all in with "you go, girl" and mean it. To remember that there is no competition on the level of spirit. You never know when someone needs that support so never hold it back.

In this time of creative rebirth I've been working with jewelry again. I crave lighter, more feminine work. I don't want to be weighed down by adornments. I don't want the weight of anything unnecessary. The evolution of my style is in process...the next phase of work is being born. Soft, light, feminine...and almost tribal. (Tend to the fire with me? We have nourishment always cooking for our people, don't we.) I want the pieces to be more like whispers, affirmations, tender declarations. I'll have some pieces in my etsy shop soon. 

Some of this new work and the techniques to create it will be offered in a classroom setting as the new year launches.  Not just in my Homesteader's Metalsmithing: Revamped but also in four-walled classrooms.

February 6-9, 2014

Art Retreat in the Desert

Tucson, AZ

This is a new venue to me but I've heard fantastic feedback both from previous instructors and students. I'm getting picky in my old age...I'm not inclined to schlep my teaching stuff and my body hither and yon unless the host/hostess already has an awesome track record. :) I look forward to teaching some of my traditional metalsmithing techniques with new projects I haven't presented previously!

 

REGISTER HERE FOR ART IN THE DESERT

 

Feb. 27 - March 3, 2014

An Artful Journey

Los Gatos, CA

...one of my favorite teaching venues/gathering retreats of all time. I'll be there for the third time teaching a three day workshop with all new techniques and applications for jewelry-smithing. Three days is a rarity, a gift to be able to explore new techniques at an easy, comfortable pace. A pace that allows ideas to flow more readily. I really, really love teaching at An Artful Journey.

 

REGISTER HERE FOR AN ARTFUL JOURNEY

I confess that I am very behind on sharing this information with you and the space is limited in both retreats. I would love to have you there!

Homesteader's Metalsmithing: Revamped Schedule change

Summer. Busy, glorious chaos.

I am being tempered by the refiner's fire. I feel stronger every day (except on the days when I don't and those are the days when a long sleep would be the ticket).

Recently Theman suffered a back injury which led us down an unplanned path of total bed rest, excruciating pain, MRI's, x-rays, neurosurgeons, and a lot of tears, hugs, and life-reevaluation. There's nothing like a derailment to inspire you to take a closer look at your trajectory! We've cried, prayed, taken many deep breaths, and feel that we are finally on the long road to restored health and recovered mobility. We have sidestepped surgery for now but he's being watched for the next little while before given the all clear. He's doing much better. So much better and if all goes as it has been, he'll be good as new by mid to late fall!

As any of you who have suffered any kind of physical injury, sometimes the path is slow. Part of our journey has included the reevaluation of my near future and how I can map out the plans I've had in place for offering my art and teaching in various forms. I love teaching. I love being with you students whether virtual or live. I am so grateful when i have the opportunity for that energy exchange and I always leave the class revived and inspired by my students.

Theman is my tech dude when I'm teaching my online classes. He is my camera man and video editor. He is also my lighthouse when I am on creatively stormy seas. With all that has been going on, we are not prepared for the September start date of Homesteader's Metalsmithing Revamped. We need more time - to recover, regroup, recalibrate. I'm not willing to fake it. I'm not willing to rush it just to meet a deadline at the expense of high quality. We need a little more time to make HM Revamped the dynamic, fleshed-out, fully-informative offering I dreamed it to be and that you deserve it to be...what we were on track with creating when Vince got injured.

We've rescheduled this online workshop to start on January 20th and end on February 14th. With your registration you will still get the ebook version of the entire class - every minute detail, video, written word, link, etc. - so this if the new timing isn't ideal for you, you'll still get all the content.

I thank you - deeply, truly - for joining me on this and other adventures and for making it possible for me to support my family through my craft. Now, more than ever, it is a gift that I am so very grateful for.

If late winter finds you in a creative slump, this workshop might just be the good medicine you need.

 

celebrating with thanks

It's well after midnight - now July 12th - and I am officially 36 years old. I will start the morning off with a bang doing something I've never done before! I'll be taking my sweetie, bright and early, to get an MRI to determine the condition of his back and to make a game plan for recovery. Poor guy - laid up for about three weeks now. And I mean laid. up. We borrowed some crutches so now he can make one or two (tops) round trips from the bed on one of the house, to the sofa on the other end of this smallish house. I'm looking forward to this all being behind us and for the full restoration of his health and functioning canigetanamen! :)

Today, in honor of my baby pony's 13th birthday last month, I took her and a slew of her friends (and sister) swimming at the river. The diving hole was wide and deep and generous and gave us hours and hours of grounding/play time. Thank you water. Thank you current. Thank you sun that warmed us all day. You are good to us every time.

We left Theman home for the few hours we were gone but not before we had created two separate stashes of water and food and phones and remotes for his journey from sofa to bed to sofa for make-do entertainment. He just hung out here, in the house, while we played. meh.

So anyway. Here I am. 36. In many ways...many, many ways...so much healthier and aware than I ever have been. In other ways, still followed by a shadow of the many great and unknown uncertainties. I embrace them. Or at least that's what I tell myself. :)

Any birthday parties are certainly on hold here in light of the dramatic shift in health and ability so I've decided to throw my own little party! :) For today only, it's a pay-what-you-want day for my brand spanking new ebook, Pipe Dreams Ebook!

This was a well loved class last summer and is now available, in it's entirety, as an ebook. After today it will be priced at $45 (a whammy of a deal for all the content included) but today you are the ones setting the rules and so you can pay what you want for it. Feel free to offer whatever feels best to you. What feels good to YOU, feels good to me.

In addition to my pay want you want sale for the Pipe Dreams ebook, I'm offering a 36% discount on everything in my etsy shop. That painting you've been wanting? It might still be there waiting for you. When you order the piece you've been dreaming of owning, just enter the coupon code 36BIRTHDAYTHANKS at checkout and you'll be good to go!

Thank you for being with me the past few years. For ushering in each birthday rotation, circling your wagons with and around me as the situations dictate. You are a robust and regal lot and I'm so honored to have crossing and paralleling paths with you.

ox

UPDATE: Thanks to all of you who participated in the pay-what-you-want sale! I'm grateful to all of you for supporting the work that I do and love!

teenagers, retreats, and traveling abroad

It's hot out there. Like almost triple digits hot. I don't mean to complain. Those of you living in Las Vegas or Texas or, say, Death Valley, have it bad. But we've had such cool weather for weeks on end this sudden heat has caught us all off guard. The grocery store line complaints shift from "is summer ever going to get here" to "this heat is killing me" overnight. I drink so much water that it sloshes around in my belly but I'm still thirsty. I picked a big handful of chocolate mint from the garden and brewed a couple of gallons of iced tea and that is satiating my thirst much better. Some things seems to be loving the heat. The tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans, for example. I'm surprised the kale still looks very happy and lush.

Theman is home today. Again. A mild back injury that is keeping him from work. He likes to work so this is all slightly irritating to him in more ways than the obvious. I smile and take ice packs to him and then slink off to the back office where I slump slightly in my chair and wonder if we'll live long enough to experience that time of life when things are easy, simple, and worry-free. I turn 36 in 12 days. I'm that much closer, right? :)

A little over a week ago I participated in the Lake Oswego Arts Festival where we artists in the park were watched over by a mother osprey feeding her fledglings. What a beautiful city and lovely people! We stayed with friends who treat us like family. I never tire of the garden tours I get when I go. I brought home a few paintings from the show that i have listed in my etsy shop now. I wishwishwish I could convey the luscious surfaces in photos. Touching these pieces is where the real interaction lies.

I'm scheduled to teach in Mexico in October and into November for a few days. I'm excited beyond words to see another country, to immerse myself in the energy of San Miguel, to breathe air that is laced with art and color and history far older than my pacific northwest. But as much as I am excited to go, I am equally aching for my family to join me. I went to Australia a few years ago, alone, and though the experience was divine in so many ways, there was a little blue cloud shadow that followed me while I was there. It felt, I don't know, off, to be seeing it all without my brood. The light, the birds, the scenery, the ocean as we flew over Figi. I should have had my family with me.

So here I am, working towards Mexico, having chased every trail of possibility that i can see to fly them there on gifted airmiles or other creative means. Dead ends all the way 'round. I'm paddling like mad to do all I can do to raise the funds to bring my family with me. Time is short and so I've listed my show paintings to help toward that end. I'll be making some other things over the next few weeks to add to the shop and if you are inclined to support my efforts to bring my family with me to Mexico through the purchase of my goods, I will be eternally and deeply grateful to you. So very much. (Thank you also to all those who have registered for my Homesteader's Metalsmithing Revamped online workshop! You are supporting my Lee Herd (gently) Stampedes San Miguel dream too!)

I have GOT to get my girls out of our (lovely and beloved) small town to see wider expanses. (Seeing the Dia de Los Muertos celebrations live would be beyond anything they've ever witnessed. It would..it WILL be incredible for them!) My girls love living in our little town...AND they need to see that there are people in totally different life paths who make livings in ways they never knew existed, that there are cities where color and art is not just for the elite, that being in other cultures can influence them in crafting their lives wider than what they see in their immediate, day to day view of things. I feel this desire vibrating in my heart so strongly and I'm praying - and working like mad - to create this.

And Theman. My sweetheart and beloved, my twinkly eyed safe haven. He tells me he's fine not going but what I hear is "I don't see how it can happen so I won't let myself want it". I just nod understandingly and then get back to my plan. He takes in new sights better than anyone i know. He drinks it in, he wears it for a long time after, he appreciates it. APPRECIATES it. Like, some people dream of getting drunk and partying hard in an exotic new place but not him. He drinks in experiences with every vibrant sensor set to maximum receptivity. This is what I want to witness. This is what I want to be a part of.

I know you all have a lot of goings on, pulls in every direction and if there is a place in your heart where giving towards our goal feels easy and light and in line with all the beauty you are creating in your own lives, you can donate any amount to help our little herd (gently) stampede San Miguel. My gratitude will not be able to fit in the largest of hugs that I will send you.

 

In the meantime, I'm also preparing with my dear friends, Katie, Judy and Misty for our Roots & Wings Retreat in Layton, Utah coming up the second week in August. We've done some wonderful logistical reconfiguring to make it even more intimate and special than we had initially planned. As a result, we only have a few spots left. If you'd like to join in, it's not too late! Three full days of classes plus meals and wonderful goodies INCLUDING a copy of every single one of my ebooks as well as an ebook of my upcoming Homesteader's Metalsmithing Revamped workshop. (That's about $300 worth of ebook content!! Homesteader's Metalsmithing Revamped, Handbook of Elements, & Pipe Dreams and Off the Chain - both brand new!!)

If you are interested in joining, we'd love to have you come along!!

 

 

((Stay tuned for the release of my Pipe Dreams and Off the Chain ebooks coming up soon!))

Lake Oswego Arts Festival

The ponies are rustling under their covers, not wanting to wake up or get out of bed. Theman and I have been up and at 'em for a while packing and preparing to head out for the Lake Oswego Arts Festival. I'm super grateful to have good house and pony and pig and puppy sitters showing up, knowing all will be well cared for at the 'stead. In their dreamiest of dreams, a weekend with the parental units away might otherwise mean sleeping in, watching tv, eating all meals on the sofa, and rebelliously blowing off the teeth brushing. They should have thought of all that that they'd be giving up when they asked for pigs. The farmer morning schedule does not come naturally to teenagers.

The rig is full of my loot for the show. The forecast is a little shaky. We artists are a hearty lot, though, as much as we like to feign oversensitivity. We wouldn't dare even approach the work if we weren't of rugged stock.

If you're in the Portland area and are up for a quick drive to nearby Lake Oswego (beautiful town!!), come by and see me and all the other beautiful art that will be on display!

ox

Homesteader's Metalsmithing has been revamped

It's been in the works {subconsciously} for three years now. Homesteader's Metalsmithing has been revamped and it's happening live and on fire this coming September. And when you join in, you not only get a fat pile o' original techniques, you also get the entire online workshop on disk in ebook format for you to keep forever and ever. That means no "falling behind" and no losing access to every little detail you'll want to refer to again and again.

The foundation work of Homesteader's Metalsmithing - the original course which is now retired - has become the jumping off point for many metalsmithing artists to launch into their own vibrant designs and create wildly successful businesses of their own. What is covered in this revamped version is guaranteed to take beginners and seasoned metal/jewelry artists to a whole new level of awesome. If you're ready to get a big 'ol juicy injection of inspiration in the work you've been doing or are starting from the very beginning, this e-course will definitely give you that and so much more.

Check out my new Homesteader's Metalsmithing: Revamped here.

a sweet time ~ Roots & Wings Retreat

I don't know if you remember, but a few posts back I mentioned something about pedalling like crazy to light some fires. I don't know how you amazing people who can remain publicly very present while still plotting a deliciously creative adventure, rich with details and minutia, do it. Man, you're awesome.

All the work and focus and semi-presence here has culminated into a few exciting adventures. (I'll share more as the time comes). I tell you what, working alone ALLTHETIME is overrated. It's good - for the soul, for the mind, for the thinking muscles - to find a few kindreds and hold your heads together over a vision you all share until you've worked out how to make it happen. It's one part logistical creativity, one part diving in, and one part allowing the woodwork people to come out and contribute in generous ways.

Just such a collaboration has been a companion to me recently. I want to entangle myself with the most playful of explorers, the most reliable of humans, and the most generous spirits. There are few who embody those qualities more than my dear friends, Katie Kendrick (who wrote a beautiful post just this morning about this offering), Misty Mawn, Judy Wise. We have dream-weaved up a creative gathering this coming August in the jagged and breathtaking Wasatch Mountains just outside of Salt Lake City.  Over a year ago we sat around a table and schemed a big dream. A big dream that each of our hearts bundled up together and set it sailing down the river of possibility. Then we rolled up our sleeves and here we are...all so excited to come together to teach the Roots & Wings Retreat!

I am so thrilled that we are able to create such a full offering while still maintaining an intimate time where connections can me made and nurtured. And to top it all off, the location is stunning, our hostess is an angel, and the menu-in-the making is going to be the perfect combination of creativity-supporting brain food that tastes like comfort food. As we plot and plan and manage the details, our driving desire to generously share in a creative exploration with you is the fuel that burns bright in our hearts.

We'd love to have you join us! Space is limited and you can read all about it on our Roots & Wings Retreat page. We'll have our hugging arms ready. It will be a sweet, sweet time.

 

a different plane

The oaks are finally all leafed out. Their phase of coating everything in sticky, yellow pollen was quick, thankfully, as my allergies are most irriated with that stuff. Not that I'm free to breathe easily yet. The cottonwood fluff is moving in suffocating, migratory clouds across the valley. So there you have it...and I know that if this is my biggest problem, then I'm pretty lucky.

I've been spending the cool mornings doing garden prep work post workout/pre shower. The lower garden is tilled, another row of raspberries added as well as two rows of potatoes. Space is ready for a long row of black plum tomatoes for canning this summer and another row of green beans (also for canning). Maybe beans. Maybe something else. I won't know until I'm actually putting it in the ground. I've learned that my inclinations are unreliable and unpredicatble at best.

The upper garden of raised beds, what Theman calls the "kitchen garden", is getting a fluffing too. The kale and strawberry plants are lush, proud, and vuluptuous. The little potted fig tree is sending out leaves while he waits for a permanent home and one bed is filled with onions while another is being prepared for beets.There is so much still to do for a bountiful late summer harvest.

This is what potential looks like in timelapse.I like to sit in the middle of it and take note of what it sounds like {birds in full nesting flurry}, feels like {warm sun, cool air} and looks like {explosion of color, emerging life}.

I'm reading a book and today I came across a line that said

"On a spiritual plane, you have no competitors"

and my whole body buzzed. Not because this is new information to me, but more so because someone finally put into words what I have felt all along (even though, at times, I have forgotten. Deeply so.) Also because rarely in the world of artists bouncing off artists bouncing off students becoming teachers becoming artist is this idea a modus operendi. An artist who teaches sees herself reemerge in the work of the students (or maybe it's the other way around. Who can be sure except for the arrogance of a mind afraid?). And when the work is beautiful and well executed and fascinating, we forget sometimes that we all benefit from the addition of new beauty to the world. We forget sometimes that someone else's gift of creativity does not one speck take anything away from ours. We're not bodies competing for the top box at the race or the title of "favorite, most beloved, the best". We fool ourselves to think there is one and alone, in our rooms at night, we suffer while the rest of the world goes happily on without an inkling that we feel jipped.

How lovely it is then, to meet the creativity of another with the open spirit of total invitation. Let the conversation be one of connection.

I should stop there before I start talking like a new age hippy. Too late? Oh well. The thoughts just come how they come and I would be a fool to think I am in control of them.

Before I go I want to show you these poppies. They are the brightest of oranges. So bright my iPhone doesn't know how to read it. They were once on the end of an attempt of a flower bed of the previous house owner that included hens and chicks, dirt clods, and these. They are downhill now as the seeds have been washed a bit by winter rains and they appear as an explosion of color right smack in the middle of the path between the house and the garden. We adore them. I'll be collecting their seeds this year to relocate them permanently (though I'm sure some will still reappear in the path next spring).

In other randomness, another book I just finished which I highly recommend to any person who is living and breathing, started with the dedication to a friend that said "without whose presence my life would be irreparably impoverished". What a deeply moving sentiment and one which I hope to resemble at some point in my life to my beloveds.

So, today is the day to attempt to be for someone something that, if gone, would leave someone irreparably impoverished. How narcissistic and emboldened of me. (I dare you to join me in the effort!)

 

this scares me more than anything else

So. This blog. This here blog is where I write about my most current goings on...when I DO write. You may want to thank me for being a bit quiet around here because, truth be told, a whole lotta my goings on these days is about one thing:

Navigating being a mom to teenagers.

I seek no sympathy. I'm fully aware that "this too shall pass". And yes, I will most definitely hang in there. It's sink or swim.

I just have to get this out..this whole obstacle course of this version of parenting. I have to preface it all by saying, unabashadly, that I have really great girls. Amazing girls. No question. They are intelligent, witty, extremely hardworking, polite, considerate, patient, aware of the beauty of nature around them (Just the other day pony #1 said "mom, have you noticed that little line of muscari along the fence down the road?" Seriously! What teenager notices...let alone knows the name of MUSCARI?!?!). I have never heard them utter the words "I hate you" to anyone. Not even me. The worst the name calling gets is "you're acting like a brat!". They have wonderful bedside manners, have no qualms about cleaning the birthing sac off a new born pig, will dig packed manure out of a horse hoof with bare hands if no tools are handy, and are pretty darn good at saving their money. They gravitate towards food grown in a garden, know the difference between the smell of rain and the smell of freshly cut grass, and often look on in astonishment when some peer is acting like she's "all that". They have refreshing sense of style and wear makeup and hair do's like pros, can organize a junk drawer more sensibly than most adults, and know when to use a flat nose shovel or when a square nose shovel would be more suited for the job at hand. They do well in school, want the best for their friends, are tenderhearted and any living creature gets their utmost respect and always a moment of their attention (to a spider: "Hi little guy! where you going?").

Yes. I am their mom. I'm supposed to think all these things. But I'm largely informed by their worlds outside of me. I'm informed by what others tell me about my girls. The feedback is always positive.

So what's the problem? The problem is that there is so much out there specifially designed to win the attention and adoration of their age bracket that gives messages that, in my opinion, are contradictory to their most honorable selves. Damaging, in fact. And I can't shield them from that. At best I can put a big ol' scratch in my record and put on repeat the effects on them, as an individual, of what they are seeing. At best I can try to help them see that what they see in an advertisment is not what the world will see in them if they try to BE that advertisement. They see a perfectly spray tanned bikini model on the poster but if they were to dress in that same get up and parade around the public pool, most sensible folks will see a girl who needs to get a better fitting swim suit. Or worse.

There is a well established company that originally marketed their underwear to married women. Now, they have a line of clothing for teenagers. Fine enough...except for the fact that to purchase that clothing in a live store or online, those teenagers must squeeze through the tightly packed aisled of lace and strings and life sized eye level photos of barely covered ahems to get to the perfectly acceptable hoodie. This, in my opinion, is no accident.

Desensitize is the name of the game. Walk them past the ribbons-disquised-as-underwear enough times and eventually they will seem normal. Bland even. Perfectly acceptable. When just a month or two earlier those same girls felt awkward just looking at them - they would avert their eyes. Now, not only do they look...but they pick up and hold up and have no clue that some guy shopping with his girlfriend (not wife) is there taking a gander at the young girls as well. He may not have any bad intentions. Even he is caught in the trap.

I have nothing against sexy. You will not find a pair of granny underwear in my drawers (aren't you so glad to know). I like trendy fashion and feminine cuts as much as the next girl. Chances are, when I am better proportioned, I will likely even rock a fitted pencil skirt and figure flattering top. But you wont see my upper thighs and will not have the priveldge of being able to take a gander at my cleavage without having have walked through fire for me, given me your vulnerabilities and your loyalty...and given me two amazing children.

When I am rocking that skirt and that top, you will see confidence and comfort. You will see someone who can stand up and sit down a dozen times without having to worry if anything that should be covered isn't. I will not tell the world my whole story by showing it my whole body. It is not the world's story to know. I will not try to capture the world's attention with my flesh but with my femininity. I will intrigue the world not with lust, but with art. Not with appetite but with my capabilities. Not with carnality but with compassion.

And this is what I want for my girls and if I were their only influence, it might be possible. But they go to the mall and they watch tv and they have peers who's family values are fine enough but don't seem to include any standards around modesty. I'm not talking about puritanism or long sleeve-high neck dowdiness. Not at all. I'm merely refering to a standard of dress that promotes barely-there "its' the style" clothing over the sanctity of the feminine figure. The cost of standing my ground on this matter is high. I temporarily loose friends within my own home but the alternative comes at much too high a price for my conscience. I am willing to be a stranger in my own home for a time if necessary.

Somewhere in all of this comes the essential transition of remembering that my daughters have their own agency independent of my values and that there is a phase of this transition that may very well include the influences that are not me, seeming to have a greater effect than I do.

Which brings me to now.

It's torture. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. I kept waiting for the time to come for my girls to see my point of view, to emphatically profess a devotion to presenting a version of themselves to the world that says "I value myself, my body, and my mind and the way I dress reflects that. You're going to have to prove yourself a valiant and worthy man to be able to see more." I've realized that day may never come and if it does, it will likely be when I am the grandmother to a sixteen year old girl and my daughter is in the tender and treacherous role of mother.

In a world where the man gets blamed for objectifying the woman, the woman needs to make damn sure she's not objectifying herself or the blame is half misplaced. I saw a singer once, on stage with he breasts and crotch barely covered by her skin tight dress ranting about the objectification of women. I wondered if I was the only one who saw the contradiction. Teenage boys are fighting their own intense battles of hormones, identy, and what integrity and honor mean for them. It would be amazing if every young lady could honor both the boy and herself by honoring her body and not making the road they both travel doubly hard by confusing true beauty with premature sexuality. Winning his desire is not the same as winning his honorable adoration.

I see the choices of clothing in stores and I feel the angst of being a mother with what seems like everything stacked against you in the efforts of modesty. Even with mad sewing and alteration skills, I am tempted at times to just give up the fight. Not only the fight with my daughter about what is appropriate but also the fight with the world about what is available. I let them try on anything they want. I know they are mostly innocent in all this (the market is doing it's job well). But I won't pay for anything that doesn't support my values. They are earning their own money, however, and want to spend it how they want...and the transition hits turbulence. I have one foot in the traditional "you are not setting foot out of this house in that" and "you are a free agent capable of making your own choices that I may or may not agree with".

It's hard. Really hard. And not for the reasons you may think. I'm not afraid of my girls getting dragged into some dark alley and raped by a stranger who's lust has displaced goodwill. I'm not afraid of some big city rave where a drink might get laced with some drug. Those big news horror stories don't quite fit in this picture. What scares me most is what this small town will think of my girls if they prance around in skin tight shirts that they call dresses. I'm afraid that other parents will think I don't care, will think I'm letting the tail wag the dog. I'm afraid that the wrong impressions that will be made. I'm afraid that the message of "I'm dressed like a slut" will overpower who they REALLY are. And this...this scares me more than anything else in my world right now. I have noticed that my most crippling fear in all this is not just that others will be blind to the amazing human beings my girls are if they dressed imodestly in the name of trend, but even more by the reality that my girls may be blind to their own real beauty if they start identifying themselves with clothes that don't honor their sacred mystery, feminity, and divine beauty.

I hope to find peace with all of this soon. But I'm no fool. I know it will likely come after the fact.

Until then, I'm peddling like mad to make sure I fall in love with every joke my girls tell me, every act of service around the house they offer, and every thought they are thinking for themselves - even if it's not the same as mine. I want them to feel so beloved that they are less inclined to look to the confusing parts of the world for adoration. I'll mess it up regularly. But I've got to keep trying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is all this REALLY necessary?

You know that moment when you're mid air, leaping from Pluto to Mars and you wonder if S(capitol S)pace will hold you up this time? And then you forget about that because you wonder why you even jumped in the first place - is all this REALLY necessary???

Then you realized you were PUSHED!!??!!??

Yeah?

I just passed a space sign that said "Deep Space Motherhood."

And it all makes sense. I'll consider myself lucky if I only break my legs when I land because certainly there will be some alien banshees in Miss Me jeans to usher me in with screams of how lame my jump was and I'll be all "DUDE!! You pushed me!!!" and they'll just huff and storm off, like, totally irritated.

 

 

set it all on a ship for the moon

April. I welcome you with wide open arms. You and your shaggy, green velvet carpet with the calico print blooms.

Somehow we have acquired more creatures. 7 new chicks, one new pig, and another one on the way. Things like this happen when you have a propensity for animal collecting have kids.

The littlest chicks are frizzled cochin bantams. Just the name alone is like a sour apple life saver rattling around in your teeth. They're cuter than cute right now but before you know it they'll look like they dun walked backwards into a strong wind...all fluffed and curled and, well, frizzled. Meanwhile, they're Road Island Red and Auracana cousins are practicing they're parts as the lead dinosaurs. Long necked, pin featherd and beady eyed. I've grown endeared to this awkward dino phase of a chick's life. Last weekend the tide pulled us coastal. We stuffed two adults, two dogs, and four teenagers and enough food to feed them in the rig and tossed the winch line west. Part of what makes where we go on the coast so delicious is the drive through the Redwoods to get there. We all talk in whispers and hang our heads out the windows. The towering gods and goddesses sprinkle blessings on us as we pass beneath. Seems like they remember us from another life or something.

Theman named this place Easter Bend. We stop and skip rocks and let the dogs get a drink. It's in a sleepy little moss and fern covered ravine and once when the girls were little, they found a loot of chocolate stuffed eggs along the trail there. SOMEBODY hid them...and as far as they are concerened, it was not somebody in our family. Certainly not some peanut eating man who dashed ahead on the trail without being noticed while I stalled the girls tying shoes and pretending I was having trouble getting their seatbelts unbuckled and asking if they wanted a snack to take with them. Poof. He was back and they were (none the wiser) free to forge ahead. Fastest egg hiding expedition EVER! You should have SEEN the surprise in their eyes!!

Theman likes his peanuts. If you had a magnifying glass you'd see his shirt pocket stuffed with enough to keep him occupied on the trail. This dog of ours...man, she's a handful. She listens to him inspite of his reserved affection for her. It's not that he's not affectionate, it's just that he gives it so generously to me and the ponies so the dog gets the scraps. But, like most dogs, scraps are plenty good enough. All she really wants is to know who's in charge and if she can relax knowing we've go it.
Affection, however, wasn't exactly the chanted mantra of the ponies when they had to dig holes and set posts for the pigs THEY want. They did the work well, though. They're no dummies...they know that snarky attitude will tip the scales in favor of the person(s) who have the power to say "no". As in "no pigs". 'Sides, it's not like theman didn't do the bulk of the heavy lifting anyway. That's what dad's do. They give thier girls enough load to make them a little stronger and then pick up the slack without a peep of complaint.
I think if I had won the three hundred million powerball, I would only look half as excited as pony #1 did on the morning piggy came home. She has a name. It's Miranda HAMbert. For reals.

And this one. How did she get so grown up? I love her and her book worm ways to the moon and back and just when I thought I was filled with all the love my heart could possibly handle, a new ventricle appears and expands even more when baby Edissen is around. That is one happy baby, that girl. And she takes us all with her into that magic place of happyjusttobealive.

Even with an exciting and swelling to-do list and enough plans and schemes to make me a single woman if I'm not careful, I'd set it all on a ship for the moon if it meant I could just swim in the ocean of the love of my family.

You all know what I mean.

San Miguel calls

Spring. I welcome you with wide open arms!

The past two months have been the beautiful wind up. I'm on a stationary bicycle pedalling like mad to get the lightbulbs to come on. It's happy work and one by one the bulbs are coming into full blaze. There are many and they will light my path for the rest of the year. The pedalling has been so worth the effort.

When one is busy trying to get the lights on, one doesn't have much breath to tell you what she is busy doing. But with every rotation I think of you and me and the fun we will have together. I only have five more birthdays until I'm forty and it's high time that I decided to fill those years up with all of my favorite things. (more to come. more to come.)

I had a dream last night that i was in Mexico walking down an alley narrow enough that I was reaching the walls on each side and running my fingers on the stucco as I walked. I came to a courtyard and saw my father's father, his back turned to me, building a windmill - parts all laid out on a table like a hospital patient being stitched back together. He died the winter before I was born but in my dream he turned to me and said "I remember you. Come help me." He looked just like a younger version of my dad and so I went. The shroud of mystery he's always held in my mind's eye was not there. Then my dad was there too. As he is now and he (with two pairs of glasses - one perched in front of other for maximum magnification effect) stood side by side to his father there at the table and they figured out where to put a bolt. Dad asked me what I thought of the trumpet vine along the courtyard wall that he had been so lovingly tending. I asked for a cutting and he gave me an armful.

My father was born in Mexico where he and  his family lived off the land and raised goats and ate pig potatoes. We went there once when I was three and found the hollow tree that they used to hide in. My dad and his siblings and their budding families connected trunk to tail in a CB powered caravan from desert to desert. I had these awesome green and white striped stockings that I pulled above my knee and my brother and cousins caught horned toads and held them for us girlie cousins to gawk at. That was the same trip when my brother and a two or three cousins fell asleep in the back of an uncle's pick up truck en route and Aunt Bonnie had a funny feeling to pull over. Like as if they were lost or something. They found the boys possibly minutes from death from carbon monoxide poisoning. Considering that is similar to how my father's father died, I can imagine that the reality of what could have been was heart-stopping for all the adults. I was probably just running around in the sage brush gathering branches to line the dashboard.

So you see, Mexico holds a part of my family legacy. Somehow I have bloodline in that land. I always have thought I would go back again and I'm so happy to say that this coming October 26 - November 3rd I will be there with two of my most treasured friends and beloved mentors. At the most generous invitation from Rebecca Brooks, Katie Kendrick and Judy Wise and I will be teaching a week long workshop, Pilgrimage In Paint.

If you could only be a fly on the wall in our planning sessions. Man oh man. The excitement is palpable. Judy has immersed herself in San Miguel enough times that she is a wealth of information, the stories and history and colors pour from her spirit when we talk. There is no place and no person that I know of that has seen Mexico the way Judy sees Mexico and you will be expanded beyond any thing you think you know about what it's like to immerse yourself in such a colorful and generous culture. Dia de Los Muertos will vibrate with a whole new level of beauty.

Rebecca has arranged the lovliest of accommodations for us all. Students and teachers alike will commune in a lovely abode with full classroom access, meals, and plenty of time to explore the city. There will even be a full day dedicated to just that - perfectly situated mid week to allow for our creative surges to find center.

I hope to bring my family with me. I hope, I hope, I hope. And I hope you will come too.

Pilgrimage in Paint

three treasured artists

three visions

a holy trinity of creativity

 

San Miguel de Allende

October 26 - Nov.3 2013

a week to reside in a

charming cloistered setting

just a few blocks from the jardin.

camaraderie, delicious meals, an art room available round the clock,

inspiring days in the studio with the incomparable

judy wise , stephanie lee and katie kendrick

tucking us safely under their wings

and excursions into the always delightful 

san miguel de allende.

 

Judy Wise

 the art of seeing

armed with journals, sketching tools, cameras and curiosity

we will step outside the courtyard and into the jardin,

the heart and pulse of san miguel.

judy will be our guide as we strengthen the lens of present moment seeing

capturing the world around us,

instilling ease and enjoyment in the powerful and reflective

art of drawing.

back in the art room judy will help us marry our renderings with 

a strong collection of her personal favorite techniques 

employing collage, acrylics, hot and cold wax, and mysterious layering.

connecting us to the world we inhabit through the ultimate joy of creating.

 

Stephanie Lee

Legacy In Texture

stephanie will guide us in the inquiry of texture and surface patterns

as we draw on the legacy of ancient and modern carpenters and abode builders of Mexico

to recreate the energy of San Miguel in plaster and wax.

we will look to light and shadow,

sky and vegetation, buildings and people,

to create studies in texture and color that we will finish

with luminous layers of wax.

with simple tools in hand,

we will create conversations in mark making within the layers of our mediums

to honor and represent all the layers of legacy that guide us.

using some of our creations we will create a tiled portfolio

to contain all our works from this beautiful week.

 

Katie Kendrick

Awakening Inner Visions

katie will lead us on an interior journey within the contours of our hearts.

together we will explore our inner creative world

fueled by the inspiration of san miguel,

with a nod to the divine, 

creating a  retablo dedicated to the sacred feminine within us all.

with cardboard, acrylics, graphite, collage and love

katie will unleash our passion, awakening

our inner muse with wild abandon.

 

On our final class,

Judy, Katie, and Stephanie will converge to collaboratively guide us

through the final stages of completion of our works

as well as the construction of a painted pouch that,

up to that point, will have been a working surface that we will transform into

a narrative closing chapter to our shared pilgrimage in paint

 

judy, stephanie and katie

all wrapped up in the arms of exotic san miguel!

To learn more, visit the "Pligrimage in Paint" info page.

I'm ready for a little warmth

I love winter. And i love when it's almost getting over. I tire of the seasons right about the time they hint at shifting. Good thing Earth and I have our clocks synced (mostly).

I'm just popping in here real quick. Lots to do still today.

In a little over a week I'll be in Southern California and Jenny Doh's Studio Crescendoh teaching a two day class. There are only two spots left so I thought I'd let you know in case you were on the fence. We're going to have all sorts of fun with plaster and wax and paint and the like. I'll make sure of it.

And since the temperatures are still on the cold side for many of us US-ers, I've added a few more boot cuffs in my etsy shop. (The first batch sold out licket split...before I could blog about them! Thank you!!) I've been working some new stitch patterns and playing with some sewn ones too. The prototypes make me giddy. I'll share them when I'm done. I have no business messing with sewing when I've pigeon holed myself into the plaster-metal niche. I always was one to squirm most when someone told me to sit still.

So. Off I go to cheer on a pony at a basketball game. They won 51-27 last night. She came home tired and proud. Just like me. Tired and proud (but usually for different reasons).

Oh, and one more thing. Thanks for coming here, for sticking with me even when my appearance is sporadic, at best. You keep me tethered to all the best parts of the internets. ox

filters and overlays

The adage "looking at the world through rose colored glasses" needs a little updating. It's 2013, for crying out loud. How about "looking at pictures of the world through multiple photo filters and cross-processed lens effects".

Yeah.

We crop and edit and overlay and blur and color adjust to create a mood, a feeling, a certain impression on those with whom we share these pictures from our lives.

I got to thinking...this means I can take all the boring, mundane, and un-picturesque and in the matter of a few seconds + finger flicks, I have a dreamy representation of what my life is in that moment. I can make you think that I take afternoon tea in front of a large window daily to rejuvinate my chi. I don't. And even on this day, at the very moment I was taking this picture, the dog was leaving me a present in the hallway. I left my tea unfinished. It's cold now, still on the table next to the empty bowl that once held marginally tasty apples.

Not that it's a bad thing. I guess I'm just noticing it these days.

See, all I have to do is take a drive down my road, take a picture, crop the trashy mobile home off to the right out, the "herb" garden off to the left, tweak the coloring so that it looks a little more, say, dreamy, overlay a tiny bit of texture and for all you know I live in the most picturesque rural valley that Sunday drives and fingerless gloves were invented for. It could be a kind of false pretense but only if I'm hoping to dupe you by making things look better than they really are. Only if I'm hoping to give you an impression of things only half right.
Then again, there is a reason I stopped to take that picture. The way the sun was cutting in through the frozen, heavy air. The way my eyes zeroed in on that one swath of light. Mostly I just wanted to show you the parts that I thought were most beautiful. I don't want to bother you with the rest. I wanted you to see it how my mind and heart saw it for those few seconds.

This is the land that's been up for sale since forever. It's beautiful but nobody seems to want (to afford) it. I have a filter that says "open. alive. peace." and I slapped that baby right over the empty, devalued piece of earth. There was a miserable cold that bit at my fingers that morning. That cold that means the winter return of the ever present black ice streak on the road behind the frost line. A girl rolled her car on that piece of road last year. Had to walk a mile to her boyfriend's house in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold. She's right as rain now, if not still a little shaken up with each pass of that part of the road. I don't know how to add that layer to the picture and probably it's not really my layer to add. I just add my own "I love that this land is still open and that I can see the shape of the trees" filter over it and it seems so much more in tune with how I want to keep seeing it.

We can even add things that aren't really there, by golly. We can say "this is my normal life and I want it to be seen as beautiful. I want it too look like I dream for it to look". Nothing wrong with that as long as you're doing it for you. But I kinda think that you have to be willing to look at the unedited version of the picture for just as long and with as much affection as you do the edited version. All that tweaking and fudging ought to bring the focus in on what you saw was beautiful before it was edited. It still ought to tell the truth...unless you're trying to make up a story, of course...in which case I hope you...WE...know the difference and own it.

Oh yeah. One more thing. Try to avoid holding your unedited pictures up against others' edited pictures. It'll make you start questioning the exquisite beauty of our own {unedited} life.

Just sayin'.

more awake

I've been paying very close attention to the world of rhetoric. It’s like the folk art of our time because so many of us are clumsily wading through all the muddy colors the rhetoric brings to the surface. It's stronger than ever and guess what? It's not completely useless and it is not in need of elimination. Just honest inquiry.

What is some of the current trendy rhetoric?

Dream Big.
Be Authentic.
Fly.
Live Bravely.
Find your Voice.
Own your Passion.

Those are simultaneously beautiful and terrifying, inspiring and shame inducing.

Life draining distractions and whims. That's what the rhetoric can be a lot of the time. More accurately is that's what getting hung up on the rhetoric can be. Know this - when you feel the overwhelm of the rhetoric, you have the ability in that moment to check in with yourself to find out where you might be giving your power away. It's not all just garbage born from the Information Age. It is a response to our collective desire to be more awake. It's just that we have the dirty task of how to make it personal and real in effective ways because none of us want to feel powerless.

{{This post is an excerpt from You, On Purpose: Rhetoric Recovery}}

some things I'm learning about gratitude

My parents could have named me Polyanna. It would have fit my personality. Mostly, at least as a kid. I skipped my lanky legs around a lot and sang in perky children's choirs and even danced with a group called "The Sunshine Generation" where we wore orange and yellow dresses that were miniature versions of old-people square dancing get ups.

I've held to a sunny-side-of-the-street persona like an armless cowboy clinging the the side of a runaway train.

Somehow in all of the bottom-falling-outs of life, I've always been willing - wanted even - to see truth. Not just the parts that explain away bad things bringing momentary relief or justify feeling sad/angry/lonely. I wanted the real truth even if it meant seeing my own gaping flaws because I knew I didn't want to cling to that train if a real paradise existed in letting go.

There is something about being grateful that keeps the truth coming. I've found nothing even close that can replace it. It makes truth vibrate with freedom even if it doesn't always carry joy with it. I've noticed that when I feel a hard truth coming to a head - which it often does slowly and laboriously - I often revert to a super-positive-look-on-the-bright-side-I'm-totally-okay-see-me-huge-smile?!?! way of being. But something I'm learning about gratitude is that it is not the same as positive thinking and that stepping into positive thinking too fast and furious too soon before the truth has become clear, actually keeps real gratitude at bay.

We've had our younger pup for exactly a year now. Giving her what she needs has been way harder than I thought it would be and I even thought I knew exactly what I was getting in to. Her arrival into our family coincided with a particularly intense shift in my relationship with my oldest beatuiful wild pony. At 15 she's a lot of bark and protest and even more sweet doe eyes and whining. Elsie, the pup, was a holy terror. She was snotty and rebellious and determined to not comply. No matter how much I tried to convince her that I knew what was best for her - to please just not run off to figure things out herself - she seemed to bolt that much more quickly. And much more intensly.

There was a point at which I was very tempted to just keep thinking positive in our progress with Elsie. I watched enough Dog Whisperer to know that she'd totally pick up on my hopelessness and that my job was to be super positive and trusting.

But for the grace of all that is good and merciful in my life, I realized that there was way more too it than just acting positive. There were two very intense relationships in my life with shockingly similarities. From both sides.

I was standing out in the lower pasture on the verge of tears one late summer day trying to get my dog to just come home from terrorizing the horse next door. I was struck with the realization that I felt lost to myself. All my capabilities felt pointless. I had no idea who I was in this situation and I wanted...needed...to know who I was - who I was going to choose to be in the face of loosing adoration from someone/thing I cared for as they simply grew into themselves. I saw that what it was going to take to feel at peace with this pup was exactly what it was going to take to feel at peace with my pony.

Patience. Non reactive clarity. Firm boundaries = fewer than I initially thought. I had to choose my battles. I had to make being with me way more appealing than pushing against me. I had to be the loving leader, not the boundry-less playmate and I had to figure out how to be the playful leader too. It was a big job and I didn't know if I was capable of doing it well in either my relationship with my pup or my pony.

I've spent many a contemplative moment since then overwhelmed with gratitude for seeing that connection. It took the struggle with my pup to help me see how to improve on the struggle with my precious pony. Even though both still kick and run and buck and poop and stir up trouble when I'm not looking, the tension is far less, the affection dolled out more freely, and there is a lot more laughter going on.

It feels so much better and it was absolutely, with no question, a result of shifting into gratitude for what the experience, as challenging as it was, had to teach me. This is what gratitude can do.

**********

{{I've created a journey through gratitude in my ebook produced by Jess Greene at Seek Your Course. You can find out more here.}}

 

Do you really mean it?

Routine is coming back.

Day to day is returning in all it's various incarnations.

Are you living as deliberately as you want?

Are you (maybe even just a little bit) tired of asking yourself what you're supposed to be doing?

I totally get that.

Check out this little conversation (and stay tuned for the gag reel because when you're a mom trying to skype from the bathroom, the whole world beats a path to your door.)

 

We would love to have your insight and stories and beautiful vibrancy as part of the fabric of this course.

{{You, On Purpose: Rhetoric Recovery starts Monday. The best part is that you don't have to be totally on fire with banging the new year in with big plans to cut to the heart of YOU. On Purpose.}}

 

Thank you 2012.

I won't even ask where the year has gone, how it passed so quickly. It just did like it always does. Full, fast, and without attachment to what you did or didn't do.

The best part about the end of a year is the gratitude that inevitably washes over me when there are no more minutes left to convince myself I just might get "it" all done. It's just the end of this cycle and the beginning of another with not much really changing other than the number you write on your checks (if you still write checks) and the collective consciousness of starting fresh.

How do I want to flop over the fence, to drop both boots into the new pasture? I do it with  optimism but not without pause. I look back to the vast field I just walked across and I see as much happened as didn't. The footprints I've left near every bloom are not as sunken in as I see now that they could be. I could have spent more time admiring each petal but even though there is always room to say "I could have been more present, I could have stood in wonder and awe a little longer" does not mean I was not struck straight through the heart with gratitude and love in that instant that the bloom came into my vision. So it's like a dance, right? Where there is always motion. Part of completing one move is transitioning into the next. Be present but keep on dancing. I see you, bloom. I see you and am jolted by your beauty and before I can tell you it truly, you are behind me.

How lovely to stand in the new pasture and see that the blooms are all still wide open, blazing color, not one bit offended that I am human and easily sidetracked. Thank you, 2012. Thank you for holding steady while I darted around in a frenzy half the time.


I have but one resolution for fresh-faced 2013. It is to do my best to let go of all the criteria I have laid out for myself to qualify as purposeful, happy, useful, focused, healthy, and enough. I'm even letting go of the infectiously promising idea of focusing my energy to manifest anything. It's a lovely idea, don't get me wrong. It's even a noble effort for sure. But for me, I can see that a laser focus on manifestation has, all too often, simply been another time-managing, circumstance-orchestrating, keep-busy-to-keep-from-feeling-stuck attempt to find happy. Or happier, anyway, because I am by nature quite happy.

This past year brought the most intense parenting blows to date and I feel pretty confident in saying that after a few failed launches, I finally GET the difference between parenting from fear (however well intended) and parenting from love. Guess what, you guys? They are not the same thing. Wowza. Not at all.

This past year I honored myself by meeting almost all my work deadlines on time or early, with the exception of just a couple and considering I had developed a habit of running behind that even I detested, this was a HUGE gift to myself.

This past year I found incredible peace that comes with the release of trying to be or not be something for someone because there are too many someone's with different ideas of who you should be or not be. And the hardest part was thinking I was, like, so not playing that game and yet I still got sucked in from time to time.

This past year I worked out more than I have in recent years and getting reacquainted with running and working my muscles has been lovely. I have no shame in admitting that regularly I hit the wall of lonely after a few weeks with each spurt and am still trying to figure out how to navigate through that. Alone. I'm not fit. I'm still a hot hormonal mess. I still don't like seeing pictures of myself and I still don't have any interest in taking more pictures of myself to get more comfortable with that. And it's all good.

So, who knows what 2013 will bring me?!

I may or may not:
-organize my house once and for all
-get out of debt. Finally.
-adopt a gaggle of chubby cheeked little Korean babies.
-balance my hormones.
-bottle/dehydrate/freeze enough food.
-totally kick butt with my new licensing contract
-appreciate my husband or tell my kids "good job" and "thank you" enough
-go to Belize
-get a real, grown up website that is as full of all that I love to share as I am in my head
-keep my inbox clean
-get healthy and fit and flat-bellied forcryingoutloud
-teach anything online
-stop complaining to those who are closest to me
-make a single piece of jewelry to sell. at all.
-write that book let alone read all the ones on my nightstand
-hike to Havasu Falls
-practice the guitar or piano as much as I'd like to
-see all the National Parks
-finish sewing my living room curtains
-grow a prolific garden
-stop comparing myself to others
-wear a belt
-laugh with my whole big mouth and not worry about looking like a fool
-dance with people. in public.
-draw you in with witty prose and captivating art
-take enough naps
-nurture my treasured friendships as much as they deserve

Regardless of what does and doesn't happen, I know something for sure:
This year I will do my level best to fully engage in the clumsy dance of being me and doing what feels good. I have no idea how this may or may not involve a planner, brightly colored post-it notes, morning journaling, brain-storming sessions, furious painting sprees, and domestic duties crowd control. It seems to me, FOR me, that putting less energy in trying to reinvent some wheel or climb to the top of some topless ladder is the only effort worth doing my level best in. For now, anyway. As odd as it may seem, it will take a bit of effort to stop efforting in all the wrong places so much. Simple. Too simple? Not if it isn't something I usually do. Even simple tasks take practice. Especially when it involves the release of everything I've held onto for so long.

So, Self...you with the to-do lists, the million reasons why you aren't quite good enough, the blaring mistakes, the wasteful habits, the average life, the lackluster feelings about your art and your personality and your ability to do anything grand...welcome to the beauty of all of it. I see you. I see your bold, Amazonian gate. I see your unquenchable thirst for knowledge. I see your unwavering desire - your neverending efforts - to be kind and good and encouraging and supportive. I see your loyal, steadfast love. I see your chakras, sparks firing, shooting the best of what you are in all directions. I see your willingness to be beautifully, exceptionally average.

And I embrace you with all the love anyone has ever embraced you with.
It's good to see you.

Original Plaster Painting Pendants in my shop

There's a lot going on around here. A lot of painting and gift making and house keeping and food preserving and yard cleaning and pony wrangling and content writing. And a whole lotta waiting for baby. That mamma is a trooper for sure.

I was up late into the night finishing up these original plaster painting bezel pendants. The quiet kept me company along with a dog on each foot. The tree stayed lit, cut glass ornaments hung from the chandelier above the dining table where I was stationed, and down the hall I could hear a cat snoring. The House seems so much more alive when all the people in it are asleep. She's a broad woman, graceful and patient with wide hips to birth a lifetime of memories. I move slowly and quietly so as not to upset her rhythm. I feel like I am trespassing on her solitude time and I better be respectful or she'll open a hidden trap door and shut me away for the night just to get a little peace.

That last paragraph may or may not be rich with metaphors which I will not go into right now. You're welcome.

Anyway, House and I made you these. You can see the whole group in my etsy shop.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Just a reminder that the last day to take advantage of the early registration price for my new course, You, On Purpose, is Dec. 15th - that's this coming Saturday. Consider it one of the best gifts you can give your creative self to start out the new year.

Come on over and join in!

Exhausted by trendy buzzwords? Check yourself into recovery.

This is it. This is what my soul has been growing into for years. This is what every moment in the classroom, every piece of art I've created, and every conversation with artists and dreamers up to this point have led me to.

THIS is the best way I can imagine to launch a new year, a new focus, a new path. And if you are already on the path of your dreams, this is the ticket to staying there.
 
This is tailored for the creative call in all of us and is has no preference as to whether or not you are a struggling artist or a confident professional. This is for you, from me. With every ounce of love I have.

So what is this? This is my newest e-course, You, On Purpose: Rhetoric Recovery.

It is the course of all courses and it is all about cutting through trendy buzzwords to know exactly how your creative gifts will show up in the world and how they can be of service to yourself and others.

Tiffany Han (life and business coach and dream-powered freight train) and I have teamed up to create our most important personal work to date. We can't imagine a better way to

You deserve to identify, embrace, and embody those gifts specific to you.

• if trendy buzzwords and platitudes, however warm and fuzzy, fall short of helping you create sustainable practices for living an intuitive, vibrant life.
• if the tendency to compare yourself to others results in creative paralysis or if you ever withhold generosity in the name of protecting your hard work.
• if you frequently sign up for courses on how to be a social marketing whiz or creative business rockstar and are working more frantically than ever but feel like you're getting nowhere fast.
• if you vacillate between feeling the need to say "no" more but really want to be a "yes" person in a way that fuels your energy rather than depletes it.
• if you seek a creatively stimulating life, full of vibrancy and purpose, and want to maintain that energy through all the challenges or doubt that may come your way.    

Creative fulfillment is your birthright.

The doors are open. Come show your creative life how committed you are.

Go here to find out more.

      

 

   

 

 

Winter 2012 Ebook Sale

Thanksgiving was very quiet 'round these parts. The only cooking that happened at our house was making a spinach/blueberry/dried cherry/candied walnut/balsamic reduction salad to contribute to the extended family dinner. I love cooking AND I loved not having to on that day. I needed to just chill. Pony #1 made a decadent pumpkin/cream cheese dip that was oh so tasty and the leftovers got dumped into a graham cracker crust and frozen to make a delicious dessert that we've been enjoying sliver by frosty sliver.

I have a scary statistic to share with you. Three out of five children get the "lets look as goofy as possible in pictures" gene from their dad. It's sad, I know, but important for you to be aware of your risks if you are considering having more kids.

One of those three kids might try to compensate for it with sharp shooter skills that will make you choke on your turkey with surprise. She's that good (or so we've been told by family who have taken her out to the range. I'm lucky if I can remember where the beebees are for the gun we own, let alone how to load it.)

Never a dull moment here.

I'm a word-puzzle-piecing fool these days. My spirit is on fire. Beautiful, vibrant flames. I'm crafting up the best way I can think to start off 2013 and I can't wait to share it with you. If all goes on schedule, Wednesday will be the day. I'm all ruffled up about doing what I'm doing here behind the scenes that I decided a little exciting ebook sale to go along with it all would be fun too. Both my metalsmithing ebooks are now on sale until December 15th and since you'll get an actual disk chock full of techniques, videos and how-to information it would make the perfect gift for someone you know who might need a little injection of creativity. That might be you. That might be someone else. Either way, the content in these ebooks is not going to loose it's shine any time soon. There are no parts to break, no warrantees to register for, no rebates to redeem. Just idea generating creativity mixed with sleeve-rolling-up hands on.

To take advantage of this awesome deal, check out my Homesteader's Metalsmithing Ebook here and Handbook of Elements ebook here.

Okay. Back to word crafting. It's like an addicting game of solitaire.

 

 

New Work

It's been a while....a long while...since I listed new work in my etsy shop. A million mouse button clicks later and there's a hefty batch of original plaster paintings.
When I'm painting, in conversation with the plaster, I learn so much about myself. About patience. About the what is beautiful of everything and everyone. About how carefully I must use the words "I am" because they are like a magic spell cast out, creative and self-fulfilling.
I've had good mentors to tell me this way of working is not just a strange quirk only I have. I'm glad to know there are many of us on this path. Sometimes we don't see each other through the thick mists and rains. Sometimes we are huddled under the same rock for shelter telling stories while we wait out the storm but I like it best when we are standing shoulder to shoulder, facing the sun, encouraging each other onward.

 

We won't let you get away with lazy

I've been fixin' to write a nice pretty post for a while. Today, it kinda seems like doing it will be just the self-inflicted therapy I need.

There's a wild pony in the living room teaching herself a new song on the guitar. Youtube tutorials roll across the tv screen and she sits cross legged, determined, with the guitar in her lap. In about an hour she'll come tell me that her fingers are sore and I'll sympathize and tell her it sounded great. Because it does. She learns quickly and her musical bent shines in moments like these.

She's home today. Not because she is sick but because she is officially a student of the local charter school. The past couple of days have been spent un-enrolling her from the local High School and I have to tell you, it was NOT an easy decision for me to support. I have great respect and admiration for her teachers and many of them are close personal friends who love and adore my pony and want grand success for her. Its hard for them not to see - and express - her choice as a cop out and this morning that came to a head. She and I sat in the car and talked about life and how it's not important to prove anyone wrong because sometimes in doing so, you loose clarity of the vision you have for yourself. Sometimes you just have to try something different, give it your best shot, and be able to truthfully evaluate it for yourself to see if its working or not.

This decisions means she'll be home most of the days. She'll be home, teaching herself stuff from books. I have labored over this decision because I knew I was not able or interested in becoming her homeschool teacher and the guilt, man. The guilt. It hasn't been easy for me to be honest and confident in my confession of this matter. I have all these weird ideas of what it means to be a "good mom". Theman told me the other day "you're doing a good job" (as a mom). It darn near both broke my heart and fixed it all up proper like it needed that day.

This girl of mine is a few months shy of 16 and she thinks she's supposed to know what she wants to do with the rest of her life (for crying out loud). We keep telling her that knowing what you want to do is so much less important than knowing who and HOW you want to be. She has this giant quilt of possibility stretched out in front of her and she's trying to figure out how to sew it all together in a way that will still work 20,30,80 years from now. She thinks ahead more than most kids...she's her dad's kid. He and I just keep slowly stitching (hopefully) unbreakable threads of centering. "Focus on being. Keep your energy invested in the development of your happy and purposeful self. You'll see the how as you go along. And don't worry, we won't let you get away with lazy." :) I need to hear it as much as she does. We all need to know we have people backing us up, giving us a little push, when we are tempted to be lazy. Lazy is dressed in all sorts of fancy clothes these days.

Now that I think about it, I haven't posted in a while because, for the most part, my life is pretty good and easy. My time is full of new and exciting things. I'm brewing up something that my soul has been aching to create and I feel ALIVE. I'm often not quite sure how to share that sometimes (without sounding unaware and insensitive) when there are so many people suffering. I'm less likely to say to the suffering soul "It will be okay" and more inclined to say "how can I help" and when I don't see a way to help, I am quiet. Our brothers and sisters on the east coast are fighting a valiant and steadfast battle for basic comfort and I am sending all my love in every moment. For what it's worth. As I see ways to do more that feel right to me, I'm so on it.
We all have our battles. We all have circumstances that weigh heavy on our hearts. I'm trying to keep a pony's head above water and water has taken away homes. It just goes to show that the scale of personal challenges is as broad and varied as it could possibily be and somewhere in all of that our job is to practice compassion, to re-invest in our ability to do hard things with integrity so that, if nothing else, we have light to shine.

 

Yes. This was just what I needed. I little meal of reflection. Now, for some dessert...videos of laughing babies on Youtube sound good. I need a good laugh.

Peace out.

P.S. On Wednesday, November 7 at 5pm PT/8pm ET, you can join me, Pixie Campbell, and Jess Greene in a live call all about taking personal creative retreats, I'd love to have you along!! By signing up you will receive a recording of the call, so go HERE to register even if you can’t make the live event.

in praise of hard labor

"People with dirty jobs are happier than you think. As a group, they’re the happiest people I know."

-Mike Rowe

I just watched this video and I can only say, Amen, brother. Amen.

If you have been thinking that it's time to renew your gym membership, I invite you to consider other ways to improve your health:

-Plant a garden
-Help someone clean something up
-Do something that requires a little elbow grease and maybe even something that would make you want to plug your nose...but dont'
-Let your shoes get dirty in the digging
-Wield a garden tool in some purposeful way so that you can taste the difference between the sweat from hard labor and the sweat from using an indoor treadmill

Those are my old-timer thoughts for the day in hopes that true blue hard work remains the most important teacher we can introduce our children to.

 

 

What to do when you turn 50

...watch it until you can't see it any more. Then get smothered in love and kisses enough to last you another 50. Eat some rainbow cake too.
What to do if you're the wife of a fresh faced fifty year old? Knit yourself into a giant, soft blanket and wrap all your love around your man and the family he is an integral part of. Then rearrange the living room furniture when you're home alone to give the appearance that you've been nesting all day - JUST for them. Don't admit that it's also in part a way to fend of the urge to throw out everything you own because you need SOME sort of fresh start.

I love it when it's that easy to trick myself into making peace with and feeling gratitude for the many faces of abundance in my life.

some days you're the stick

We're still watering the lawns. Still watering the garden. Still watering watering watering. September - with its hot days, cool nights, dry grass, heavy harvest...confuses me.

 

Makes me sleepy. My body doesn't know whether to keep the fast pace of summer going or to slow down into an autumnal saunter. I put on a sweater in the morning and when I'm out running errands in the mid afternoon when the golden light of a lowering seasonal sun washes over everything, it takes me a while to realize I'm not tired. I'm hot. And I need to peel off the sweater.

I took a quick dip in some summer memories just now. Back when the apples that are now crimson were just green little cannon balls hanging from hopeful branches. Back to that Sunday afternoon visiting family and after coming home from being gone a couple of hours, discovered that the dogs had taken liberties with a giant chocolate cake. Back when swimming at the river was the best way to beat the heat. Back when a rippling silk-cloud sky brought shade to builder men.

That picture at the bottom right...that's me in the orange...speaking with lovely women at my book signing at the new Joanne's store. I met some treasures, for sure. Among them was and artist, a mother of a one year old and two year old, Alexandra, with her wild woman hair, rainbow eyeshadow on her carmel skin, and hot pink skinny Jeans. She looked like Tyra Banks but her smile was even prettier. She quietly asked me a question about how I am able to balance being an artist and a mom. She had a look in her eye that I took as someone looking for the right answer and I'm not sure the one I gave her was the one she hoped to hear. I just told her my truth. Balance is a fine idea but I think a lot of people think it means finding steadiness and I'm not sure I have much of that. I guess I do in my way. In the way that my bones are rooted in earth and I'm more and more interested in listening rather than being listened to. She said "I want to do my art. I want to do more with myself than just cook and clean." I said "Sometimes you just have to make THAT your art. The rest will work itself out." I was talking to me too. I can be a good friend to myself, sometimes.

I sat down to write a little hello here. I thought some delightful, bubbly little paragraph would emerge from the static sparks of my fingers touching the keyboard. I just had to check a couple of blogs first. Sparkly, vibrant, happening blogs. And that's the point at which I realized today I am that 6 inch metal stick you're holding in your hand after the sparkler all burned up. Some days you're just the stick. And that's totally fine. It might not be a bad idea to give myself full permission to saunter as slowly as needed. This may or may not be the plums talking (16 quarts of juice and 36 pints of jam). The plums that have taken over my kitchen and my evening/late night hours the past couple of days. The plums that required the used of every last of the giant bowls and pots and pans in the plum-scapades. Sticky, sweet, sparkly plums on the end of my burned up stick. Sweet and tart and a little bit smokey. It's all good.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Off The Chain Class Samples

Hi Everyone,

In keeping with my current dog-paddling, ball juggling state, I have not yet posted sample pictures for my upcoming Off The Chain online class. I am working on them as we speak and will be sharing them next week. A HUGE thank you to those who have registered based on merit alone and the trust you have in my from previous online offerings. I appreciate it more than you know!

Also, I want to answer one major question I have received in regard to the timing of the class (see previous post). Though the class is live for one week (October 1st - 6th) I will, as I always do with my online classes, leave the site accessible to registrants for a full three months after class. If you are out of town, vacationing, busy, hiding out, or otherwise unable to commit to the dates of the live class, no worries! You'll have plenty of time to work with the lessons at a pace that is comfortable for you. I totally understand (and live) a busy life with fluctuating timing. If I were a registrant of an online class, I would want the same flexibility.

 

Last Day for Early Registration Price

A month ago I opened registration for my newest online class - Off The Chain. I had intended to leave the early registration price up for just a week or two but I was on the road, internet/computer access was limited at best, and so the discount has been available much longer than planned. I'm so happy to have so many of you on board! Just a heads up...I'm closing the early registration price of $35 tomorrow night (Wednesday) so if you want to get in on it before then, you'll save a bit o' cash. No worries if you don't. The class is still super affordable (regular price of $45) for a week of daily instructional videos - often more than one a day - all about making a varaiety of chains. You can use the techniques you'll learn in this class for jewelry, assemblage, book making, or, my favorite, keeping a teenager at home when she would MUCH rather be out with friends. It works wonders. Or so I've heard.

Anyway, if you want to get in on the class early, come on over! I'd love to have you!

**UPDATE: EARLY REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED. You can still register for $45 by clicking the button below:**

 

In other random news:

1) I'm mucking through the trenches on these golden late days of summer. The nights have been chilly and I'm scrambling to keep up with the waning tomatoes and other garden produce. With the help of my friend over the past couple of days i've put up quite a stock pile of pear products. Ginger preserves, Pear/Orange/Walnut Compote, Pear Sauce, Whole Vanilla Pears, and Pear Butter. A warmer comfort I can hardly find than that of adding such decadence to the larder.

2) Pup and I are still in conflict over the property boundaries. We start round two of obedience school tomorrow. She's doing much better in some ways - more mature - but that Border Collie drive overpowers all progress when we are outside. I've taken to running her on my bike just to let her bust out into fully speed. All that energy kept on the inside of the skin ain't no good for a dog like that. You oughta see her on the end of that leash, toungue flapping in the wind, the might of 8 sled dogs pulling me along, a big old smile, I swear. Does a heart good. I lap up every bit of that unconditional love as it no longer oozes from the eyes and lips of my ponies. Geeze. I thought for sure that my sweet natured darlings would surely by pass "the phase". Sigh. I will not reject mail addressed to them that reminds them how good they've got it and what a loving mom they have. You know how hearing it from somone else sometimes makes it stick. :)

Speaking of ponies...I hear the bus. Time to go put on my June Cleaver face and hug the snot right out of them.

(P.S. If you have emailed me in the past month and have not heard from me yet, please know that i am hacking away the the mountain at every chance I can. Thank you for your patience!)

 

my beautiful August in pictures

I aim to get back to my irregularly regular postings right quick. In an effort to balance "I need to tell you everything that happened since I was last here" with "just start where you are and don't try to catch up", I am sharing with you my August in pictures. Some of you were there and you'll see that there are many pictures that could have been added. ((Thank you for spending time with me!)). From the first blue moon, landing in Arizona for Art Unraveled to the last blue moon spent with my tiny herd at an intimate, outdoor Brandi Carlile concert and all vast skies, open roads, rodeos, shared brokenheartedness and laughter among friends in between.

August, you were good to me. I lived you on the road spending just the last three days of you at home. Thank you for the love. September, you have a big job ahead of you helping me get caught up. You're up for the task, right?

And here we are today. The first day of school for my 10th grade Sophmore class president and my 7th grade, first year at the High School student. Who are those grown up young ladies? They resemble the babies I nursed just yesterday...

Off the chain!

Here's a picture for you...

My two hands covered in white paint.
Sleeping in a guest bed.
A freshly updated/redecorated room waits down the hall as a suprise for someone special.
Missing my ponies and puppies and man and land and all the flavors of home while...
Practicing presence where I am. Now.
Towering Mt. Timpanogas sleeps a stone's throw to the east in the same place she slept when I was 10 and would stare at her out the back door of the house i grew up in. She's thick in the middle...too many fluffy cotton candy clouds for lunch.
Canyon breezes.
Crickets.
Late night/midday/during breaks scheming up the details of my next online workshop. My mind works on it when my hands can't.

Yeah. So that's where I am. I'm here that isn't there where I usually am when I say I'm "here". "Here" is usually home but for now "here" is a couple of states over while the herd holds down the fort at home.

Enough of the blindfolded geo locating.

Like I said before - I'm scheming up a new online class. I've been in scheming mode for a while but I'm actually in planned-out mode. The date is set and everything. It even has a name: "Off The Chain"...as in "crazy and exciting; delerious and wild. By analogy to a frenetic dog when unleased." (according to Wiktionary)

When I get home to my own computer and whip up a pretty little picture show for you to take a gander at, you'll be able to see for yourself. If you happen to have some experience with taking a class with me - online or in person - you know that I'm going to be packing that week of class with videos and written instructions galore on how to make your own chains with design variations aplenty, tons of technical prowess, and maybe even a tip or two on how to use your new found chain making skills to strengthen your relationships in my new book tentatively titled "How to Keep Mr. Right from Walking Out". It's the prequel to my yet-to-be-written book, "The Guaranteed Way to Keep Empty Nest Syndrome at Bay: A Child, A Chain, An Attic".

But I digress. Where was I? Oh yes...

...If you also happen to be the up-for-anything type and are gung-ho to dive into an online metalsmithing adventure with me this fall, you can register early at a discount. Thirty-five buckaroos ($35!!) for a loaded week of instruction! I'll only have this available for a short while and then the registration will open at the full price of $45.

Let's get the pre-party party started, eh!?

OFF THE CHAIN E-WORKSHOP
October 1st - 6th
Early Registration
**EARLY REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED**
$35 USD

 

 

 

 

Hello Arizona. Goodbye Arizona.

Four flyby days of teaching in hot Arizona. Peach, banana, strawberry, grape, cashew goulash and a glass of keifer for breakfast each morning. Going out with friends to watch bull riding, mutton busting, and flippity-do, boot-stomping dancing. Windmills, full moons, and lots of laughter. Saying goodbye is not my favorite part.

 

 

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pickles and yarn

Tomorrow morning, after a week of girl's camp, the ponies will be home. I predict super tired, kinda cranky, very dirty girls. Showers, naps, family movie, maybe a walk in the golden moonlight. Maybe not.

Today I'm packing for Arizona. (I'll be leaving my family for three long weeks.)
Today I planted three bushes that, in a few years, will give a little more privacy to our front deck.
Today I'm making some pickles and dilly beans and planning a dinner for two of chard, more beans, and a bit 'o local, organic beef. Our monthly allotment of meat. Her name was Paula.
Today I'm letting the house be quiet.
Today I'm thinking that friend's calling you out of the blue is a pretty sweet thing.
Today I'm sharing my momma's new etsy shop. This hand craft was the first I ever learned to do at the tender age of 5 or 6 (and I have since used it in my jewelry work in more recent years). This woman, in all my life, has never been seen without a crochet hook in her hand. I'm pretty sure it only happens in church because she needs to hold the hymnal and all. She spent 6 weeks in a clinical medical research study where she'd'a-like-to-have-died and gone to heaven what with being locked up and having nothing to do but crochet and read and watch tv and listen to books on tape. This is her paradise and it could have only been improved upon if someone would have kept her very well stocked with nuts of all variety (her favorite) and soup. While she was there she made exactly 500 crocheted doll dresses "for 12" dolls (just in case they think they were little dolls)" she says, finishing the 500th dress at midnight on the eve of her departure from the facility. She has crocheted literally hundreds of afghans for charity and humanitarain efforts over the years. I could go on and on telling yarn after yarn (snicker snicker) or you can just read for yourself. I promise you, she is so much more fun than you'd think a hook-addict would be. :)

I know I'll be getting a pair or two of these for baby girl konetski when she makes her appearance in early December.

Fridays are a good day for random thoughts, dontcha think?

 

Last week I gathered with hundreds of enthusiastic registrants of Pipe Dreams in the virtual classroom where we dove in to indulge in this short (week-long) online metalsmithing project class. We had a blast and the students created amazing work!

Check out a teeny, tiny sampling of the skilled student work!





Awesome work, eh!?!

I'm keeping registration open and the class accessible for the time being so if you missed out before, you're in luck now! All the class content, including instructional videos, are up and ready for you to peruse at your own pace. If you deserve a little summer play date with your creative muse, you can read the details and register here.

Would you rather join me in a brick and mortar classroom?

I'll be in Phoenix, Arizona teaching three plaster based classes at Art Unraveled. Though the classes are project specific, I'm going to be ambushing you in the most playful way with techniques you can apply to more variations than you can shake a stick at. There is still a bit of room in all three classes so if you are hankering to get plastered with me (in the most wholesome way, of course). I'd totally LOVE to have you join in on the fun!

On July 31st I'll be teaching Half-Wit where we'll be making plaster bowlface-hold-a-majigs. You know, in case if you ever get lonely in the studio and need another loon to keep you company.

The next class there will be a two-part plaster book making class (yes, a plaster book), Illusion of Heft on August 1-2 from 9-12 am each day. I am so in love with how these books feel. They are beefy and yet not heavy...but still super sturdy. Because they are made from (mostly) plaster, the surface is so luscious for painting, drawing, collaging, rubbing your hands across, whatevering. yum yum.

My last class of the event will be a wickedawesome Santos sculpting class starting the evening of August 2nd and finishing up on August 3rd. If you have ever wanted to experiment with sculpting but have been unsure of where to start or intimidated by the process, let me tell you that THIS class is the class that will break through all of that and hand you the manual of easy sculpting in the palm of you hand. You'll be a plastering whiz in no time! If you can't make it to Phoenix, I'll also be teaching the Santos class (a slightly extended version) in Layton, Utah on August 10-11th. My beautiful hostess, Lorraine, is opening her home studio to serve as a classroom for full on creative exploration and, let me tell you, that girl is a total creativity conduit!! Email me for the details of how to register for this workshop. I'd LOVE to spend some time with you this summer!

In Lee Family news, Pony #1 didn't pass her driver's permit test. Totally suprised us both. She'll take another stab at it when she gets home from girl's camp this week. She left today - a day early - for the 4th Year's overnight hike/campout before the rest of the group arrives tomorrow morning. That's when I'll take Pony #2 up where she'll learn how to make fires, dress wounds, tie knots, cook lumberjack food, and pull respectful pranks. The buttcrack of dawn will be here in a blink. To say she's excited is totally an understatement what with this being her first year and all. Her camp buddy and she are in the bedroom chatting away as we speak...despite the fact that I've told them a half a dozen times that it's time to go to sleep. Ahh, whatever. They can catch up on sleep this winter.

While the ponies are away, I'll be putting the final details (i.e. last minute cramming) on my prep for my Art Unraveled and Utah classes. I was telling theman that it would be so cool to be standing in this moment with all my prep done and money stashed away so that he and I could steal away to our favorite campground in the Redwoods at the coast while the girls are at camp. Just the thought of it makes me....sigh. I try to asuage my ache by reminding myself that it's still summer...the campground would be crowded and we like it all to ourselves anyway.

I console myself with tonight's batch of Black Currant Rhubarb Jam with pickin's from the garden. Best use of my black currants I've found to date. You should see the color...and the flavor is as close as I can get to the feeling of being flat on my back on the river bank staring up at the stars in the Redwoods in summer. I'll take a jar and a spoon to theman and hope he forgives my underdeveloped time management skills.

 

the cake will tell all

 

**beautiful**

So there's picture of an ultrasound on the text messages of my phone. It's your typical black and white inksplot that's supposedly looks just like a baby. I've never been able to identify more than a head on those things but once the real thing emerges into the world, I totally know what's what and what to do with it.

Calm down. I'm not pregnant. That ship sailed two ponies ago (though it's not for lack of trying). BUT...I am going to be a grandma! My oldest step daughter is pregnant with her first young'n and tonight we will be attending our very first "baby reveal" party. The other beautiful step-daughter is making a cake and when the cake is sliced there will be something that indicates the gender of 20 week incubated little baby Konetski.

Yes. I'm going to be a grandma. Yes, I just turned 35 last week. No, I'm not the world's youngest grandma but it will be interesting to see how it feels. I'm the lady who can't finish her sentence when a little baby passes in view. I'm the lady who can totally tell a hungry cry from a "get me out of this car seat" cry from across the store and if that cry comes from a baby less than a month old (yes, I can tell that too), then my woom-bah flutters and I start gently bouncing the watermelon I have propped on my hip. I'm not sure what grandma's do but hoping it doesn't start with a hair cut and roller set.

while I wait

She's a week shy of 8 months old and still leash bound. She's still pooping in the house if we aren't careful (a result of a lack of freedom outside). 15 feet of black woven cotton tether her to me every time she goes outside. Unless, of course, she happens to escape and makes a bee line for the fence that is supposed to keep her separate from the cow and the horse. I've been talking to the old hooved girls and asking if they wouldn't mind helping me out a bit. "Just a quick kick to scare her home, please? Don't break anything...knock a tooth out if you must...but just please help me keep her wanting to stay home." They are too busy being annoyed and presenting pup with the broad view of their south ends. As if that will make her go away.

Inspite of class after class and even having a private trainer come out to the house, she's determined to create bad work. She needs to work. I have TONS I want to do with her to satiate her desire, her high-intesity NEED to have a job. But I am limited in that until we can get over a few hurdles.

It's almost embarassing. I think of myself as "not one of those people who let's their dog get away with anything" and so to have a dog that does what she does is challenging. We have the trainer coming out again soon. She's going to guide us in the responsible, effective use of a remote citronella collar. She is confident that it will work wonders and i am hopeful that she is right.

I've grown to love this dog so much. She has the brightest eyes of all! She knows exactly which garden beds are a no-paw zone and she loves to sit next to me - within the confines of the fenced in garden - and pick strawberries with her dainty little snout. She's fascinated with the bucket that i keep my vine clips in that hold up the cucumbers to the fence where little mushrooms grow. She drinks from the bird bath somehow, intuitively...midboggling to me...knowing exactly how much weight she can put on her paws to not knock it to the ground.

I can tell that she's going to be one of the best dogs ever - she and my Sadie Lou. In the meantime it's about patience. It's about sitting in the open field below while she sniffs and jumps and dances around me. I shiver as a cold summer rain storm rolls in and the dusk light washes everything is a vivid smokey gray. The only thing between me and being totally in love with this perfect moment is that leash. Patience. Patience.

Pipe Dreams starts today (there's still time to get in on the fun!)

Beautiful day. Beautifull weekend. The beets and tomatoes and green beans are growing an inch a minute and I have jar upon jar of pickled produce on the mind. That time will be here in a sneeze's instant. I'm plotting my church of the garden produce where in we will offer up a prayer of thanksgiving in my kitchen sooner than later. No special dress code enforced. Pastor Vinnie presides over the congregation nightly with hose in one hand, beer in another, clothed in Oregon-appropriate shorts and birkenstocks. His shirt flung over the fence because, I guess, it's important that he wears it when passing the rabbit cage on the way to the garden...?...even thoug it comes off as quickly as the garden gate latch clicks. He's a mystery, that blue-eyed dreamweaver of mine. A simple mystery. Yanni, Crash Test Dummies, and Alanis all cohabitate on his play list. I'm probably over thinking it all as I am wont to do.

(what we won't do for a good shot!)

Pipe Dreams starts tomorrow. I'm leaving registration open until further notice because this little class is the perfect vacation for those of you who imagine a week sequestered in your studio knee-deep in creative play a dream holiday.

 

The house is a total disaster. It's just what happens when I get tunnel vision (like preparing and putting the final touches on an online class). It's like the ponies think I don't notice the obstacle course of STUFF in the hall that sprouted up like an earth-consuming mushroom as a result of their spontaneous room switching. (remember doing that? Changing bedrooms? Dad used to let me do that whenever I wanted. It was just me and him and the dog in that big old house for a lot of years. I guess I had to keep things interesting.)

While I'm mostly confined to the bridge of the online classroom ship, I'm still taking breathers out in the rest of my life. The puppy wrangler and plant waterer parts of me are feeling a bit lonesome for the "whip this place into shape" part of me. My organization addiction kicks into high gear when things are such a mess. A consistent slower idle would be nice, but I'm not yet sure how to maintain that level of engagement in the all of it all. Little by little and sometimes big by big.

water for my birthday

I'm feeling so alive, inspired, empowered. I don't know how to even put it in to words. I have so much I want to tell you about my weekend at the World Domination Summit. While I'm drawing out the threads of thought and drafting a pattern of how to knit them all together in a beautiful shawl I'm also celebrating my 35th birthday today. 

There's a lot around turning 35 for me. So much of it is unexpected. So much of it just part of realizing that I'm in that beautifull middle place. There are so many wise women (and men) still dancing around on the planet who have lived so much more life than me. They radiate so much kindness, so much aliveness, so much compassion. And the youngers...the ones who see 35 as a long-future mark in time...I love that I am able to walk on the path and leave tokens along the way to tell them "you are doing amazing. Keep the faith."

This is a tender time for me. A tender time when I feel stronger than ever. The vulnerability I want to honor and the innate buoyancy of my spirit intersect here, at 35. As I stand in that split second pause between the inhale and exhale, I see myself with so much more compassion than ever before. This picture, taken by someone I care deeply about, purturbed me for a while. She said it was beautiful. I was certain she was just being kind - not realizing her filter of me is not clouded by my own self-judgement. (too often I mistake my clouded view as fact.) Yet I look at it now with much kinder, more compassionate eyes. That is me. My long fingers, my upturned lip, my stub nose, my long jaw...my mothering heart, theman's beloved, the buoyant spirit, someone who will help you choose the right pectin in the canning isle so that you are overthemoon happy with the results. I am beginning to embrace the incomplete wholeness, the gritty-filmed brilliance, and the experience of what it means to live in gratitude in the face of plenty to be annoyed about. This is life. This is my life. And it's a pretty dang good one.

In honor of my gratitude for being alive on this planet, I'm inviting you all to the party of all parties. The theme of the party is gratitude through giving something we all take for granted. Clean water. I was moved to tears many, many times when I heard Scott Harrison, creator of charity:water, speak at the World Domination Summit. His journey through compassionate giving and building this beautiful charity are inspiring beyond words. If I were to be totally honest, I would have to admit that I'm not usually one to give to charity. I admit it. Not because i don't WANT to help, but because i'm never certain that my small donation will have much impact (a typical response when we live in a country of cheap goods at high prices. We may be a bit out of touch about how far our dollar can go to providing basic needs for those in developing countries). When I saw the transparency of charity:water - how not once single penny donated goes to admin (unless you specifically donate to admin intentionally) - I was inspired to "give up" my birthday in hopes that you, my dear readers, would be inpsired to join me in sharing our abundance and showing our gratitude for the often overlooked blessing of clean water by making a contribution to the efforts charity:water is so beautifully engaged in. I feel honored to be able to help in this small way to decrease the 4500 children a day who die and the 80% of illnesses caused by water borne illnesses.

You can tithe specifically in honor of my water-sign, cancerian birthday here: (any time, any amount - the site calculates the suggested donation based on my birthday age but you can enter your own amount. No amount is too little.)

Whether you donate or not, I hope you feel the blessing of abundance in your life today. I'm so glad to be here on this planet with you. 35 years and counting. Cheers.

ox

Bam.

(Guess which one is my pony...the one with dimples.)

I always hope to conjure up a more silky, ease-into-it start to a blog post - especially when it's been almost a month since my last post - but sometimes it's just BAM. Here I am.

I'm snacking on celery with peanut butter, stopping every other bite to de-string the stalk. If it weren't for those pesky strings I'd eat celery way more. I think somebody fogged our house with a strange, odorless chemical over the weekend because, you guys, my ponies are cleaning their rooms. CLEANING THEIR ROOMS!! Without my request. They woke up and, like, just had the idea all on their own. And we're not talking surface cleaning. They are full on, hard core, vigilante style cleaning. Going-through-old-birthday-cards-that-have-been-stored-in-a-box-under-the-bed-and-throwing-out-dried-nail-polish-bottles clean. The hall has growing mounds of "get rid of" piles. I don't even care that I look like a spy dodging laser beams when trying to get from my office at one end to the living room at the other end. They have music playing and everything. I'm sniff sniff getting all weepy sniff sniff...so proud of my little organizers sniff sniff!

I've had such a circus of life and head-stuff going on I could write and write and write and still just scratch the surface. This post could go any direction: "life is so amazing" or "what the bleep am I doing?" or "everything's just as it should be and I'm totally chill with it all" or "it's time to dump the whole thing on it's head and start all over". Yeah. It's all part of the circus. It's all pretty good too. I'm not a-feared of looking into the deepest of deeps and somehow manage not to spill my cuppa laugh juice while in the dive. I suppose it makes me hard to read to some folks but theman...theman always sees every layer, every beautiful and wrinkled and festering and luminous and expanding and dying off layer of me and somehow manages to still want to tie himself to my soul. I'm mostly at a loss for words when it comes to trying to express how grateful I am and how unbalanced I'm pretty sure it is - what he puts up with compared to what he receives in return. I grow him a garden and sometimes make dinner. Sometimes I clean the house too. Sometimes I make him apple pie and carrot cake. Other than that....

The Lake Oswego show was an awesome experience. HUGE thanks to everyone who purchased a painting from me! You are the coolest people - coming out in the rain, looking at my work, loving it enough to buy it. I'm grateful beyond words. Frank and Kathy...dang, was it Kathy?...the cutest people of the whole weekend. A retired couple with a zest for life and art. He (an artist) and i had a couple of awesome jam sessions talking about plaster and color and texture and the way we relate to the surface. On the first day I met them he wore a bright turquoise shirt - his favorite color - and visited a while. They came back later that day and bought a painting that matched his shirt. He loved the zing of bright red I had inculded. The next day they popped in to tell me they loved it in their house. That alone made my weekend. I have a few stories kind of like that. The richness of the experience is lingering.

Between my last visit here and now I've been that ball on the end of an elastic attached to the paddle of home. Thrown out and sprung back. Sometimes ricocheting off other surfaces first - like pony 2 turning 12, painting and installing rooster art with local high school art students and their teacher, our annual town celebration (hello small towns), taking my master food preserver certification test, packing my bags for my upcoming adventure at WDS and hanging with my homegirl Laurie in Portland for the weekend, and last but totally not least - preparing for my Pipe Dreams Online class starting the 16th of this month. (it's going to be awesome! You can still register if you want in.)

Bam. Here I am. I'm done with my celery and have moved on to gum and iced tea. I'll be back super soon with paintings for sale, a killer pineapple jam recipe, the current amazing window display of high school student art in our downtown windows, and the top 10 reasons to hand-water a garden.

i've missed you.