Sculptures 1 & 2:

About a week ago, my therapist (hereafter referred to as “T”) began talking with me about the importance of holding onto the image of light inside of me when we discussing things that made me feel uncomfortable physically.  This really resonated with me because of work I’d done in the past with imagery related to light.  It kind of jogged my memory in a way and I decided two weekends ago that I needed to do art related to this light to help me remember it moving forward.  That weekend was really interesting because, when I awoke early on Saturday morning, my living room was full of amazing amber-tinted light.  I went outside with my camera and fell in love with where I live all over again.  I sat outside for about an hour and breathed in the light and the fresh air of the morning – the perfect way to begin my light-filled weekend.  This is one of the pictures I captured at about 6:15 that morning:

That morning I also finished a painting I’d started the night before for my bedroom.  I’m in the midst of decorating it. It’s all very natural, ivory tones except for some orange/yellow accents here and there.  I had a huge wall with nothing on it, so I wanted to do a painting and decided that the “light” theme would be a good one to go with.  Here’s what I came up with – different than what I usually do but I’m happy with how it turned out.

Now, back to the sculpting topic:  The weekend that I did the two pieces above, I also started my third sculpture.  I wasn’t sure how I could capture the idea of light through that medium but I decided to try.  I’ve always been drawn to images related to the moon and, to a lesser extent, the sun.  And I’m very interested in energy.  With my past therapist(s), my fabulous energy worker in DC, and on some level T, I’ve talked about the importance of letting energy and life back into the area around my abdomen.  It’s supposedly a very important healing center of the body that I had purposefully ignored for about 25 years (oops).  So, I decided to focus my sculpting on a piece related to that.  She took me longer than the first two pieces and is a little larger than they are – she is probably six or seven inches tall including the “moon” she’s holding.  I ventured out and decided to try imbedding beads into this piece also, and, much to my surprise and delight, it seems to have worked!  Finished last night…  Here she is:

And a detail shot that shows the beading better:

But, I only post my photographs there.  That’s fine but, in truth, my other art is more important to and reflective of who I am and the growth that I’m expeirencing in my life.  I anticipate the next two or so years to be especially interesting and exciting for me and I think that continuing using my art as a key form of expression is going to be increasingly important.  So, I think I’ll try to use this site to document those things and my journey in general – maybe making it a little more general than just my art.  Maybe I’ll try to share more of my story.  I’m not really sure.  For now, to get back into the swing of things here, I’ll share a watercolor that I did about two weeks ago.  It remains untitled for now, but I’m sure that will eventually change.

Have you ever seen such amazing eyes?

And, here are their blankets…

And this is a smaller one that I did earlier in the day.  I’m calling her ‘Claudine.’  I don’t know anyone named Claudine but that’s what came to me as I finished the piece, so I’m keeping it…

I’ve also begun watercoloring over the past month or so.  It’s been an interesting transition for me.  Anytime I’ve painted before, I plan out everything before I begin…  I conceptualize what I want to paint, then sketch it out, perfect the sketch, then transfer it onto the canvas, and eventually get around to doing a painting.  With the watercolors, I’m being much more spontaneous and I’ve been suprised at what comes to me when I just start putting the brush to the paper without really thinking about it.  While I was in NY, I also picked up crocheting.  I’m currently working on my fourth blanket and find that working with the yarn really relaxes me.  I’m thankful for having learned that during this stage of my life. 

So, this is a probably too-long post to share some of what I’ve done over the past few months.  I am in the midst of several life changes that are exciting and scary and lots of other things all at once.  My hope is that I will use this space to write more about all that I’m transitioning toward as those things begin to happen and to share the art that I create as I move through these new motions….

I’ll start from the most recent “creativity” and work backwards…

Two of my watercolors from the past three weeks:

Here are a few of my favorites of Anna and her parents Holli and Brad (if I posted all of the ones I’d like to, we’d be here for hours):

And, finally, after three months… a few pics from Clay and Erin’s wedding on February 21, 2009.  Welcome to the family, Erin!