I had a postcard started, it was pale, it was blue with little white cloud looking things down the middle, and I really didn't like the way it was turning out. So I smeared safety vest orange colored paint all over it.

Now in the past I would've tried to make it work the way it was. Miserably trying to rescue it over and over in its original form. I might've been able to save it, maybe. But why? Why spend time in a process that's anxiety provoking when you can just be a little violent (for lack of a better word) and throw caution to the wind and jump in to the giant safety vest orange void. It was pretty fun in there actually, sloshing around.

Sometimes mistakes are great things, especially in art. When you're open to just about anything, then anything can happen. Now I hope for mistakes, because more than likely I'll come up with something more exciting. It's co-creating with the Divine, and that new thing will have more depth, more emotion, than what I was going to make in the first place.

I find this goes for life too, just be open to all the possibilities. You never never know what will happen. And it'll be more perfect for you in the end than what you'd originally planned.

The older I get, the more unattached to outcomes I try to be. I just try to row in the direction of the stream I happen to be in. That's what wisdom is. Having control is an illusion. We have choices, yes, but control, not exactly.

So sing that old song, you know the one. Because "Life is but a dream".

PS This one is for the Leo man in my life, who by example, teaches me things like this all the time. Happy Birthday Sweet Pea.

I can't believe it's Friday already, time seems to be passing so quickly with everything seeming to speed up. And it's August, this is usually when things lay back and languish in the heat and humidity. Vacations happen, naps happen, time stops for moment and the dust settles for a few weeks giving us time to review and ground ourselves before that first burst of a cool breeze reignites us in September.

Sometimes I think the "busier" we are the faster time goes. As a nation we like to be busy, it's how we say we're important. That's a choice I'm now attempting to avoid. I've been trying to slow down and be available, more present to what's in my immediate surroundings again, more grounded. I find it keeps me less affected and drawn off by the swirling energies of late. It helps me reconnect to a part of my heart and mind I've ignored for too long, a part of me that I use to make strong work. Even as I try to breathe there's just an abnormal amount of things happening at once, and I gotta say I'm not liking it much. I want my August back.

So with the speed up of whatever time warp we're in along with the upcoming anniversary of my mother's passing later this month I felt like making a card with this message.

For right now, and maybe forever, this is what it feels like. We're here for a moment.

I've been gone for several days, helping my dad move in to his retirement community, leaving a house he and my mother shared for just over 40 years. It's been almost a year since her death and he has done so much, physically, mentally, spiritually. I can't imagine covering this amount of psychic work in so short a period of time.

The last few weeks I've been taking apart literally hundreds of silk men's ties that my mother collected for her quilting dreams. I take them apart, take the stiffening piece out from inside and take off the lining. Sometimes there are these flaps of silk that are sewn on the back of their fronts to keep the smaller thinner parts harnessed while wearing. A particularly pretty one came off the other day and I saved it.

It seemed perfect to hold something, something special and reverent in a way. So I sewed it to the card and kept going, knowing I would find the perfect thing to insert.

I had this feather "corsage" from one of my dad's old hats he used to wear in the 60's when I was kid. I've always loved it. I've kept it up on bulletin boards and shelves on display over the years. It seemed the perfect thing to be shown off in this card. I added some brass beads to the end.

So now here it is being held by one the silk tie straps from my mother's stash. Floating. It seems perfect, her holding him in the sky as he moved this week.

Symbols are all around us. We just have to look.

I'm glad I could reach out and grab these two and make a small piece of work to mark the time, the special time.

I've always loved Joseph Cornell's work ever since I learned about him in college. A shy man, he wandered the streets of New York City picking up detritus off the sidewalks, going through alleys finding old bits of wood and other ephemera, making them in to beautiful boxes and collages decades and decades before it was fashionable.

There's something in his work that touches me deeply. I was quite shy when I was young too, lonely from lots of moves and school changes. I relate to the sadness in his work, a poignancy that works on you when you spend time with it.

One of the images that reoccurs in his boxes are birds, parrots and cockatoos are the ones I remember. So when I saw this one in my suitcase of collage clippings I immediately thought of him and pasted it down. Later I thought I'd just work in a similar compositional style too and added the string with the hoops just like he did in several of his shadow boxes.

So this one's for Joseph, who's inspired me all these years. One of the artists who really gave me permission to be myself.

Namaste : )

I worked on three postcards over the weekend. With the mixed media that I've been working with lately I've started working on a few at a time.

I find I need the time often to tease out what needs to happen next. Forcing it just doesn't work and having several going at once keeps things fresh and interesting. I've started doing that with paintings too. I like the way it feels.

So here's the first one, an old cigar label, an old tea East Indian tea label, lots of paint, and more hand cut cork stamps. I didn't know it was a compass until the end then the word "search" seemed to be what the whole thing was about. It's what I, and a lot of the people in my world seem to be doing a lot of at the moment.

Have a great week everybody.

Namaste.

I decided to start several more postcards after the last success with "gemini". I've always had an interest in the tarot and oracle decks in general and have been thinking about art that incorporates them in some way lately.

So this just sort of happened as I worked tonight. I used the corks again, and again they add just the right element of pattern and tone on tone atmosphere that I like so much. I'd better get busy carving some more : )

Just lots of layers here of paint, stamps, paper and collaged pieces from my little suitcase of stash. I can see moving to bigger paper for larger pieces soon, this is so much fun.

Happy 4th everybody. Take care.

It's saturday, it's 106 outside, 2 degrees above what they thought would be the high for today. Yesterday the high was 109.

I went on errands early to avoid the heat and decided to hunker down here and paint, organize piles in the studio, and do a postcard.

I have this pile of little acrylic bottles from my mom's old craft stash I got when I cleared out her sewing room. Then my dad gave me his old acrylics several months ago, after a renewed interest in painting that was short lived. I love using these premixed colors to do the postcards. It's fast, and I end up using colors I don't normally think about using. I've been more attracted to saturated colors lately.

This one started out with reds and oranges. Then I collaged part of an East Indian loose tea bag on top with matte medium. I liked the collage bit, so continued with some old patterns from an ABC rug ad, some painted pattern, and some stamping from some of my own home made stamps carved out of corks (the new fake corks actually work best).

It still didn't look done, so I added the alphabet and numbers down the right side, painted over those, added a lacier tone on tone sideways alphabet in the middle. It was starting to really look the way I wanted, but something was missing, so I added my birth sign of gemini with cut out letters and the tiny butterfly.

I really like this one, so much so that I think I'll do the astrology sign for each month as they come due. If I'm pleased with the results I'll print them up as cards for my etsy shop.

You just never know when the creative angels will visit and bless you with some magic.

Stay cool everybody, here's to some rain and a cool breeze.

I've been taking a little mini break on the postcards recently, lots of other things going on including trying to make room for some time to read other books on creativity. Two of my favorites so far are Flora Bowley's book on painting, and Digital Wonderland by the folks at Duirwaigh Studios.

Flora's book is more for beginners but it has some great reminders on how to keep yourself open as you paint. Digital Wonderland is a nice photoshop book more oriented towards collage artists and artist's in general who are not photographers which is a great help. I'm finding a lot a great tips and help in there.

Here's a postcard I created about a week or so ago. I was thinking about sound and wanted to create a visual way of representing it.

Take care everyone and enjoy the rest of your week!

We got the most amazing beets from the co-op the last few weeks. I was cutting these in half to roast them. Richard was sitting there watching me when I got the idea to blot them on a postcard paper. I'd seen this done before. I remember my cousin dying yarn with onion skins and beets when she was in art school when I was very young. Their intense vivid dye still fascinates me.

So off we went pressing all of them in to paper. He made a card out of his many pressings. I got this one good sample and decided to dress it up with watercolor, along with a memory of my grandmother making pickled beets with eggs.

I started this postcard friday night and finished it tonight. My mother's birthday is tomorrow. She'd have been 81.

For some reason this reminds me of her. She wore her hair short like this, when I was a kid, though it doesn't really look like her, but black and white memories can be vague.

Again I just started with some oil pastel and let whatever come out come out. I guess this one is like art therapy : )

Happy Birthday Mom : )

Happy Week everyone. Astrologically this one's supposed to be a toughie, so check in with those you love who're having a hard time right now.

Namaste.