Christine's Canoe - 36 x 48 acrylic.

"Sara's Red Canoe" - pastel 36x48

Ok, today I broke down and painted red canoes. While I love paddling canoes, painting them in paintings is not my thing, but last year I started a series called vacation portraits and "Sara's Canoe" will go into that series. I will probably do more so called "up north" works for the vacation portraits series as the winter goes on. I also did a canoe called "Christine's Canoe" which will also go in the vacation portraits series. I post both of them here just to show everyone how differently things can seen. Sara wanted a red canoe in a red canoe environment - I tried to paint a canoe in a canoe environment - "Christine's Canoe": was the result. My husband kept saying before I painted the water blue instead of green but there's no water for the canoe - I said it's in a marsh, abandoned. He said but there's no water in the marsh. I said it was fall. (Note I just can't let him in the studio during process - he effects how I think and my freedom to create). So I painted the water blue. Then I made a second attempt "Sara's canoe" is the result. Needless to say my husband loved the second one. Ah me.

I will post both here - let me know which you like and why.

"In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty... in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from out past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe." Deepak Chora

I love this quote from Chopra - why - because the unknown is like abstract art - and the field of all possibilities is in the creative - it's a win win statement for this abstract artist.

Birthday Road Trip.

Three Lakes Show

Just have to add an attachment to yesterdays post - we need government - the question becomes what kind of government - for me as to what kind - I put high value in my freedom, my independance and my faith - Christ did that for me - why would I throw away this gift?

I encourage others treasure their freedom and independance also - I encourage others to make choices, live with them, realize that life is a roller coaster and their are no free lunches. When I see what we as a country are doing to help Haiti right now I just beam with pride - that is what we as a country are all about - I got the same feeling after 9/11 - we come together - no one told us we had to - we just do - and we help.

I recently had a conversation with my mother-in-law about the idea of a gift giving. It seems to me that giving gifts has gotten all twisted. We seem to give in order to receive - we have twisted "do on to others and they will do unto you" when we give to others we expect something in return. That is not a gift - a gift is given with no expectation of return not even a personal warm fuzzy feeling as a sense of return - we give because we want to - we give because we see the need. That is what we are doing in Haiti right now - that is what happened after 9/11.

It's not a gift if we expect something in return. That's why a lot of people give anonymously - think of it - just give and don't let people know you did it - it's a different feeling. I can remember my sister in law who has since passed talking to me about the difference between the Salvation Army and the Red Cross when they go into a disaster site. The Red Cross takes all the glory - rarely do you hear of what the Salvation Army is doing in the same place at the same time. It's the gift.

Well this was a long chain of thoughts. Peace to all of you this glorious day. I'm inspired I think I want to paint a picture called "The Gift." Rarely do I think of titles ahead of time - but I feel this title calling to me.

Saw the movie Avatar yesterday in 3-D - wow what a fantastic movie. Reviews of the movie talk about the pantheism theme that runs throughout the movie. Pantheism being the belief that God and the material world are one and the same thing and that God is present in everything - in the movie pantheism comes through as God and nature are one. Reviews have compared the movie to "Dances With Wolves." I could see and feel the link that other reviewers were seeing, but for me I also saw something else. One could not miss the power struggle between machine and life - the machine being bad and life good, the good guy bad guy thing going on. Then there was the love story with struggle. What I saw was different - what I saw had to do with the notion of government - and how the individual is governed. I saw the Na'vi as independent making their own way - very spiritual. I understood the machine as big government trying to take over and control the individual. The underlying notion that profitable business (a favorite theme for movie directors to bash - they just love going fist to fist with big business and making them the bad guys) got lost here it was government the mechanical avatars not the blue guys and gals, taking over trying to control. Trying to make things secular - trying to take faith, belief, God our of the picture. Once that got into my head it couldn't go away. I just love the fact that knowing Cameron probably wanted us to see it as big business as bad - I see it as big government (they even wore camouflage) as bad and hurting the individual and an individual's (in this case the blue people) freedom to worship and create independent individual life. When one understands the movie that way - wow what a statement - and you know what I am free to be able to think of the movie that way.

Aside from all the politics that can be conjured up from the movie - the creativity - was above and beyond and very very inspirational. I found it interesting that there was so much surrealism in the movie even to the point of using some of Salavador Dali's visual images - floating rocks - artists are so way ahead of the time - Dali did the rock think around the 60's - wow the 60's was full of interesting artists and people.

Something I found very interesting in my reading today was the binary created between what is understood as "rational" is uncorrupted - and what is understood as "natural" as corrupted. The natural being influences from the body like, sensations, emotions, desires and that which is understood as rational as something that we can control. A simple example to illustrate this thought, for me is the artist who creates within the lines and one who creates outside of the lines. The artist who creates within the lines makes things that look and are understood at "real." i.e. Michelangelo painted God to look like man - something everyone could understand and relate to. A rational image of man, versus Picasso's images of man and beast in Guernica. One image was created by painting within the lines and within an individuals ability to visually understand how things can been seen, and the other image created with emotion, desires, and sensations and outside the lines or outside of how an individual understood how he/she is viewing things. It comes down to perspective - in short both are created, reason and the "rational" as well as the "natural." So why the binary? Do we just want to argue with one another? Does one have to be right? Is there not room for both? One cannot exist without the other. In the end it comes down to power - which can control the other. And that is scary.

So I will keep on working outside the lines - for I believe that is where I am supposed to be and I am grateful for my "reasonable" other. I think of this photo I took recently of snow on a branch - the "rational/reasonable" individual will break down the snowflakes into how they are created and their geometry and material make up - I see beauty, and softness, and quiet. Both perspectives are something we have created to communicate. It's just a marvelous thing to think of this photo that way.

Today's thoughts come from my continued reading of "The Resurgence of the Real" by Charlene Spretnak.

To follow up on my spiritual links - someone sent me an email with this amazing link in it. It's very inspirational. And he says he paints tooo. www.rollonron.com

"We Aren't In Kansas Any More."
30x52 Mixed Media on Paper.

What a wonderful world we live in - filled with ups and downs, ins and out and full of miracles - large and small. This work with it's swirles, and loop d loops reminds me of all these ins and outs. I anxiously await to see how the Lord will use my work.





Patience


"Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on, Hold fast, Hold out. Patience is genius." Comte George Louis Lecterc de Buffon.

Just got a wonderful email from a Susan Roux - another creative soul - how exciting I just posted that I wanted to connect to other creative spirits and along comes Susan - life is filled with wonderful miracles - her blog spot is creative in a different way - and very chatty - fun.
here is her http address in case you want to check her out.
http://susanroux.blogspot.com

Artists have known for a long time that the act of creating art helps people explore the deepest recesses of their hearts and mind. Artist have known that the act of creating is no simple task and that once their work is finished another takes on the creative task, the viewer. To have that intimate personal connection between the self, our souls, and another through the wonderful simple act of creating is a very Divine thing.

It seems that I am being called to work in a very Spiritual Place - not sure where that is going to lead me but I am going to follow the call and share it in this blog space. It is my hope that other creative artists who also feel the call, will find this blog space and respond.

"Spiritual Creatures Delight Her" 30" x 42" Watercolor and mixed media on paper.

" A single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer." Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.

Well I am grateful that there were blue skies in northern Wisconsin today - and I am grateful for the sun - and for this most amazing day and for all the wonderful spiritual creatures that surround me. It's been a very blessed day and I am grateful.

I have been reading "The Resurgence of the Real" by Charlene Spretnak, mainly because I am researching "The Devine" or "Grace" or "The Spiritual" in us. Being the historian that I am I am interested in how "Grace" has been understood in the past hence I picked up some books on the subject. I want to post here some of my findings and thought. In "The Resurgence of the Real" Spretnak discusses Platonic and Socratic philosopy - one part I found very interesting is when she goes into what she describes (pg. 45) the historical shift in discourse that occured from Socratic "spiritual exultation" or "creative imagination," to Platos reflection on man's "impressive capabilities for rational thought" and the "cultivation of personal and civic virtue as well as powers of discernment and just deliberation where the fruits of (male) rationality, ... and the neoclassical sense of rational man's unbounded potential."

Bottom line Spretnak returns to the traditional binary of rational man versus "spiritual exultation" or "creative imagination." Ah me - I guess that is where I too will begin. Do we need this binary? Can these two things not exist together? What would our culture, our country be like without the two - yes the two not just the one?

To be rational must we cut destroy the " "corrupting" influences of the body (sensations, emotions, desires)..." (pg. 45). The wonderful sensations I am experiencing the return of to my self, after leaving academia, are my emotions, my desires, my passions and delicious pleasures are I believe is the return of my soul to me, the return of Grace within me. It disappeared for a while (nine years to be exact - that total time I was at the University) and I personally am glad it is back - I am much happier for it.

For me I personally believe we need both Plato's reason and Socrates passion .... we don't need the binary. One isn't better than the other. One creates the other.

For me the painting I did called "Her Heaven's Are Filled With Magical Stars" says it all it has both passion, soul and spirit, and reason in design and composition.

There is something different about the work I am currently creating - it has to do with the words, she and her, and the work is truly inspired I believe by the Devine, or Grace or something extremely beautiful within me that just seems to want to emerge. There are so many things in this world that try to influence our "souls" our spirits - some many things that try to steal The Grace, The Devine away from us - I treasure The Devine within me, I treasure The Grace that surrounds me - I want to protect this spirit that is my soul - I love this feeling and want to savor it for as long as I can. I believe that we need to surround ourselves with, Grace, The Devine, Love, Peace - we do that I believe by surrounding ourselves with others who also experience and feel it within them. It is my hope, it is my wish that for all those who come in contact with me in 2010, for all those whom I love, my family and extended family, and for myself, that we are all surround with Grace, with The Devine, with Love and Peace in 2010.

"She Dances In Golden Wheat"

My friend Nancy TeWinkel Lauren inspired the title for this work also. "She Danced in Fields of Golden Wheat." Nancy and I will be having a show at The Three Lakes Center for the Arts in January. She will be showing some of her photos and poems I will be showing some of my paintings. This one "She Danced" will not be at the show, she loves taking photos of the moon, flowers, and up north stuff.