A Mandala A Day - Superchicken Rides Again

Last weekend, I spontaneously created a private group on Facebook, to offer a safe space, in which to share a process, of creating a mandala every day, to see what would happen... I've never created a group before, but I took up the challenge, & it's going very well.

Last year for a month, a couple of online friends joined me to do this, and the effect was amazing... the boost in creative thinking was very noticeable, and I've been working hard ever since...

The image above is a personal symbol of mine, that I call "Superchicken". She appears from time to time, to encourage me to rise to life's challenges, and to remind me that I can do so many things if I just try...

Superchicken arrived this morning, to re-assure me that I'm doing well, in spite of feeling overwhelmed by the shear volume of work I've taken on this year.
She tells me that:
I AM the Little Red Engine ( I think I can, I think I can...)
I AM my own  Powerhouse
I AM staying afloat over big waves, as my creative babies all need my attention

I DO sprout blooms & bells off the top of my head...

Superchicken is kitted up to fly, and with a lot of fiery energy beneath her wings...

She tells me firmly, that I must make a supreme effort... and I'll be alright.

Art as therapy is powerful medicine!

note to self - you know what you need to know - art for the art therapist

Well, this was a surprise! There I was, thinking I should make an image of a warrior knight, or  queen - someone unassailable, because I felt rather wobbly about something...

I hauled myself back into myself, and told myself this.... intuitively, through this drawing...
.
.. what a surprise!

Now I'm sharing it with you, because I thought you might enjoy a reminder too...

The generations that have gone before us have left a trail of answers encoded within out D.N.A.
... just have to keep remembering this...

that is all
X

Happy New Calender Flip

Summer Solstice came & went, bringing with the changing balance of sunlight enormous changes in my personal life...

A New Year, and a new diary, now confront me... I have no idea how I shall create the life I need... a new page, a clean slate, a virgin canvas, are all intimidating...

What if I make a mistake? What if I'm not as competent as I need to be? What if nobody understands what I create?

Art reflects life... and so I must create art, despite my fears, in order to discover visual metaphors... and symbols representing elements of daily life... These are as signposts, for travelers in unfamiliar territory...

Here's to a New Year of high creativity, of great illumination, and new vision.
Here's to a New Year of innovation, and of wonder... of prolific ideas, and deep insights...

As you mark the first page of your 2015, I wish you much joy and kindness in the year to come.

Gardening as a healing tool

Gardening is an art, that is healing... contemplative... meditative... transformative...

You can grow some food and connect with the land upon which you live...

It grounds the mind, exercises the body, and feeds the soul with wonder ...

Babies arriving, and Dear Ones leaving over the past little while, are reminders of the fragility and transience of life...

Gardening provides a container, a context, in which gardeners can accept these things, whilst not needing to understand such mystery...
 

Art of my heart

Good morning to you!
I'm just about to start drawing, and thinking I find this such a pleasurable activity, that I deny it to myself... This attitude is a bit dark,isn't it? Old fashioned Protestant work ethic, perhaps?

I feel guilty about doing something I love so much with no focus upon selling it... or publicity... no reason to think it will help me make my way in this world... I just love drawing, and always have...
Sometimes, I say I hate the discipline of it, but that's not the same sort of drawing as this, with which I'm about to indulge myself... this is delicious freedom... "play"... exploration, and discovery... this is adventure!

THIS is where REAL art is born... where magic can manifest... where what is needed in the world can make itself known... letting the Arwen flow

I KNOW this! So why do I struggle to make money, when I know I can make art so joyfully?

Perhaps I'll just take a chance for a while, and "play" more... I won't starve... in fact, I might even make art that people want to pay for! Ha! My heart is light...

Art as spiritual practice

Spring Equinox was a solitary affair for me... I marked it by creating magical papers...

imbued with the changing balance of light energy, as held within plants from my garden, and combined with gleanings from the forest floor...

Carefully selected for their metaphysical properties, as well as good looks, I put them together with love and care, hoping they'd look beautiful...

and so my work became my ritual... I began doing this at Winter Solstice... Now my art has become my spiritual practice...

The result is so much more than the outlines & embossing of leaves and flowers... It is an outpouring of my appreciation for the season, an observance of the balance of celestial harmonies at Spring Equinox... of new beginnings, and hope, and the fragility of of life, in all its forms.

I wish you all the blessings and optimism of a new cycle, wherever you are on Earth.

Creative Nests...

My current drawing and writing space, close to the hearth, with a good view of approaching weather...

Thought I'd share some of my creative "nests" with you...


... teachers would tell me at school:"a tidy desk is a tidy mind"...
 I'd now say to them, with the authority of my own experience, if my desk were to reflect my mind by being tidy, I would not be using my mind to its fullest capacity....

One of my favourite things...

This is the exploding magical basket, that contains shiny things I adore, like little scraps of exotic sari silk from India, Venetian glass beads from discarded old necklaces, and pearly buttons from Victorian London, to name a few... I am proud to say this basket feels like a better reflection of my mind, than a tidy desk... it is full of possibility: of tales and dreams, ideas and adventure...

At night, I sit here and stitch, and write and draw.... and dream and invent... the tidy desk forgotten...

Marigold comes out....

It's blowing a gale today, and look who has dropped in! I love this little fellow, who can ignite passion and create joy, in a most gentle and honest way...

I opened my old folio, and this Trickster popped out, inspiring me to rant on Facebook, about how people just think I'm a dotty old woman who likes to live in a forest and knit... and I want them to know how I'm so much more than that... and I'm so pleased he gave me a nudge, because I never rant... it's not good form... is it? Well, perhaps it is! Perhaps this is a stage of life I must pass through... this needing professional recognition as well as financial support...

Today, I suspect I have "come out", as an artist, to myself... I don't suppose anyone else will notice, but this little fellow has helped me to see that I can no longer hide behind the Marigold Fairweather persona, whilst wishing to be taken seriously...

With a rush of air, and a gust of wind, I am now embracing my deeper work, and moving on with painting and sculpture.... Of course, I'll still be painting yarns for everyone... It's something I love to do, and I'm good at it, I know... but there is a song in my heart that this can not convey... there is a passion in my soul that needs expression, and the gentle art of knitting is simply not an appropriate vehicle...

So, here I am, still Marigold, but with more revealed, and I feel very liberated! And yes, today, it's all about me... and possibly you....
X

Where is the spirit within art from?

Working with clay lately, has me wondering where ideas really come from. Is it from the collective unconscious, or my own unconscious mind, or am I simply opening the door of my mind, & letting in entities that want to manifest in this material world, and use art as their entry point.

I wonder about the latter, because we so easily form a personal relationship with famous subjects of great art, like Mona Lisa or Michelangelo's David, who are from a different time & place, yet we can still relate to them as individuals. It is the daemon of each art work with which we connect, not just the design. By that, I mean the spirit that inhabits the work - much like the spirit of place of any particular location... we "know" it intuitively.

My own process with sculpture, is a completely intuitive affair. It seems any preconceived idea I may begin with, is quickly thwarted, as the clay morphs & changes, the end result often a complete surprise to me, the maker. Even the end of a piece can come as suddenly as the jolt that wakes a person sleeping on a bus... Without warning, a piece is complete, & the process over.

Completely unpredictable, I wonder just how much of me is actually in my work... and yet, I know that nobody else would produce anything the same as I, & that I can not produce any work the same as that of another artist...

I like to think this is a great mystery, and that it can never be explained, and wonder how many other people find this is their experience too.

Erasers, perfectionism, & happy accidents

When I was a kid, my art teacher banned erasers, so I learned to draw without them. I wonder now, if she had a deeper reason for teaching us to make "mistakes" into "happy accidents".
 She was a very good teacher... 

Now I am adult, if I need an eraser, it's a warning sign that I'm compromising my integrity, by not expressing myself freely. I'm pernickety & pedantic and secretly, I feel cheated out of my own creative experience. My effort to resolve the work unappreciated, I feel manipulated into having to produce something "perfect' for the rest of the world's to approval, instead of birthing something new with a life of its own, that I will love, imperfections & all, knowing the secret struggle we shared....

 

 There is a tenderness between the artist and the piece of work which has struggled to be born. Erasers, in a quest for perfection, can wipe away the unintended lines that reveal & respect the intrinsic character of the work....

And metaphorical erasers can disregard the private tenderness between a person creating their life, & the life they are creating that is known only to them,

 " happy accidents" & all.

Yep, she was a very good teacher....

Art Floozie

This week I saw Monet's water lilies in the flesh for the first time...
 it was a breathtakingly, achingly beautiful exhibition at NGV in Melbourne....
.... moved me to tears... and being privy to the work of the master has left me wondering so much about where to go with my own creative work....

With spring growth putting on a spurt, I am drawn outside to the garden, to create & maintain... inside the cluttered studio tells the story of someone who has never specialised in, or perfected any medium...

I confess, I am an art Floozie, with a capital F! I haven't had one life-long passionate love affair with any particular medium, in fact I'll play with any pretty thing that comes along! Some may be horrified at my lack of fidelity, but I simply can't pass up a new creative experience...... yet I don't consider myself "dilettante", which implies being hopeless... I am brilliantly, blissfully happy in all my art relationships...

There is potential for creative expression in almost any activity, whether tidying my personal space, or making something for others...

I like to make my work from many blended elements - knitting with 30 or 40 colours thrills me, and mosaics that employ varying shades of hundreds of carefully cut pieces of glazed tile delight me...

I'd never make a meal from one ingredient, yet those I choose must compliment & balance each other, lest they result in indigestion, and a badly executed painting has a similar effect on the mind.... on it goes, into every area of my life, this ordering, this impossible quest for beauty & perfection....

So, I think life generally, is an opportunity to express myself & connect with my inspiration, whatever I happen to be doing at the time... 
BUT, is this art? Is a life well lived one in which creativity has been priority, as well as pleasure?
 A reason for living could be to create a channel through which the Arwen flows unimpeded... but is it art?