A New Year for everything to be loved

 

(Top picture from Iceland residency, bottom picture from Ashfield residency)

I love my blog as a time capsule, to skim through posts and visually see work as well as to read my musings.   It truly is a gift at this time of year to take an account and pay attention to certain standout particulars in my art and life.  However, this year has an irregular appearance almost awkward like a pre-teen, a little of this and that, intense feelings and questions appearing in poems and collages,  paintings about growth, cellular growth...Iceland about self-discovery (recovery?)...my movie completed, Running Still. 

 What was this past year about?

 Rainbow out the bus window on my way to BAER artist residency Iceland

 Rainbow my first day at Wellspring artist residency Ashfield, MA

Reflecting on this question today, the first thing that came to mind was not my artwork but rather this was the first year in 22yrs that I didn't color my hair.  I chose to grow my hair naturally, to live with the color I was born with.  This may at first seem like nothing of importance but I actually think its a symbol of the type of growth I am beginning to experience and maybe my artwork as well.  A sliver of self acceptance. Reasons I never wore my hair brown before was that I didn't think I looked good even my mother always told me I looked prettier with blond hair, changing my hair was like a change of identity, one that was always something more then just me.  Eventually I forgot what color my hair actually was and I became afraid of that.  How could I trust myself when I didn't know anymore what that was?
I think the only way I was able to be willing to try to grow my hair out was ACCEPTANCE of whatever would be, good and bad no longer mattered. 
So perhaps this past year was about growth, a new beginning that seems to be starting from a place in myself that I departed from 22 years ago with a bottle of bleach.
I am really excited to be alive, growing and evolving in 2012.
My wishes for 2012 are that this newly found sliver of self acceptance transpires in my work and that I have the courage to continue opening to what I don't already know, allowing good and bad to fall away so I may be enough as is.  (Please wish me luck.)
My wishes for you are the same, that you experience a time that your truest self shines forth and finds peace in being enough and that we all can love each other as we individually are.
All my heart for 2012 and thank you for being with me.

01012011

Imagine

New Beginning-New Day-New Year

This year seemed like a series of blinks, each moment a new vision fleeting in time. It feels like just moments ago I was hot in August at my show, and that many years ago I bandaged a skateboard.

I just reviewed my blog from the past year-very few posts compared to the years before, very few paintings....however there is a theme which started with the first works of 2010, the planted paintings-Darkness, Patience, Transformation, Beauty, Acceptance,

Looking at my work, and my posts of 2010 I believe this is the beginning.....to what, I am not certain. The seed was broken open 2.5 years ago as my life was shattered. It has been in this darkness that something has opened in me-I believe it is my heart opening to my truth, my life, my love. Creation begins in the darkness, like the metaphor of the seed- the growth in this powerful place cannot be measured because it can not be seen....this is a place of feminine nature, which I have often denied and discouraged in myself because I have over valued product, pushing myself to produce what can be seen by others. I believed my goodness and lovability was equal with my recognized deeds. Seeing myself through others eyes, judging myself based on the ego's triumphs and in comparison to others I lived a censored me-basically Vanity and Insecurity ran a tight ship. These two captains also known as Fear, have resulted in severing much of my authentic self, a self I hid for many years. A self that is vulnerable, feels pain, is not made of stone and will alone. A self that is woman, unique and beautiful in many softer ways.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.-Anais Nin

I believe the pain of not accepting myself for all that I am and was became to great-and with that came the crack of my soul-and the hard nut that held my heart, opened up to the same world, the same life, but all would never be the same again.

I can see through my artwork this past year that I am growing- slowly-in the dark. I can also see that I am learning that LOVE is the alchemical ingredient necessary for all positive changes in life.

I really am looking forward to this new year and what it is bringing me as well as what I am bringing to it and to you.

My wish this New Year is to continue learning how to LOVE myself
and without a second breath LOVE you too!!!

Lastly-my sister Summer gave me a card that said:
Open your heart and allow your hands to follow

This is my artist meditation for 2011