Beauty Everywhere

I am in my dream, I am participating this weekend in the O+Festival in Kingston, NY, which is an amazing arts festival that barters art for medicine.  It is one of the best arts events I have ever had the honor to be included in.  The mission, the art, the music, the healers, the energy is 100% generosity, beauty and new.  I LOVE being included.  I began teaching my course in creativity this week at High Watch Recovery Center.  This was a heartfelt idea two years ago which this Monday became reality.  My class is being held in the founding building, which is the chapel and at one point was also the 'Joy Farm Art Center'.  Next week I will be moving in to my new studio and classroom in Hudson NY, which I mentioned before is an old schoolhouse that sits nestled in the cemetery.   This is where I will be holding my Creativity & Courage Workshops as well as making new artwork.   I feel supported by these new ventures and locations deep within the recess's of my heart, the same place that inspires my dreams in to being.  I am reminded of the many inspired spirits before mine that sat in these places to create and to give.

Above are just some pictures from the last couple weeks, work in progress, walks, classroom, reflections, findings....

Easy Does It

 The harder it is, the easier I must make it.

   I am beginning again with simple daily actions.  A daily drawing.

  Noticing (and noting)

what I see.

Today is the artwork

My drawing this morning, my timer (1hr of creative work) and a petal

Let me start this painting RIGHT NOW
To begin with a pink and yellow prayer
To cover myself in a warm red outline
Moving back and forth and all around
My son will boldly zig-zag
Brushing yellow and green across the day
Tensions splattering angst
A bit of darkness that brings depth
This painting will find its resting place tonight
The masterpiece complete 
When I no longer wake.

Sooooo....I've been thinking and feeling and thinking and feeling.  I've been feeling badly because I feel I haven't been making art.  I haven't been producing.  I haven't been working in my studio (its cold out there!).  Soooo yesterday I was thinking about this and wondering how I would do it?  How would I make art when I wouldn't have anytime alone, I had Sunny all day yesterday and then a meeting in the night.  Then today during my 4 hr slot of "free time" today  I have a dentist appointment followed by another appointment....how can I do this???

A remark a wise friend made a long time ago came to me.  She asked me why I defined my studio as having 4 walls, a roof and floor? She said this once when I was complaining about not getting in to the studio.  This was one of those illuminating, uh-huh? moments....and it was again yesterday,  I all of a sudden got a birds eye view of my day and me in it,  I saw this was my art work, my canvas.  I was the brush, painting or the pencil, drawing and everything was my material.
Today I began the day reflecting on what happened yesterday, what I did, made, saw and learned.  I've decided that right now this is my art project-living.  I am my artwork.  My life is my piece.  I think I will just be and document it for a while, notice and participate in it, in this way.

Yesterday I had 4.5 hours with Sunny inside my home.  No car.  No escape.  I decided to involve him in a crafting/art activity.  I thought we would make collages.  I brought out the magazines and helped him select images and then gave him scissors to cut them out.  He became completely engrossed in the cutting.  At a certain point I introduced that now we would "make a picture with our pictures, glue them down and turn them in to something", well he didn't have much interest-he just wanted to keep cutting.  Then when he got tired of this I realized he really had a lot of attention and focus and thought he would enjoy the act and concept of sewing.  I brought out my needle and thread and showed him how to start sewing the pieces he cut by stringing them together.  He loved it!!!

What I thought about today was how much he loved the PROCESS it wasn't about the product, it was the making that was so enjoyable.  I realized that at a very young age we begin to be rewarded with praise for the completion of a recognizable product.  When we finish a drawing we are asked, "What is it?"  if someone recognizes it and likes it, we are praised.  We learn by what is given attention (negative or positive).  In autism treatment they teach my rewarding certain behaviors. This works to strengthen those behaviors-well this is the same in creating.  We reward a finished product and job well done.  We reward what we can understand and recognize-this becomes whats valuable.  Watching Sunny yesterday I saw myself being lost in his process, the excitement of discovery.  I hope I can be a teacher for him.  To be able to not put the emphasis on making snowmen that look like cookie cutters, but rather put the emphasis on trying new things, indulging in discovery, appreciating the "beingness" in process and to encourage the confidence in him to know when something is something because the knowing originates within him-not from a suggestion from someone else who needs to believe the lumpy white thing is a snowman.

Today is my art piece. 

fragile and strong

On my walk yesterday I tried to sink my feet into the asphalt-admitedly it did look a little wavy when I looked down, maybe next time I'll go further?

I was so taken and inspired by the incredible force and strength of this fragile plant, to have the audacity to push the asphalt aside and grow up towards the light. A plant that is so fragile that it squishes and breaks between my fingers at the slightest tug, yet it's strong enough to break stone?

It made me think how the desire, the innate desire to grow drew the will of this one seed up-up-up through the darkness, against reason and probability into another universe. I'm sure many seeds where tarred over and just a few pushed up through the asphalt, what made them unique?

And how is it that I know this plant is fragile and I can break it and I know the asphalt is too strong for me to break?

Maybe what we think we know is what limits us?

Escaped into the present moment

I have been feeling a disconnect from the hands on process of making art. Life has been big and very full. My 10 hrs a week of non-Sunny time has been gobbled by the minions and millions of to-do's. Leaving me in my head. Tonight I felt envious, frustrated, exhausted with a livid desire to escape my circumstances.
It seems my unconscious is becoming better friends with my conscious, because before I reached for a internet fix, I thought to go outside- lay down and watch the sky. I've never done that so spontaneously and I highly recommend it as an immediate vacation solution. The great escape into the sky.
This small action delivered me into the most vast moment. Its all here now, an extraordinary instant, full of sound, light, and feelings. The difficult moments take us to the precious moments, places where our soul can touch our heart.

Miami Beach Out My Window

Miami
Hot
Tight, Greasy
Licked in Turquise
Sherbert Shaped
Stars Swagger
La Vita Loca

-DB 3/28/10


Back from Miami Beach (A very very wild place that I observed from the sidelines, I was busy with books and the beach, baby-less). I did get to see quite a bit of art, it was splashy, and some was yummy.
Now, at home engulfed in melancholic gray I'm ready to begin preparing for an upcoming show, scheduled for this Summer! YAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
I will post details soon........

An invitation to let death be beautiful

I had an interesting response to my planted painting at the benefit Saturday night.
To quote a few;
"I really wanted to buy your piece, but how do you keep it alive?"
"I love your piece, and thought of buying it but its such high maintenance."
"I am a plant murderer, so I cannot have your piece because I would kill it."

These responses surprised me by our obvious natural inclination to want to keep everything alive, (as if we were that powerful). To perceive the living state as the only beautiful state. To want to attach ourselves to one perception of stagnant beauty, all of which is impossible if we accept that life is dynamic; in a constant state of change and transformation.

This response to the living paintings, has me thinking about working with the invitation to accept the transformation of life to include the beauty of death.

Ironically, Saturday I began documenting my tulips dying. I love tulips mostly when they begin to die. When they start to wilt they do this incredible dying ballet with their petals, they twirl with such fragile beauty, their colors deepen and they expose their tender inside.

Imagine

"She imagined being the one who kissed the grass in the morning leaving the sweet dew that swept the farmers field, she imagined her hair blanketing the earth, her tears watering each flower, her voice the echo of every love note. As she imagined loveliness so large it extended into galaxies beyond our world, she began to feel very far from her body.
She began to imagine herself as a bear, as a mermaid, as the sunshine, as a cupcake. She started laughing, thinking of her family eating her for lunch! Then she started crying thinking how her family may not recognize her without her body."

And so here I am.....

Hi....its been awhile since I've posted. I have been in a place of stillness or stagnation depending on the mood of the day. I have not begun any new art projects because I have been waiting for my studio to renovated. This place of non-doing has not been very comfortable. I can only enjoy ideas in my head for so long before I feel stir crazy. I am eager to be working, to be making....but I believe that it is in these darker quieter moments that seeds germinate and we just have to trust that we are still creating, its all happening inside. Below are pictures of what I have seen in the last couple weeks. I have been keeping my camera with me in the car, and it has been fun to stop and document what I see along the way.
My good friend and fellow artist Gretchen Kelly posted an interview with me on her blog, GKsuniverse. She has been doing a monthly artist interview, which I have greatly enjoyed reading and was thrilled to be included. One of things I enjoy so much about her interviews is the unique perspective she has of artists and their environments. I invited her to my house to take her own pictures and also allowed her to select any images she wanted of my personal and art portfolio. I was greatly surprised by the work she chose to show as most of it is representational and they are much older pieces. However, this is exactly what I like about her blog...its hers! She shows you a side of me from her perspective, one that is playful, colorful, and figurative....check it out, gksuniverse and check out her great artwork at gretchenkellyart.blogspot.com.

This is soon to be my backyard studio, we hope to have it renovated to a working level by mid January. HURRAY 2010!!!!!!