• link love,  WIP Fridays

    Art Friday: Coming Soon!

    October 7, 2016

    plumfieldlaunch

    I’ve been receiving a lot of questions, and I am excited and a bit scared to announce that I will be selling prints of some of my recent artwork. The Plumfield Collection will launch next Friday, October 15th, and there will be a fun giveaway next week, so stay tuned!

    I am so pleased with this collection. Sketching and painting these brought me such happiness and peace, and I hope that you will enjoy them as much as I did making them. As I am working to prepare these for print, I am filled with wonder. I had no idea that these were all tucked away in my soul, waiting for a ray of sunshine. The path to this launch may seem very straightforward to the rest of you, but to me, I would not have imagined that I would be offering this. I had no idea! I am as pleased and excited as you are. The name, of course, is pulled from the delightful Little Men, which we were listening to on audio book during many of my painting sessions. It just seemed fitting to name the collection so. I think Aunt Jo would enjoy these small offerings.

    Speaking of wonder, Kort has a wonderful series going this month called The Wonder Project. I was so inspired by her fall leaf mandala the other day that I think I want to try something similar in paint, soon!

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  • Art,  WIP Fridays

    Art Friday: Habits

    September 30, 2016

    oneblueshot habit technique inscense

    The current works in progress for this week. I can feel a shift in my daily thought (and work) process, which is basically summed up in how fast can I get the rest of this stuff done so I can play? A thought process I did not think would be mine until the kids were grown and gone. It’s happening now, though, and it’s so lovely.

    I find myself a bit tongue-tied as I try to explain what this new impetus to create is to me. It is a gift borne out of pain. I am who I am and I am creating what I am creating because of a profound stripping away. I was left with nothing, or so I thought- and out of the ashes, this was what was born. It belongs to me, entirely. No one can lay claim to it. This is a strange claim, I am sure. I claim it anyways.

    I laughed pretty hard when I read that quote of Mark Twain’s the other day. We really try so hard to throw things out the window sometimes and then are alarmed at the results. I’m learning to coax this creating habit down the stairs one step at a time. I can feel a turn in the stairs this week- what is in my head is making its way to the page in a smoother manner, my technique is getting more consistent. I don’t feel like I’m taking one step forward and then four back. I’m generally moving the direction I’d like to go.

    With it, I feel a piece of my soul has shifted back into right places, no longer a phantom limb. It’s going to sound crazy, but I can tell because I don’t care about the house chores anymore. I don’t think I ever quite realized how ‘taking care of the house’ was my coping mechanism, my way of controlling the uncontrollable during the storms- but now, crunchy floors going on three days? Who cares? I’ll get to it on Saturday. Playing and painting are winning out every day. There is a habit I can get behind!

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  • WIP Fridays

    Art Friday: Do it for the process (again)

    September 23, 2016

    I shared this short video on social media the other day of my sketchbook. I had originally hoped to do a painting a day in September, my birthday month, but between traveling and other concerns it didn’t happen. I did manage to sketch most every day, and that is quite a milestone for me. I keep thinking about this quote from Ira Glass:

    “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

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  • link love,  WIP Fridays

    Art Friday: The Sketchbook

    September 2, 2016

    katieflowerssketch katieflowers prayergirl poppyrough

    Works in progress from the sketchbook this week. I’ve been on quite a wildflower bender lately. Some I have been sketching, then painting. Some are left as sketches. I have a feeling some of these are going to get some mixed media work, maybe some stitching. There is a prayer girl of Emily Croft’s that has been haunting me (in a good way) and that page of the sketchbook is going a completely different direction. Right now I am literally in the wildly wonderful and woolly position of having so many ideas and things I want to do that I can’t quite paint fast enough. Needless to say, I am not complaining.

    —

    Sometimes you write something more for yourself than anything else, and then this lovely thing happens where somebody else says, me too. Those are the writing moments I live for, and what Amy had to say in response to my post last Friday was just such a moment.

    “Creating something is an act of hope. It means you are imagining a future where the thing you create will still be looked at or used or read, that it might inspire someone else. “- Amy Sorensen

    —

    John’s Take, Strike, and Speak has been the poem tucked into my pocket the last few days.  It’s such a hard lesson to learn, this. And he reminds me.

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  • Art,  collecting stories,  Orthodoxy,  prayers of the saints,  WIP Fridays

    Art Friday: Fear and Paper Tigers…

    August 26, 2016

    birdbeginnings firstflowers flowersinprocess flowersketch3

    All fear is a paper tiger, my dear friends. All of it. If something you fear is drawing near you, some suffering, pain, or torment- if it’s coming to you like a ghost across the water- know it is our perfect, All-Knowing and All- Loving Lord that can lead us to a higher path.

    – Father Stephen Mathewes,  “Do Not Be Afraid” Homily, Aug 21, 2016

    We’ve had a stretch of weeks that have been difficult, to say the least.  They just are what they are. The circumstances underlying why they’ve been hard won’t change any time soon. We all face seasons like this, some of us longer than others, some deeper than others. All you can do, essentially, is to continue to live. To put one foot in front of the other, to take one breath after another, to string one prayer after another. Fear tends to stop us in our tracks. I think I’ve gotten stuck more times than not in the last two years, holding my breath.

    My dear friend, mentor, and chrismating priest, Father Stephen Mathewes, gave a homily on fear this past Sunday. Tuning in with my children on Monday morning as we began our school day on a very rough morning, we all sat quietly and listened to the broadcast as part of our morning’s school work in religious studies. We tend to draw or color quietly (all of us, even me!) as we listen to his homilies. As Fr. Steve joked with the congregation at the opening, we all laughed along, noting with glee the laughter of a dear friend in the background, as this church family was our own for nearly two years before we moved. Father Steve began into his homily and the children kept scribbling furiously at their drawings. I, however, found my hand dropping from my sketch as I leaned in to catch every word. Eventually my pencil rolled on the floor.

    I’ve been having a lot of arguments with myself about fear over the last month or so, and I was rather shocked to hear that Fr. Steve had apparently been listening in on my inner dialogue. His answers were pretty bang on the money, my friends. Funny how that works. (It’s a good quick listen if you have ten minutes or so!)

    Given what I’ve gone through in the last two years, I realize that so often fear has overtaken me quicker than I can recognize it coming, and it’s not till I’m in over my head that I sort of gasp for air and let go of the breath I’ve been holding. I wondered about this as I listened to Father speak. What sort of radar might I have, what sort of an early warning system could I put in place? A “you need to pray NOW” blazing sign, if one could be had? It puzzled me.

    Picking up my pencil off the floor as Father finished his remarks, the answer was quite literally staring me in the face. Little delicate flowers stared up at me from the page.

    Art.

    There’s reams and reams of commentary in the world about creating and fear- about how fear and perfectionism block us from getting to the page. I absolutely agree with them. But also ask any creator, and they’ll tell you that they create because they can’t not create. It’s like ants in their pants.

    I know the feeling well.

    I also know how destitute my life has been of creating in the last two years.

    It’s no mistake that within the last month and a half I’ve sketched, painted, collaged, and scrapbooked more pages than nearly the last five years combined. While our life is still quite difficult, the children’s health has finally stabilized, giving us all more time to think, to sleep, to dream, to just be. Fear has a much harder foothold to find now.

    It’s my giant neon sign: if I’m not creating for days, weeks on end, I’m holding my breath. If I’m holding my breath, I am not abiding in Christ, and fear has stopped me in my tracks. Creating helps me push back the darkness and take a deep breath. I won’t ever starve myself of it again, if I can help it.

    Dear friend, you may not be wired as I am, but I’d bet you’ve got a early warning system you might not have considered yet. Maybe you love to read but there just hasn’t been time. Maybe your brain fog clears when you’ve taken a long hike, but it’s been months since you’ve strapped on your boots. I’m not sure what it might be, but I think you’ll be able to identify it by how starved you feel when you don’t have it. If it’s missing, if you’re starving, your PRAY NOW sign is blinking a bright, startling red. It’s your sign to remember Who is holding you, to take a deep breath, and to shred that paper tiger that’s got you all wrapped up. Ask me how I know.

     

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