Pray Love Dream

With 2016 still unwritten, just into the month of January, I got thinking about where I am and what I want. Really want. I know what I don’t want: a show, a gallery, a gig teaching online, or an Esty shop. My artwork is too personal to sell. I do give it away to people that I know will appreciate it, but I really have trouble parting with original work. It usually comes out of a place deep inside me, and has a lot of meaning. It is like giving birth. Each piece of art, each journal page is special, different, and definitely not perfect. I also don’t have time to make a bunch of little items just to sell. They would have to be good enough that someone would buy then, but not so good that they were too special to part with.

As a child I dreamed not of being famous, being the next Picasso or Monet. I dreamed of being a commercial artist. I dreamed of seeing my designs printed on walls and cloth and brochures and posters. And that is what I have been. Over the years I have been a textile designer and print stylist, and then newspaper and magazine layout artist.

A couple weekends ago I asked myself “what do you really want?” I meant art-wise. Of course I want world peace. I want the sick healed, the hungry fed, the lost found. So, I made a list in my journal of what I want, then I painted on top of it with my new watercolor set. Just a little color to pretty up the white page. Just enough to enhance, but not enough to cover the words. I said them aloud. I prayed on it.

A couple days later my name was on the short list of finalists for the Cloth Paper Scissors “design your own stencil” contest. With luck, my design, and stencil, will be in the May/June issue. I felt like my prayer had been answered. I know not everything people pray for happens. But this time, I really felt the universe was answering my call.

So, later in the weekend I finished an unfinished page. It started with a Jane Davenport stencil (called the ¾ stencil) that I tested out using an ordinary ballpoint pen on a white page. It was blah. So, I added some watercolor. And a little more. Then some colored pencil and some scribbles with marker. It started to shape up. Still, it was missing something, so I added words. First I added the big ones. Then I filled in with thoughts about going after your dreams, about how saying them out loud and writing them down helps make them real. I wrote about failing and not being afraid to fail.

As a little kid I dreamed of being an artist. That dream was not supported by my parents. After I got a degree in another field, I went back to school and did what I REALLY wanted to do. I knew couldn’t spend my life in the wrong field, wondering what if I went New York, what if I had tried to have an art career. So, I listened to my inner voice—not my inner critic—and never looked back.

Prayers to the Moon ATC

“Prayers to the Moon” was the theme for our November heARTist ATC exchange. The words suggest a myriad of images—Goddesses glowing in the moonlight, mermaids basking on a moonlit beach, Wicca gatherings, Native Americans honoring Sister Moon, children’s stories of the Man in the Moon, and all kinds of ideas that ranged from deeply spiritual to silly.

I wanted to capture the tranquility of moonlight on the beach, so I began by using gradated Derwent sticks in hues of indigo and blue on watercolor paper. I wanted to have words—the refrain of John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” seemed perfect—but I couldn’t figure out how to get words to show on the dark paper. After cutting the background to 2.5” x 3.5”, I tried overprinting the scraps with white paint on a lacey stamp, and discovered that the lyrics, which I had printed on clear Avery labels, fit just right on the little painted, lace-stamped rectangles. I glued the small pieces to the backgrounds and then played with moon ideas, settling on using some old gold certificate stickers, carefully cutting out the center and leaving a pointy gold halo. It seemed to need a little more, so the final touch was some silver star-shaped mini brads as accent.