It’s not lost on me that the way I work goes in cycles, patterns. It’s good in someways – I love “projects” and I am best when saving everything in “piles” to pull it all together, powering through. There is that commitment, attention to detail – that burst of energy that sustains me. But the last part is fought – the editing or tedious little decisions, taking the time is definitely a weakness. I will do it if it feels “worth” my time. But there is always the pull of doing something else and that I’m wasting time.

I honestly marvel at the perfectionists (like my soul sister, Jamie).

But doing something little by little seems ruthless – agonizing! But I understand myself well enough now to just ride that out. Without hardly any fire in me (I’m mostly air, water, earth), it’s such an empty game to pysche myself out to (a miracle!) finish anything. Lots of air tends towards lots of indecision, weighing and doubting, reflecting and thinking, and then . . . flying to something else. I oftentimes wish wholeheartedly that I had lots of fire (like the rest of my family) that just propels you forward, drives you to just jump in without thinking (sometimes it’s rash, yes and you get burned that way) but utter fearlessness.

But alas, we must accept ourselves for who we are and where we are NOW. And appreciate what we’ve got – because there’s no one else in the world (or the Universe) like us, right?! Once I make up my mind on something, I am determined and then it is difficult to dissuade me otherwise. I will never really be outspoken about it or in your face, but you will never know what I REALLY think if I’ve already decided.

But when it comes to art – it’s the indecision that kills me! I am a painter. But I haven’t really painted in about a year. That doesn’t mean that much to me except that I should be “producing, producing, producing.” Once I get going though, I have burst of energy, wave after wave that I ride until I’m spent and another wave hits me, and I have to take a breath and wait until it comes around again. In this way I’m grateful for my process. I don’t fret or worry since I’m always thinking, imagining and visualizing artworks. Once I decide what series to do. Before that, my indecision oftentimes gets the better of me. And then I just tell myself to stop thinking and just START. Sometimes your body responds intuitively in ways that you could never except and I love that. To let go, I then have no problem trusting the process and finding new imagery in my work that just appear.

It’s also never far from my mind – my head is always full of visual imagery. Now that I finally truly understand that I’m a visual person – it did not take me long to train myself in that language or be able to literally think in images. It’s truly fun! And I don’t get bogged down with trying to paint exactly what I’m envisioning – it’s more like “impressions” and the details work out for themselves. You will never be satisfied if you try to paint what you envision so perfectly. Sometimes it works, but most often you get too obsessed, like only seeing the goal and you forget to enjoy the journey that you are taking to get there.

It’s exactly the same in creating a painting. You do have to enjoy each stage, each layer, each decision and most often those unplanned events that just happen, those decisions you didn’t plan –the accidental glob, the smeared finger print, the sprayed dots that go flying, the thick plops, the watery stream of paint running off the page and the pooled paint running into one another like that gravy or syrup that invades your other piles of food. THOSE are my FAVORITE! The serendipitous moments that you could never do on your own. Allowing those to be left in your painting makes it unique, could you do that exact mishap again ever? Probably not – ESP if you tried. Letting go and being surprised, that’s literally what oozes beauty, spontaneity and freshness.

And then I’m reminded on why I paint!

Related Posts

• November 5, 2012 -- Welcome our new niece! (0)
  Welcoming into our lives, my new niece, Rylee. Born just last week, can't wait to meet her thanksgiv...
• July 4, 2012 -- A frog lives in my watering can! (2)
  This morning as I brought in my large watering can from my back porch to fill it up, a frog popped o...
• January 20, 2013 -- Blogging from the Heart (4)
  Ok! Finally getting things together and starting to write and post more (I'm DETERMINED!). I'm taki...
• December 19, 2011 -- Painting Commission (0)
  For the past 3 weeks, I was asked to paint a commission of 2 paintings both 53x53 in quite a short d...

Related Posts

• January 13, 2013 -- Painting of the week (3)
  Thought it might be fun to paint with my dying peonies' petals. I just find the petals so lush and q...
• December 19, 2011 -- Painting Commission (0)
  For the past 3 weeks, I was asked to paint a commission of 2 paintings both 53x53 in quite a short d...
• January 5, 2013 -- Welcome 2013 (0)
  I keep meaning all week to post resolutions for 2013. In short, there are too many. And I've compl...
• February 10, 2012 -- Recent Paintings (0)
  I'm currently working on couple different series of paintings. But I just finished part of this new ...

I know it’s mid-January already but I did do Susannah’s real cool free giveaway goal setting workbook for 2013. Suggest wholeheartedly to take some time out of your day, curl up with a brewing cup of tea by the fire to sit and write answers for an hour.

My word for this year is COURAGEOUS. To be courageous and to have courage when making decisions, to not be afraid. After thinking about it for a few minutes this word just popped into my head and now it’s becoming even more inspiring as I try to spread my wings in new places ESP online. The very act of picking a word that thrills or inspires you is to set an intention for the next several months, or this case a year. I’m excited to see what this year will unfold, especially since last year was basically a recovery year from 2011. It’s surreal to think its already 2013 when I just got used to writing 2012 in my journal!
(PS. For those of you who know me, you know I don’t run, nor do I run in FREEZING RAIN! But decided to try and ran for 5 miles in freezing rain and snow! It wasn’t too bad either!) ;D

Related Posts

• November 18, 2011 -- Sellable Sketch Online Course (0)
  Right now I am in the middle of week #2 of this fabulous course learning about the textile and surfa...
• September 19, 2012 -- Flying Lessons (0)
  My friend, Jamie and I, signed up for this e-course with artist Kelly Rae and loving it! Will be...
• January 31, 2013 -- Why I paint (0)
  It's not lost on me that the way I work goes in cycles, patterns. It's good in someways – I love...
• January 5, 2013 -- Welcome 2013 (0)
  I keep meaning all week to post resolutions for 2013. In short, there are too many. And I've compl...

“a person who gathers; ‘they were a society of hunters and gatherers.’”

I have so many awesome and insightful memories of my late mother-in-law (who was, hands-down, the most passionate and erudite woman I know, someone who just accumulated a database of random, but useful knowledge in her information bank of a brain). One interesting tidbit of info she said (I barely remember the context, but it always struck a chord) that somewhere in her findings, she said physiologists surmise that we still act as hunters ad gatherers even today. Obviously one of the universal and stereotypical complaints of husbands about their wives is that there’s way too much “crap” in the house. Uh . . . DUH! WE GATHER, COLLECT, ORGANIZE (well I hardly do that but I would say most women do) and SAVE. Yes, there’s always exceptions to the rule, but the most part, it’s true.

As my mother-in-law and I brainstormed togther we realized, yes absolutely, we both are obsessed with gathering stuff! She LOVED all cleaning supplies . . . yet she had a cleaning service come every 2 weeks to clean her house. But anytime we went to The Container Store she couldn’t help herself and she would buy all those orange funky sponges or mops that looked like some Sesame Street character designed by some Danish industrial line, and while paying for them at the cash register (and no they weren’t “cheap,”) she would sheepishly grin at me that they were so “pretty.” She also obsessed about shoes – there were 4 closets filled with them. And she was notorious at work for having piles and piles of paper, folders, files, you name it, scattered around her office, but ask her where something was and she would carefully pluck a sheet from the MIDDLE of a 5 ich pile without a blink of an eye and silently hand it to you.

I, on the other hand, am an “artist.” I can’t help but gather as much crap as possible because 3 years later I really will see it as the perfect found Target patterned paper for that art piece so I can’t help it! Not only gathering supplies, I LOVE books and magazines. Obviously, I tell myself, I’m just fulfilling my creative impulse to fill as many drawers, tubs, boxes and sketchbooks as possible with my images that catch my eye for future projects, piles of torn pages from magazines and books. I can’t ever through those away.

But it’s not jut STUFF, it’s other immaterial things too like ideas, information, stuff to research. I LOVE brainstorming sessions. With my mother-in-law, we were the world’s brightest think tank solving all the world’s problems over a mountain cookie and twin Starbucks hot chocolate! She routinely watched the daily morning shows, which we realized too are just a smorgasbord of random info pulled together mainly for . . . a woman’s audience! She also loved reading every Economist issue front and back as much as a good historical novel about Elizabeth the I.

I have amassed (no joke!) I believe over 1,238 bookmarks mostly on art, design, interior design and travel websites in my safari browser alone. I have hundreds of images I collect over the internet from favorite artists I like. I have every single piece of music by Beethoven on at least 1 CD (obviously LOVE classical music), as well as almost every single BBC series from the past 8 years (Classic period drama) on DVD. And I can’t walk by an old bookstore without peaking at anything Celtic or ancient mysteries-related and history, because I love all of that.

Obviously, we gather stuff we are interested in, we like or passionate about. Occasionally we might gather things we think we honestly don’t know why but that’s another thing entirely. When my mother-in-law started a conversation with the comment, “Guess what I read [or heard about] the other day . . .” it would immediately be followed by the knee-jerk reaction, “Oh, here goes mom again. . . ” but always it would end up being a fascinating factoid that she would always bring back into context. And yes, she was shy. But once she got going, she could truly talk TO anyone ABOUT anything (yes – that also meant telling you who she thought would win the NCAA basketball tournie after watching ESPN for two hours.

We both concluded, we do this because we love learning.

I have now concluded that school was pretty boring. It’s AFTER school that you have the freedom and choice to learn anything you want – and that truly becomes AMAZING. And now that we have the internet at our fingertips, we should be the most erudite group of humans on the planet! Well, maybe just women are (my mother-in-law certainly was).

So, women, we have it in our blood, our DNA, and clearly over 100,000 years of evolution behind us, pointing to the inevitable, that we ARE GATHERERS. I embrace this! It must be because we love learning . . . therefore we are smart!

So, I have formally decided to embrace this label. It seems a word that has so much potential for me. The possibilities of gathering and then piecing together to see the bigger picture gives my brain ultimate pleasure. I finally realize it now and stop blaming myself for my compulsive behavior. The more I research the web, the more I’m sincerely blown away by the creative worlds I want to be a part of, the people I would love to connect and meet with someday, the ideas that blow my mind and make me inspired, and the stories that touch my soul.

I am PROUD to be a “gatherer.”

Related Posts

• July 4, 2012 -- A frog lives in my watering can! (2)
  This morning as I brought in my large watering can from my back porch to fill it up, a frog popped o...
• November 5, 2012 -- Welcome our new niece! (0)
  Welcoming into our lives, my new niece, Rylee. Born just last week, can't wait to meet her thanksgiv...
• December 3, 2012 -- Interesting how things work out (0)
  I'm sitting here with a cinnamon stick emerged in my herbal rose white tea contemplating the last c...
• January 5, 2013 -- Welcome 2013 (0)
  I keep meaning all week to post resolutions for 2013. In short, there are too many. And I've compl...

Related Posts

• January 26, 2013 -- Painting of the week (0)
  ...
• December 1, 2011 -- English Tea Invites (0)
  I was asked to design and create invitations to a holiday tea for December which was fun. I was insp...
• December 19, 2011 -- Painting Commission (0)
  For the past 3 weeks, I was asked to paint a commission of 2 paintings both 53x53 in quite a short d...
• October 20, 2011 -- recent collages (0)
  More to come - working on about 6 different collage ideas for fun, experimentation and process. Here...

I keep meaning all week to post resolutions for 2013. In short, there are too many. And I’ve completely overwhelmed myself!

But let’s just say I can’t WAIT for this year to progress and also let’s say, I’m at that cross roads, waiting to JUMP!!!!!!! And all I need is COURAGE to take that next step. YEAH!

Related Posts

• July 4, 2012 -- A frog lives in my watering can! (2)
  This morning as I brought in my large watering can from my back porch to fill it up, a frog popped o...
• January 20, 2013 -- Blogging from the Heart (4)
  Ok! Finally getting things together and starting to write and post more (I'm DETERMINED!). I'm taki...
• December 3, 2012 -- Interesting how things work out (0)
  I'm sitting here with a cinnamon stick emerged in my herbal rose white tea contemplating the last c...
• November 5, 2012 -- Welcome our new niece! (0)
  Welcoming into our lives, my new niece, Rylee. Born just last week, can't wait to meet her thanksgiv...

But it does make you stop to think about how you gear yourself up for a certain outcome, experience or event and when that doesn’t happen, you kind of get into a bit of a slump. I certainly felt that last week. Even though I was relieved not to feel stressed out going to Israel because of certain events were escalating (of course now they have totally calmed down), I still was prepared and gearing myself up for a busy trip. It certainly makes you stop to think.

I came home noticing all the things I had done to prepare to be gone for a month – washed out the leaves in the tea pot, taking out last bit of recycling (cause my husband won’t) and throwing away last bit of carrot in the fridge (again cause my husband will see it but not actually throw rotting and moldy food away). Turned off all my computer equipment and printer. Made sure the plugs to the heater and dehumidifier were out of their sockets just in case…… And racked the leaves one last time for the final free pickup.

And then . . . I came right back! Routines shift, expand and retract. So easily fall back into my own. But I have new routines now even after 10 days of being away for the holidays, it gives me a new perspective, realigns my goals, and I realized, just that time gave me some space to think. To think just enough to change and actually START my major dream. I also realize this was supposed to happen because I have been asking the Universe for help to actually start this process. And now I have a month of time I thought was going to be spent somewhere else!

Now I just pray for motivation!

Related Posts

• July 4, 2012 -- A frog lives in my watering can! (2)
  This morning as I brought in my large watering can from my back porch to fill it up, a frog popped o...
• January 20, 2013 -- Blogging from the Heart (4)
  Ok! Finally getting things together and starting to write and post more (I'm DETERMINED!). I'm taki...
• January 5, 2013 -- Welcome 2013 (0)
  I keep meaning all week to post resolutions for 2013. In short, there are too many. And I've compl...
• December 1, 2011 -- English Tea Invites (0)
  I was asked to design and create invitations to a holiday tea for December which was fun. I was insp...

For my sister-in-law’s shower, I painted this frame for her. I don’t normally paint with green but I quite like the result so I think I’ll have to remember this combination for a real painting and print in my Etsy shop!

It’s surreal to add another human being into your life. One day she’s coming, the next, she’s there. Life is strange. But now she’s really real, and it is such a pleasure to know we have the rest of our lives to get to know her. Amazing.

Related Posts

• October 26, 2011 -- Frame Paintings (0)
  These are some of my sketches for ideas on how I would paint on furniture. More images will be poste...
• January 31, 2013 -- Why I paint (0)
  It's not lost on me that the way I work goes in cycles, patterns. It's good in someways – I love...
• January 27, 2012 -- 2012 Sketchbook Project (1)
  Sketchbook Project 2012 starts touring from Brooklyn on April 30th! Check back to see if you are i...
• July 4, 2012 -- A frog lives in my watering can! (2)
  This morning as I brought in my large watering can from my back porch to fill it up, a frog popped o...

http://www.peleprints.com

Related Posts

• February 8, 2012 -- Letterpress Workshop at Paper Boat Studios (0)
  Hi Everyone! My friend, Jamie, and I attended Paper Boat Studios' letterpress workshop this past Sa...
• September 19, 2012 -- Flying Lessons (0)
  My friend, Jamie and I, signed up for this e-course with artist Kelly Rae and loving it! Will be...
• November 18, 2011 -- Sellable Sketch Online Course (0)
  Right now I am in the middle of week #2 of this fabulous course learning about the textile and surfa...
• January 20, 2013 -- Blogging from the Heart (4)
  Ok! Finally getting things together and starting to write and post more (I'm DETERMINED!). I'm taki...

Both Britsy and Graham are very laid back, casual people. Britsy, hailing originally from Santa Cruz (which apparently after visiting in August I found out that yes, this is the birthplace of the total “surfer-dude” laid back California stereotype), she obviously was pretty open to whatever I could “come up with.” So after talking to both Graham and Brits for a bit on the phone, we decided on some type of illustration look referencing the Santa Cruz lighthouse and even “surfer” statue as well as a possible orchid for her dad (who is a scientist and is obsessed with growing orchids!) Of course being super practical, the budget was very tight. The only MAIN obstacle was that they asked me to do their invites barely 8 weeks before the wedding (anyone – I’m sorry mostly WOMEN – who have planned a wedding(s), you have my permission now to completely GASP and say . . . whaaaaaaaaaaaa?). Yes. Poor Britsy and Graham didn’t even realize that invitations are not something that’s just easy to go to a local Kinkos to get printed. So with all that in mind, after explaining the specialized paper, the envelopes, the return cards, etc. I had a sudden brilliant thought . . . I could order from Paper Source and print them out on my little inkjet Epson printer myself! They only wanted 100 (even though that came with main card and 2 smaller directional and RSVP cards – front and back) but still – not bad! And I could control how it gets done, do it in an afternoon and mail them overnight.

So after all that VOILA! Here are the invites. They were really fun to work on and after ordering from Paper Source recycled cardboard paper, it completely fit into their personalities and to Brits’ laid-back style!

Related Posts

• October 26, 2011 -- Biblos Calendar 2012 Process Images! (1)
  More images to come - a sneak-peak at my current project, designing illustrations for a nonprofit's ...
• December 19, 2011 -- Holiday Self Promotional Card 2011 (0)
  Here's the latest holiday card for this year of 2011. I really had fun making this card which was an...
• November 2, 2011 -- Biblos Foundation Calendar 2012 (0)
  Here's my latest project that is finally at the printer's for production. It's very exciting because...
• December 1, 2011 -- English Tea Invites (0)
  I was asked to design and create invitations to a holiday tea for December which was fun. I was insp...