I am PUBLISHED!!!

This package arrived yesterday.

I knew when I saw the address of Globe Pequot Press what was inside.

Back in May I had sent in two pieces of my art work to be considered for the latest book my my most favorite author/Writer-Lady Friend, Patti Digh.

I was told over the summer that both of my pieces had been accepted !!!!

As I opened the package, I asked Darling David to snap some pics.

I am published in this book.

“Creative is a Verb” by Patti Digh.

My art is in this book for all to see.

I am blown away…

First up, my art on page 4, CHAPTER ONE !!!!, of the book !

The chapter is called “Reclaim the Spark : Who This Book Is For.”

This piece is called “If you’re alive, you’re creative.”, the same words that are used on the cover of the book.

Was I happy to see it there on the printed page ?

Oh, Ya, Baby !!!!!!

My second piece of art is on page 30.

This piece is entitled “Come as you are.” just as one of the essays in this chapter, “Be Ordinary” is called.

I think I feel asleep with a version of this cheesy grin on my face last night.

I know I woke up with it this morning !!!

I can’t tell you how much this means to me as an artist and a creative being.

To know that people all over the world who pick up Patti’s creation will find my art amongst its pages is so amazing to me.

I feel like I have really left my mark on this world in my own little way now.

I am also love and am so proud of the two pieces that I created. They are really bits of me and my heart.

Not to mention that the topic of the book itself, living a Creative life to the fullest, is so important to me. And also the fact that so many wonderful artists, many of them my blog friends, have art work that has filled the pages of the book. I am truly honored to be included in such a beautiful, accessible, and inspiring piece of work.

I would like to thank my Friend, the inspiring Writer-Lady, Patti Digh for seeing my light and for helping me to let it shine in this way. You have made a difference in my life, Miss Patti. I hope you know that. I love you.

Creative is a Verb by Patti Digh will be available on October 18th and is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. You can also purchase signed copies from Patti's own on-line store at 37 Days. You know I will be getting a few more copies for myself!!!!!

Get yourself one and be inspired, Beautiful Ones !

More Sea Love…

   

I am holding on to these Cape Cod photos and the sensations that came with them this week. (Isn’t my Sea Man amazing ? Inspired by my Dad who built rock men wherever he went, I left the carefully balanced dude watching a view that I could look at all day !) Last week was sunny, warm, full of free time to create, surrounded by wonderful souls and in a setting that blew my socks off. This week is mostly about the rain, the grey, my two sore feet and working at the mall…yikes ! How things can change in a few days ! ;)

I am lucky to have this temporary part-time job at the Halloween store at a time when the money will come in very handy. I am trying to keep my focus there.

But my Sea Love is calling me…

I hope you find some wonderful things to hold on to to get you through, Beautiful Ones !

Big Love !

A Love Affair…

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It's always our self we find in the sea.
~e.e. cummings

 

  

I am back after a week with lovely friends at the sea side. Cape Cod in September is magical. While the friendship, art making, fine food eating and wine drinking were all so very lovely, what stays with me most is the sea…

I miss it today.

The waves, the winds, the sounds, the smells, the sights….

The me I am when I am by it.

I kind of always knew it but after a week of being able to put my feet on the shore whenever I wanted to, I know for sure.

Me and the sea…

Are meant to be…

The happiest of Sundays, Beautiful Ones!

I don’t wanna work, I just wanna doodle the day away…

I worked at the Halloween store both yesterday and Monday.

It was so boring…lots of customers looking but little buying yet.

That means I spent 5 hours on my feet, thinking about all the things I could be doing with my time if I was at home in the studio…

I could finish some beautiful doodling pieces like this to add to my 16 page journal… (I used my set of Micron pens in different sizes to create this piece a while back… )

(doesn’t it look gorgeous against this page of Fabriano Artistico water color paper that does awesome things with Golden Fluid acrylics ?Yummy !)

Or I could be packing and organizing things for the Art Friends Gathering Cape Cod Week Long Extravaganza that I am leaving for on Friday.

(See the cool ties I found at the Good Will store for one of our projects – a one tie purse that Terry will be showing us how to make ?)

The good news is that I am off for the next two days and I can finally get to the action instead of thinking about it as I have been for the last few days.

I am running a few errands to the craft stores today to get a  couple of last minute things, getting my groceries and then packing all the toys up to take with me.

Plus I want to bake some super decadent chocolate cookies to keep our creativity fueled…

The hardest part is deciding what art materials to bring and what to leave home.

You know, I can do a great page in an art journal with very little.

But I would hate to be on the Cape and be missing something that I have at home.

Mixed Media Artists and their toys…;)

I figure anything that can fit along with me in the Jeep Grand Cherokee is fair game !

Think there is any chance of fitting the whole studio armoire in there ?

Hee ! ;)

I know, I know, time to edit some !

I feel so very, very blessed ! This Lucky Queen is off to make some cuts !

Happy Wednesday, Beautiful Ones !

GPP Street Team 44 – In A Scrape

It has been awhile again since I participated in a Crusade lead by the incredible Michelle Ward. I read the prompts every month and plan to do them but sometime life gets in the way.

Today, I was supposed to be packing for my Cape Cod trip but I decided that I couldn’t have all my  favorite supplies packed up on this grey and quiet Sunday. I needed to play !

The Green Pepper Press Street Team Crusade #44 – In A Scrape was a great place to start.

Michelle shared techniques using an old credit card or a paint scraper to cover your pages with paint. No paint brushes required ! I did get my fingers in there in a few places…

here’s one where I used my fingers to blend in the corners and make those circle shapes. I love how the blue paint scraped of – almost like it had been ripped…  

Michelle also suggested using stencils and masks and dragging the paint with the credit card  over top of them. You can see a circle flower stencil in this one…

I certainly didn’t have as much success as Michelle did with her masks but I did have fun trying…no critics in the Queen of Arts Studio!

This page has a heart I cut out of an old acetate and used as a mask. Loving this one!   

This piece of paper was kind of my blotter for my credit card and for my stencils. I like its a little more subtle colors. It will make a good background to build from too.

I saw something in this page as soon as I smeared that purple on with a circular smush of the credit card…

Do you see it ?

Yep ! A Bird !!!

This is is Irving, the Homing Pigeon and his home, who came into being with some additional painting, some black ink and a collaged house on a pole.

I love him…

One more benefit of playing with paint like this is you end up with fingers that look like this :

I think I can see these shots played with and added to a journal page in the future as well.

Painted fingers are a definitely JOY to me !

So a big thank you to Michelle for the great inspiration she provides every month. Head over to the GPP Street Team blog to see some more great scraping !

Come on, Irving, let’s fly away home…

Happy Sunday, Beautiful Ones !

A Saturday Chat with the Queen…

(Self-portrait from my art Journal from last year…click to enlarge)

Kate from Kate’s Library (who lives in Southern NH which I must check into, and who writes marvelous book reviews on her blog) has honored me with the Versatile Blogger Award.

Here are the rules that go with it :

1. Thank the person who gave you this award. (did that on her blog !)
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award on to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason!

Kate only awarded 3 Awards, making up her own rules, and I liked that ! I will do the same. But first, here are my 7 things about myself – I guess if I had to categorize them it would be 7 things that show where I am in this moment….

1. I will be 45 this year – in less than a month actually. What ???? How did I get here so fast? Happy with it when I consider the alternatives ! ;)

2. David and I will be married for 10 years this December. That went fast too. If I had to give it a number of years that it feels like it would be about 5, I think. Love love love that man !

3. David and I never had a wedding. We got married in front of a Justice of the Peace named Harriet Holly 5 days after Christmas in 2000, right after I officially immigrated to the US. on my fiancé visa. We sort of had a plan to have a wedding or at least a reception type party at some point but it never happened. I am not a white dress, center of attention type person so I don’t regret this at all. Wouldn’t have minded a party and the gifts, though. ;)  Ah, well, maybe for our 20th ?

4. I am a true shoe lover. I have been since I was a little kid. I just shared a memory with my mom of when I was 5 years old and she took me to a special shoe store, you know, where they measure your feet and everything when you are small. And she bought me these gorgeous pinkish-red leather shoes! I remember being totally in love with my special probably first pair of expensive shoes ! I am in love with the new White Mountain Mohawk Mary Jane Clogs I bought yesterday !

I tried them on with aching feet after working for a few hours  at the store yesterday and they stilled felt really comfortable. I wish they were green or pinkish-red but I am loving them anyway !

5. I have worn glasses for extreme near-sightedness since I was nine. I have worn contact lens since I was sixteen – my dad bought them for me when I graduated from high school. I now have multi focal contacts because I am very very near sighted but I also need help for reading close too. Viva les 40’s !!! I am grateful everyday for these tools I have to help me see the beauty in the world so clearly !!!

6. The number one most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me was “You are stronger than you think you are.” David said those words to me when I was in the midst of a huge crisis and really doubting my ability to get through. They will stay with me always.

7. My favorite flavor of ice cream (I know- from life changing words to ice cream !!! But I got stuck for # 7 big time !) is Tiger Tail – orange ice cream with black licorice swirl in it. It is hard to find and this summer a grocery chain in Canada made special editions of  “Vintage” flavors , and my sister Kristina bought some at her house, just for me !!! It doesn’t make the 5 hour drive well so I couldn’t bring any home with me. Maybe it will always remain my favorite because it is a rare treat…

Okay that’s enough !!! As I was writing this I realized that I was having a hard time sharing 7 things about myself because I am really so open about myself on this blog already ! Those who read my posts know a lot about the real me. That is kind of cool to realize and just shows how my blog is a place for me to just be MYSELF ! What a great gift.

So my 3 Versatile Blogger Awards are going to :

1.The talented and poetic Meri at Meri’s Musing whose blog I have found thorugh Haiku My Heart.

2. Lynn at Getting My Feet Wet who shares incredible photos and great art work and is so very good at the Blog Love thang !

3.Lisa at Priti Art Studio whose art I just adore ! I am lucky to have won a piece of it recently ! ;) Lisa is another open book type person but I am still kind of getting to know her and would love to see what zany and fun 7 things she will share about herself if she feels like responding to this award on her blog.

So that’s it for today, Beautiful Ones. It is feeling kind of Fall like but so gorgeous here in NH today. David and I are off to do some errands and such and have lunch at Bertucci’s – oven baked pizza is my fav !!!!! Then it will be about getting all my art stuff together for the up coming Cape Cod trip. I hope you have some fun plans that make the most out of this precious day.

Happy Saturday !

Haiku My Heart – Good News

Kindness is simple.

A smile, a buck, a hand up.

It does the soul good.

******************************************************

In times where bad news is so damn easy to find,

let’s look for some GOOD news

and CELEBRATE IT !!!!!!

Here are a few places to start :

Victim treats mugger right.

How the 93 Dollar Club got started…

Some amazing good things spring from just one person having A Good Idea.

(this video had me in tears of joy at how wonderful we can be when we put our focus in the right place…)

I challenge you to look for ways to be kinder than necessary today, Beautiful Ones.

I know you are utterly and completely capable of it.

Happy Friday !

(for more Haiku my Heart Loveliness, go here.)

Don’t Push the River…

These postcards are the only art making that I have been doing lately.

They were inspired by my friends Corrine and Lyle, who have a lovely mail art correspondence going on, as well as my gorgeous friend Paula, who sent me one of her own postcards as a surprise by mail during the summer.

I think I am enjoying the quickness of them. The instant gratification.

I have been using all the cardboard from boxes of cereal and dog biscuits and such for them.  They also make great use of all of those small but precious scraps of papers I have gathering in zip lock bags in the studio. Fun to recycle this way.

David asked me why there were all of a sudden a bunch of snipped pieces of cardboard in the recycling bin rather than whole boxes.

Now he gets it. ;)

I have even gotten out of the practice of doing daily or almost daily journal pages.

I worried about it for a minute and then let it go.

My art is essential to me now but so is the time in between, where I go with the flow and wait for the current to pull me into action.

I can feel the creative itching coming though !

Maybe it is Fall, my most active and inspired season.

I am an October baby after all !

I have some fun creative endeavors coming up.

A week away in Cape Cod with my Arty friends ( I leave in 8 days !!!).

I will be sharing my art journaling techniques with them. My pal Colleen and I will be helping them all make a journal like Teesha Moore shares in her great YouTube Videos. And then I will help them fill some of the pages up.

I am excited to learn all the cool stuff that the other ladies are sharing too ! Some sewing, some writing, some work with wax…plus the ocean, a beautiful house for ten and a lot of great food and cocktails ! ;) Lucky, lucky Queen !

I also have a craft fair in December that I need to prepare for – not so arty but still creative…

And I am joining my wonderful Canadian Chickies for a Christimas Giftie Swap (yes, I just used the “C” word – I am sorry !) as well.

Plus I am starting a part time job at a Halloween Store for now through Nov.1st to finance all my fun ! ;)

The current is coming, Baby ! I can feel it at my back…

But for today,

and planning to make the most of this one precious day !

Big Love to you, Beautiful Ones !

A few Macros in the not so mean time…

An African Daisy that was not eaten by the squirrels…

A white geranium that bloomed in a pot of red ones…

A worn-out zinnia with Thai Basil flowers…

A lonely begonia tucked beneath its greenery…

A Dahlia whose pot wintered in the basement and finally graced us with its bloom’s presence in the beginning of September.

A perfectly dirty Rock My World rock reminding me that I cannot be a perfectionist, especially in the garden…         

My latest art journal page…

with a self-portrait I took on a bad hair day recently.

I was thinking a lot as I woke up this morning. That tends to happen on Mondays. (I know it is Tuesday, but it feels like a Monday.)

I was thinking a lot about how much time I spend waiting for things to be just so.

For the “soul satisfying” part-time job to come.

For the sense of accomplishment to feel complete.

For the me I dream of to manifest herself.

I spend a  lot of time in the “making do” mode or the “for now” mode.

“In the Mean Time” mode.

I will take this part-time job for now though it doesn’t rock my soul because I need the cash and it is here now.

I can’t live in the same city as with my family right now, so I will make do and and endure the stresses of  traveling the long road and the super busy weekends to make sure I don’t miss important events.

I am not where I want to be physically at all, but in the mean time I will wear whatever clothes fit, which all seem to be black for some reason.

You know what ?

This making do or for now or in the mean time thing is really just a state of mind.

If I choose to turn it all around in my mind and heart, and make my perspective one that takes advantage of every precious moment of my life instead, watch how things can change :

-How lucky am I that when I really needed some extra cash, a part-time job came a found me ?

-How blessed am I to be able to drive the distance to my favorite peeps and participate in the celebrations of life with them ?

-How great did it feel to buy that perfectly soft black tunic top yesterday that I can make my own with a gorgeous scarf and some of my funky jewelry?

-And how wonderful does it feel in this very moment that I am able to move and walk and sing (though not well to some ears) and make art and LOVE others, life and myself ?

It feels like the way to go, big time !

I am realizing that I need to change my mind set, not my life !

I can LOVE the life I am in, right now.

So the part-time job isn’t a dream job. I have enough love in me to make it fun anyway.

So the weekends get jam packed when I head home to visit. I can slow it down and enjoy the driving and the talking time with David, and let everyone know I will get there when I get there.

So my body isn’t perfect, but I have a few pieces that cover it that feel good against my skin and some kick-ass shoes and accessories will make it work for the artist in me.

And I have this day, this chance to feed my soul, mind and body with good stuff : love, positive vibes, healthy food, movement and creativity.

The thought I am left with is that if I can’t change the whole picture and if I can’t completely change myself in this moment, I can either choose to be unhappy about it and let this day pass me by as I hang out being unhappy and down on myself….

OR

I can choose to

LOVE THE ONE I’M WITH !!!!

And you know what else ?

When I really think about it, she is pretty damn worthy of that loving ! ;)

Love on your wonderful Self today, Beautiful One !

This is YOUR ONE Precious LIFE!