Featured image: Your Mind Sings - Listen
Find a place, some kind of environment that allows you to
BE
Find your recklessness.
Featured image: Your Mind Sings - Listen
Find a place, some kind of environment that allows you to
BE
Find your recklessness.
Featured image: Gifts from God
Don't box yourself in. If you choose to box yourself in then be a pretty present then, share yourself with others.
Featured image: Balance
You have the potential to enlighten, illuminate and transform people and places. When you have inner balance and peace within yourself you have the same inner balance and peace within your spirit and soul that you can share with others.
Featured image: All Rise
We never sit anything out. We are cups quietly and constantly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. Ray Bradbury
Glorious Mother's Day at Black River Harbor - I have several stories of chats with folks along the shoreline walk - but first thought I would share this with you all - the apple blossoms and cherry blossoms were glorious along the shore and on the trip up.
And then I saw a carpet of stars - magical carpet of stars.
and two beautiful forsythia bushes oh my gosh - oh my gosh this is now my desktop slide. I am switching between the white blossoms and the yellow blossoms - can't decide.
Featured image: The Mask
I am incredibly honored that my piece, "The Mask," has been awarded an Honorable Mention at the esteemed Philadelphia Watercolor Society 2024 Member Exhibition. This recognition means so much to me as an artist and serves as a testament to the passion and dedication I pour into my work. Thank you to the Philadelphia Watercolor Society for this incredible honor.
Featured image: Caves Along the Shore - Lake Superior
kayaking
arms stretching
finally I am
free
horizon and water
meet
still
kayaking Lake
superior
Featured image: Back Yard Birds
Gosh where to begin? I played around with this whole piece and everything in it. I think every part of an abstract or semi-abstract work is always experimental, as I rarely have much in mind when I start working. When I began this work last November, I started with a figure, washes, and colors. I then stepped back and asked myself what the idea behind this work would be. I decided to make birds part of the composition, but how and where to place them became a major struggle. I tried many ways, sizes, colors and shapes but always painted over them. If you look closely at the work, you might glimpse the birds I painted over because they just weren’t right. It wasn’t until I put the red bird on the shoulder of the figure that I stopped struggling and felt comfortable with the marks and colors of the bird. The rest didn’t come easily after that. I tried many birds flying around but that didn’t work for me. I finally settled on a bird at the bird feeder.
This whole work was extremely experimental for me and I learned a great deal from the creation and placement of the birds. I am ready to move on with what I learned to the next work and put these new ideas to work for me. The fun part for me as an artist is always knowing that even as I move on with new ideas, they are never the same in the next work.
Featured image: Yellow Finch III
The finch's yellow
song
touches the
stillness.
Masked by a grey sky
metamorphosis
of the sun happens.
Featured image: A Cloud in the Sky
Just a minute ago I looked up
Toward the sky, puffy clouds
Slowly meandering across the
Gray blue and white sky. I wonder
I listen. Eyes closed, I travel
Happily to a different place
With blue white sky and
Puffy clouds. When I open
My eyes, puffy clouds have
Moved on to be shared with
Another, Minutes spend
Enjoying the clouds.
Featured image: Wonderful Flying Machine
Is it too late to change? Am I working towards that dream I thought I was called to do? But what I am doing is not what I imagined or dreamed. I am wondering, is it too late to change direction? It is hard, change is, I know.
But I do change – and I make myself vulnerable by putting my new work out there. I have the attitude that change is good, but hard, but imagination is fun and exciting. All the large competition pieces I have been working on this winter are different from other works I have done. Change is scary. As I work, I think to myself is it worth even entering a competition with this one? When artists change, they have no one to go to, to talk to about the new pieces. For me, if it gets into a competition, I say to myself well I guess it wasn’t that bad.
The thing about being an artist is it's about being intuitive, and listening to what the creative activity wants me to do. It is really what makes a work unique and original I believe. So I guess I am changing constantly – and I know I am always working towards that dream I think I was called to do. At the moment, it isn’t what I imagined or dreamed but I get up, show up and have never, never given up. So I guess the answer to my question is – it is never to late to change, and imagine, imagine about this new day and what it is going to bring to you.
Featured image: Goose
Darn it, darn it! Those geese are back on my little island. Well, it isn’t mine, but I like to think of it is mine, as many of my neighbors on this side of the lake also think it is their little island, or some call it Powder Puff.
The geese came last year – and now they are back. This used to be a loon’s nest and I saw them earlier, but they must have gone somewhere else.
Anyway, the geese are there building a nest, making the little island full of slippery poop. The mom sits on the nest and once in a while the dad helps and sits. Then, about a month later, we watch as the goslings are in the water swimming behind their parents. Cute? Yes, but darn it - they are on my little island.