Five Flowers

Blue eyes

Eat, Pray, Love Author on TED

Check out this great talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love (a favorite book here!)

{Via Craftcast!  Or watch the video here at the TED website}

Creative Flow

So, I have been thinking a lot about creative inspiration, creative spark, and the creative process.  For each of us it is so different, and as for myself, the process and experience is different for different mediums.  When I am writing poetry, the poems just come and I need to pull over the car and quickly and get t all down.  Or a poem might start with a title, or with a word, or an opening image.

Visual art comes differently for me: usually I have a concept I am working on, and sometimes even a composition in mind as a jumping off point:

These sketches became these paintings:

{Stupa, 2008}

{Being and Becoming, 2009}

I am still working on the pieces from this last page.  Sometimes, the inspiration for a piece will come from colors I've seen, especially in design magazines, which I put together in my inspiration journal.

What is your process like?

A Road Less Bloggerly

It amazes me how little I am able to blog in the winter time: the kids are inside more, and so there is little time by myself in the house without them present, asking for food or help with something, or asking for yet another snack.  So I apologize for being, well, absent.

I have also been spending way too much time on Facebook, but I think I am over that now.  It's kind of a snore, really- you can only become a fan of so many things!  But it is nice to get easy updates from all my peeps on what's going on where they are.  Has Facebook sucked you in, too?

I have also been::

• Away to Napa Valley for an inspiration and wine filled get away with just my husband! (even a doe sat for me!)
• Thinking about this post 
• And thinking about all the wonderful magazines going out of print [Wondertime, Domino,  & Craft , oh my!]  
• Wanting to paint and shoot more, but  am finding that I am in a thinking phase.... I think it may have to do with this book.   
• I have a give-away to announce soon , too:: I am approaching four years of blogging my friends! (wait, am I nuts?)

 I am having all these great ideas, and I think I just need the rain of winter so I can chew on them, digest them, integrate them.  I have a workshop idea that I may try to make happen.  Ideas for a photo series or two.  An encaustic fantasy I need to fulfill.  And tons of Craftcast to catch up on. 

What have you been up to this winter?  Is it a creative time of year for you?

Father & Daughter Surfing

{My Husband and our daughter surfing during a recent heat wave!  She is such a big girl now!}

Check Out My Article in Mankind Mag!

So, have you seen?  Heard?  The latest issue of Mankind Mag is up!  I have an article in it about the Yellow Bird Project, and the magazine is filled with over 80 pages of design goodness.  Yum.

So please go over to the Design for Mankind site and download your copy:: the topic is kind of the opposite of Valentine's Day: "Let's Be Friends!"

xo

being and becoming

My latest painting:: tell me what you think!