Inspire Me Thursday: Limited Palette

I'm so very excited to be able to participate in this week's challenge on Inspire Me Thursday. After immersing myself night and day in preparation for a show, I found that I needed a few weeks to catch up on all the daily details left neglected for so long. It feels good to pick up a paintbrush again.

Using only violet, yellow and white, this painting depicts a block wall in Palm Springs, California. I like the starkness of the wall juxtaposed the looming boulders only a few yards away. At sunset, the mountains are a remarkable shade of purple with gold highlights which you must see to believe.

Rockin' Girl Blogger Award

I have been grinning for the last couple of days about receiving the Rockin' Girl Blogger award because I'm so honored to be included among such talented and inspirational artists.

Though I've been painting for many years now, sharing my work with the outside world is a relatively new experience for me, and I'm so lucky to have stumbled upon such a supportive and positive group or creative women who share a desire to revel in their art each moment. My art experience has been rather anonymous... the faceless designer behind the prop, invitation, or backdrop. I haven't actually had to stand next to my work and say "I did this."

So, to everyone who has made my initial ventures of putting my work out there such a wonderful and uplifting experience, THANK YOU! Also, thank you for sharing your love of beauty and wisdom with me, because I receive so much joy and wonder by poring over everyone's work. Cheryl, thanks so much for including me in this wonderful circle and I, in turn, pass the torch to The Heartful Blogger, Suzan, and Landi for the way they never cease to motivate and inspire through their work.

Keep rockin'!

"Inspire Me Thursday": Seven

I keep hearing that a day as auspicious as 7/7/07 only comes once each century and it appears that there were a record number of weddings and trips to the casinos yesterday. For me, the luckiest thing about July 7, 2007 was that millions of people tuned into a Live Earth.

Though our prompt for the week, "seven," calls to mind images of luck and well-being, I realized that the direction of our lives relies more heavily on the choices we make, rather than simply the luck of the draw. These musings led me to this sketch... a crossroads at which I hope we all take the ramp which will lead us to where we most want to go.

Happy trails!

"Inspire Me Thursday" : Light

This week's "Inspire Me Thursday" prompt is "light" and I chose to do a painting based on the view from my hotel in Paris. On the last morning before returning home, I got up at dawn and watched the sun rise. Unfortunately, the view of the rising sun was less than stellar from my window, only rewarding me with hazy sky and very thin light.

I was struck, however, by a single spot of brilliant light pouring from the windows of a shop down the street --- how the light bounced off the wet sidewalk, how the deep shadows masked the contours of the cafes and boutiques, how the buildings grew rosier by the minute as the sun finally rose --- all of these impressions are an indelible part of my Parisian experience.

This painting is still in progress and I'm excited to include it an an upcoming show called "Recollection: Finding Inspiration in Everyday Miracles." I'm sure it was just an ordinary morning in St. Germain des Pres, but for me it's a very precious memory.

Inspire Me Thursday: Wood

With so many different ways to go with this project, I had a hard time narrowing it down. It seems that everywhere I looked, there was yet another source of inspiration... my battered rattan deck chair abandoned on my too-hot deck, the wooden salad bowls at Crate & Barrel, the branches trimmed from our bushy walnut tree.

Here's a project that I completed some years ago, which currently serves as a headboard, but has spent time in the past as a desk, dining table, and wall art. My passion for Art Deco marquetry is, sadly, unfulfilled because it is priced way beyond my modest decorating and collecting budget. Instead of raiding the kids' college fund, I've created a modern version using stain-grade oak, an array of wood stains (from American cherry, golden oak, and english walnut), and an x-acto knife. This is the result...

Crazy Week...

It has been such a crazy week, with a lot of deadlines to fulfill, that I haven't been able to sit down and indulge in creative "play" (that's what painting is to me). But I've been so inspired by all the artists participating in "Inspire Me Thursday." The work that's being posted is so soulful and personal, and I love the stories and poems and song lyrics that accompany each beautiful piece of artwork.

Instead of paint, paper and canvas, today I'll be using cake mix, superfine sugar, and food coloring to create fairy cakes... five dozen! I'm not a baker by any stretch of the imagination, but I had such success a couple of years ago with these fairy cakes that I've decided to do it again for the 2nd grade and kindergarten classes at school. Nigella Lawson presents these in her book "How to Be a Domestic Goddess" and I've done the quick and easy version with cake mix.... Yummy!

Inspire Me Thursday: Roots, Part 2

Ever since last week's prompt on Inspire Me Thursday --- "roots" --- I've had an image in my head that simply won't go away and I should probably act on it. The way I imagine it, it's a picture of plant or tree roots, some thick and some thin, all tangled and twisted, intertwined with one another. My vision is not colorful, but dark and oppressive.

In my current mood, I guess I'm more likely to entertain the darker, more sinister side --- how roots can sometimes be strangling and binding, how they keep you in one place despite your desire to escape, how you never really know how deep they can run, lurking under the surface and spreading unbeknownst to us. Rather ominous, I know, but sometimes things are like that.

Charcoal sounds like a good medium for this type of project.

Inspire Me Thursday: Roots

"Inspire Me Thursday"s prompt for this week is "roots." For me these lie primarily with my family, uprooted from their country 35 years ago and transplanted here. We're lucky... we've been able to thrive here. When I think about what my parents did so long ago... deciding to venture out of the small town that was their home; moving, not to another city or state, but, to another continent altogether; facing an uncertain future in a foreign place that they had never even visited before moving; doing this with four children in tow... I marvel at their tenacity and courage. When you look at them today, they are simple, unassuming people and you would never think they had it in them. My mom rarely ventures out of her garden. Perhaps she'll take a walk around the block to get a little exercise and look at other people's gardens. And my dad is difficult to find these days, but chances are he's cultivating a forgotten corner of the backyard or attempting to train the nasturtiums to climb a garden obelisk.

What they did would be like me selling everything, packing my bags, loading up the kids, and moving to...say... Germany or Greece or Brazil. For me, moving to another country would be to fulfill my fantasy of living a cosmopolitan, expatriate life; for them, it was simply survival.

Though I've lived here since I was three, the roots of my culture and family history were firmly planted. You can't see them. They're underground, but they support me in a way that is very difficult to explain to someone who has different roots. At the same time, the part of me that's had to live in "this place," the part is above ground, has thrived, blossomed and flowered... I hope.

I realize that my kids will never have an organic connection to another land, unless they too uproot and re-establish their lives somewhere else

I'm glad they come from good strong stock.