Burlap Soul

Hope everyone had a very happy Halloween. Guess what? It's now officially Art Everyday Month! Let's grab a leftover Kit-Kat and jump right in, shall we? (Some could argue this new design is a part of AEMonth, but for me that was just a fun thing. Photoshop is my late-night buddy.)

As you may or may not know, I am a severe insomniac. Part of the problem is that my dreams are incredibly chaotic, fearful and often violent. The other part of the problem is that I cannot wake up for the slightest second or else my brain just starts running and running. Most often, it's frustrating as hell because there's nothing I can do about it, nor can I seem to stop it and go back to sleep.

So instead I did a little sketch and tried to express what some of my worst nights/mornings are like. (Yes, I suck at drawing. No, it doesn't stop me.) This piece was inspired by a word suggestion from Leah.

'Question.'

Enjoy. As always, feedback welcome.

We're off to Indianapolis tonight for the Tori show! I will still be creating art, but not posting any of it until we return later this weekend. Ahhh, a night away in a fancy hotel - no parents, no home repair, no hyper dogs. You should see how excited we are, you'd think we were going to Disney World.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

We're back from Indy and I have to say both the show and the company were wonderful. J. and I have decided that we are going to take little weekend trips more often. Even if it's just one night in a fancy hotel, we can't not take the risk. Considering that Cincinnati is so close to so many different places, it's worth it for both our sanity and our marriage.

And on that note, the art I did for Friday night (at the Tori show, no less) is over at the photoblog. (Don't have the password? Just email me.) Enjoy!

I had a bit of a revelation at the Tori show this weekend and also just from spending time alone with my husband for a change. That (and a new set of oil pastel crayons) left me inspired. This one is of my own muse, not a word suggestion.

Vein of Love incorporates my own photograph, oil pastel crayons, ink and collage on paper. I was inspired by wedding folklore and traditions, our own vows we took this past June, and mostly my relationship with my husband.

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Enjoy!

Today's artwork is over at the photoblog. Leave a comment or just email me if you'd like the password. Otherwise, enjoy!

Just out of curiosity, who's reading out there? I've noticed there are more people visiting than talking, so I thought I would just open the door and invite all of you in.

Say hello, even if you're a regular! I swear I don't bite. I'm all bark really. ;-)

Today's art was inspired by my own muse, no word suggestions. I was too tired to really delve into anything big, but began scribbling randomly in a tiny 5x7 notebook. This piece is inspired by my constant desire to explore the dark side of things and my enjoyment in doing so. I can be standing in the greenest grass on the brightest of days and I will still retreat within my own head to a pleasant but dark place where the wind is always gray and the territory always black and familiar. Sometimes I like to be sad, sometimes I like to be angry, sometimes I like to explore the darkest parts of my soul - even though I'm a much happier person now, beckoning the dark is always where I feel at home. It doesn't mean anything, it's just the way I'm made.

The Lure of Inertia is wax pastel crayons, ink, pencil and collage on notebook paper. Closeup shot.

Enjoy.

I'm posting my art a little late tonight, but then again I've never been one of those people that thinks the day ends at midnight. A new day doesn't begin until I wake up the next morning, or at least that's the way my brain is programmed.

Speaking of faulty brain programming, let's get on to today's art. Some of you may remember my insanely difficult struggle with nailbiting and how it was a habit I actually learned to break, even when it was at its worst. For the past two years, I haven't chewed or mutilated my nails and they were absolutely beautiful on my wedding day. I was continually surprised at the fact that I would have to cut them because they were getting too long. Sure, they grew crooked and weird after 28 years of damaging the nail beds, but at least they grew. This was huge for me, a victory I never thought I'd accomplish.

However, in recent months, the band-aids have returned. I don't know exactly what triggered me to start biting my nails again after 2 years of "sobriety" but I do know that my stress level is a little insane lately. There's a lot of shit swirling around in my head, shouting at me and demanding to be dealt with. There's also a lot of outside stress going on (particularly my relationship with my mother) and just a general lack of control sitting on me, weighing heavily. I find myself bitching more, smiling less and generally knit-picking every goddamn thing under the sun. I know that's not me. I know that's the perfectionism my father ingrained deeply in me, but at the same time, I know that it's not leaving anytime soon. Unfortunately, it's my body that pays for that.

Tenant is pencil, my own photograph and marker on paper. The words around the perimeter are all criticisms of myself and the perfectionist voices in my head, all sentences beginning with "I do not like" or similar.

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And with that, I am finally off to bed. Goodnight everyone.

No, I didn't post any art yesterday. I wasn't feeling well and so decided not to push myself.

Today though, we get to have fun with movies! I have an old list of Mixed Media Memoir topics that I never got around to doing years ago, so I'm doing some of them now. Today I decided to make a short little movie to illustrate the MMM topic "How I Spend My Time."

Some of you may be aware that we have a new beagle puppy in the house. However, what you may not be aware of is that we are 99.9% sure he is part coonhound. This means higher energy levels, lots of loudness, bigger poop. We love him just as much, but we have learned that he must stay awake until at least 10:30pm. Trust me, if bedtime is a half hour too early, his ass is up at 5am driving us INSANE. This kid stocks up on The Hyper like it's half-off and going out of style.

Sometimes our plan can backfire though, like tonight. We usually just run circles around the house and he can't resist jumping into the action - unless that is, he is tired, grumpy and doesn't want to stay awake that extra half hour. So then it's just us - Double the idiots, double the fun! Yes, this is how we spend our time.

(And yes, our house is a massive fixer upper and a giant mess. But hey, check out our awesome new couch!)

Tonight's art is titled Fierce Treasure and is wax crayon, watercolor and pencil on paper. (Inspired a little by Leah's word suggestions.) I was exploring transformation, change and my new path of embracing the warmth and positivity in life rather than being stuck with only the cold fruitlessness of old unhealthy relationships.

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I've been a little quiet this weekend. To be honest, I wanted to get off the computer for a while and just enjoy a weekend on the new awesome couch with my new awesome husband. We watched endless old movies Saturday (seriously I love AMC a little too much), played with our dogs, drove around in the rain and even witnessed a high speed car chase that ended up on the news. I see so many couples that spend all their time together bickering and becoming champions of passive-aggressiveness because they really have nothing left to say. In a little over a month (New Year's to be exact), we will have been together for a total of eight years. We still prefer to be with each other more than anyone else, we still love to make fun of horrible TV together, we still love to make each other laugh until we cry, we still love taking endless pictures of ourselves in funny poses, we still love quiet weekends at home with just our animals and the radio. Mostly though, we still love our weekends and our time together. I count that as a wonderful thing.

-- How sad is it that when I play my iTunes in alphabetical order, it's still more random than the damned shuffle? Seriously, Clear Channel runs my iTunes and I'm so sick of it! I have something like 10 gigs of music, but I only ever hear the same 50 songs. I've started de-selecting songs that I really like just because I'm so sick of hearing them. This makes me nuts! All that uploading for nothing! Garrrr!

-- I'm starting to find that I enjoy the holidays more than I used to. In previous years, it was Halloween that got all the attention and then I would be inexplicably sad at Christmastime. Since I've been with J. though, that seems to have shifted. We didn't go all nuts at Halloween this year like we had expected to, but I found myself enjoying it. We just sat some pumpkins out front, passed out candy and had a quiet evening at home. Anyone who knows me in real life knows this is completely out of character. No fog machines? No neon lights? No loud soundtrack? Everyone was worried that something was "seriously wrong" with me. J. was ready to have me screened for depression. I, however, was just enjoying the fact that we need to work on our house more before I can really begin to celebrate Halloween the way I want to. My priorities had just shifted, I guess. It just doesn't make sense to me to spend money and time prepping Halloween decor when your living room is still missing drywall and there's nails laying everywhere.

-- Ironically, I find myself getting excited about decorating for Christmas instead. Of course we don't plan to go all nuts or anything, but I do like the idea of having a tree and then some candles in the windows. Twinkling lights on the porch rail, opening gifts in our own home with all the animals underfoot and chewing paper. I consider this a testament to the fact that I no longer dread and hate the holidays. He has made me see the gift of snow and given me a reason to no longer be depressed on Christmas Day. In all honesty, it's nice.

-- Last night, I made these Pineapple Upside Down Muffins I saw on an episode of Paula Deen and I have to say they're not bad. Mine came out way too watery even when I followed the recipe so some tweaking might be in order there. J. loves pineapple so I am always looking for ways to incorporate it into our food. Not to mention our vodka.

-- I love that I am cooking more. Dinner isn't always about "where and what crap are we going to eat tonight" anymore so much as "what can I whip up and create." It's awesome. I'm already collecting recipes for some Thanksgiving side dishes and I find myself excited to start practicing them. My family has this fucked up (and very irritating) ideology about my cooking skills. No matter what I make and how good it is, the idea of me cooking is still a joke to them. It's automatically assumed that my skills will suck. However, since I've been vegetarian, the ridicule has only gotten worse. Now there's a definite attitude of "oh no she's vegetarian, don't let her cook, it will be gross! If there's no meat in it, we won't want to eat it!" Part of this is just my family's narrow-mindedness and the other part of it is that we grew up on Southern food (ham hocks and bacon gravy anyone?). Being vegetarian is just not considered cool to them, nor is change. Secretly though, I love this. Let them ridicule me and assume that my cooking skills suck. Then, watch as they all oooh and ahhhh over the Dirty "Sausage" Rice I made and constantly ask me if I brought my famous Pumpkin-Caramel Cheesecake this year. Why yes, of course I did, along with some Pumpkin Cornbread, Zucchini Bread, Apple-Cranberry Stuffing, Rum Cake and Kentucky Bourbon Balls. But you don't have to try it, seeing as how I suck as a cook and all. ..... Yeah, that's what I thought.

-- Have I mentioned how excited I am to sew Bogey's name onto a stocking this year and hang it with the others on our stair banister in our new home? Wow, with this and all the cooking you'd think I was turning into a 50s sitcom wife. (Well, at least until you looked at all the circles and notes in all those Frederick's catalogs I receive. Then you might just think I was an indulgent trophy wife.) Either way, I guess you'd be impressed. ;-)

I could tell you the motivation behind this piece, but I just really don't know what that would be. It just sort of evolved. I'm still not quite sure it's done yet, and it may well veer off into fifty different pieces in the future, but this is as far as it wanted to go today. Let's just say it's tackling Lust, the desire to have it, the lack of having a healthy relationship with it, and the authority to own it when it comes - and leave it at that.

I pulled out scrap pieces of fabric that made me feel feminine while also speaking to my heart. Then I sewed those together and put them in the center. The rose in the middle is a very old antique piece of Victorian fabric and I don't know what else to tell you but that the rose symbolizes my soul and my heart. Of that, I am sure. Other than that, you'll just have to figure it out for yourself.

ALL is fabric, pastel, pen, ink, collage and marker on cardstock paper.

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I'm discovering that sometimes it's best I take a break and not push myself to do art every single day. Then I can rest my mind and let things like this flow out of me. I still take photographs every day, I get creative, I just don't post it all the time. That's why you haven't seen much art posting from me lately. Art is incredibly personal to me and I often like to take days to recover from a piece and then ruminate over its meaning. But then it's all good, because I can let go, shift my focus, pull out my sewing machine, start something new, create something bigger, and in that process become very, very happy.

I've been feeling guilty about the fact that I haven't created any real art the past few days. Truthfully we've just been fervently working on the house. However, we have finally decided on a plan to make our bedroom more romantic (and less oppressive) while simultaneously creating a craft/sewing room for me up there as well. So even after Art Everyday Month, if all goes as planned, you may be seeing art from me on a more regular basis. That counts for something, right? ;-)

Anyway, today's art is something that I just wanted to do for fun. For some reason I'm very excited about decorating for Christmas this year. Last year, I sewed our names onto our stockings so that we would finally have something grown-up looking without constantly re-applying glitter every year. This year, I decided to do it for the animals as well. We have one stocking for the cats (with four little kitty heads on it) that I'll be personalizing for them later, but tonight went to the dogs. They're not done yet, but my hand is cramped from all the sewing so this was my stopping point.

Stockings were hand-sewn with yarn lettering on felt. These modified and glittery photos of each dog will be added and hand-sewn tomorrow. Then I plan to begin personalizing the kitty stocking.

And with that, I am very sleepy and wishing to cuddle my husband. Nite-nite.

I didn't get the chance to post any art last night because I scalded my wrist while cooking. A bag of frozen vegetables on your arm all night kind of screws up the old art making abilities. I've been cooking my ass off today too though (five dishes people, five!), but I did still take the time to make some funny art. J. and I have always loved to draw funny pictures of each other and tonight was no exception.

My drawing of me in the kitchen cooking endlessly and frazzled by all the food that must be prepared. (You can see the umpteen recipes that I have taped up all over our cabinets, and the cleanup crew waiting just behind my heels.)

J.'s drawing of himself on the couch trying to entertain a hyper Bogey and sleeping Gypsy while simultaneously enduring listening talking to his mother on the phone for hours.

Then his drawing of us cooking together in the kitchen while dramatically singing cheesy 80s ballads and dealing with puppies underfoot and howling cats that are hooked on kitty crack Feline Greenies. (Some back story on that one. Since I was a child, I have always sang Breathe's Hands to Heaven as "Tonight you call my breast love's nest" and I cannot change that. It's just stuck in there wrong and I still love singing it that way. It drives J. crazy however. He cannot wrap his brain around it and must correct me constantly, "It's calm my restlessness! That doesn't even make sense!" To which I laugh and laugh and sing it even louder just to irritate him. And no, we do not listen to Loverboy while cooking. It's just his example of a horribly cheesy 80s ballad. What? No, really. That part's true!)

With that, we're off to bed and then off to Eastern Kentucky for the Thanksgiving holiday. Enjoy yourselves and have some potatoes for me!

We're back from our Eastern Kentucky Thanksgiving. We ate, we laughed, we got annoyed with my mother, we planned for Christmas, we screamed at the TV when UK lost to Tennessee in quadruple overtime, then we ate some more. All in all, it's what I've come to expect and appreciate when I go home, only this time it was a little more fun.

So tonight, while I was watching tv and thinking about all the things that happen at a typical family holiday with my family nowadays, I started doodling with pastel crayons and created this.

Roller Coaster is pastel watercolor, crayons and ink on paper and tells the story of an emotional roller coaster that continues to run and run, no matter what.

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I sense a large bloodletting entry coming about my relationship with my mother, but right now I'm just not sure I want to delve into something that deep and complicated. So instead, I plan to sit on the couch with my dogs, watch J. continue to construct our new wall and think about where exactly we're going to put our new huge light-up snowman outside tomorrow. Happy Sunday evening everyone, hope your holiday was wonderful.

Tonight's art was created in Photoshop and is based on a photo that I took on the way to see family for Thanksgiving. Even though the holiday turned out to be a little better than I expected it to be, there was still this cloud hanging over me during the drive there. With the tumultuous relationship between me and my mother right now, I didn't know what I would be walking into.

There were storm clouds brewing and I looked into the clouds for answers, trying to read the sky, asking it to show its clarity to me, asking it to comfort me when I was out of answers. So I snapped photos of the clouds through the windshield and created this tonight.

Inspired by lewlew's word suggestion, Expectation (here we go again) is a digitally altered color photograph. Also cross-posted at the Photoblog.

Sorry about the silence around here lately, everyone. I've been very sick and I'm finally off to see the doctor tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more art posted, but either way, I know my health comes first. It just sucks to dread every handshake, every cold wind, every outside exposure, every possible germ. When I was diagnosed with Adult Onset Asthma not even two years ago, I never imagined it would affect me as severely as it has. My life has been changed, my habits changed even more. Coughing is a daily occurrence, fear and prevention pervades my every movement and contact with anyone and anything. I always feel like the schmuck in the room this time of year because it's when I'm most at risk for infection. When people with mildly runny noses introduce themselves to me or even when a stranger at the pharmacy brushes my arm while buying TheraFlu and tissues - I have to fight the urge to run away and scrub myself to death. It's not that I'm phobic of germs (one look at my house and you will see that's not true at all). Rather, it's that I know I will not just "catch a cold" or "get a little 24 hour bug" like most people. One minute of exposure to a sick person and I know the chances are high I will end up in the emergency room on a nebulizer while being pumped full of steroids. I have asthma. My lungs are vulnerable, my airways inflamed and overly sensitive. This is just the way it works.

I haven't quite accepted that yet. I keep hoping that some day I will just wake up and feel normal again. I keep saying to myself that I won't have to move to Arizona or some other equally dry and mild climate in order to breathe again. But still, when I start to dread winter and the cold air at the dog park and the dust my vacuum stirs up and shaking the hands of strangers - well I wonder if this isn't just the beginning. I hope there's a cure out there someday, I hope things get better, I hope this is temporary... but I feel the burn in my lungs, the cough rising in my throat... and I wonder.