My Current Stuff

A sampling of the types of work I am currently producing.

Mixed Media Artwork-

Mini Art Prints Earrings and Pendants-

Painted and Stitched Canvas Jewelry and Accessories-

Something...Anything

Faith is what moves me to create.

Color is my worship.

My art is my praise.

Sketchbook Challenge for January- Highly Prized

In my high school art class we had to do a pencil drawing every week on a particular theme. I still have some of those old drawings stashed somewhere. I should dig them out and share them. I remember that I always waited until the last minute to do my drawing, and the results were often below par. I would rush through the exercise because the tedious detail was numbing to my pinball game like mind. I had a few successes, but suffice to say pencil drawing was not my favorite activity.


So, I was a bit intimidated by joining the Sketchbook Challenge. After all, I have been calling myself an artist for a number years now, what if I drew ugly stuff? I am sure I am not the only person who felt this way, and I thought the challenge would be good for me on a few different levels, so I am going for it. Right here and now you get to see the results of my efforts, I am opening up and showing the world that I .....Can draw!



What a surprise. I guess with age, I am learning to see a bit better. I was also surprised that I immediately gravitated toward detailed pencil drawing. I guess my art teacher, Mrs. Arbaugh, knew what she was doing.
The top drawing is my son, Adam, drawn from a photo. The second is my coffee mug. The third is my husband, drawn from life. I am most pleased with this one. There are some proportion issues, but it really looks like him. I am happy to leave it and not fix the issues. The theme for this month is "Highly Prized." and was chosen by dear Jill Berry. I am sure you can see why I chose my subjects.

I am going to try to stretch myself a little and be a little looser with my drawings going forward. Stay tuned!

Big Day

January third is a big day. It is full of all kinds of importance.

Today is the tenth birthday of my muse, my heart walking around outside my body, my son. I am woefully unprepared for today. I am reeling with the thought that we have entered double digits. He is almost a tween! I so desperately wish I could have one more day with the five year old Adam, the seven year old Adam, the infant Adam. I want to relive the day he found his toes at five months old laying on his back on my bed, chubby arms and legs in the air. He grabbed his piggies and the biggest grin ever spread across his face. I am not ready for hormones and the possibility that he might not like me much very soon. I pray that we will stay close and that he will always lean into me.

Today is also the first weekday of the New Year. I am ready for the return to normalcy. I am ready to pounce on 2011, bring it into submission and make it my year. I know, it is just another day and we can make life changes on any day of the year, but doesn’t this time just feel pregnant with possibility? Who will I be this year? 2010 was a good year for me. I did not accomplish everything I had hoped, but I moved forward, I did better. Will 2011 be better? That is my intention.

I start every year with the intention to be better organized and more self-disciplined. I made progress in that area in 2010 by waving the white flag in the area of housekeeping and hiring a cleaning service. I hate to clean, I stink at it, my back won’t allow me to do it for long stretches at a time, and I have better things to do with my time. Hiring a service was one of the smartest moves I made last year. The release from guilt alone makes it worth the cost! This year is no different. I know my greatest challenges lie in the areas of self-discipline and organization. My intention for 2011 is to waste less time on stupid stuff and invest more time in worthy pursuits. Stupid stuff means facebook surfing and online games. Really! How many of us are sucked into that black hole on a daily basis?

Here is my list of worthwhile pursuits-

• time with God
• time with my kids
• creative time
• reading books
• rest
• exercise

How about you? What are your intentions for this new year?

Would you like to help "Change Their Story?"

I have set a personal goal to raise $500 to help provide food and water to children in Africa. I have raised $200 so far.

Now through the end of December 20% of every sale in my etsy shop will be donated to this campaign. So, you can shop and do some good too!

If you prefer, you may donate directly you can go to my page at the Change Their Story site.

Direction

Isaiah 48:17 - This is what the Lord says- your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.



I have had a sense of something more.
I have had a feeling of
reaching stretching
peering to see
what it is
just beyond
the limits
of my vision
rumors
fragmentsI don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about this place where I am right now. I am not sad or depressed. I am not struggling. All is really quite right in my world. Lot's of wonderful things are happening and moving and shifting and resetting themselves. I am really a great lover of change. Change feels right to me. I deplore stagnation. I always want to move. Maybe that comes from my ADD brain. Who knows?
Where I am now is an exciting place to be. I feel like I am on the precipice, on the verge of something big. Maybe not big to the world at large, but big to me. I have not been satisfied, and it has been keeping me up at night. I spent years in a place I was not supposed to be NOT DOING ANYTHING.
Now all the doors are flying open and the possibilities are endless. Ministry! I want to minister in the place I am called to in the way that only I can through the power of the Holy Spirit in me with the gifts and talents I have. I have had so many false starts going after what I thought I was supposed to do without really asking God about it. In the last few months I have been spending time just seeking God on this and he is beginning to reveal it to me. He has also been breaking bits of the old me off and casting them into the fire.

So, I am not sad, I am not down. I am hopeful and introspective, I am seeking the direction. I am reading the map. I think maybe I am supposed to paint the map.

Burning in the Bones

But if I say "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in, indeed I cannot.
Jeremiah 20:9


"The only experience the writing of every song has in common is what I would call a sense of being burdened. Often there is a specific message with which I am burdened. More often, however, there is little or no specificity. What I am to say is not in the least clear to me. There is just a burden to say something. And God help me is I do not attempt to say it."
Michael Card from 'Scribbling in the Sand'


I want a "burning in the bones." I want a message to deliver. That has been the cry of my heart/art lately. I am spinning my wheels. I cannot find inspiration. I am playing, but not feeling fulfilled in it.

I have been watching the PBS series "Art 21" on Netflix. It is a series of profiles of 21st century artists. My reason for wanting to watch initially was just that I like to look at art. As I have been watching though, I am desiring to know more about the artists and what drives their work. I have to admit that a great deal of what the artists say about their work sounds like incoherent and contradictory babbling to me. But almost all of them have a common thread. There is some message to deliver in what they are creating. There is some force driving it.

I think I am stuck in that no mans land between creating something that delivers a message and creating what people will pay me money for. The latter can work for an artist, for me, for only so long. Dryness, staleness, confusion and frustration are my companions in the studio right now. I can make pretty things that people will buy, but my soul is not singing.

So, what is my message? What must I say? The Word. That verse from Jeremiah resonates with me. Indeed, it is burning in my bones. I have been quenching it, ignoring it.

I want to run with it. I want to deliver the message. God help me if I don't attempt it.

With Apologies to William Carlos Williams

So much depends
upon

two small
children

agreeing to go
along

without
whining

The Process of Unbelieving Lies

Who I want to be, or wish I were is not who I am. That is a mouthful. I wonder if that is the general condition of womanhood or is it just me who feels that way.

I have been putting off posting on my blog for a long while because I am disappointed by it. It isn't what I want it to be. I want to be a talented writer whose words flow magically across the page and enthrall the reader. I want to be a weaver of stories. I want to be a painter of masterpieces. I want people to look at what I create and say "Beauty" in their hearts. I want people to look at me, my words, my art and see light, see God.

Who I am is a little girl who has been deceived into believing she is not good enough. I have bought these lies. I am "not living/working up to my potential." I am not organized enough to juggle it all. I am not healthy enough or strong enough to manage. I am not clean enough. I am not worthy, I have nothing to give, I am not enough. I am not.

These are lies. I am in the process of unbelieving them.

Priceless Giveaway

I have mentioned Children's Hopechest and Tom Davis previously on this blog. This is an organization that is really making an impact for orphans. I am highly impressed with the work they do and excited to promote them and hopefully participate with them more as God leads.

Tom has recently been in Moldova and was exposed to investigate the high rate of sex trafficking there. The stories he shared throughout his trip were brutal. Children's Hopechest is working with agencies there to bring these priceless young ladies out of slavery and into the glorious life that God has planned for them.

HopeChest Opens Moldova from Tom Davis on Vimeo.

Tom has written a novel called "Priceless," based on some of his experiences in Eastern Europe. I have to admit it is on my shelf and I have not yet read it, but if it is as wonderful as his previous novel "Scared; A Novel on the Edge of the World." I am sure it is gripping and life changing.






Another Ethiopian adoptive family is giving away ten copies of the book, plus some wonderful yummy fair trade coffee from Saint's Coffee. So drop over and visit My Crazy Adoption and follow the directions for a chance to win.

After you do that, pop back over here and leave me a comment telling me what you did to enter their drawing, and I will enter you into a drawing of my own for one of my hand painted and stitched heart pendants and a 5"x5" print of one of my mixed media painting entitled "Two Birds." Join us in sharing the stories of these Priceless young women.

Home

This is home.

This is where I hunker down with my family and love them until forever.

This is a place of peace and chaos,

and joy, always joy.

This is where I create, dream, cry, sing, dance and rest.

It is not perfectly clean and neat. It doesn't house all the latest gadgets and nicest furnishings.

I like it that way.

Kids Know Stuff

This is my beauty. Not only is she a beauty, but she is also incredibly bright and talented. Yes, I am her mom, but it is all true. Getting to know her over the last three and a half years has been a sublime adventure.

Bonding with an adopted child can be an adventure all unto itself. Without going into detail about her story I will just say that when she came to us she had experienced many partings in her short life. She wasn't really all too sure she was going to get to keep us. We read about attachment and bonding and did everything as suggested and over time we could see that she was not searching any longer that she knew she was home. Still, there was a distance. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but there was a gap to be bridged and I was not quite sure how.

Prayer and loving and loving and prayer.

This past year I have seen a shift. How do I describe it? She is beginning to know me. She trusts me to be her soft place. She confides in me. She melts into me. She is being grafted into me and me into her. She fights me tooth and nail at times. I am grateful that she feels safe enough to do that.



Two weeks ago it blew wide open. Again, I won't share the details, but I will tell you that I have never seen such a tiny thing so fierce and angry. The issue was minor really, but I think that she had been holding on so long and finally let 'er rip. We dealt with it. We brought it to a conclusion. Lessons were learned on both sides.

When all had blown over we cuddled up in the bed together, and I began to tell her the story, her story. I told her how much we wanted a second child, a little girl to share our love with, and how we prayed and God told us where to find her. I told her how far we traveled just for her. I told her how sweet the moment was when she was first lifted into my arms. She asked to see all her Ethiopia treasures, so I brought them down and showed her the photo album and pink blanket we sent to her before we were able to travel to meet her. I showed her all the papers from her preschool in Ethiopia, the letter from her teachers, and the fingerprints and names from all her classmates. For the first time she began asking questions about her first family. I talked with her about how they loved her. I told her how special she was to have known the love of two mommies and two daddies. Then she asked about what life was like for her there, and how it is for children there now. This was the first time that she had shown any interest in or connection with her birth country. With sweet compassion she said to me, "I want to bring home all those kids because they don't have anything and I want them to be happy." Her heart and my heart were singing the same melody.
So, Ethiopia it is. Now we roll up our sleeves and begin.

Life and Art and Art and Life

This is my handsome husband. In August we will celebrate our fifteenth wedding anniversary. It is hard to beleive that it has been that long. It seems like the blink of an eye.
He is my supplement and I am his. He is an engineer and I am an artist, so we look at everything from completely different angles. This often spells disaster in marriage, but for us it has been a strength. Because of our faith both of us are able to appreciate that God made the other one just the way he/she is for a purpose. I know that where I am weak he is strong. I know that I was not created with a head for managing finances. Matt was, and so I let him lead there. I am grateful for his leadership in that area because we are on steady footing at a time when so many are not. He is also better at making decisions on most other important issues. I tend to have trouble settling on one choice. So, I often ask him to decide or wait for him to weigh in with an opinion. I am more of a feeling and perciving sort. I get gut instincts about situations and people. He has learned that I am usually spot on, so he trusts my instincts. My free-spiritedness balances his cautiousness. His cautiousness balances my tendency to get way in over my head . It works. It's good. Life would be difficult and a bit boring if we were the same.



One of his spiritual gifts is helps. He has a heart for coming alongside people and doing helpful things that support them and make things a bit easier. He loves to show up at a friends house with his toolbox and fix something electrical for them to save them a service call.
He is always will to help me with my artwork too. Last week he attached hangers to thirty canvases for my show!


Next week my engineer hubby and I are off to Art and Soul in Hampton to take metal jewelry classes together. The kids will be at Memaws and we have the weekend to be together immersed in creativity. I hope he will enjoy it as much as I will. Somehow I think he will .

Home Again, Home Again...

I am home from the show. It was a beautiful weekend. The weather was perfect. I realized that it has been a long time since I did a show like this, and I have missed it. It is a big confidence boost to get out in the public and watch people react to my art. I love when people get it and love it. I also love it when they don't. I love the kids who just can't keep their fingers to themselves because the colors are so bright. I love the amazing variety of dogs that come out with their people. This weekend I even saw a bird and a bunny rabbit browsing the show!

One of my favorite customers this weekend was a beautiful lady with a t-shirt that read "Yes they are fake. My real ones tried to kill me." I laughed and then I had to hug her. You go girl! I wish I had gotten her picture.



Let me tell you that Splash Festivals and the town of Dunwoody know how to put on a show! We had so much help setting up and tearing down. Throughout both days volunteers were coming by with cold water for the artists. everyone kept telling us how glad they were that we came to Dunwoody. I will definitely do this show again next year.




Watch my etsy store this week and next. I am going to be lowering some prices in an effort to make my work a little more accessible in economically uncertain times, and also to stimulate some sales to get this adoption fund rolling! I will also be listing many new items.

Come by and See Me

I will be at the Dunwoody Art Festival in Dunwoody Georgia outside of Atlanta this weekend. Stop by and see me. If you mention my blog, I will give you 10% off your purchase.