Glennen Doyle Melton, Elizabeth Gilbert, creativity and podcasts....

While baking some birthday goodies this week, I started listening to Elizabeth Gilbert's podcast "Magic Lessons" which is an extension of sorts of her book "Big Magic" which was published in 2015.  She has two seasons of episodes, and I just picked the last episode of this last season.  It was a sort of post mortem on the whole season of guests, and there was so much good stuff.  I had never heard of Glennen Doyle Melton, but she is a blog writer (Momastery.com), an author, a recovering addict and a truth teller.  WHAT A TRUTH TELLER.  I have got to see if I can find a transcript of their conversation.  Elizabeth Gilbert mentioned a quote by John Steinbeck, "and now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."  Elizabeth said that Glennen went one step further with the thought, "but if you don't have to be good, then you can be free."  Isn't that the most beautiful idea?  Isn't that what we all want, to be free?

Superfine! art fair at Miami Art week 2016....

and I am going!  I had been looking at Emerging Fair venues during some of the major art weeks across the US to see if one might be accessible to me.  In my research, I discovered Superfine! and was really excited about the possibility.  Then comes real life in the form of basement water and mold, possible job status changes and coming cat dental bills, and I figured I better hold off.  But with the sale of my grid last week, I decided to go for it.  I applied, have been accepted and am starting to prepare my curatorial plan for the fair.  I am really excited about it!  I know many of the dolls will go, and I have some small framed stitched pieces I would like to include as well.  I am thinking about two bigger stitched pieces, but I don't know that I can get that done.  I am so excited for five days in Miami in December and ALL THE ART!  

The Thyroid is such a beautiful organ....

I finished this drawing recently as well.  You can find it as a print at Forager, or shortly on my etsy site...I am a little behind in getting things listed.  And cleaning.  All the cleaning.  

Skeleton hand drawing finished just in time....

So I have work going up in this beautiful local, Rochester, Minnesota restaurant called Forager this weekend.  I finished the text on the drawing yesterday and got it cleaned up in photoshop just now.  I will be selling this image as a framed print, along with prints of the rest of this anatomical series.  I can't wait to see them in the space.

The reception for the exhibition will be 10/23/16 from 4-6 pm.  Hope to see you there!

Sold!!!!

So excited to share that I sold the piece "Graft" at the Rochester Art Center Artbash 2016 auction!  It sold for $2500, the most I have ever sold a work for, and I am happy to share half with the Art Center for their 70th anniversary.  RAC, thank you so much for this opportunity.  I am looking forward to installing it in it's new home.  

new book, "The Untethered Soul: the journey beyond yourself"

just came in the mail from amazon a couple of days ago. I actually saw it in a girlfriends bathroom and I thought it looked really good.  I was looking at it last night before bed, and started on the first chapter "the voice inside your head."  I am so familiar with mine.  I have gotten good at watching it. It is just so amazing when you can observe all the buzzing in your mind; it is like a little movie running.  Since I have started to observe it, I have noticed it can be more in the background instead of drawing all my attention.  Michael A. Singer, the author, says "you are not the voice of the mind - you are the one who hears it."  The voice is incessant, it makes both sides of an argument, it can be hateful or kind, it is just a running narration...and when you realize you are not the voice, you don't have to figure out if the voice speaks the truth.   

So I was dawdling on Instagram a couple of days ago, and thejealouscurator (who I am slightly obsessed with) asked with an illustration, "what does your inner critic say to you?" She has a new book coming out about your inner critic being a jerk.  And the responses...well, our inner critics are just bullies.  But I think I am able now to see the inner critic (that voice that I notice) and let it be.  I don't have to argue with it, or wish it away, it just happens to be there and I can go about my work.  I am so thankful I am learning this skill.  

Making artwork and Fargo season 1....

So I have either been teaching, prepping to teach, stitching, sleeping or exercising.  Occasionally I have made a nice dinner or a batch of cookies.  There has been no cleaning.  My house is filthy.  But, I have gotten some artwork done.  I have work going into a local restaurant, Forager, at the beginning of October and I am desperately trying to finish two stitched pieces and two drawings.  And then I hope to make one more drawing; I don't know that that is going to happen. I have watched the first season of Fargo on Hulu.com while I was working on this piece:

And it was fabulous.  Like I would watch it again fabulous.  It was a ten hour miniseries, and I finished stitching on all the little eyes right as it ended.  Now I need to cover it some with massed thread clumps.  Might have to buy myself season 2 for that work.

Sitting as a practice....

I sit.  I sit at my desk and work, on the couch and space out, in my bed up against the wall reading.  I also sit as a practice.  And it is not even sitting really right now...my back and neck hurt to much to hold myself upright; instead it is laying on the floor with my knees bent and lower legs resting on a chair.  I do this for twenty three minutes usually, most every night.  It is meditation, but that word makes it seem like something more than it is.  It is just noticing.  I notice my breath, and my weight and how it meets the floor, and the sounds.  There are so many sounds in a house to notice.  And there are so many thoughts in the mind to get lost in, so that you lose the noticing.  When I realize I can't hear the sounds, I realize I am listening to my thoughts.  Then I can come back to the noticing.  It happens over and over; there is something so comforting in that.  

I was talking with my brother a couple of days ago about some changes he is making in his life.  Difficult changes.  He knows the changes are better for him, but he still wants the other.  He told me he can allow the desire to be there, but he doesn't have to do anything about it.  He can choose.  That choice is so powerful. I find the sitting helps me make those choices with more peace.  That is why I will keep doing it.