​​"Be Soft" - acrylic on cradled wood panel, 16" x 20" x .75".  Ready to hang (sides are painted, back is pre-wired.  No framing necessary).  Available here and at Artfinder.


“Be soft.
Do not let the world make you hard.
Do not let pain make you hate.
Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.
Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place." - Kurt Vonnegut

​What the world needs now is...ducks.  Why?  Because ducks like ponds. Ponds come from rain.  Rain puts out fires.  We have so many fires. 

I'm not going to jump on the back of 2020 and hit it with a rubber mallet.  I am going to go soft and let it roll off me - yep, like water off a duck.

​"Something That Wasn't There Before" - mixed media on deep cradled aquabord, 22" x 30" x 2".  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before.  - NEIL GAIMAN

Holy mackerel, this quote smacked me in the forehead like the flopping fish of joy! YES!  I don't care if you made a pie, a painting, a pile of freshly folded clothing or a new friend at the library - the world seems brighter with that pie, wafting its amazing smell and giving you the satisfaction of having made something.  

Wait - could we make the world better by making things?

Here's a little something that just might make your day!  The shenanigans of artists Jacki Rosen and Jill Lefkowitz on YouTube!  This episode is an interview with yours truly.  There are hats, give-aways and a bit of conversation about the business of art.  Take a peek!

​I didn't set out to paint this sweet girl. Or to write this post.  But she wanted to be painted and the music appeared to name her and the theme (which simmers, boils and burns all around us) is one which demands our attention as November approaches.

100% of the proceeds from the sale of this painting will be donated to Don't Shoot Portland,  which serves local marginalized communities and organizes around anti-racist work and advocacy.

"In Another World" - online auction event September 6-7 at Artistic Souls Gallery.  Open to the public.  Sign up by clicking on this link and joining the Facebook group.

The world of art has responded rapidly to the changing world of commerce.  A slew of online auction groups have appeared, but, as with many other venues, only a handful are exquisitely, professionally curated and administrated.  Luckily for me, I'm a new member of possibly the most positive, professional and hard-working group out there, Artistic Souls Gallery.

For the show opening September 6, member artists were asked to respond to the theme "In Another World."  Which happens to perfectly match my daily state of being, dear reader!  I decided with this challenge to venture into our inner world - the world of thought and feelings, where so many of us are dwelling non-stop in these times.

I was inspired by an essay written by Crystal Jackson on Medium, titled “In Case No One Told You How Strong You Are, This One’s For you”.  Each of these pieces was birthed from the idea that you, (yes YOU) are both strong and soft, creating your world, growing yourself and responding brilliantly to what trickles in from the outside.  You are magnificent!

And here's a little something that is also in another world... be prepared to have the best day ever.  Your joy pockets and laugh buckets should be full for the day after this one. :)

 Thank you to Fiona Denihan for granting permission to share this brilliant work of  um, well, comedic performance  art!

​"A Lazy Day is Really Hard Work" and "Doing Nothing is Something",  mixed media on cradled wood, each 8 x 11 x .75.   Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.


Try to spend a day doing nothing; we call that a lazy day.  Although for many of us who are used to running around from this to that, a lazy day is actually very hard work!  It's not so easy to  just be.  If you can be happy, relaxed and smiling when you're not doing something, you're quite strong.  Doing nothing brings about quality of being, which is very important.  So doing nothing is actually something. Please write that down and display it in your home: Doing nothing is something.

- THICH NHAT HANH, Your True Home

​
That crafty universe dropped this passage in  my lap just as I finished having a very lazy day.  Or, I thought​ it was lazy.  But doing nothing is doing something, so maybe I was not lazy after all?  

​Doing nothing is necessary, productive work.  It can even be hard work, if you're used to being very busy, or if you feel guilty when you're enjoying a box of bonbons and pajamas and Netflix.

​​I wonder what would happen if we felt guilty for NOT being lazy?  Hmmmmm.  That's going to require a bit of thinking while doing nothing else.  But wait!  Thinking is doing something so....oh my.  Now I've twisted my thoughts into a knot.  

Let's face it - I've become quite fond of the slow pace of a pandemic. Sleeping in. Pajamas all day.  Nowhere to be except in the park with the dog.  Reading on the porch.  Watching crows (clouds, squirrels, cats, flowers in the breeze).  Staying up too late and not worrying about it.  Letting things go at whatever pace they wish.  No hurry EVER.

But now and again a person has to attend to the things that need attending to.  Which might cause a week to get very, very busy.  And regular clothes to be worn, cars to be driven, errands to be run.  As if things were back to "normal."   Which felt amazing for a minute...until I thought HEY NOW, WHERE ARE MY PAJAMAS AND WHY AREN'T THEY ON MY BODY?  

Let negative thoughts come into your head but don’t serve them tea  - comedian Joe List

​I've been getting my "aha" moments in odd places lately.  Likely you have, too, as our lives become weirdly wired to streaming and reading things we might never have known about in ordinary times.  A new friend recommended several comedy videos recently, and I actually found myself jotting things down as I listened.    I suppose comedy, like art, finds its best fodder in hard places - the things we might think, do or say that we probably wouldn't generally share with the world.

Well that was a long quote!  But if you were able to get through the entirety of it, there is some incredible wisdom in there, from a scientist and writer I adore.

Wilson, a myrmecology expert, has me thinking about the brilliant emergent animals we are as humans in our Old World state.  And also how very out of touch with that we become as we advance technologically.  Here I sit, contemplating these words that I read on a computer and then copied, pasted and saved with technology.  To communicate with you, dear reader, via, ahem, technology.  Oy!

Wilson's words are tinder for the fire that is our need to get out into it - away from these buzzing, beeping, flashing things and into the wild.  Into the swamp, the forest, the fields, the ocean, that lake, that park over there or even your own back yard.  Connected with the primordial feel of wind and sun and rain on skin.  Connected with being...disconnected.  And so avoid becoming nothing.

Get out there today....I'll meet you.  Let's get gloriously disconnected.

"Out-of-the-way Places of the Heart" - acrylic on repurposed plywood panel, 10" x 10" x .5".  Ready to hang (back has been pre-wired for hanging).   Available here and at Artfinder.

In out-of-the-way places of the heart, 
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
 - JOHN O'DONOHUE, To Bless the Space Between Us

​I wonder where my thoughts never think to wander?

As soon as I think that, they have wandered there!  Yet there is a comfort in O'Donohue's words, where out-of-the-way places of my  heart are forming new beginnings.  They will be ready when I am.  Like a stealth system within my daily operation, there are things happening within that I am unaware of for now.  Whoa.  

 I was late to the Midnight Gospel party, and so would love to know what you thought of it, dear reader!  Leave a comment below - one cosmically favored commenter will receive a sweet treat in the mail from Wonder Mike, who tells me it has been too long since we had a giveaway. :)