mama, take a picture of broken!

Earlier this week I posted a journaling tip over at the amanobooks.com blog that was inspired by a blog post of my friend Patricia Anders. Try this exercise if you want, it's really interesting to think about your work in this way from time to time. I did it and will share my thoughts in a few days.

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The other day my little guy and I decided to take a photo adventure in our neighborhood. Little kids have the innate ability to find the smallest cracks in the sidewalk or a special rock hidden under a leaf. Somewhere along the road adults lose this fascination. We are always in a rush, no time to look at the details of our surroundings. Too rushed to find the beauty in the cracks of the sidewalk. I feel lucky that I have not and I think that most creative types do not. We have to keep our eyes open. Lucky us!

I was also inspired to take these photos by a blog post made by fellow Chicagoan Gerri Newfry where she posted photos of her urban neighborhood. She said that whenever she reads blogs with people posting their surroundings it always seems that people live in these magical wooded wonderlands or beautiful countryside. I laughed when I read that because although I dream of living in a wooded wonderland and love reading and seeing those posts, reality is that I live in a very urban setting. But there is still beauty to be found. A different kind of beauty.

So, here is what Noah and I found on our photo adventure. By the end, my 2 year old was finding cracks and rusted walls and pointing excitedly saying, "Mama, take picture of broken!" Oh boy,I think I have passed on my fascination with natural decay and patinas...



















{Noah was convinced that this very, very old garage door, photo above and below, was a barn from a farm. Hmmm, I think it's time we took another visit to a farm soon}







Our photo adventure ended with the biggest adventure of all behind this last red door. We stopped at the fire station that is about one and half blocks from our house and the garage door was open with the fire truck inside. The fireman there saw us admiring the fire engine and gave Noah his own personal tour, putting him behind the wheel and his fireman's hat. What a morning!

autumn and recent inspiration

I love autumn. It is my favorite season, by far. The cooler days, the crip air. The deepening colors of the leaves. I even like how evening descends on us earlier and earlier. Autumn's Glow is an older painting of mine, but considering that I've only really been producing works in encaustic since 2007, it's not that old! But it is one of my earlier encaustic paintings. Actually it might have been this painting, where the love affair with encaustics began.


Autumn's Glow
encaustic, 10x10 inches
sold

Anyway, the reason why I am posting this image is that last week I brought 11 more encaustic paintings over to Sacred Art in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago. I had brought some paintings to them back in April and they have been asking me for more. As you all know I haven't been painting in encaustics for the past four months, so I brought what I could. I brought over my most recent small paintings (6x6 inches) and some larger works, including Autumn's Glow. I made a Sacred Art flickr set of the paintings that they now have in case anyone is interested in contacting them. They are happy to handle transactions and ship out. I have their address on the side bar for those that are local. Please feel free to email me too if you want to know the prices.

I have also been updating my "Art" section of amanobooks.com. I have small orginal paintings here as well as some prints. I will be adding more as I can.

If you want to read more about the inspiration behind one of the journals that I just posted last week, please go visit the
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And just so that this post doesn't just seem like a sales pitch, which is not my intention- but there is a business side to all this art making, and I chronicle all that here too in my art journey blog. I want to post some links that have been inspiring me lately. One is a video and the other is a radio interview. Both take time to take in, but really are worth it.

One of my favorite encaustic artists, Graceann Warn, shared this You Tube video and it is just so beautiful. Magical. Inspiring.



Yesterday, my studio day, I listened to NPR all day and heard an interview of the late Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue. The interview is titled: The Inner Landscape of Beauty. The interview really resonated with me. I definitely want to get one of his books to explore his topics more in depth.

binding, binding, binding

Still laying low and not as productive as I would like to be. Being pregnant with a 2 and half year old has proven to be quite exhausting for me. I am constantly reminded of Binky Bergman's comment to me about being a sleeping bag with feet. ha! So true! Anyway, in the meantime, I have been working on adding more handbound journals to amanobooks.com.

I have been working on creating more Natural Elements journals as my stock is embarrassingly low. And I also have added more mixed media cover journals. Here are my four most recent additions:


signs from the sky
6x8 blank handbound journal


Growing and Mending
6x6 inch blank handbound journal


vessel through which the earth sings
6x9 inch blank handbound journal


Bound Together
6x8 inch blank handbound journal

The imagery in two of these journals may look familiar as I used previous paintings as the start off point. It's fun to revisit an older painting and then take it a step further.

A big thank you to everyone who took the time to comment with congratulations on my last post! I am just thrilled to have been a part of the project and James Shipp will let me know once the cd becomes available online for anyone who is interested in purchasing it. I will pass along the link for sure!

nos novo album cover

I am so excited to share here the finished project that began back in late May. A New York musician, James Shipp, contacted me about using one of my paintings for the cover art of his album. I had never done anything like this before and was thrilled to work out the details with him. We discussed the parallels between the feeling of the music for this album and the feeling of this painting and how he felt that it was just the right fit. He sent me samples of the music and I immediately felt a connection. The voice of the singer was haunting and beautiful, the music itself had a hint of melancholy, but at the same time an underlying earthy passion. The album is an interesting synthesis of Irish folk music played by NY jazz musicians. Intriguing, huh?


I ended up creating a different version of that painting for him. And this painting was the last encaustic painting I completed before I hung up my encaustic brushes for the rest of my pregnancy. I had started it before I knew I was pregnant, and then finished it up soon thereafter.


origins,II
encaustic, 14x14 inches

James just sent me the final layout for the album and I was just so thrilled to see my tree on the cd!


the Nos Novo cover



the Nos Novo CD


Inside the the Nos Novo cover

I think they did a great job with the layout and am wishing JAmes and his band all the best in the release of their album. It was a pleasure to do this kind of collaboration with another artist, but in a totally different medium. I can't wait to get my hands on the album!