Squash Blossom Maiden

A couple of weekends ago I participated in my first art show as an artist. It was such a great experience for my first time out, and I was very happy to share it with two other artists from my meetup group. The event was wonderful, the site was incredibly inspiring--a treasure of a nature preserve as part of the Wildlands Conservancy. This first annual Art Celebration Benefit was a fundraiser for this fantastic organization. It offered a great chance to get public, face-to-face feedback on my art and to meet fellow creatives. As part of the fundraising efforts, each artist was requested to provide a piece for the event's auction. I donated Squash Blossom Maiden to the preserve in hopes to help them raise money toward their goal.

If you're in the Whitewater/Palm Springs area, you can go see this large piece and bid on it while donating to a great cause--the Whitewater Preserve and the Wildlands Conservancy. A place that has forever made its way into my heart. Below are the dimensions and description of the found items I used to create one of my favorite pieces, now up for auction :)

SQUASH BLOSSOM MAIDEN

72” x 27"

Made with found materials: locker door, metal panel, wooden hanger, can lids, seatbelt buckle, light bar, wall lamp plate, metal gages, other scrap metal pieces

Other materials: green acrylic wash, glass beads, stone beads, bone beads, copper wire, baling wire, duck feathers (Etsy), wooden spool (swapped material)

Moon Maiden

I’m in the process of creating 3 different “dolls.” One is a kachina, the other a Medicine Buddha (again, east meets west in our home!) and this one, Moon Maiden is the first to be completed. The inspiration for her was definitely the night sky during the last couple of full moon meetups with my Let Nature Be Your Muse group. I feel so peacefully at home sitting quietly under the silvery spell of a bright moon. I can (and have) spent hours gazing into the night sky. This is one way I wanted to celebrate this muse.

Moon Maiden is made from a 19th century organ key, painted a coppery purple and finished with hand drawn embellishments. Also a bone bead moon face, a can lid adorned with blue sequins (which I acquired from an artist’s recycle swap) and wrapped with glass beads, arms are bone and metal “twig” charm beads, and finally a raw quartz crystal point wire wrapped with glass beads.

Feminine

Undeniable
Luminous
Liberating


Moving
Omnipresent
Opalescent
Night

She is a Moon Maiden…

Nature Muse

I love this rock my mom found while beach combing along the northern California coast. I’m lucky that she readily collects handfuls of these beautiful, holey rocks then lugs a heavy shopping bag full back for me to have my creative way with them. But this particular double heart rock needs no embellishment...not that any of the rocks do. I think I was just as excited when she showed it to me as she was to find it! But I do love making things with them like unique gift tags, simple necklaces, and adding them to assemblages. These rocks have been massaged and carved by water--by the sea—and so beautifully add a special, nature-as-art touch that I love to hold, feel, and wrap.

 

What is one of your favorite “muses” from nature?

"Super" Full Moon Mojo

I am definitely a moon groupie. I love gazing at it, being outside under its inspiring light. I love sleeping under a bright moon, walking, journaling, sketching, comtemplating in its silvery cast...

As you may already know last Saturday's moon was one of the brightest and biggest, a rare event that seems to occur only about every 20 years or so. It's been dubbed the "super moon." It was a super "perigee moon" that was 14% bigger and 30% brighter than "lesser" moons. To celebrate this occasion--well honestly to celebrate the monthly full moon, this one being extra special due to perigee and the spring equinox--I headed out again with my Let Nature Be Your Muse meetup group and sat under her luminous spell, listening to and watching her beautiful story unfold during the night.

This time I sketched in pen and ink (a little easier to see than pencil). I liked using my Micron Brush pen, nice casual strokes, easy to see, and I like the constrast it presented. Once I saw them in the light, I couldn't wait to add a little color, which I did later using acrylics. I finished these 3 sketches off with a few more details using both my black pens and white pen, and a rubber stamp. My goal was to put my feeling and my senses that were engaged during this night into my images.

What I love most about these, is knowing that they were completely bathed in moon light the whole time I was sketching them out. It is a little thing that makes it so special to me as I look at them...I am reminded of the huge halo around the moon, silvery thin clouds, like gauze moving across the night sky, I feel the cool breeze, hear the owl in the distance and the breeze within the bushes next to me.  I feel my cold fingertips and hear my shoes crunching upon the pebbly desert soil when I shift position.

I can't wait to see what's in store for next month's full moon :)

Jewelry Blossoms

Spring has blossomed on the desert floor and I have already enjoyed a number of wildflower wanderings. Flowers are not only on my mind, they’ve permeated my senses with fragrances streaming around me in unexpected, gentle yet intoxicating wafts. Most recently some of my favorite blossoms have inspired me to make jewelry that celebrates our ephermeral desert palette! Here are a few examples of my latest creative outlet inspired by the colors and patterns of nature:

Love the sunset colors found in this flower (computer

wallpaper image)!

 

Striking aloe flower stalks inspired the

colors and style of these earrings.

Photo by Michelle Hedgecock.

Rose Mallow was my muse for this bracelet's

spring palette. Photo by Michelle Hedgecock.

Desert chicory stripes found their

way into a modern pair of earrings.

Photo by Robert Ballard.




.

Summer lavender fields inspired a cool, relaxing color

palette. Photo by Michelle Hedgecock.





Healing

This is a follow up to an earlier post (All Wired Up). I've finally fnished this piece and it ended up being an unexpected journey for me. A seemingly simple piece, it forced me to work slowly because wrapping the telephone wire was at times tedious trying to keep the wire tight, with no spaces. There were moments when it felt like I was carefully bandaging the cracked and weathered wood as I worked, as if I were healing a wounded limb or wing. It took me another month to complete the finishing details after the wire wrapping was done--nothing was "working" before so it sat there incomplete.

During the time I started the piece, my grandma's health was failing and she had to go under hospice care at my aunt's house. Our family gathered daily and we embraced each other and shared stories about my grandma's vibrant life, spending time with her, trying to keep her "here" yet wanting release for her too. Only one month later, she passed away after battling a trio of significant health issues. It was a difficult time, with inner emotional cyclones that would come and go for me, creating a deeply personal, sad, tired path of loss and acceptance. I was so sad to lose her, but also very emotional and worried for my mom and aunt's loss of their mom.

Meanwhile, I would come home and grow more and more grateful for my beautiful son and my hubby, and I would grieve for my other tiny son, I would grieve for my dad and I would pray for the gift of a long and healthy life for everyone. I also kept to the garage for some creative energy. Something that was the opposite of dying. I worked on a few pieces, but this piece still sat there literally in my hands for a moment each night, wrapped like a bandage as I would scan my materials for that perfect something it needed. The wood is beautifully weathered, with marks and scars, and the wire is so smooth and colorful, I did not want to alter the contrast. I found the black, glass beads and made a jingle for the piece and then found another strand and really liked the look of it--like a line of demarcation between the vibrant wire and the exposed wood. That line we have to cross back to into the "living" after a loss, putting trust in our own strength.

As I completed it, the more I experienced it to be a powerfully symbolic process of healing by leaving much of the wood exposed, yet wrapping enough to begin healing—signified by bright, vibrant energy and the colors of life. The reflective, black beads mark the time and individual reflection one needs for deep healing. The signature can lid “jingle” at the bottom of this piece, detailed with a single black, glass bead echoes the power of healing and the lightness that follows.

A great reminder that creating is the journey, art heals ;) 

23” x 7” inches

My Heart Belongs To You

When I was a little girl, my mom MADE me make my own homemade Valentines for every student in my class—granted those were the days of maybe up to 20 in a class, not 40+ students. The day before we would go buy shades of red, pink, purple and white construction paper, glue, glitter, maybe those “be mine” candies, and yarn. We would set up for a night of cutting and pasting.

Yes, I was that girl who stuck the construction paper-doily-glittery card in your cubby. You could tell I was the “homemade” Valentine kid by following the trail of glitter back to my desk. I was embarrased at the time, because everyone else had discovered the cool new pre-made commercial Valentines. But my mom insisted. And, although I may never have admitted it at the time, I always ended up getting into creating those, especially making those special Valentine’s for “certain” crushes!

Fast forward to today, to a time where I love making a special homemade Valentine for my biggest crush, my hubby. Every year, since we started dating, I’ve made him a special “card” (I make a special Valentine for my son now too!). This year I was inspired by one of my favorite Etsy sellers, Bookity, who makes these amazing and most exquisite and whimsical paper creations.

I made my honey-hubby these festive hanging hearts, six for each year we’ve been married. I love the romance of Shakespeare’s text on Bookity’s hearts, but I wanted to use something more meaningful between me and my husband. Instead of Shakespeare, I used a copy of the love letter I wrote to my husband that he read on the eve of our wedding. I added a little glass bead to each heart and hung them from a weathered piece of wood, where I wrote a personal note to him <3

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I don't think he minds that I shared this year's card with you!