Author Archive

It has been a while since I have posted, life tends to scoop me up and carry me along with it most times. I jump off the carousel and run back to the beginning to start all over, picking up new things along the way that I may have passed by.

The year started out with the death of my external hard drive. I was using for it as a supplement for my main drive and, well, it led a good life having tolerated me for three years of hard, daily use. It is, on a bad note however, holding 168GB of my life hostage…writing, art, all my music, my client work, everything. So, I am learning to adapt.

This year is about renewal for me, a renewal of self and the things that drive me. About breaking old habits, forming new ones, and being thankful for the time in between. Instead of waiting for a better situation to come along, I am making one.

Working for my Self.

One of the decisions that I have made is that I am no longer accepting new clients*. I have had far too many of my own projects go undone, sitting in journals, waiting for me to pick them up and bring them to life. I can work on someone else’s projects, or I can invest that time into my self and my family and work toward getting paid. Family and self won out.

*I have some current clients that are fabulous, and will continue my work with them, but I am at a comfortable, manageable work load right now so I will not be taking on anything new.

Art for Cures

Art for Cures is resurrecting this month from the ashes after a three year pile up. Yup, three years. (Thankfully I am not alone, as I have run into others who have been breathing through straws under their own avalanches for longer than I have.) The guilt piles up as much as the work does, but I am finally out from under after sneaking time in between work, college, homeschooling, and daily life. I have a plethora of updates coming in the next week and will be posting a few things to both our Etsy and my eBay account.

Art for Cures is also, God willing, going to become a non-profit this year. We are going through the planning preparations now and I will have more updates on the AFC site in the coming weeks.

More thank yous than I can count to the friends and members I have been blessed with who have stuck by me, I could not be doing any of it without you guys. MWAH Your support and love have been the one thing that has kept me moving forward.

Pen in Hand

My writing, other than running Word Whimsy, has been on the back-burner so long my characters have all started pelting me with rocks and small, sharp, projectile implements. Odonatia, Coffee Cartel, Making Art from Non_Cents, and Clementine’s Garden are all on the goal list for this year though I am planning on doing the “book happy dance” with my friend Pam Carriker with at least one caffeinated book soon. Congratulations Pam! HUGS You can pick up her new book on Etsy or on Amazon.

Full sailing ahead.

One of the biggest dilemmas for me recently has been which school to pursue once I have graduated in March. I am graduating with my BFA in Visual Communications, Digital Design (basically the degree for what I have been doing for 24 years) and have already started the enrollment process with Full Sail in Winter Park, Florida.

I grew up around and loved the Winter Park area. It is commercially overrun now, like most places, a lot of the quaint independent shops that were unique to the area having had to make way for larger corporate shops they, sadly, couldn’t compete with. I still have a huge poster-sized menu from the old East India Ice Cream Company (any of you remember that place?) that we used to frequent. The park is still there, and my tree with its sitting branch best for train watching that my grandmother and I used to frequent, as well as a few old busking spots. The Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival is what really drove me to become an artist full-time and, while I don’t attend the show anymore, or at least not near as frequently, it still holds fond memories. We have a similar show, FAFO, that we enjoy and attend every year here locally.

I will be starting my MFA in Creative Writing the first week of May then plan to move on to their Game Art program. The reason the decision was so difficult is because of accreditation, or lack thereof. I have my own goals and projects, though, and I look forward to having both degrees under my belt.

I also used to work for a rubber stamp store in Winter Park and there is nothing better than getting paid to play and create, well maybe…

Art grows on trees.

After a great deal of thinking, I have decided to postpone Gumtree’s launch until June of this year. We need the extra time to build stock as well as get all of our paperwork in order. I feel it was a necessary decision though as, with my external drive in possible permanent limbo, there is more that can be done so that our launch is as smooth and seamless as it can be. I know that when we do launch it will be an incredible experience and one I have been looking forward to for years.

Gallery exhibit July 2011, Winter Park Florida

All paths seem to lead to Winter Park lately! The Brooklyn Art Library’s Sketchbook Project will be exhibiting at Full Sail’s gallery in July and I am proud to have one of my original journals in it. I am mailing it out on Friday and will be posting a video walk-through of it on my YouTube channel this weekend.

We don’t need no stickin’ genre.

Dragonfly Press Publishing, formerly a venue for zines and other small press publications, launched itself as a small, private publishing company last year with its first title, Freemasonry through the Jaundiced Eye of a West Virginia Hillbilly.

Ophir E. Vellenoweth, also the band leader for Buddy O & the Dancemasters has been a delight to work with and I am currently typesetting another book for him, a work of fiction entitled Tales of the Colstops. I am looking forward to presenting it to you soon. He is currently working on a sequel to Colstops and another book within the Freemasonry genre. Freemasonry through the Jaundiced Eye of a West Virginia Hillbilly is now available in digital download format or hardcover.

Dragonfly Press Publishing will be releasing at least one zine this year, possibly Kraft Paper Muse which has been reorganizing with support in the background.

October began my most favorite time of year with its fall breezes and changing leaves. Though in Florida we do not have much of a change of -seasons, the weather can change here from day-to day at times that make you unsure what season it is supposed to be, the feeling is still the same. Fall brings with it thoughts of Halloween decorations and trick-or-treating, Thanksgiving dinners and, in my case, birthdays.

Yesterday was spent renewing old family ties while enjoying each other’s company on a farm near McIntosh. My girl did a photo shoot with a black and white bunny named Cooper while a huge Tom (whose days were numbered) walked his plump self about the pen. Dust floating in the air, the warmth of the lingering summer sun on our backs, we enjoyed a hay ride to the upper pasture where we could feed the cows.

Children played happily in large bins of corn kernels as Val and I sat down to savor homemade strawberry shortcake with whipped cream (fabulous job Ginni, thank you!); fresh strawberries giving off so much sugary juice in the bowl that it soaked into the cake underneath and made our last bites worth waiting for. A few cool breezes and a bag sitting on the table near me, some of the homespun crafty goodness in Nana Ginni’s shop, we waited for my girl and her daddy to emerge from the corn (sorghum) maze.

After a few goodbyes, we set out for home, hot showers, and our individual catnaps before heading out for a bit of trick-or-treating. Ghouls and goblins, vampires, Iron Man, the Flintstones, (a small one year-old pumpkin who was absolutely precious) and, ironically right behind us, a little flannel-clad wolf with furry face and hands who followed my Little Red Riding Hood around the mall. We picked up a late dinner on the way home, rented a couple of movies, and spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

Having slept in this morning, we watched our other movie rental while enjoying honey drenched waffles and coffee. Catch up with email, a couple of posts to my college class, and we are off again to my mother’s for heaping plates of taco salad and more Halloween goodness.

Brightest blessings to you and yours this day and always. May your day be full of the joys of family and friends, and your night filled with sugary goodness and fun costumed mayhem!

Just got an email from a fellow illustrator, Jesse Kuhn over at RawToastDesign. He needs your help. Check out his blog post here and spread the word!

You will need Facebook to vote but you can vote up to five times.
http://apps.facebook.com/KohlsCares

It only takes a couple minutes to help someone and, in this case, a lot of someone’s!

I remember growing up as a kid and hearing things like “If we keep cutting down the rainforests, then we won’t have any clean air.” A lot of if we do this then that will happens.

What happens when the then‘s have arrived and gone and we are left with nothing. What next?

Incredible video. I cannot share it with a dry eye and without a feeling of outrage and disgust. I am as mad at myself as anyone. We all enjoy the conveniences of this life and are just as guilty as the ones doing the logging that destroyed their canopy, their home. As guilty as the ones who are still logging somewhere out there in the rest of the world.

So what do you do?

What you can.

You recycle more. You research more ways to be sustainable. You encourage others to do the same. You teach your kids. And you pray a lot. My family and I are supporters of charity:water and their campaigns. We wear the wristbands and we give them out. We tell people about them. It is such a simple thing to do.

Join and start a campaign.

Buy wristbands, wear them, gift them to friends.

Spread the word.

Our birthdays aren’t in September, but does that really matter? No. Every day, any day, is a day you can help someone.

News coming about LifeSource, an Art for Cures fundraiser for charity:water…

“You will be flying high in a big new world…about to be welcomed into new social circles…a gift from someone close to you…”.

We packed for Denver last Tuesday and I stuck that in my trip journal. I did a reading before the trip just to see what it would say and, as always, the wording was apropo.

A few days before we left I had picked up a soft-cover Moleskine quad so that I could prep for the trip. Moleskine’s City Books, unfortunately, did not cover Denver so I had to make my own (way more fun). I cannot tell you how nice it is to travel and have everything on hand; nothing to search for and you can spend your time enjoying your trip. Names, addresses, directions, and numbers for all of our contacts in Colorado as well as information and hours for the places we wanted to go see; flight information, confirmation numbers, and phone numbers; our emergency information and plenty of pages leftover to journal on and glue into.

We booked the tickets two weeks ago and my daughter had packed and unpacked at least five times prior to the trip. This was her first flight, as well as our first flight together as a family, so we were completely psyched for it and anxious to leave.

We did not have regular access to the internet during our trip and, frankly, didn’t want it as we had hoped to be (and were) so busy we wouldn’t have time for it. The next posts are of our trip and I hope you enjoy them as much as we did going.

For those of you who donated to help me go on this trip, I am mailing out your thank you gifties asap!

I have been so preoccupied with work and the Colorado trip that I’ve not been very creative for the last couple of weeks. The first book for Dragonfly Press Publishing is going up tomorrow, a client site is going live this week, and I start on two other client sites before the weekend. Getting in under the wire, I found out about the 2011 Diary Project.

Run by Lucy, I have reserved a “positive message” page. The page will be in three languages – English, French, and Spanish – and I am lettering it by hand. At only 3 inches wide by 8 inches tall it should be fun and I already have a few ideas running around in my head. The rest of the house is asleep so I am going to sit up in bed for a few minutes tonight and sketch where it is quiet.

As of right now, there is one page left up for grabs if you are an artist and would like to reserve it. Click the image below for more information.

The grayscale above is the one that will appear in the Diary, the color version is below…

Calm and sanity come in small packages I have found.

I am working from my netbook currently, a recent acquisition (thank you Val MWAH), as my main computer is in capable hands elsewhere.

I picked up a rather nasty virus last night, possibly earlier if it was a trojan, and it managed to shut down all of my executable files (read virus software and disk drives) while throwing multiple windows at me with “buy our security software or lose your data” type messages. I kept my head but was definitely panicking by the time I was able to get the machine shut down. Needless to say, I am frustrated. I am not as upset as I was last night, but I will be happy (I hope) when I get the prognosis and am attempting to wait patiently (haha) in the meantime. I am thankful that a) I have friends who make tech house calls and b) that I am able to at least check my email and work on one of my blogs till I get my desktop back.

My friend Adam picked up the machine earlier this morning so I am hoping for good news later tonight or tomorrow. I was about to launch the first Dragonfly Press publication, a book I just finished typesetting and designing for a client, so I am anxious to get my computer back in one piece.

I feel naked without it…and I miss my CS4. /sigh

As much as I love my analog time, I have become so dependent on technology. It hits hard when something like this happens and the whole world stops. I have been working really hard lately, non-stop, so I suspect this is the stop and take a break message that God gives me occasionally when I get so wrapped up in what I am doing that I forget about me. I enjoy my work so much at times that I get swept away so I am also thankful that I have my daughter to keep me grounded.

So the lessons for today kiddos?

a) Be cautious where you do research.
b) Armor your computer with more than one virus protection program and keep them updated. (which I had)
c) Breathe in deep and walk away from the computer. There is a whole lot of life going on out there without you.

During the course of my daughter’s art lessons I have had the opportunity to paint again. Though only for an hour, it was nice to have the paint under my nails and up to my knuckles; a lovely, creative mess.

I have been so busy between work, finding work, homeschooling and life (college and everything else) that I haven’t had any urge to do anything creative. I sit up in bed at night and write a couple pages on my novel (read 2am) before finally turning off the light, but I’ve not really been able to dig in and get messy in a while.

A dear friend of mine in India is sending me the text I need to complete this one, as well as an assemblage I am entering into a competition (more later on that).

This one consists of lots of glue, a vintage map of India (since he is an Indian ellie), tissue paper for wonderfully wrinkly skin, and acrylic paint as well as pen and ink. Sharpies work well at times, but my tool of choice is my black Pentel Energel .5mm gel pen.

As soon as the package arrives from India I will complete it and post an update with more photos. I plan to look into making prints of her as well as greeting cards though that will depend on funding. The original may go up on eBay, not sure yet as we are all kind of attached to her.

For now she stands silent on her easel in the corner, waiting, Unrecumbent.

I have always believed that one ripple could move the sea, it is something I have said on Art for Cures for a while now. So when we recently came across the Ripple project, a sketchcard benefit to help the animal victims of the Deep Water Horizon Gulf Oil Spill, it totally made sense. The entire event hurts my heart but, being that we live in Florida and that I have worked with marine life in the past, this hits a little too close to home (literally) for us.

My daughter and I have been stealing art moments over the last couple of days and we are each donating ten (10) cards worth a collective $200.00 in donations for the charities supported by the Ripple project. All of the proceeds goes to the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and the International Bird Rescue Research Center, whose efforts have already started to make a difference in the rescue of many marine birds and animals.

Time flies by so fast when you are truly happy. The rest of my life may not be exactly the way I want it yet, always a work in progress, but there is one thing that God has blessed me with that enriches my life and sustains me from day-to-day: My daughter.

My daughter turned nine years old today and already has her life “planned out”. According to her, at age 9:

…She has decided that she wants to become a massage therapist so that she can help people feel better about life and about themselves, taking away their pain, and letting them know that God loves them.
…She wants to take violin with me and learn more songs to sing.
…She wants to continue homeschooling so that, when she gets older and has a family of her own, she can homeschool her own children.
…She is learning to cook and sew so that she can expand her creativity and take care of herself in any situation.

There are of course way too many things that I could list here, I could go on forever and a day, but here are the top nine in honor of her 9th birthday in no particular order:

1. Your compassionate heart and spirit of caring for others
2. Your smile that I can’t get enough of
3. Your love for God
4. Your inventiveness and creative imagination (you invented your own version of double stick tape when you were 4 before you knew anything about double stick tape!)
5. Your sense of style in how you dress, the combinations of fabrics, textures, and colors you choose
6. How much you love to sew, cook, and help me/Val do both
7. How you always know when I need to laugh and the lengths you go to make me do it
8. The sound of your voice when you pray and when you are telling me your dreams, the excitement and wonder in it
9. The sound of your singing and how you can come up with songs on the fly about mundane things like cleaning your desk

Happy Birthday my love. I wish for this year, and all the next, that you flourish and grow. You have blessed my life on all levels in more ways than I can count. And, as we always say, “you are my bestest friend in all the world in all my life”. I love you all the way to the moon and back my precious friend.