Art and feeling, art and healing...

Wednesday

“I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself” ~Rita Mae Brown

Discovery Museum - best childhood memories EVER!

I am so excited for this afternoon - I'll be hanging a TON of huge canvases in the Discovery Museum.  I grew up right down the street from this fabulous children's museum, so coming back to display my work so many years later feels very surreal.

I am about to take my work down at Tusk & Cup Fine Coffee in Ridgfield, CT.  My work has been up there since January and it was a great experience.  You can watch the artist's talk I gave here :)  if you're interested!

Me with the owner of Tusk & Cup, Laura

Shopping - online woohoo!

And amyoes.com will soon have a storefront - workin' on that.  In the meantime, I've got a bunch of new images on my Mixed Media gallery, and new writings I've posted for other publications in the writer section.  

As the Mr. Computer-Men in my computer are runnin' around in there getting things set up - let me know what pieces speak out to you - which paintings would you like to see as prints, cards, calendars, etc?  

You can always pin them to my group Pinterest Board Show Me Your heART - all my images are pinnable!  But, ow, be careful please :)

Crafts and such...

I did a family-friendly crafty guest post for Sunbeams & Heartstrings - it's a fun and easy way to make your own coloring pages, and they always turn out wonderfully no matter what you do to it!

Read my tutorial HERE!

Kids, giving back, making a difference...

With all of this art I've been painting (and tons more to come now that I've got art supplies for a good ten years thanks to my awesome bridal shower gifts!!!) I've really been wanting to give back to my community  and to those that have made a difference in my life. I also want to inspire others and give people hope at times they need it most.  Mostly, I just want to make people smile, maybe think a bit, but most importantly...

feel.

So, I've been contacting a bunch of children's hospitals (especially ones that are near to my heart, that I spent months and years in!) about displaying my art, leading a little artsy workshop, or even performing my autobiographical musical Gutless & Grateful  for the hospital.  

As an artist, creating is a very small part of the creative process - it's a tiny piece of what keeps my passion burning.

It's really the ability to give back, and to have my work serve as a lens, a mirror, a window that others can look through, or look into, and see themselves or whatever they need to see at that moment.  To feel whatever they need to feel.  That's how I connect with my world - that is my aliveness.  As a member of this human race, it's how I can contribute.  Isn't all we ever want to make a mark on the world?  Cause a ripple, maybe even a chain reaction?

This is my hope some day, and I know that I have the power to make this happen every moment, with even the smallest of gestures.

A random act of kindness, a tender word, a brush stroke - whatever.  Sometimes, the only way I can rectify what has happened to me over the past decade, is to know that what I've been through, what I've learned from it, and what I've chosen to do with it can affect others.  Otherwise, it's just a heck of a lot of surgery.  

So anyway, that's why I've been reaching out more and more.  If creativity and the strength of my spirit enabled me to survive, then I want to help others find their way through tough times as well.  

I remember Columbia Hospital had beautiful art in the children's unit.  Actually, I have fuzzy memories of being rolled to CT-Scans and seeing big, vibrant murals of children's picture books on the walls.

And I remember every time I was transported to surgery, my mother would tell me to "look at the pretty butterflies on the ceiling" - and seeing those butterflies on the ceiling of the patient transport elevator always calmed me down a little bit.  

In the Studio...

I am slowly but steadily working my way through all of the bautiful canvases and art supplies from the bridal shower - everyone also brought a recipe of theirs fo rme to have - but who has time to cook when my hands are always stained with paint???!!!!  :)

I've been sure to make time to be with my lovely trees in the flesh- er, I mean bark.  So I took a wonderful nature walk and connected with those amazing trunks, leaves and branches.  So first things first in the studio, paintin' some trees.

 I painted and repainted this canvas a trillion times - I couldn't figure out what I wanted my trees to do.  That's the wonderful thing about paint - you can just keep painting over it - that is, of course, if you have patience to let it dry...which I don't usually.  Which is why most of my backgrounds are big shmeary blurry messes!

 Finally, I thought of the giant beechwood tree, and thought that would be a great huge figure to paint.

 And that was that.

Beechwood Arts, Beechwood trees...

This big old beautiful tree made me think of that giant beechwood tree again - the symbol of Beechwood Arts.

Jeanine was telling the artists participating in the Arts Immersion Salon that she once had an artist install hundreds of tiny clay houses around the foot of the beechwood tree, and in the branches.

Two  of them were left, and in that time, the beechwood tree grew branches over it, hugging it perfectly!

Resilience - feel the POWER of the human spirit!

And speaking of Beechwood Arts- still chipping away at my monologues.  I'm also making some new inchies - you can see my inchies gallery here - I've made quite a few of them!  

But it was Jeanine's idea to sell some of my inchies at the event, once they are attached to pins.  

Cute idea, no?

So...I've been busy, to say the least!

Before I go...

Off to Discovery Museum now.  But here's some art inspiration for you today.

25 Best Stop Motion Short Films and Claymation Videos for your inspiration
There's one film that's especially amazing - Undone - It's a beautiful stop animation short film showing the debilitating effects of Alzheimers...another poignant example of art and healing...

And - 'cuz it's summer - and you should go to the beach and do this...

30 Incredible and Beautiful Sand Sculptures

Be silent, or say something better than silence.” ~Pythagoras