This is my 965th post! Daily Art- Dreaming Summer

Full painting

Close up

Close up

Close up

“Dreaming Summer” from the Choir Series #10

18″ x 24″

Original Oil Painting

Finished Sides, ready to hang

To see more/Buy this Art Work Click Here

International buyers are always welcome, please email me HERE for a free shipping quote to anywhere in the world.

***

Here is the quote that helped the work along:

I paint not by sight but by faith. Faith gives you sight.

~Amos Ferguson

***

This work took some time to tell me when she was ready to be finished. Small details is all she asked for and that’s what I gave her. The textures in the background and the green foreground are subtle, but vital to the energy of the work. Her wings are stilling themselves from her flight so are slightly blurred. Her gown brings the fiery reds and deep oranges of the “anything is possible” of an Indian Summer. She smells of fresh cut grass, sunshine on the lavender fields and the earthy dust of opportunity.

She reminds me that this is not the time to trap myself within virtue. I do not need to be caught on the treadmill of doing what is “right”, I must release my expectations of what I am learning, and allow the growth to happen. Transition isn’t supposed to feel good, or none of us would ever make it through it at all. I am what I am, I am doing what I need to be doing, and the Universe will provide the necessary synchronicities to happen as I continue my act of spiritual faith in myself and the greater power of the Original Creator, faith that I can channel that creative energy, faith that I can use it for good in my life and in every life I may touch, or know; faith in the love for every living thing. I accept what I am asking for, I will work hard, remain true to myself and look no gift horse in the mouth.

So be it.

May your day be filed with turquoise possibilities and golden opportunities.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

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Daily Art- New Work- Woman Work

‘Woman Work’

18″ x 24″

oils and mixed media

There is a link at the bottom of this post to see more detail pictures.

Here is the quote for this work:

“Don’t shut yourself up in a band box because you are a woman, but
understand what is going on, and educate yourself to take part in the
world’s work, for it all affects you and yours.”
~Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 188
***
Woman Work is a little doodle I have been playing with for a few weeks. I’d
stop by every once in a while, between loads of laundry, working my day job,
tending to life, creating in the studio and comfort giving; give it a little tweak
here, and a little sparkle there. It’s either the worst mixed media work I have
ever done or it’s just busy like my life and maybe I’m not always so
comfortable with that fact.
Probably the later of the two.
It’s got a little of everything I had on or near the work table at the time on it.
Flat backed glass marbles of clear, light blue, dark blue and ruddy ruby red.
There are mirrors both round and square. There is super fine glitter, *Gasp!
Glitter in fine art, yes it’s true and there is a Santa Clause* I used a blue
crystal glitter in the blue areas and in the red a fine red gold. I have got a
bucket of paint pens on the table so they got used willy-nilly.
The images are all forms of the ancient expressions for goddess or woman
*creator/giver of life*. I made template a while back to carve some stamps
with and never got around to carving the stamps…so the template got
thrown around too. Work/Life is messy sometimes, and bright and hopeful
other times; and sometimes those moments are right next to each other.
Today, I decided I could not fit or add another thing to it, so I know it’s done.
That simple.
That complex.
That’s Woman Work for ya.
I hope you enjoyed and have a great day.

To Purchase/see more pictures Click Here.

Happy Friday everyone!

Heather

Daily Art- New Work- 5th Dimension

5th Dimension

Full painting/sculpture

close up

close up

detail

Full work again

5th Dimension

24″ x 32″ x 2″ (thick box canvas)

Plaster, mixed media and oils

Needs no frame, ready to hang

To Purchase Click HERE.

***

Here are the two quotes that shaped this work:

***

“I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.”

Dr. Seuss (1904 - 1991)

***

“I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.”

Willa Cather (1873 - 1947)

Source: O Pioneers 1913

***

This work…ahhhh, this work. I’ve been working on this canvas for about a year now. I’ve plastered it several times, added skeleton leaves, stained it, sanded it, stained it again, gessoed over it, started all over and ended up here. That’s how it got it’s name…5th dimension. Fifth times a charm. The Tree has always been in there, I’ve painted it three times. I had to actually get out my internal master gardener and take a look at this tree. It was a hot mess. Limbs criss crossing, jumbled, tied and knotted.

I had to untangle the branches, prune away the dead useless wood and discover the original thought, the original vision, the original tree. I wiped away limbs ruthlessly, pruning a tree is not a job for the meek, it takes a bush whacking mentality sometimes to get to the heart of things. Ruthlessly healthy is what I call it. I let the tree awaken. It’s not the prettiest tree, but rarely is beauty visible to the eye.

It is growing, newly untangled it will be weak for a year or two; standing up to wind and rain. Leaving the lowest branches intact will help to strengthen the trunk again. They will be pruned away soon enough, by the world. Wind will push against the tree, new naked limbs will thrash, the beauty is that they will remain flexible and strong, the thrashing will strengthen the whole tree from tip top to smallest root fiber. It will bend. It’s bark will heal itself and seal of fresh wounds to the outer world, and it will become more resistant to pests and predators.

It will grow and live.

It will bloom green life, it will create oxygen again,

it will be a wonder for humans to find.

In the golden light of that future day,

this tree stands. Unashamed of the scars, the twisting turning of it’s strong limbs, unapologetic for being able to give what humans need, a testament, a home, a history, a path, a religion, a fire, a chair, a tool,a hiding place, a calender, or a meal…a life.

The magic of understanding and being understood.

Your belief is not necessary for magic to exist.

Your understanding, evolution, needs and desires are not important in the sands of time.

Life in every form is a miracle. Unexplainable. undefinable, unknown.

One fact we do know, and this with out a doubt,

Life always finds a way.

***

I hope you like the new work and that you have a great day.

Heather

the fine print:

5th dimension

24″ x 32″ x 2″

plaster, mixed media, oils

Please Email me HERE for a free shipping quote to anywhere in the world.

To Purchase Click HERE.

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

Support Living Artists

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Daily Art- Contemplation in Red

Contemplation in red

full painting

(the upper left hand corner of this painting is being washed out by my inept attempts at picture taking, sorry)

close up

‘Contemplation in Red’ from the faces series #3
24″ x 36″
oils
finished sides, no frame needed, ready to hang
$185.00 + 45.00 shipping to anywhere inside the USA (it’s large art so it’s a little more to ship)

BUY This Art Now With PayPal

International/outside the USA, buyers please email me here for purchase or a free shipping quote to anywhere in the world

***

Here is the quote that was the inpsiration for the work:

“Hope is a state of mind, not of the world . . .
Either we have hope or we don’t;
it is a dimension of the soul,
and it’s not essentially dependent
on some particular observation of the world
or estimate of the situation.
Hope is not prognostication.
It is an orientation of the spirit,
and orientation of the heart;
it transcends the world that is immediately experienced,
and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons …
Hope, in this deep and powerful sense,
is not the same as joy that things are going well,
or willingness to invest in enterprises that
are obviously heading for success,
but rather and ability to work for
something because it is good,
not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
The more propitious the situation
in which we demonstrate hope,
the deeper the hope is.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism.
It is not the conviction that something will turn out well,
but the certainty that something makes sense,
regardless of how it turns out.”
~Vaclav Havel
***
Today I go to work with hope in my corner.
The fever pitch of working means I don’t have a lot to report about.
I see my kids as if they are waking dreams,

floating through the studio with kisses and needs to be met.

I hug my mate as if he were a visitor,

surprising me with his arrival upon my doorstep.

I eat every once in awhile and sleep too little.

I stand under the running water and forget why I am there.

I am tired and my body aches.

Possessed by the effort to work harder,

driving myself to the finish line of something to be proud of.

Waiting for no one, taking no prisoners, allowing no distractions…

the paint flows like wine, and my creative thoughts pile up on themselves like driftwood on the shore.
I just work harder is all…I just don’t stop.
I know that some of these new works are the best I have done to date.
Others… not so much. Such is life.
I have little or no interest in them after they leave my easel…
I do not care what happens to them now…

orphans they are.
I am just glad to be rid of them from my minds eye;
like the feeling of removing a large thorn from under a nail.
The end result is not what I am after.
Living in these moments of being one with the work…

that is what ignites my inner flame…

that is what matters most…

being burned alive in the flame.
Being burned Alive.
Charred bones in the calabash bowl.
I am grateful to work myself hard

and press myself for my best.
Today I work for the knowing.

I work for the joy.
Leaving ego on the side of the road,

with her good buddies fear and doubt.

I told them all to find a ride with someone else…

there’s no room at the inn for you…
Beat it.
Waking in the morning,
the smells of oil paint and sweat are
like honeysuckle on a hot summers day,
sweet and inviting.
Today I work with hope in my corner.
***
I hope you all have a good day…
I am off to the salt mines.
Happily swinging my pick and shovel.
Heather
http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/
Support Living Artists
Buy some Art Today

PS> You must go to Vikki’s blog today and see the amazing painting she has just finished…literally it will blow your mind with it’s awesomeness! Honestly, Just Do It!

Daily Art- New Work- I don't know why...

full painting

detail

background detail

‘I don’t know why she can’t keep her clothes on in the woods’

36″ x 24″

Oils

Finished sides ready to hang

$285.00 + 45.00 shipping to anywhere inside the USA.

Buy this Art Now with PayPal Here

International buyers are always welcome, please email me HERE for a free shipping quote to anywhere in the world.

Here is the quote for this work:

“Be naked in the splendor of the truth of who you are.”
~ Gangaji ~

***

This work is a self portrait. I have this strange need to be naked when ever I step into the woods. I can’t explain it, well not really, but as you know dear reader what comes next is my attempt to do just that.

I consider the earth and her woods, oceans, and other natural places to be my own personal church, or chapel. My idea is that my Universe, My God would want me clothed in what I came with…my beautiful skin. We do a lot of hiking and woods walking wherever we live. It is not uncommon to come across me hiking in the woods with nothing on but my walking shorts, my shoes and my backpack…if it’s a populated trail (lots of people) I’ll find a trail that is less traveled, find a couple of non-irritating leaves, place them over my boobs, hold them in place with my backpack straps…and hike away. If I can find a little out-of-the-way place near moving water…I will be naked in two seconds flat. My kids and Mate Man have learned that I have no pride or shame about being naked outdoors. Yes, we have encountered people along the paths we have walked, that were not as comfortable with my nakedness as I am…but that’s not my problem to control or change. Now don’t get me wrong…I’m not pubic hair nude walking around for every kid or person in the world to see…but I’m a lot more naked than most. Once you get over the way you look to others, being in your own skin ain’t bad at all. I love the feel of wind and sun on bear skin that spends most of it’s life under clothes. I love the feel of water on my bare bum…what can I say, I’m a nature girl.

These days I don’t get to do as much out in nature time as I would like. I have not been naked in the woods in too many years. It’s getting to me, I tell you…it’s getting to me. So, I painted naked woods time. I painted the rich color of green, it comes in hundreds of hues out in the woods, and I used my favorites…all of them. I painted the way mountain water, spring cold and fresh feels; to me it feels blue, no matter the color or clarity of the water, so my favorites in the cool blues are represented too. The hair…yes, I have had fire engine red hair, this seems to be one of my more subtle burgundy/violet moments. I have naturally very light brown hair…yawn, boring. I wear it deep and purple/burgundy now a days, it soots me. In sunlight, it has a warm crimson effect, so I am punk rock in the bright light of day, that too soots me.

She is suspended in what I call the eye game. When I was a kid, I learned that I could play a game with defocussing my eyes. So, where ever I was I could let the world go soft, fuzzy around the edges and mostly made of blocks of colors and light dark spaces. I did this so often as a kid, that I do it reflexively today. I do it all the time. I can maintain complete attention to whatever is going on around me, but I tend to reduce visual imagery down to tone, texture, light, dark, mid tones, and base color values. I know that as a child this way of seeing the world was my escape hatch. It has saved my bacon many times; it means I like to distance myself from my reality. Looked at in the text book way, the educated/doctor way…this is not a good thing. This is something that makes me weird and probably in need of medication. In reality…I just see more than most people know is even available.

I see the “weave” of this life. I know how flimsy it really is. I can see the veil…I can also see through it. Yeah, I can see by re- reading what I just wrote, this truth about myself, how others could react in really negative ways. I learned to keep my eye-game to myself, early on and not tell people about all the wondrous things that are right here…right here next to us, it’s the veil they want…I have learned to give this world the veil. Yup, there it is…I see it clearly too! Ok, I’m normal, I’m just like everyone else. For the longest time, I wanted to make sure nobody knew I was different. I hear stuff, I see stuff that other people don’t. But, I am not crazy or delusional. Yeah, I know…it’s a little much to swallow, plain fact is that it’s also true.

This work is homage to what I live with; the gray matter that I will spend this life with. It is homage to how I see things and myself. I am everything and I am small too. In my world, green is alive and dancing with the blue air and water. Magic is afoot. Being naked is a good thing. The world embraces my individualism and rewards my willingness to see and share that vision with you, the world at large. This is me world, naked in the woods. Loving every minute of it.

I hope your day is colorful and full of joy.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

Support living artists

Buy some art today

PS> I have not been doing art auctions for the past couple of weeks, because funds were so tight. I started a new batch of art auctions yesterday! No reserves and low opening bids…Come on, Check them out!

Click HERE to see this weeks BAD! Kitty Art Specials!

***

Daily Art- Wall Sculpture- Core

‘Core’

24″ X 30 X 2″

Thick Gallery wrapped canvas

Oils & Sculpted plaster

***

‘Core’ AKA: “A River Runs Through my Core”

This is the quote that guided the creation overall:

***

What I dream is an art of balance, of purity and serenity,

devoid of troubling and depressing subject matter…

a shooting, calming influence on the mind,

something like a good armchair which provides

relaxation from physical fatigue.

~ Henry Matisse

***

This is a rich work, the colors are deep and the tone is vibrant.

I used plaster and while it was still wet I laid in the deep leather red colors,

let it dry and then laid them in again.

The vibrant blues in the center

were inspired by my frequent walks on

the river banks and oceans of the Great Pacific NW.

I often went to the waters edge in those days,

and screamed until my throat felt raw, releasing fears and tensions that would build up inside.

I always started out with my terrific Tarzan yell, warm ups for the deep throat screams that I would later do till I cried.

I do a mean Tarzan, let me tell you, it can be heard for miles.

I learned through this exercise

that inside myself there was a river,

so deep and so wide that I may never reach the sides or see the bottom. Sometimes I can isolate myself,

stand on my little island in the middle of myself,

and feel really alone, but like in this work,

if I draw a circle around that island inside,

I can find peace and protection,

without living there;

living a new life, one that is not-all-alone.

I enjoyed working on this piece,

it was a freeing experience to let it go and stand outside myself.

Learning to instead welcome the person I am today,

embracing what I know, and the lessons yet to be learned.

Finding my ‘core” person and loving her…warts and all. It’s not an easy practice, learning to give myself the same level of acceptance that I willing give to other people. Learning that I deserve to treat myself as kindly as I do those that I love. Accepting that my way of loving, those who mean the most to me, my way of loving isn’t easy. My way of loving is sometimes hard, exacting, demanding; a swift moving stream, currents deep and unimaginably strong…it’s undeniable. My love can tell you no, and speak the hard words of truth that are needed at times. My love can hold you, comfort you, embrace you as you are, my love is dependable and eternal. If I would go to any extreme for those that I love in this world, then why did it take so long to learn how to learn to love my real self?

Because she had to be rescued from the waters of this reality, drug to the shore of hesitancies, and pummeled back into life and given permission to sit on the beach forever, or get back in the water…and have enough faith to know that she can now swim.

I own my past.

I own my present.

I own what the future holds.

I own only myself.

I own nothing.

I own everything.

I am the river,

the waters of life itself

run trough my veins, my core.

Now, the beauty is…I know how to swim.

***

This is a large work, on a extra thick canvas

with painted finished sides, it needs no framing.

The colors are so terrific, (if I do say so myself *grins*)

that the last time I was at a show with it,

the owner of the gallery was in process of opening

a small art deli and coffee shop,

and she asked to use this work for

the color inspiration and design for the new space.

I of course said sure, and we worked together to

re-create the pattern in the room including the walls, floor, and ceiling.

I looked great and felt wonderful to know that I had inspired,

with my work something so cool and embracing for people to re-charge and feed themselves.

Plaster painting is something I am passionate about,

I love to create wall sculptures and

combine the results with my painting skills.

This is not just a painting, it is also wall sculpture.

I hope you enjoy.

Have a wonderful day,

Heather

***

PS> I have not been doing art auctions for the past couple of weeks, because funds were so tight. I started a new batch of art auctions yesterday! No reserves and low opening bids…Come on, Check them out!

Click HERE to see this weeks BAD! Kitty Art Specials!

***

The fine print:

‘Core’

24″ x 30″ X 2″ (it’s big, big)

Plaster and oils on canvas

(it’s really not as heavy as it looks)

Finished sides, ready to hang

$255.00 + 45.00 shipping to anywhere inside the USA

BUY this Art Now With PayPal

Please contact me HERE for purchase or a free shipping quote to anywhere in the world.

***

www.badkittyartstudio.com

Support living artists

buy some art today

Thoughts on Memories and Spiritual Partnership

Good Monday to you all.

Before we begin, I'd like to start with a couple of quotes (per usual).

***

"Life is all memory, except for the present moment that goes by so quick you hardly catch it going."

Tennessee Williams

***

"We believe that the possibility of the future far exceeds the accomplishment of the past. We review the past with the common sense, but we anticipate the future with transcendental senses. In our sanest moments we find ourselves naturally expecting or prepared for far greater changes than any which we have experienced within the period of distinct memory, only to be paralleled by experiences which are forgotten."

~Henry David Thoreau

***

The authentic self is the best part of a human being. It's the part of you that already cares, that is already passionate about evolution. When your authentic self miraculously awakens and becomes stronger than your ego, then you will truly begin to make a difference in this world. You will literally enter into a partnership with the creative principle.

~Andrew Choen

***

Everyone recognizes to some extent the type that each is drawn to and they intuitively feel each other’s polarity, mentally and physically. Such types naturally gravitate to and recognize each other, so that out of any hundred people, ninety-nine might have no mental or sex appeal for each other – while the hundredth would. All humans should seek the type which corresponds to their own electric wave length. When types so find each other, they will be as perfectly balanced as sodium and chlorine, and the union should be enduring. It is a common saying that people should marry their opposites. Nothing could be more contrary to universal law than this statement. Everywhere in Nature, like attracts like. This is fundamental. Opposites repel each other. Opposites in temperament and physical patterns invite discord, infidelity and mutual degradation. Matrimonial mismating unbalances the blood stream just as certainly as promiscuous mismating unbalances it.
~Walter Russell

***

OK, here we go.

So Mate Man and I talk all the time. I mean we chat, we analyze, we problem solve, we say things that ride on our hearts when we need to. We don't fight, we solve. We talk it out with respect and rules of engagement, if there is a discourse in our lives. It's been this way from the beginning.

My favorite activity in the world is to be able to sit and talk with Mate Man.

So the other day, we were sitting on the back porch, late day, watching the sun set (another of our favorite things to do together, we do it daily, we also watch it rise together when we can, work schedules permitting)

and just chatting along. We started in on our ages. He's 41 and I am 38.

We were talking about the world around us, and what we have seen in our lifetimes thus far. What followed was a conversation that lasted the next three hours in spurts, had our kids looking at each other like "Oh lord here they go again" and only ended because we fell asleep, still talking.

We were talking about the inventions, social changes and political shifts we have seen or remember happening.

Here is a short (very short) list of some of the things we have seen in this life so far:

CD's

Personal Home Computers and the Internet

cassette tapes

shag carpets

designer drugs

pocket calculators

cable TV (I skipped school to watch the launch of MTV, it was great)

tampons and self stick pads

car seats

Starbucks

all wheel drive and disc brakes

seat belts in all cars standard

digital cameras

digital watches

touch tones phones

cell phones

2 liter bottles

automatic ice makers

microwave ovens

Ron Popiel

Vietnam and Nixon

We have never known sex without STD's and AIDS

Planned Parenthood

The Artificial Heart

The first space shuttle launch & I watched Challenger blow up right in the sky above me.

Star Wars

Close Encounters

Stephen King

Sci-Fi (really getting big in writing and pop culture)

Skateboarding

Snow Boarding

anti-depressants

ADHD

Organics

Chernobyl

The Berlin Wall came down

Tienanmen Square

The Cuban missile crisis (ending)

The woman's movement

Dr. Ruth

Wendy's "where's the Beef" ad campaign

Madonna

Gay Pride/Stonewall

The Human Genome project

The riots in California

Ronald Regan's assignation attempt

The hostages held on a plane in Iran

The end of the cold war

The end of the U.S.S.R.

The space station

The Hubble telescope

Nelson Mandela being released from prison

Margret Thatcher

and

roller blades

Ok, so that's enough for you to get the picture.

The whole thing was too much fun I tell you. And for the rest of the weekend, I just felt lucky to be alive and happy to have found my Mate Man to share this life with.

I know that I am a better person because he came along and wanted to love someone, not just anyone...me. I had to learn how to love and give love. I had to learn not to lie. He had to learn how to deal with love that was unconditional and unconventional. He had to learn he was lovable.

It's been good for both of us lost souls to find each other and grow this life we share. It's healed so many of the painful spots I had blackening my spirit.

Today I am grateful for the life I have had, good and bad.

And I love my Man. *sigh*

***

I hope you all have a great Monday...I am off to work on a new sketchbook project, the theme is love. I am making two of them and they will be displayed at the Darklight Gallery in February. I thought that because I am feeling so lovely inside now would be the right time to work on them, energy wise.

Love to all,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

Scroll down and see my two new works!

Pretend you're a goddess. ~cecilia maria

The new painting...it's coming along.

24" x 36"

oils

'If summer was a goddess'

sorry for the not so good picture, I took it in the studio with a flash...because it's still dark-thirty here. Click to enlarge.

***

O Goddess Earth, O all-enduring wide expanses! Salutation to thee. Now I am going to begin cultivation. Be pleased, O virtuous One.

~Ancient Sanskrit Prayer

***

Which is the woman, which the child? The joyous laugh that opens doors, steals sugared moments from the shelf? Or the dreamer mixing metaphors with tears to make a book of self To read aloud in winter's rooms When summer's sounds have ceased to bloom?

~Katie Louchheim

***

Ok, Ok... so I've started painting again. Woot!

Having a broken foot is good for making art I find. I got so bored that I was able to shuck the blahs that have hounded me all summer long and started painting again. Thank the Goddess!

I've got a busy day today with coaching clients and I want to get the rest of this painting blocked in so I can start working the details.

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/