Been tagged about ten times now, so here it is, 7 random things about me.

Close up of Mississippi Grrrl

Oil Pastels and collage (2007)

***

Ok, I've been tagged by a bunch of people, I've played this game over the years about a dozen times, so there's not much left to tell…but I will give it a go. I'm not tagging anyone else, so if you wanna be tagged…well, just wait five minutes someone will get you. :)

OK:

1. I hate the idea of feet touching me. This is why I had a hard time making it as a MLT, because people came to me with stinky feet and I washed every ones feet before I touched them…it was a hassle, but my clients loved it because they thought I was just being nice and kept coming in with really gross feet. I had to call it quits after awhile. (I know, I know)

2. I don't drink pop or let anyone in my house drink pop, I am the pop- a- nator.

3. I hate black eyed peas, cauliflower and brussel sprouts.

4. I don't like to shop at all, I will go shopping with a list and a timer, get in, get out.

5. I make all my Christmas presents every year, and have been doing handmade Christmas's for over 10 years.

6. I don't like girl clothes or shoes, (off the rack) they cost more, don't fit me, and wear out faster. So I buy most of my clothes second hand, spiff them up with embellishments, and I wear men's shoes/boots. I do love my skirts and dresses (for the summer time), and I buy them from people who make clothing. I love hats, the funnier the better and I wear them all the time just to make people smile at me in public.

7. Because of a stroke during childbirth (#3) I lost most of the vision in my right eye (I can see about 10% out of that eye, like looking at the world from under dark water), and have no depth perception at all in that eye. I can still hit a target at 60 yards with no sights (I am an archer, and I sight down the arrow) and put 6 arrows in the center of a target…all together, btw that's a space the size of a quarter and at 60 yards looks like the size of a dime.

OK, I did it. No more tagging of me please!

Have a great day all.

Love, love, Love.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.~Sagan

Above picture is from the inside of my Treasure Box.

I hope you enjoy.

***

After long experience in keeping journals and annotating my readings, etc., I grew more keenly aware of my own shifts in perspectives and criteria from time to time or circumstance to circumstance or relation to relation. Most mentalities are merely viscous, pathetically modulating from one tincture to another; I was determined to learn how to follow those little trails of snailslime in my own and others thinking. Human psyche at most levels is definitely a sea-creature, a metamorphic or Protean sort of being; but there is a visceral core that remains constant. How I learned to overcome idiotism or simpleminded perspectivism was by returning to what I had written over and over from several different viewpoints and strategies, assaulting what I took for granted from priorities and perspectives I had not originally thought of. One rises in that way from monocular or naive opinion to a kind of philosophical compound-eye like Argus had in mythology. One enables oneself already to anticipate criticisms, to defend or adapt against them or if need be go over to their vantagepoint. Most opinionizing is houses built upon the sand; philosophical intelligence is geological intelligence about the bedrock in every region.
Kenneth Smith

***

"Thinking gives off smoke to prove the existence of fire. A mystic sits inside the burning. There are wonderful shapes in rising smoke that imagination loves to watch. But it's a mistake to leave the fire for that filmy sight. Stay here at the flame's core."
Rumi

***

Complexity is easy, simplicity requires mastery.
Peter Cajander

***

Good Day to you.

It's been a rough week, sick children, sick Momma, no artwork.

I may be going crazy...I'm not sure yet.

No...wait...nevermind...I'm still not sure.

I have been thinking, maybe too much thinking, I am having trouble sleeping because my brain will not stop.

I know today I will get to return to the easel for a time, and I can't wait for all my people to go to school and work and let me breathe, let me stop thinking, let me work. I love them all, I just find it really hard to take time away from them to work in studio. Today is a studio day...and coaching clients.

Thank the good Lord I can do both at the same time.

I am still OCD about apples. I've been drawing them, dreaming them and seeing them everywhere. I know that this is about my own inner investigations. I know I am symbolically trying to tell myself something. I am sure I'll get it here soon. I do know it must have something to do with knowledge, with magic seeds, with soft sweet flesh, with slick shiny skins, with being bitten and chewed, with sweetness and tartness, with cores being in the center.

I am apple.

Happy Hump day to you all.

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

Do yourself a favor and buy some art today.

Support living artists.

More new work

Traveling Man

18" x 24"

Oils

ready to hang/back stapled

Here's the quote to go with it:

And I will show you something different

from either Your shadow at morning

striding behind you,

Or your shadow at evening

rising to meet you

I will show you fear

in a handful of dust.
T.S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)

***

Good Morning After eat all you can day.

We had a feast to beat all feasts.

Mate Man cooked all day and fed us to the falling over point, it was fantastic!

I hope you all had good times too.

This is the first of the three works I did over the coarse of three days.

I had to wait for the knife work to dry on this one so I could fix what I saw was wrong. I really like him now...and I am enjoying the map my mind is making for me to follow. When I paint my best work happens when i don't have a plan, just a little idea and then i just relax, and play with what happens. (little i's on purpose)

I like these three because they are just that, (scroll down one post for the other two) from my inner eye, no prompting, no reference pictures or muses, just me...doing what I wanted to do. Ahhhh, it's like a day at the spa, or getting a thorn out after a while of painful squeezing. I like the spa metaphor better today.

Any way I have no clients today...and I would never go out into the Black Friday Greed-a-thon crap-ola that is going on today...so it's just me and the kids playing board games and sneaking pie for breakfast.

Yum.

Have a good one all, and tell me what you think of this new work...I find it so helpful to see work through fresh eyes.

Grins and giggles,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

New Work, Hot off the Easel!

Good Day My Favorite People (yes, that's you too)

Come on in and see the new works!

Click on images to enlarge.

'Witness'

24" x 18"

oils

Finished sides/back stapled

ready to hang

Here's the quote that helped the inspiration:

A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude.

If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it.

But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it,

so long as I know it myself?

Miserable is he who slights that witness.
~Seneca (4 BC - 65 AD)

***

I really just let my mind wander over what I am doing both internally and externally and gave myself permission to just paint what was on my heart.

This is the second painting of three in the last three days. The first one, it's not done yet and I am waiting for it to dry so I can finish it properly...I'll post when it's done.

I have to say, I feel a lot lighter with these three works done, I feel better, I feel calm and trusting again.

Huzzah!

***

'This Apple'

18" x 24"

oils

Finished sides/back staples

Ready to hang

Here's the quote for this one:

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch,

you must first invent the universe.
~Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)

***

So, what do you think?

I hope you all are having a happy day, and a good before the big eat yourself to death and pass out on the couch long enough to have some room for more pie day! :) Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of all!

Love to you all, and leave me some love...come on you know you wanna!

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

"Reality is an illusion. Albeit, a persistent one." ~Einstein

"Tissues"

Laminated collage (2006) HMBT

Availabe for sale

8.5" x 11"

***

by Cheryl Denise, from I Saw God Dancing.

© Dream Seeker Books, 2005.

They’ll
take your soul

and put it in a suit,

fit you in boxes

under labels,

make you look like the Joneses.

They’ll tell you go a little blonder,

suggest sky-blue

tinted contact lenses,

conceal that birthmark

under your chin.

They’ll urge you to have babies

get fulfilled.

They’ll say marriage is easy,

flowers from Thornhills

are all you need

to keep it together.

They’ll push you to go ahead,

borrow a few more grand,

build a dream house.

Your boys need Nikes,

your girls cheerleading,

and all you need is your job

9 to 5 in the same place.

They’ll order you never to cry

in Southern States,

and never, ever dance

in the rain.

They’ll repeat all the things

your preschool teacher said

in that squeaky too tight voice.

And when you slowly

let them go,

crack your suit,

ooze your soul

in the sun,

when you run through

the woods with your dog,

read poems to swaying cornfields,

pray in tall red oaks,

they’ll whisper

and pretend you’re crazy.

***

Fear is not what you think it is. Fear is not who you are underneath your facade. Fear is not the real you that you must somehow fix or improve or overcome. Fear is a very useful signal along the path to freedom. The stronger the fear, the closer you are to what you are seeking. If you want to stay "safe (i.e. stuck where you are), fear tells you to stop what you are doing, But if you want to be free, fear lets you know you are on the right track, it is a signal to push ahead in the same direction, to pick up the pace.

~ Cheri Huber, "The Fear Book"

***

To be human is to be vulnerable - this I must accept. My invincibility lies in my ability to not let the emotional and physical setbacks in life conquer me. I may be vulnerable to the experiences, but I'm invincible in my resolve. I'm unconquerable.
Obi

***

I have started some new auctions on overstock, click the link below (or in the side bar) to check them out. All are offered with no reserve and a 7 day listing.

I'm on it.

I'm unconquerable.

I am free.

Have a good day everyone,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

Silence is a source of great strength.~Lao Tzu

My quotes for today:

***

Contain your experience with the divine so that it does not escape you but rather shapes you. Be silent. Silence will help you avoid engaging in the games of competition and illusion that regularly seduce us in the outside world. Silence also helps you avoid distraction. It helps focus the busy mind---the mind that always has to be doing something, thinking something, the mind that always has to be otherwise engaged lest it become introspective and allow the soul's voice to override its own. The silence I am describing is a silence that you use to contain the grace you receive when you enter the Castle of your soul. This quality of silence allows you to engage in discernment. You carry this silence within you, even when you are with others. It allows you to hold your center amid the chaos of your life; it keeps you clear so that you do not do or say things you will regret or make decisions out of fear.
~Caroline Myss

***

I been silent so long now it's gonna roar out of me like flood waters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But please. It's still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen.
~Ken Kesey (1935 - )
Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Page: 13

***

Being silent for me doesn't require being in a quiet place and it doesn't mean not saying words. It means, "receiving in a balanced, non combative way what is happening." With or without words, the hope of my heart is that it will be able to relax and acknowledge the truth of my situation with compassion.
~Sylvia Boorstein

Source: That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist, Page: 38

***

Good Wednesday to you all.

Ok, so yesterday I had to stop painting and working and fretting.

I needed some quiet time, inside myself.

This whole project is hard both internally and externally.

I even entertained the thought of giving up...for about 5 seconds. I never give up, it's always an option, but never a path I choose. I don't know how to quit.

I was thinking this morning when I woke up that I just need some silence right now...not complete outer world silence but some internal silence. That's a tough one for me personally, because I have a hard time stopping. I have a hard time getting quiet, on the inside. I have a very loud inner world...its a damn brass band marching around inside my head.

Wondering what it is all about this morning I thought I would study up on what it means to be internally silent. These quotes are what rang true for me today.

Working is never a chore for me, I grew up working and with people who valued working...working = freedom.

It's not the working, it's the time in between. The silence between the notes.

Sometimes I feel like my passions are eating me alive. I can't stop thinking, talking, and dreaming art. The studio calls to me and says, "hey you are not done yet! Get your Lilly white back in here!"

Until I master what I am after, I feel like I can never rest. I have not been sleeping well because of the internal art classes that reign over my dream state. I wake up and my hands are tired from holding a paint brush clutched in my grimy fist all night. At least in my dreams I am taking lessons from some really great teachers. I understand that I am harder on myself that the world can ever be, it's about self preservation. I grew up with very critical people who had tons of time to criticise but little love to give. So, I learned early on that if I am hard on myself it would probably save me a beating later on down the road. I became my own master, and slave. I am not blaming anyone for the crazy-ness that I live with internally...not at all. I am just trying to make sense of why I feel the need to push myself so hard and then not talk nicely to myself for working hard. I find that I still tend to call up what is wrong, or what I could do better, instead of talking up the hard work, the willingness to push and learn what is needed.

This "emotional trigger" is bigger than I thought. Of course.

In the past few years I have brought myself to a place where I live with confidence. Working through this is much harder than I thought, because I realize I have been avoiding it for about 25 years now.

I used to just state..."I don't do landscapes."

That my friends, is avoidance and ego.

I don't do landscapes because I have a huge internal scar about painting and art making in general. I am conquering it, I have been conquering it for years.

I know how to fight.

I am tired though, weary from the road. Triggers have a way of insisting that you deal with them, they just don't freaking die or go away.

Today I will work to silence the screaming, teeming masses inside my brain pan and just relax. If I paint, it'll be something I want to do, something that liberates. I often wonder if I'll ever get to the end of the road where I have mastered and slayed all the dragons. Maybe that's not my path, maybe I was born to slay dragons, or maybe this is the last dragon. Who freaking knows?

Well, I had better get on with my day...and see what happens.

I am entering the soul castle now...if I'm not back in ten minutes...leave me alone. :) Just kiddding. ;)

I hope you are all well, and having a great hump day.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

It doesn't matter how much milk you spill as long as you don't lose the cow.

'Human being, classification: Female'

Laminated collage HMBT (2006)

Available for sale

***

My quotes for today:

***

I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didn't matter - that would be my life.

~Jasper Johns

***

Failure is an opportunity.

If you blame someone else,

there is no end to the blame.

Therefore the Master

fulfills

her own obligations

and corrects her own mistakes.

She does what she needs to do

and demands nothing of others.

~Source: Tao Te Ching

***

Nietzche was the one who did the job for me.

At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called "the love of your fate." Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, "This is what I need."

It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment — not discouragement — you will find the strength is there.

Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege!

This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.

Then when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You'll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.
~Joseph Campbell (1904 - 1987)

***

Good Morning everyone.

Well, it's Monday again and I have worked all weekend on my practice paintings for the big commission. So far...well, I have played around with the knife a bunch, and that is fun. I have to give it up to any knife painters out there, it's freaking "A" hard to do and do well. I also figured out trees, and foregrounds....that's all good.

I don't have any that really pull off the main feature of the commission yet, but today I tackle that project.

I have figured out the ultimate nature of a Heather Landscape. It don't look real at all. That's the key I guess, livid color, tons of texture and a bit of weirdness thrown in for good measure.

Here is one of the practice

works to prove my point.

'One with her nature'

24" x 18"

oils

picture taken indoors with a flash.

See?

The trees are really good though, even though you can't see them in this picture...sorry about that.

This is the sun my patron wants...and the trees too...so I got two of the elements in this work. In this next one, I just wanted to show what a hard time I am having at becoming a knife painter. OMG HARD! ARGH!

This one does not even deserve a name...so it's just a throw away.

I did learn a lot with this work as far as, the way of the knife goes. So, it's no complete failure, just a real crappy painting. This picture was taken indoors with a flash...sorry about that...again. It's still dark thirty here, gimme a break.

Well, I must get my children up and moving, pack lunches, pull up today's client list, and prepare to cook three dishes for this weeks family menu.

Fun huh?

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Failure is an opportunity.

Ok, I can deal with that.

Have a good day all,

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting. ~Emerson

Dragon Breath

Laminated Collage 8.5" x 11"

2006 HMBT

Available for sale

***

Good Friday to you all.

Here are my quotes for the day:

***

When I'm painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It's only after a get acquainted period that I see what I've been about.

~Jackson Pollock

***

I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.
Frida Kahlo

***

If I could say this I wouldn't have to paint.

Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973)

***

The act of painting is not a duplication of experience but the extension of experience on the plane of formal invention.
Stuart Davis (1894 - 1964)

***

So, I have been practicing, like a good little artist. I am working on learning the way of the knife. (painting knife)

So far I have totally wasted a bunch of paint and not really gotten where I wanted to go. No worries, I'll get it. I am not one to quit just because it's hard work.

The one thing that is really hard is not the learning...oh no, it's not the learning. It's the keeping up my spirits when I just spent hours on something and it turns to crap, at the last minute...that's the hard thing.

Aiiieeee!

Anyway, I will press on and get to where I want to be. I think my brain learns so very fast...it's my muscle memory that is what is at least a couple days behind the brain. I know what I need to do technically, it's that my hands and body have not gotten all the information yet.

Speaking of not getting the message...

Last night I had a dream and in the dream I was yelling at my own hands.

I'm sitting at a table and holding my hands up in front of my face...and having a long talk about how I am disappointed in them for not showing up to work.

I explained to them that the rest of the body had made it in on time, the body, you know the one... it showed up for the day...and where were you at hands? hhhmmmm?

Well, they called in sick for a day at the beach...don't try to deny it, the rest of the body knows that was sand between you fingers...and we don't even live near a coast anymore! Stinking lazy ass hands!

I woke up when one of my hands told me

"it's allllll-riiight!"

Like hell it's all right.

That's what I was saying when I woke up.

Mate Man was like...what?!

I told him about my dream...and he asked me if everyone was at work today.

I told him so far...but you never know, because I heard rumors that the ass...it's thinking of asking for a vacation...Oh, the nerve!

I will be at the easel all day today...

again.

This time I think I might have the top half of the work completely understood...and I am working on learning the foreground. That's hard!

I will get it, and it will be a wonderful work...when I get there.

No doubt!

Have a lovely weekend everyone...and for the love of all that is Holy...

buy some art from a living artist...

then everyone will know just how brilliant you really are.

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

Life is simple - thinking is complicated. ~Peter Cajander

Collection of innards

Collage 2006

9.5" x 11"

Mixed media on canvas board

Speaking out loud:

I am the ultimate witness. I see many things. Sometimes I want to run away from all these things. I think it’s too hard, it will never change, never, never, never change. It’s too much because I see all the small, little things that go unobserved. The little looks in the eyes, or the sarcastic tone that comes up between people. I pick up on all of it and I say, “Oh so sad,” because unfortunately they do not even realize it themselves. They are living their lives in complete reactivity. They are not really living life but being lived by life.

So this is why meditation is very important. It leads you to become a witness in the physical world so that you can perfect your character. Then you can be of service to the world by being a creature who is acting in love, compassion and kindness in the world all the time. Try it. Step out of yourselves in public and just witness; see what you see of yourself. Learn from it and challenge yourself to be a greater person today than you were yesterday by behaving from a place of complete conscious awareness and not ignorance.
Swami Sai Premananda

***

In the private sanctuary of one's own conscience lies that spirit, that determination to cast off the old person and to measure up to the stature of true potential.
Thomas S. Monson (1927 - )

***

How do you eat an elephant?

One heaping helping at a time.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

Life is a Strange School. ~Davis

Good Morning my turtledoves.

Here are the quotes that speak to my inner turmoil today:

***

"Life is a kind of game. Once you realize this, you can do lots of things, even unpleasant things, for the sake of learning and growth--without being encumbered by the weight of negativity."

~Steve Baxter

***

Ancora imparo.

Greek for "still I am learning."

***

We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure - all your life.
~John William Gardner (1912 - )

***

OK, so I just got a new commission. (Yippppeee!)

I will be painting a large work of a special rock formation in Colorado for a patron. She has bought two of my works before and this is the first time she has ever commissioned a work of art before.

I don't really "do" commissions, truthfully. I'll do one for someone that I know, one who will let me figure it out, and give me the time to do it...if I know them a little bit at least, as far as their personality goes.

I agreed because...well I have not had a lot of sales this year, and I would love to see that change...and because it's a challenge to do this work.

***I posted the blog...re-read it and then felt like I left out the important thing right here...so here it goes. ***

When I was a kid, my Father was a really talented hobby painter. I wanted to paint like him so bad that when I was little...I could feel it in my little body. It felt just like it does now, I have to paint! I HAVE TO PAINT! Ok, so my Dad was a meanie back then, and when he taught you something you had to pick it up quick, or it wasn't going to be fun anymore. At. All.

One day, I was about 12, he said he would get me my own supplies to paint with if I could show him that I had the steel to learn how to paint a landscape painting out of this learn how to paint with oils book. If I could accomplish the lesson, with some sort of talent showing through I would win the prize of being able to paint what I wanted with a butt load of supplies.

Of course, I bit.

It went really badly.

I didn't paint again for 20 years. At. All.

It was all over a freaking snow covered barn, in a wooded setting.

So, I have been presented with an opportunity to challenge myself through/and above an emotional trigger point.

Again.

Ahhh, haaa...now, I get it.

This of course is not a snow covered cabin in a wooded setting, it's a great wonder of nature and majesty. I mean at least the universe gave me something inspiring to work it out with, right? I'll get to leave it out on the rocks, so to speak.

I take the challenge

every.

single.

time.

I find that I have developed a reverse OCD about my life.

I want to heal.

If given a healthy way out...I'll take it, with a shit eating grin. "Why thank you very much, I'm going to get a whole lot out of this one!"

I feel better now, I got that out of my system.

Half the battle with the (inner) self is admitting that there is a difficult challenge ahead. Therefore, the challenge is going to be difficult, deal with it, and get over the obstacle. You have to do it, or face living between the walls, forever.

I need space baby.

I am a big person.

Big, big.

I can thank my Father in all this.

I can be grateful that he didn't teach me the lesson that he set out to do, but he did teach me how to endure the lessons of life, a life where I make the rules, with grace and grit.

So, thanks Dad.

***

I now return you to your regularly scheduled BAD! Kitty report...a stone skipping along the surface of things, but we all know that some where a stone girl is dancing.

***

I don't do landscapes, really...no, not at all. I spent my entire working life drawing, planning, planting and creating REAL landscapes for people and I just don't have the desire to learn to paint a good landscape. I love watching Bob Ross...but I don't want to paint like him. So, now I find myself looking at the need to learn and complete a new work in a matter of a couple of months time.

Did I already say that I don't do landscapes?

Oh, I did...well... er...then...

I am now teaching myself what Heather Landscape looks like.

I don't want to step outside my own style too much, I mean it has to resonate with me and what I like to do, I have to be happy while I am working. I don't mean to say that I have to be all smiles and tra-la-la while I am painting, just that I need to have a real interest in what I am doing.

So...in the effort to find my inner landscape artist...finding the inner Whoo-Hoo!, I am practicing like a mad woman. So far...I am sucking at this.

Great. No where to go but up from here, I can only get better at this.

I am secretly glad that I don't know what I am doing...I do my best work when I don't have a freaking clue.

My lovely patron gave me the space to do what I need to do...her only rule is that I don't do the painting until I "feel" the rightness of the time and the energy. She so freaking rules! I love my patrons...so far I have never had a bad apple to deal with. (7+ years now and counting, knock on wood)

Also because I don't accept commissions as a rule...I cut out a lot of worry time at the easel.

I am looking forward to the challenge...and just so you know unless I get something pretty good...I won't be showing my practice runs here. I may however reach out to my talented band of artist Friends and ask for advice and/or help. So you've been warned artist Friends...you that have training and all that jazz...you've been warned!

Well, I must get to the easel, and practice and learn.

I hope you all are being challenged in your worlds and that you embrace the day as it unfolds.

Have a great one,

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.~Emerson

" The wonder"

Laminated collage by me!

2005 (sold)
***

The major value in life is not what you get.

The major value in life is what you become.

~Jim Rohn

***

I am rich and proud of every penny I own. I made my money by my own effort, in free exchange and through the voluntary consent of every man I dealt with - the voluntary consent of those who employed me when I started, the voluntary consent of those who work for me now, the voluntary consent of those who buy my product. I shall answer all the questions you are afraid to ask me openly. Do I wish to pay my workers more than their services are worth to me? I do not. Do I wish to sell my product for less than my customers are willing to pay me? I do not. Do I wish to sell it at a loss or give it away? I do not. If this is evil, do whatever you please about me, according to whatever standards you hold. These are mine. I am earning my own living, as every honest man must. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence and the fact that I must work in order to support it. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it and do it well. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it better than most people - the fact that my work is of greater value than the work of my neighbours and that more men are willing to pay me. I refuse to apologize for my ability - I refuse to apologize for my success - I refuse to apologize for my money.

~Ayn Rand (Atlas shrugged)

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Good Friday to you all.

I woke this morning with the word value on my mind...don't know why, I just did. (Don't ask me I just work here)

So, first I went looking for some wise words on the topic of value.

Results are above.

What I got to inside my head was this:

my value (personal) is in what I do and sometimes in what I choose not to do.

I choose (more often than not) to do things my way. I have never been a follower, but also not always been a leader either. I just walk this weird middle ground of student and teacher. Like right now I am working on the large sketchbook about love for the February show. I created 11 pages (11 being a master number for creation) and I have completed about half of them.

This is the point in any large work (it's small in size but you just try to think up 11 images/works all in the same theme...it's not easy) that I usually want nothing more to do with the project.

The ideas that were at the top of my head in the beginning are done. The project now needs those valuable connective works to make the whole thing connect and flow.

So...to keep myself from becoming distracted and going back to the easel (where the art comes just a little easier most of the time) I put up this (above) work that has needed finishing for about three months. All she needs are some hands to be painted in and a little work on the sky in the background. (There's more to this painting now than is shown in this progress picture I took while I was all into the work) I'll probably never do it...because I lost interest...so she is my safe painting...to keep me on track with the current project.

Sound crazy yet?

Well...back to the value issue...I was thinking this morning about the value of my work. I was thinking about some of the old masters, and how some of them used gold and silver in their works because it would insure the works value to the art market or the patron. Then I thought, well that's not me...I don't paint or create for the sale. Then I was still wondering around in my back brain; I thought about how some artist (modern) are using their fingerprints, hair and other various body or DNA markers in their work...for the same reasons as above, monetary value later down the line. Well, that's not me either, I don't really care right now if I ever become "known". I sometimes don't even sign works because it was not about me in the first place...it was the subject matter itself that needed out of my brain/body/spirit. I never owned it in the first place.

Mate Man and I were talking the other day about the direction my work is going in. He was saying that maybe it's time for me to work on more complicated imagery. Like Dali or Picasso did...you know there is a lot going on in their works. I really did think about that for awhile. I chewed and chewed on it. I paint very simply...I like my backgrounds to be just that, in the background. I use a lot of texture and color, but it's not the focus of my work. He said he thought (and I have heard it before) that my simplistic style is very zen-like. I can and could do much more complicated work if I wanted to. Of course I could. Even when I was a landscape designer my designs were simplistic, easy and not super complicated...but beautiful. You can go through any of the gardens that I have done over the years, and they are still working. ( that's good design baby!)

You can see the wonderful Lilly or whatever because it is backed up by thoughtful background elements...see? Simplicity is my thing. I value simplicity in all things.

Plus don't ever tell me what to do...it just ain't gonna work.

Ok...so, where was I , oh yes...value.

I value the process, the learning, the inspiration, the discovery, the working itself.

I value working the most.

The act of doing/working is something that never leaves me cold.

For myself, I value the works of the masters, and living artists alike, for what they can/could do, for what I learn and feel looking at the works and the skill. I like complicated art, I really do...I just don't create it.

So, today...I am relaxing into the stress of my value system. By that I mean...I don't need to press myself into a shape or form of creation that does not come naturally to me. My system of creation is all about my path of discovery; discovery of my inner self and how that relates to the world at large. That's it.

Like I said...I am a simple person with a complicated inner world.

What of it?

The real value of my work comes when I get to interact with another being that likes, hates, gets, or sees something I've done. The look, the interaction the discussions...that's better than money (at times) to me. I like making a sale...don't get me wrong...did I hear you needed some art? *grins*

So, I am off this morning to create something that resonates with my inner world. Whatever that may be. My value is what I am.

I am.

It's pretty simple.

I am.

I do.

I create.

I bleed and breath.

I just AM.

What's your value?

Think and discuss amongst yourselves (in the comments).

Carry on!

Have a wonderful, loving weekend all...love the ones you are with...then give some of that good stuff to your inner self.

Let the heart light shine.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

Buy art from living artists, or their work will never be worth a damn when they are dead.

nuff said.

***

This is just for fun:

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That's a 59% chance of outliving the Zombie attacks folks...whew...good to know!
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