doodling with fear

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

***

working on some ideas for the Sketchbook Project. I got my book in the mail yesterday and am looking forward to doing a project that I didn't think up...just have to let the muse out of the back room with and see what happens.

Fun Stuff.

The topic: Fear.

I am going for an enlightened approach to the subject matter.

We shall see what happens from here.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

todays sketchbook page

Today's doodle:

a robot head from the front of an old sci-fi book I had once...I only liked the picture on the front, that's all I remember of it anyway.

Hope all is well in your world.

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

lookie-loo!

above: see, I told ya...goldfish!

watercolor pencils and sharpie

***

Of all created things the source is one, Simple, single as love; remember The cell and seed of life, the sphere That is, of child, white bird, and small blue dragon-fly Green fern, and the gold four-petalled tormentilla The ultimate memory. Each latent cell puts out a future, Unfolds its differing complexity As a tree puts forth leaves, and spins a fate Fern-traced, bird feathered, or fish-scaled.

~Kathleen Raine

*grins*

Gallery rejections so far:

4 out of 20

Gallery thumbs up so far:

2 out of 20 (the 20 I sent out that is)

It's maybe it'll turn out who knows what will happen stuff, but I was asked to submit more info to one and told yes for the other in 2008, Yippee!)

Not too bad!

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

I must learn what is true in order to do what is right.

above: a doodle from my sketchbook this week...now I am drawing fancy goldfish. She looks like she is in first position in a ballet class or something.

Above: Vintage post card from 1920's

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

Quotes for the day:

***

We are great fools.

"He has passed his life in idleness," we say.

"I have done nothing today."

What! Haven't you lived?

That is not only the fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations. "Had I been put in a position to manage great affairs, I would have shown what I could do."

Have you been able to think out and manage your life?

You have performed the greatest work of all.

In order to show and release her powers, Nature has no need of fortune; she shows herself equally on all levels, and behind a curtain as well as without one. To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct.

Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.

All other things, to rule, to lay up treasure, to build, are at most little appendices and props.

~Michel Montaigne (1533 - 1592)

***

To Achieve Your Dreams Remember Your ABC's:

Avoid negative sources, people, places, things and habits.

Believe in yourself.

Consider things from every angle.

Don't give up and don't give in.

Enjoy life today, yesterday is gone, tomorrow may never come.

Family and friends are hidden treasures, seek them and enjoy their riches.

Give more than you planned to.

Hang on to your dreams.

Ignore those who try to discourage you.

Just do it.

Keep trying no matter how hard it seems, it will get easier.

Love yourself first and most.

Make it happen.

Never lie, cheat or steal, always strike a fair deal.

Open your eyes and see things as they really are.

Practice makes perfect.

Quitters never win and winners never quit.

Read, study and learn about everything important in your life.

Stop procrastinating.

Take control of your own destiny.

Understand yourself in order to better understand others.

Visualize it.

Want it more than anything.

'Excellerate' your efforts.

You are unique of all God's creations, nothing can replace YOU.

Zero in on your target and go for it!

Wanda Hope Carter

***

Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine, equipped to work efficiently, if narrowly, and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position.
Robertson Davies (1913 - 1995)
Source: Tempest-Tost (1951)

***

In order for me to be my very best me...

I must continue to travel in...to find my way out.

Have a great day all,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.

The Most Perfectly timed Words evah!!!!

from Keri Smith

*one of my favorite artists*

Her blog link is also in the sidebar *wink*

Fish #1 - sharpie

Fish #2 - sharpie


Fish #3 - sharpie

Fish #4 - #2 pencil

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

Quote for the day & Sketchbook lookie-loo's

***

A little fish, overhearing a fisherman remark that water is essential to life, became panicky and swam desperately in search of water, until it reached the ocean and asked a wise old fish where it could find water. The old timer laughed and said, "Why, you've never been out of water. You've had water all the time, but you didn't know it." So it is with faith; you have it, it is with you. You simply have to realize and use it and it will grow.

~unknown

***

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.

~Ovid

***

Patience is what you require when the fish are not hungry.

~Unknown

***

"You got that look again, Alvin," said Arthur Stuart.

"What look is that?"

"Like you need to piss but you're afraid it's gonna come out in chunks."

~Orson Scott Card from:

The Crystal City

***

So it's been another busy week of work, classes and a bit more travel.

I have been carrying my sketchbook around with me to try and learn how to draw a good carp in my spare time.

The first one was evil looking so I kept going...and I think I am getting the hang of it. Scales are hard. Fins are hard. Drawing a good carp is hard.

I want to do a big carp painting...but I figured I might better look into learning how to "see" a carp first. Drawing not being one of my many (ahem) talents...I have been working on it in small doses.

I have been painting, but not much of any value is coming out right now. I am painting over some old canvas that I didn't like the original work on to keep costs down while I experiment.

This summer just has not been very productive with all the work, meeting and greeting, and travel...not to mention the classes. I am looking forward to a slower pace real soon so I can get back to me...just me.

Looking forward to the fall I guess.

Just wanted to check in with you all...share a little of what I have been doing and let everyone know I am still alive.

Well, next week should be a little slower and I hope to get back to regular blogging again.

There will be a new show going up at The Hub bookstore and cafe in Danville KY starting September 5th. The show will run for two months. It's a very cool place that is as well known for it's books and treats as it is for the fantastic art they display. So I am excited about it.

I submitted my info to another 20 galleries across the country this last week. We shall see what happens with that...maybe something good will pop.

I am off to spend a family day...and catch up on the domestic chores...

send help...or the Merry Maids.

Aieeee!

Love to all my peeps!

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream. ~ Shakespear

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

Quotes and an update:

This sense of honor is the sense of right. It is the soul's instinctive love for the good, the true, the commendable, and its instinctive scorn of the base, mean, and vile. There is a confusion between that false honor which cares only what another thinks or says, and the true personal honor which cares first for what we are. It is too true that many a man who would resent with a blow the epithet of "thief" or "liar" will lie and steal in secret apparently without a qualm of conscience. The true root of honor demands reality and hates shams. One should be taught to abhor and reject in his own heart everything which he would resent in an accusation made by another. He should learn not to tolerate in his own inner consciousness what he would fear or blush to have known to friends or foes. This is the sense of personal honor that dominates and molds character and that endures the heaviest stress of life.

~Edward O. Sisson
Source: The Essentials of Character, The Macmillan Company, 1915

***

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

***

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

~Howard Aiken
***

Hello all.

I have been buried alive in work, life and travel.

The weeks have flown by.

As a family we have been offered an opportunity recently, and as we ponder our course of action and our need/desire list, I see that life isn't ever going to be easy. Like Bruce Lee said, " Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength for a difficult one." I used to really play the pain game with these issues, these days I find that I respond to challenges with a quiet, panicky calmness.

Internally I seem to seethe and boil with the thought process...the talking to myself, my higher self about the situation at hand. I even run a low grade fever when I am processing...so that burning smell, that's just me over here thinking.

I find that these days, I am spending less time second guessing everything and everyone. Concentrating on what is right for me...then moving outward to the rest of the people in my life. Needing to know what my own feelings are well in advance of trying to then compromise an entire families needs against that inner truth.

Compromise is a total act of love.

While I think, chew and ponder this situation, this stage that I find myself in...the vault of memory gets opened to lend in the effort of uncovering truth, motivation, and resistance. The past is really so very un-useful to my needs right now. Rarely do I find myself rifling the files of past experience for answers, the answers are not in things I have done already...but lie in what will I do with what has been presented?

New work in the studio is showing my experimental side right now...and I am so easily influenced these days by the outside world.

I am having fun at the easel again. I am working on a new technique that looks promising, and just farting around with materials in general. I am working on a booking for another show in September-October 2007...I will announce that show when the details are all ironed out. I am still waiting for the results from my submission to a juried art event in November that looks really promising. That too will be announced when I get the information if I made through the process or not. Fingers crossed.

I was accepted/joined the Sketchbook Project and will soon begin that huge undertaking for a really fun large scale event. I am looking forward to opening my new sketchbook and diving into the topic of fear. When all 500 books are displayed it should be quiet powerful in it's statements.

Fun right?

I may be prone to bouts of morbidity right now,

so...let's just enjoy it shall we?

I hope you all are well and good in your lives.

I leave you today with this thought that was a recent topic on Zaadz:

If you had an extra hour today, how would you spend it?

I would paint uninterrupted while listening to my favorite music up really loud, drinking a Bloody Mary and dancing...yeah baby...don't forget the dancing.

Yours today

Raw & Radiant,

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

The Divine Intervention

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

The Divine Intervention Show (click on image to enlarge)

Here's the video invite to the show, it's super great!!!

if you can't see the video invite from this blog then go here.

Pay me for my work but I don't do it for the money.

( I found this image who knows when...and I don't know who the artist is, sorry about that. I love it so much though I wanted to share...if you know who this wonderful artist is, please let us all know and I will link and document)

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

Quotes about Work:

***

(The quote in the title of this post)~Vanna Bonta

***

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play.... He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.

~James Michener

***

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.

~Eckhart Tolle

Source: The Power of Now : A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

***

The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter.

~Morihei Ueshiba

***

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.

~George Bernard Shaw

***

Don't help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don't work for my happiness, my brothers (and sisters)-show me yours-show me that it is possible-show me your achievement-and the knowledge will give me the courage for mine. Mallory (the young artist) to Roark in "The Fountainhead"

~Ayn Rand

***

I hope everyone is having a good work week.

I am swamped right at the moment, hence my not blogging this last few days.

The day, she beckons me to work...and I needed to get the old brain pan fired up with useful stuff before I set my shoulders and get through the day with love as my motivation and not resignation. Love is so much more fun, and profitable.

Don't you think?

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

Buy some art today...feed your soul.

Art is not just some guy's name. ~Yow

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

(above) Interaction

oils and plaster on canvas

(sold)

Quotes for Friday:

***

I bought a ticket on Airline Bizarre . . . a one-way round-trip ticket. . . . You leave any Monday and they bring you back the previous Friday. . . . that way, you still have the weekend.

~Steven Wright

***

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like. I have prepared one of my own. I have placed some rather large samples of dynamite, gunpowder, and nitroglycerin. My time capsule is set to go off in the year 3000. It will show them what we are really like.

~Alfred Hitchcock (1899 - 1980)

***

What is REAL? asked the Rabbit one day. Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle? Real isn't how you are made, said the Skin Horse. It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with but really loves you, then you become real. Does it hurt? asked the Rabbit. Sometimes, said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. When you are Real you don't mind being hurt. Does it happen all at once like being wound up, he asked, or bit by bit? It doesn't happen all at once, said the Skin Horse. You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints, and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

~Source: The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

***

What is real? Me. My Work. My life.

What does real mean for you today?

***

Oldest son turns 18 today.

I started really feeling alive the day he ripped his way into the world.

I held that 9 pounds of flesh and breath,

and felt truly alive for the first time.

I was someones Mother...and I vowed to be the best, give the best, create the best world for him to live in that I could.

Instead he taught me what it means to be imperfect, wrong, and very tired.

He taught me what it means to be REAL.

He taught me that I need not be perfect, right, and full of energy at all times

in order to be my best. He taught me that there is more to life than being perfect. He taught me that life is what you make of it, if you are only brave enough to stick around, stick it out and lay it on the line.

He taught me what it means to be

REAL.

Happy Birthday Oldest child, I am proud that you are my son.

I love you more than words will ever be able to express.

I hope your day is fantastic.

***

Today...nothing but work and more work...and then we light the fuse, let it burn and blow this Popsicle stand to bits for the weekend.

Today I celebrate being

the ultimate definition

of

a modern

creative expression.

What are your plans?

Have a happy Friday one and all,

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. ~Degas

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

(above) The Moon and the Magic Man

2005 (sold)

Quote(s) for today:

The more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.
~ Brian Tracy

***


If the world were extremely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. That makes it hard to plan the day.

~William Allen White


***


You desire a popular art? Begin by having a "people" whose minds are liberated, a people not crushed by misery and ceaseless toil, not brutalized by every superstition and every fanaticism, a people of itself, and victor in the fight that is being waged today.


~Romain Rolland (1866 - 1944)


***

I am sure that I am going to explode. Heather Pie all over the walls. I might be having a wee bit of stress...you think?
It's all good...really. I have not been sleeping well and work is overwhelming me...and the art is taking a back seat to my daily life, and lemme tell you, I feel crazy when I can't work in the studio.
CRAZY I say!
OY!
***
So anyway, over at Zaadz I joined the Zpro part of the site. It gives me a bunch of great business tools, my favorite so far is the newsletter. I will have my first newsletter real soon! I sent out opt-in emails last night...and then got to work on creating my first newsletter. I hope to have it out in less than a week. Some of you may have already gotten your opt-in email from me...but if you have not and would like to sign up, just click here and hit subscribe. I plan to make it a fun romp every month. I am also looking for volunteers to be interviewed once a month for that part of the NL (newsletter)...so if you would like to be promoted in my NL, just email me HERE.
Well that's about all for today folks,
I have to move and groove and shake the earth.
Love with Rockets to you all,
Heather
www.badkittyartstudio.com
OK...just buy some art today, if not from me, than from another living artist that resonates with you. (there are many wonderful artists in my side bar...pick one! Or just let it be me. :)

You owe it to us all to get on with what you're good at. ~Auden

New Work in progress...

Plaster, oils and vintage coasters (1950's)

20" x 16"

Let me just say I am sorry for the crappy pictures...they look really great in person, I'll try for better ones soon.

Effigy Doll work in progress...pre-resin.
16" x 20"
Oils

***

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

Quotes for the day:

***

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting

You only have to let the

soft animal of your body love what it loves.

~Mary Oliver

***

The question of good and evil will always be one of philosophy's most intriguing problems, up there with the problem of existence itself...If evil means to be self motivated, to be the center of one's own universe, to live on one's own terms, then every artist, every thinker, every original mind, is evil.

Because we dare to look through our own eyes rather than mouth cliches lent us from the so-called Fathers.

To dare to see is to steal fire from the Gods.

This is mankind's destiny, the engine with fuels us as a race.

~Janet Finch

Source: White Oleander

***

I suggest that sufficiency is precise. Enough is a place you can arrive at and dwell in. So often we think of "abundance'" as the point at which we'll know we've really arrived, but abundance continues to be elusive if we think we'll find it in some excessive amount of something. True abundance does exist; it flows from sufficiency, in an experience of the beauty and wholeness of what is. Abundance is a fact of nature. It is a fundamental law of nature, that there is enough and it is finite. Its finiteness is no threat; it creates a more accurate relationship that commands respect, reverence, and managing those resources with the knowledge that they are precious and in ways that do the most good for the most people.

~Source: The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life, Page: 86

***

Monday again...and I have so many things to get done this week. Three paintings are going into the Divine Intervention show in Fort Collins Colorado. The three paintings have to be prepared...I have been so busy that I am now behind schedule...Aaaiieee!

Oldest son turns 18 at the end of the week...I can't believe that I have a child that is now a legal adult. OY! I have to get his stuff out to him too...I wish we could spend the day together...I miss him so much. It's wonderful that we are now working on our relationship and it's getting so much better. It makes me so very happy to be able say simple things like I love you, and hear it back too! What a gift my Men are in my life.

Art wise...I have been working on some new things, my effigy doll...(above). Cynthia and Jafabrit and maybe by now some others, and I are all doing an effigy doll thing...it's great fun doing a project like this with other crazy talented artists...so check theirs out too. If you would like to join in on the fun, drop one of us a line and let us know...the more the merrier I think. I also have been working on a plaster and mixed media work that is very fun...I am fully addicted to resin right now, it may be the fumes. I want to cover everything in layers of resin...I have been playing with adding inks, pigments and floaty things to the resin in different stages of it's curing phase. What I have manged to do mostly is waste a lot of product, make a huge mess and also...had success! So now I am going to add it all together and see what happens. I feel like a mad scientist and it's too much damn fun I tell you.

I must get busy with my day...16 clients for coaching, the art to prepare for the upcoming two openings I have scheduled and marketing, marketing, marketing.

Then there is of course my daily Mom duties, the errand running, and gift wrapping and shipping.

*sigh*

I am tired already.

Have a good one everyone!

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

Better World Books= Book Heaven

UPDATE! I now have a 20% off coupon for all of you to use too! (Keep Reading)

BAD! Kitty Hot Tip!

So... this is my favorite book provider, the secret is out. I go to Better World Books with $20.00 bucks in my pocket, find any book, and I do mean any book...and get free shipping every single time, and still have enough left over for a cup of joe!

No coupons...no special codes...no waiting, just great books at a great price, every time. I love this bookstore, and I thought you might like to know about it too.

Check it out.

I also love Better World Books because they are a company that walks the walk...they Fund Literacy, Care for the Environment, and YOU get a Fair Price on the Books You Want. Better World Books is the socially conscious consumer's bookstore of choice.

As a company they have my vote.

Stop by, you know you have a list of books you've been meaning to pick up...we all do...you can even look through their over 2 million, in stock, used and out of print books...aaaahhhh, can we say BAD! Kitty heaven?

Just hit the link and check it out, I also put a banner in my sidebar...(for when you need it later on. :)

I just bought these books today:

Bloodchild and Other Stories-Octavia Butler (Yippee a new Octavia book...it's mine I say!)

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams (I know I can't believe that I have not read this yet either)

The Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker,

Volume VI (Alvin Maker) by Orson Scott Card (OOOh, can't wait I love this series!)

Masterpieces:

The Best Science Fiction of the 20th Century

by Orson Card (Fun!!! a whole book of greats!)

all for less than $30.00 bucks and Free Shipping!

WOOT! Read on fellow bookies...read on.

***

This coupon code is for 20% off any new or used book at BetterWorld.com from now through August 3rd.

Here is the coupon code YOU will need:

GIMME20

***

Now what can be better? Just find ANY book you want, get 20% off, free shipping and donate to several great charities all at the same time.

Who loves you baby?

Me, silly!

My books I bought yesterday where from the sale...and will be helping send books to Africa and supporting a children's literacy fund!

On your mark, get set...GO Read!

I am different from ordinary people

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

Quotes for the day

***

“Continue in the direction of the Pyramids”, said the alchemist.

“And continue to pay heed to the omens.

Your heart is still capable of showing you where the treasure is.”
“Is that the one thing I still need to know?”
“No”, the alchemist answered.

“What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way.

It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert,

one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.’
“Every search begins with beginner’s luck.

And every search ends with the victor’s being severely tested.”

~Paulo Coelho

***

What?

You’re thinking for yourself?

You’re deciding on your own?

You’re applying your own yardsticks, your own judgments, your own values?

Who do you think you are, anyway?

And, indeed, that is precisely the question you are answering.

~Neale Donald Walsch

***

I have just been asked to do a new large commission...4 paintings! I am excited by the project, for one because when asked to paint for someone else, as an artist I have to get myself into that place in my head; that place where it is empty of my own directives, desires and thoughts. To paint someone Else's vision I need to be emptied out. This is perfect timing, I am already empty...so therefore at my most useful point for this work. I don't have to struggle to attain that state...I am there already...and I am grateful for that. What a gift, to find yourself ready for something new and then the gift of an opportunity arrives with bells on.

So, that's some kinda fun!

I have my new effigy doll coming along...I want to mount it on a canvas then drown it all in resin. That'll be fun. I will take some pictures soon when I get to a point that the project feels like it makes some visual sense.

The day has started without me...I must go get with the program.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

Support Living Artists

Buy some of MY art today! :)

One faces the future with one's past. ~ Pearl S. Buck

BAD! Kitty Art Studio
Quote for the day
***

We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are.

Sane or insane.

Saints or sex addicts.

Heros or victims.

Letting history tell us how good or bad we are.

Letting our past decide our future.

Or we can decide for ourselves.

And maybe it's our job to invent something better.

~Chuck Palahniuk

***
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
***
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
***
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
***
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-- Robert Frost
***
Living with purpose and passion is based upon decision. You may choose to live day after day, one after another, in a completely ordinary existence. OR you can choose to greet each day with a possibility mindset.

A purposeful mindset.

A Passionate mindset.

Begin each day with these questions and be amazed.
***
1. Why is it important for me to engage myself in my work passionately and purposefully each day?
***
2. How will I choose to allow my attitude effect how I address stressful situations at work today? How can I be more affective and proactive in regards to stress and attitude?
***
3. When am I most likely too react with the most passion and purpose today? Meeting with clients? Working on my computer? Following up on a lead? Take note of what makes your passion come alive, so you can use it to better your work performance.
***
4. Where within the organization am I best able to express my passion and purpose? Is it working with my peers? My supervisors? Clients? Interdepartmentally? Where physically do I perform the most purposefully?
***
5. With whom do I need to spend time in order to maintain balance as I pursue my passion and purpose? Within the organization, who best supports me?
***
6. What choices will I make today that align my purpose and passion with the tasks at hand at work?
***
7. Who am I called to be today as an expression of my passion for living?
***
By Julie Jordan Scott
5passions.com
***

Happy Monday everyone. Another week...another day to discover the art of living well. I am off to work, on the road, and holding it all together

with band-aids and duct tape. Whew!

Have a wonderful day...

keep the faith.

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

What is inspiring me today

Travel Photography by

Steve Underwood

***

Check this site out, it has some of the most beautiful images from around the world that I have ever seen. I am soaking up these images, they inspire the wonder-lust and feed my soul this morning.

Enjoy!

Have a great day,

Heather

PS: Please scroll down a post or two and

vote for my art in the Saatchi Showdown (or just hit the link from here!)

Thank you. :)

www.badkittyartstudio.com

My art in the Showdown

Big Red Tree

36" X 48" x 2"

Oils

***

Well I have entered this work into the Saatchi Gallery Showdown and I would love it if you would stop by and vote for me if you would...please. :)

The link is below.

Have a great day,

Heather

Oh, btw...thanks!

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/showdown/index.php?showpic=27033

The degree to which you accept your limitations determines the degree to which you find you're unlimited. ~Unknown

Bad Kitty Art Studio

News Flash!

I AM PAINTING TODAY!

the flood gates are re-open!

woot!

***

Thanks for ripping my heart out.

After the initial pain of removal subdued,

I noticed that it got a chance to breathe new air.

Now that I took it back and placed it back in,

it works better than ever.

-- ahhhhh

~Luther Lotz

***

Your unrest is the last cramp in your legs

as you climb this mountain.

Rest awhile, if you like.

But do not return to your old house.

It is not your home any longer.

~ Shyamananda

***

"I believed in belief, for its own shining sake.

To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe-what other choice was there?

We do it every day, I realized.

We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics.

To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life,

that there is no remedy for our basic mortality,

that is a form of bravery."

"To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in the treatment, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing, I decided. It had to be."

"Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day.

And it will beat you.

I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world,

how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism.

Dispiritedness and disappointment, these are the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday.

I knew now why people fear cancer:

because it is a slow and inevitable death,

it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit...

So, I believed.

Cancer taught me a plan for more purposeful living, and that in turn taught me how to train and to win more purposefully.

It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things-whether health or a car or an old sense of self-has its own value in the scheme of life.

Pain and loss are great enhancers."

~Lance Armstrong

***

Thank you for ripping my heart out.

Your unrest is the last cramp in your legs

as you climb this mountain.

I believed in belief,

for it's own shinning sake.

Pain and loss are

great enhancers.

That is all.

Keep the faith,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.~Deming

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

More quotes that represent my current state of mind.

***

We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choiceless-ness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed. In the end, forming our own destiny is what ambition is about.

~Joseph Epstein

***

And yet, within her anxiety, secured there like a gemstone, she carries the cool and curious power of occasionally being able to see the world vividly. Clarity bursts upon her a spray of little stars. She understands this, and thinks of it as one of the tricks of consciousness; there is something almost luxurious about it.. The narrative maze opens and permits her to pass through. She may be crowded out of her own life -- she knows this for a fact and has always know it -- but she possesses, as a compensatory gift, the startling ability to draft alternative versions.

~Carol Shields

Source: The Stone Diaries

***

It's been a long, a long time coming But I know a change is gonna come.

~Sam Cooke

***

So many thoughts these last couple of days...brain over load. I feel like there is a crack forming under my feet...and I am just sitting and watching it grow.

I have no fear of it...it's just change...yes, it's change once again, an old friend.

I know that this break in the flow of art is important to see through.

I am looking for something, I am getting ready to grow and change again.

I am simmering...comfortably for the moment. Content to see how it happens, this metamorphosis, this growth...this simple change.

What will my interior landscape

look like when I can see it again clearly?

What views, what heights or depths will the work flow from then?

It's intriguing to be sure...

I'll keep you posted.

I hope you day is infused with

energy and light.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

Being a human is quite the ride. I'm keeping my knees flexed these days.

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

Quotes that reflect what's on my mind:

The world has a way of giving what is demanded of it. If you are frightened and look for failure and poverty, you will get them, no matter how hard you may try to succeed. Lack of faith in yourself, in what life will do for you, cuts you off from the good things of the world. Expect victory and you make victory. Nowhere is this truer than in business life, where bravery and faith bring both material and spiritual rewards.

~Dr. Preston Bradley

***

Positive thinking by itself does not work. Your embodied vision, partnered with vibrant and energetic thinking, and balanced with active listening - will clear the path for your Miracles.

~Sumner Davenport

***

If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

~Vincent Van Gogh

***

If you want to something you've never had, you're going to have to try something you've never done.

Nuff Said.

Have a grand day,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

If you keep doing things like you've always done them, what you'll get is what you've already got.

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

Quote for today:

There is a glorious pattern for every man's life, an individual, perfect patter. No two people are alike . . . No two leaves are alike-no two snowstorms-no two sets of fingerprints. No two lives are alike, yet each life holds a divine pattern of unfoldment, a great and holy destiny, rich in achievement and honor. As you live true to the pattern of yourself, that deep, inner self, you will unfold as perfect, as joyous, as naturally beautiful as the tree will reach its full measure of fulfillment. No one can keep you from reaching your highest destiny if you will follow your own true pattern of life. No one can live your life for you, for only you hold the key to your own pattern of sublime, glorious, complete fulfillment. Such is the destiny written in the soul of every man and woman who comes to earth. None are without it, that completely individual highway of full expression and glorious achievement.

~Analee Skarin

I am so busy today...

So just have a good one.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

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

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

Quote for the day...and a front line report.

***

I want to do the right thing, but often I don't know just what the right thing is. Every day I know I have come short of what I would like to have done. Yet as the years pass and I see the very world itself, with its oceans and mountains and plains, as something unfinished, a peculiar little satisfaction hunts out the corners of my heart. Sunsets and evening shadows find me regretful at task's undone, but sleep and the dawn and the air of the morning touch me with freshening hopes. Strange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don't worry about my destiny.

~ Carl Sandburg

***

Today the world is the victim of propaganda because people are not intellectually competent. More than anything the United States needs effective citizens competent to do their own thinking.

~Dr. William Mather Lewis

***

How queer everything is today! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, "Who in the world am I?" Ah, that's the great puzzle!

~ Lewis Carroll

***

Just another magic Monday.

I have been working on many things...not many of them art though.

We took the boys bowling yesterday. It was great fun...even if my arthritis is worse today in my painting hand...whatever...my boys were laughing, playing, and really just happy for no reason other than we were together and having fun.

Then we went and played in the arcade there...I'm better at bowling than video games, which isn't saying much.

Fun stuff lemme tell you. :)

They make the world go round for me...all my boys.

I am experiencing a lull in creative juice. I am still not buying any new canvas until I have finished these unfinished works...but I don't really want to finish them...I put them on the easel and then they just sit there...mocking me.

AAaiiieee!

I have been working so much in the day job (intuitive life coaching)...that most days I just don't have any get up and go left at the end of the work day. With the boys being home from school, the day job... keeping up with the house, food preparations (OMG those boys do nothing but eat these days)

and remaining hopeful about the work I am doing for marketing...it's wearing me out I tell you.

I have been watching the news again...the debates...Colen Powell on Meet the Press...ARGH! Someone send help...I am watching the friggin news! I can't seem to stop myself...I know I can't trust anything that is coming through the boob tube...but I seem to be doing it anyway.

Send help...really...I have started talking back to the TV...that's a good sign that I am loosing my grip...or just becoming OLD. I had a ten minute yelling match with the TV yesterday...I don't think I got my point across. Stupid TV.

Mate Man and I celebrated 12 years together last week. We both love books... so we went to the used bookstore and dropped 40 bucks on new books.

In the past 4 days...I have managed to read three new books...hhhmmm I wonder if that has anything to do with the artwork not getting done?

NAAAhhhh...no way.

So far I have read:

Wild Seed - Octavia Butler (wonderful I loved it!)

Enchantment- Orsen Scott Card (OMG...not my favorite Card book)

and

She's come undone- Wally Lamb (it's OK but not as good as This much I know is true...it's kind of depressing really)

It's so much fun to buy new books...I live to gobble words.

Well...I just wanted to check in with everyone...let you know I am still breathing, kicking the tires...and moving forward while standing still.

Have a great week.

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

The will to do, the soul to dare. ~Sir Walter Scott

BAD! Kitty Art Studio

Quotes for the day

***

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

~Theodore Roosevelt

***

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

***

I am the master in my fate; I am the captain of my soul.

~W.E. Henley

***

I have not been feeling the call of my blog of late. Life isn't always full of stories to tell and I have been tired a lot of late. I think I am taking a break from the blog for right now...I need to concentrate on my work and myself for a bit...so I may not post as often for a little while. The computer is not getting my work done or meeting my emotional needs at the moment...so I step back and let life happen...enjoy the ride as much as possible and take it as it comes.

These are the quotes that I will be working with today in studio, inspiration for the journey ahead.

I hope that you enjoy them too.

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

Ten things Meme

The Ten Things Meme

***

OK I got tagged again for another Meme...I am really going to have to bow out of any of these in the future...otherwise I will have nothing left to say soon!

1. 
   

   I have a glass chin. There is a spot on the underside of the point of my chin that if knocked or bumped will knock me out. KO...lights out. All of my kids at least once has head butted me as a baby and knocked me out.




2. 
   
   I drink a gallon of water a day.




3. 
   
   I have been married twice. The first time at 19, it lasted less than one year. Now to Mate Man...we will celebrate our 12th year married this June the 6th.




4. 
   
   I hate to see bare uncovered windows at night. It freaks me out...entirely.




5. 
   
   When I was a child I really believed I could levitate, and I know I did do it...still to this day.




6. 
   
   I don't like other peoples feet...I don't want them touching me with them...eeewww.




7. 
   
   I am legally blind in my right eye because a small stroke I had delivering baby #2. Funny thing is...I have really poor low-light vision in the left eye and really good low-light vision in the right eye now...I used to have trouble in the dark, now I have night vision in my right eye...I keep things a little on the dark side in my living environment and I can see pretty darn good. After I memorize my surroundings...I can walk in the complete dark and still see the outlines of stuff. It's pretty cool actually.




8. 
   
   I will not eat Pork products at all...but I love the smell of bacon cooking.




9. 
   
   I have a birth mark on my upper right thigh that looks like a pig smoking a cigar.




10. 
    
    I can't watch Fear Factor when they eat the gross stuff, it makes me gag.

OK that's my ten. I will not be tagging anyone, if you want to tag yourself...let us know and we will all go read your ten things.

Have a great Friday everyone...only 8 more hours to Friday Happy Hour...this week it's...

Frozen Fuzzy Navels! WhooHoo!

www.badkittyartstudio.com