Journal Page Creations...Day 88

Journal Page Creations -- Day 88: Creative Juices

Creative juices. There are days when the well is dry. There are days when what I produce doesn't match what I feel. There are days when I want to hide my head in the sand. There are days when I want to fly. Being creative is staying in the moment, tossing everything up in the air and seeing where the pieces land. Stay in the flow, young Skywalker!

Journal Page Creations...Day 88

Journal Page Creations -- Day 88: Free Your Color

There are days when I just wish I had the guts to do something like this -- radically alter my image -- not think twice about it -- just go for it!

What would it feel like to not hesitate? To just feel my mane blowing in the wind?

Custom Oriel Pendants

My friend and dance instructor Doree Clark (check out Stage Dor) commissioned me to make a custom oriel pendant with her poodle companion Jo Jo on the front, and a jazz dancer on the back. This was difficult only in that Jo Jo is all black, including her eyes, so it is the rare photo in which you can see Jo Jo's eyes and especially her pink tongue! This was a picture of her as a puppy when Doree's husband Paul surprised her with this little bundle of joy. And that is exactly what Jo Jo is to Doree -- JOY. Pink is Doree's favorite color, and so I included the pink flower background and the little dried one. The back is a photo from the film Chicago! featuring Rene Zellweger in a quintessential jazz lift, with a touch of burlesque thrown in to boot; lace ribbon, miniature pink stars, pale rose German glass glitter, and a dangle of pale pink freshwater pearls and Swavorski crystal beads finished the piece.

If you want a custom oriel pendant, just visit my Etsy Kentucky Girl Shop or email me!

Journal Page Creations...Day 87

Journal Page Creations -- Day 87: The Look and Feel of Unique

I really do love making my oriel pendants. They are unique...each one is carefully assembled, sometimes with one-of-a-kind materials, vintage photos, ribbons, embellishments. This lovely lady was an actual cigarette trading card from Mexico, one that will never be seen in this way again (happily purchased by Melissa last year, blessings to her). Each oriel is hand-soldered and the decorative solder beading is always different...like icing on cake -- it never comes out the same way twice --- giving each oriel a genuine handmade look and feel.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

The past few days have neared record temperatures -- or at least it feels like it -- well into the high 90's, low 100's here in Novato, California. I love HOT, much prefer it to cold -- although if I am walking/running, I prefer the cooler morning hours. You know it's hot if you sit down at your desk, 15 minutes later your t-shirt is wet and sweat is rolling freely, profusely down your body! There is a certain wild freedom to that!

Today I went for one of my daily walks at Deer Island, this morning it was fairly cool. The moment I set foot in the California Bay Laurel woods about fifty yards up the trail, a Red-Shouldered hawk called out to me. Just the other day I had been walking, and thinking, where are all of the hawks? Two minutes later I found this gorgeous feather, standing straight up in the woods debris. What a gorgeous feather, I wasn't sure what type of hawk it came from, but it was a big one -- the feather was 11" long. Well, once returning home I got on the computer, and after a few minutes of browsing on the internet, I realized that I was not in possesion of a hawk feather, but a wild turkey feather, another denizen of the California landscape. According to Ted Andrews (author of Animal-Speak, The Spiritual and Magical Powers of Creatures Great and Small) the turkey is sometimes called the earth eagle, and is according to Native American mythology helped to create the world. The turkey is also linked to the ancient idea of the third eye, the center for higher vision. I always enjoy seeing them grazing in the wild grasses. Last month a "flock" of females and chicks -- at least 30 chicks -- noisily wandered across the trail in front of me, with a male, tail feathers fanned, carefully keeping himself between me and his harem.

Journal Page Creations...Day 86

Journal Page Creations -- Day 86: Go with Your Own Glow

If you are a self-doubter, going with your own glow is quite a challenge. Your head gets in the way, and even if the world tells you that you are beautiful, talented, creative, it takes a monumental effort to not go with the voice of the internal critic. Banish that shrew! Send her or him to the hinterlands! Seize the moment and claim your glow -- there is no better time than now!

Journal Page Creations...Day 86

Journal Page Creations...Day 86: Lookin' Up

Yes, this is a combination to do list and assorted ramblings that I collaged over. An artsy life!

Journal Page Creations...Day 85

Journal Page Creations -- Page 85: Treasures

How silly -- she meditates and a bejeweled beet falls from the sky. Treaures come from the most unlikely places -- perhaps the things we treasure the most are common objects found in surprising places. An old kitchen chair painted a vibrant blue. A pitchfork stuck in a pile of sweet hay. A yellow dandelion that has evaded the mower and radiates yellow knee high in the sun. The soft lilac sunset that pressed upon your senses and reminds you of your youth. A mockingbird twirling in the dust. A ruby beet in a bright, green salad. Treasures to be savored.

Journal Page Creations...Day 84

Journal Page Creations -- Day 84: Diamante Citrine

There is always something that will entice you away from the path of discoveringwho you are, whether it's your job, your family, your daily to-do-list, your health, your hobbies, your pleasures. There is always something that says "Come over here....focus here." There's nothing wrong with pleasure, or beauty, or art, they are the universe's gift to us. Yet I often find myself so caught up in some job or task that when I look up, a whole day has slipped by without taking pleasure in a moment, without acknowledging the beauty in some little thing, without creating a piece of art. Is that how it's supposed to be? I don't think so....

Journal Page Creations...Day 83

Journal Page Creations...Day 83: Make It Worth Your While

I love experimenting with color. I am still a bit tentative initially, but my confidence has continued to grow over the years. For instance, here I sit at my red desk, in my yellow-walled office, with mustard and orange and red striped curtains and a floral lady's sitting chair in the corner. I have stretched myself "bigger" in this little office and taken some risks. I made it worth my while...Create with joy today and tomorrow and the next!

Journal Page Creations...Day 82

Journal Page Creations -- Day 82: Keep Telling Yourself

Keep telling yourself that you are beautiful. Keep telling yourself that you are smart. Keep telling yourself that you can do anything that you put your mind to and give your heart. Keep telling yourself that god lives within you. Keep telling yourself that life is for living and dancing with everything you've got.

Journal Page Creations...Day 81

Journal Page Creations -- Day 81: Are You Paying the Price

We pay the price everyday, every moment that we don't acknowledge who we really are...that we have the power to make decisions that create change. When we refuse to see the person in the mirror is more than just us; when we don't see that everyone is connected, when we don't recognize that the sorrows of the world exist because we allow them to...we pay the price.

The Choices We Make

A summer evening, the sunlight coming through the bedroom window. My husband lies in our bed. I lay on the floor and listen to the early evening sounds: crows cawing, sparrows chirping, mockingbirds trilling their songs of the moment. My white cat Angelina wafts into the room and brushes against my chest. She is here with me, this time is precious. The afternoon breeze comes rolling through the window -- it lifts me up and takes me to times not forgotten, very near, and yet so very far. The sunlight pierces the fenceline's Sally Holmes rose bushes outside the window, and lights the crystal beads of the curtain's hem. So seductive -- the light, the warmth, the wind -- I feel complete in the moment and yet a lingering haunting remains of what could have been. Yet the best remains and I know deep in my soul I made the right choice. And with a laugh and a wink I know that nothing is written in stone.

Number 146

Since Mexico, I notice more and more the types of numbers people put on buildings. This house number, with its warped, plastic numbers, was on the side of a roadside shed that I drive by everyday. I've been thinking about photographing this shed for over a year, it's falling apart -- the blackberry bushes are pulling it down, and I doubt it will be standing next year. And then finally, yesterday, I swerved off the road, pulled over, put on my hazard lights and jumped out of the car with my camera. I love the mustard-colored 1 x 6, the curling edges, and the dark green ivy that serves as framing. In numerology, the number 146 adds up to 2, or intuition and the universal feminine.

Journal Page Creations...Day 80

Journal Page Creations...Day 80: Going Through It Again

Journal Page Creations...Day 79

Journal Page Creations -- Day 79: Painting the Wall

My Grandfather, Jesse Scott Lindsay as a Young Man

This is an oriel pendant I created featuring my grandfather as a young man or teenager. He's probably on the farm he grew up on near the Ohio River. Here's what I wrote about him:

"...(circa 1915)-- taking a break from squirrel hunting on the family farm in Ghent, Kentucky. I love his dramatic pose -- Kentucky rifle, floppy hat drawn low on his face, and smart leather leggings. My grandfather was good looking, a cut up, and fun loving. He adored me and I adored him. He passed on to me a love of horses, horseback riding skills, and equine savvy..."

To read more about this oriel and my other custom heritage or vintage pendants, please visit my Kentucky Girl Etsy Shop!

Bouquets and Wicker

These are three small bouquets I arranged, picked fresh from our garden, sitting on a vintage wicker table my grandparents owned. I am loathe to have it stripped and repainted, because he was the last person to paint it.

Journal Page Creations...Day 78

Journal Page Creations -- Day 78: Material World

Mirror Mirror Challenge June (Extra) Wild Card

June Wild Card Mirror Mirror Challenge

I was looking at my bookshelves and thinking that I must straighten and redecorate them, and good-humoredly noticed the collection of various horse images and knicknacks. Not surprising because I owned horses and trained and rode them for over 40 years. And of course played with them as a little girl....(more)

Come join us at the Mirror Mirror Challenge -- you just need a mirror, yourself, and a camera!

Journal Page Creations...Day 77

Journal Page Creations...Day 77: But What Has Really Changed?

My main computer crashed today (sob!) -- I couldn't scan today's journal page. So I improvised and took a photo and uploaded it to my laptop. Good old-fashioned ingenuity. What really does change? I'm not sure anything really does. Yet it's part of the human condition or nature to believe that change is possible. I remember taking a human potential workshop in the 80's and being told that there is no hope. Pretty harsh, and it was one of the hardest tenants to accept. But there is a fine line to passively hoping and watching things pass you by or seizing the moment and cartwheeling into space, hoping that you land with both feet underneath you.

Pedicures and Petunias

I was sitting in my hot tub this morning and doing some stretches and admiring a pot of petunias, when I noticed my toes were the same color as the petunias. Not that anyone would be interested in my pedicure, or my feet -- but they certainly grabbed my attention for a few minutes in the early California morning sunlight. First I noticed that after many years of dancing, I can actually point my toes pretty well. This is actually a BIG DEAL -- a couple of years ago I had NO arch to speak of, and the mark of a dancer is that you have an arch and you can point your toes. So here I am in the 104 degree water and I am happy -- I am a dancer -- finally! And with that I spread my toes real wide like a duck and started laughing. LOL!!!! What a good start to the day. May you have toes that point, or at least a lovely pedicure!

Journal Page Creations...Day 76

Journal Page Creations -- Day 76: Jumping for Joy

Journal Page Creations...Day 75

Journal Page Creations -- Day 75: OOh-La-La!

Sometimes you need a sense to humor to go about your daily life. I often get too serious and judgmental about what I do or don't do or accomplish from day to day. I now know that if I can ride those moments of gloom -- just let them be -- at some point I'll be walking, no skipping, down the streets of Paris -- because I can can!!!

Journal Page Creations...Day 74

Journal Page Creations -- Day 74: A World of Beauty

I like this page (even though my handwriting is so scribbley). I like how she is wrapped in her blanket and looking into a green, hazy world. Even if it's a little murky, she is patiently waiting for that world to reveal itself. What's behind the words? And aren't words like a screen, really? Don't they often obscure and hide the truth of what's there, what's not? Maybe that's why some of us are artists -- why art appeals to so many of us -- we want to get to the essence, the truth of what's behind the words -- to a beautiful place.

My RTeeJay

My "RTeeJay"

I am always searching for text for my collages. And it's so maddening to scrounge around in the boxes and folders, trying to locate the perfect word. So a few weeks ago, I thought about how I could best organize text, and I finally decided to try keeping a journal. I will fondly call it my "RTeeJay" -- Resource Text Journal, and it will hold all of the interesting captions, phrases, words, letters that I come across, and have energy to cut or tear out of magazines, books, catalogs, etc. I'll also add pictures if I want to spice up the pages a bit (all words and no play make us girls run away....) I add just enough UHU paste glue to keep them on the pages, so they are easily removable.

Journal Page Creations...Day 73

Journal Page Creations -- Day 73: I Am a Bird Now

I find this an odd spread. But I am comfortable with oddness, always have been, always will be. I was following a green color palette, and I had only the beige stairs image. Then I discovered this bird in my stash and wham -- all of a sudden I went off in another direction. The eye came next, and then the caption. Somehow it all works for me. Like if you stare long enough and hard enough, deep into your inner sanctum, something surprising arises. I AM A BIRD NOW!

Out and About on a Sunday

Colorful, wild garage art I snapped out my car window on the way to visit my friend who lives on Mt. Tam. I wanted a picture of it so bad that I actually stopped the car in the middle of the road, backed up, and hoped no one would come around the curve as I took the picture!

A portion of a very cool, mosaic water fountain at Point Reyes Seashore National Park where I walked today with my friend Randall and her dog Hershey.

A beautiful weed on the edge of the road.
How could this be a weed????

Journal Page Creations...Day 72

Journal Page Creations -- Day 72: My Turn

What is it about vampires that is so alluring? I must have the series True Blood on my mind, because this spread seems slightly vampiric, what with her dark, purply eyes and bare throat and the bloodlike path of the golden liquid.Vampires captured my imagination back in the late seventies. I saw a BBC production starring Louis Jourdan as Dracula, and I just sort of had a bout of temporary insanity. I mean, really, what is it about being willing to give your heart, soul, and life up for some guy? And a pale one with sharp teeth and a huge appetite for your blood -- really!!! Nevertheless the strings of my heart were plucked and they loudly reverberated when I found a used copy of Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire. That sealed it for me. I think over a span of a couple of years, I collected over 100 books, novels, and comic books on vampires! A little obsessive, don't you think? I sold my collection a number of years ago, and then all of a sudden vampires are the rage: True Blood with its mind-reading Sookie Stackhouse and her vampire lover, Bill Comptom, piqued my interest again. Then Twilight and the Stephanie Meyers series showed up with its young lovers (one a vampire, one a mere mortal, very Romeo and Juliet), and I was hooked again. Who would have thought it!

Journal Page Creations...Day 71

Journal Page Creations -- Day 71: I'll Never Forget That Day

Which day is that, I ask? There are so many of them, they blur together. How can I name just one? How about the day I rode a retired Olympic horse in Russia? Or the day I found a huge hunk of beautiful, pink crystallized coral fossil in a Kentucky creek bed? Or the night I captured enough glowing fireflies in a mason jar to light up my bedroom late into the night? Or the morning I woke up to find two kittens in my childhood bed softly mewing? Or my first kiss underneath a bush on a muggy summer night? Or the day I "heard" my horse-to-be tell me his real name? Or the snowy night where I saw my destiny? There are so many of them, like jewels, or paper cranes strung on a chain. I have been so lucky. How about you?

Journal Page Creations...Day 70

Journal Page Creations -- Day 70: Exhale and Relax

One of my favorite things to do as a child was to go out in my grandparents' backyard, lie on my back, and stargaze. What was out there in that great black spinning void? I would try to see the images in the constellations, but no matter how hard I tried, I could never see a dog, a queen, or Pegasus. Yet it didn't worry me -- it was comforting to lose myself in the bigness, the sparkly blackness, as the air cooled around me, and the grass became wetter, and the crickets and cicadas became louder and louder....Instead of feeling small and insignificant, I would get bigger and bigger. I need to remember that feeling, as I rush about my day.

Mindfulness in a Feather, Part of the Whole

Often when I am walking on Deer Island I am aware -- I don't know quite how to describe it -- I am aware of my surroundings "peripherally." It may take me a few minutes of walking to rid my mind of its thoughts, but I gradually settle in to being aware of the whole -- a combination of sounds, (jays squawking, hawks calling, pipits chattering, grass heads popping, twigs crunching), colors (browns of the trail, golds of the grasses, green of the leaves), or sensations (temperature of the air, how bright or overcast it is, the weight of my feet hitting the path, sweat trickling down my chest, hair blowing in the wind). I guess I could say that I mostly walk with a sense of feeling -- I feel someone moving through and around and about as a part of the whole. I guess that's very zen -- it can be very much a meditative state. Often animals or objects will appear and grab my attention. And for a very brief moment they and I am still part of the whole -- until my focus lingers too long on that animal or object. So I stop and take it in. And then I start moving again. Today the Island's gift to me was a hawk feather, on the ground in the woods, blowing back and forth in the breeze. How beautiful, how charming, how mindful.

Journal Page Creations...Day 69

Journal Page Creations...Day 69: Imagine If Intelligence

I am struck by this caption: "Imagine if intelligence had its own intoxicating aroma..." I am not sure why I chose it for this spread. As most artists, I often don't think when I put spreads together. I am usually choosing an image or two because I like them, they speak to some part of me in some way, or they have an inherent beauty, or the colors are appealing, or they pose an unnamed question or statement. Intelligence, or the use of it, is highly overrated, don't you think? I think it's best to stay out of your head, out of the the analyzing, the categorizing, the judging. Treat your mind as if it was an aroma, a sensation. And then take in all of the other physical senses, all of your perceptions, and let something arise out of that. It might not be pretty, but it will be authentic!

Out and About in Novato

Had a half hour to spend while waiting for a tire to be fixed, so I walked the streets of the little town I live in Northern California. I just love the local flower shop on Grant Street -- besides having beautiful flower arrangements, it's as if you are walking into a retro vintage antique store -- flowers on top of suitcases, vintage aprons hanging from the ceiling, a green counter top out of a grocery store from the 20's, a lady's white vanity. You just walk into this shop and you feel sooo good! Can I take home everything?

Journal Page Creations...Day 68

Journal Page Creations -- Day 68: The Bling Is the Thing

From my Kentucky Girl Oriel Biz Journal

Glue Pots, Cut Crystal and an Old Key

Glue Pots Scenario, originally uploaded by beautiful my mane.

Some Things I Love in My Studio:

• A cut crystal glue pot with engraved silver handle/camel's hair brush that belonged to my great-grandmother

• An old brass key that belonged to my mother

• A newspaper clipping from the late 1800's of my great-grandmother

• A fat, round vintage glue pot with a black wooden top/horse hair brush that I found in an antique store near my home

• A cloisonne disc showing a woman brushing her hair

• A 3-D reliquary that I made last year

Click on the photo to see the complete image!

Journal Page Creations...Day 67

Journal Page Creations -- Day 67: Birds of a Feather

Journal Page Creations...Day 66

Journal Page Creations -- Day 66: Divine Inspiration

Featuring Sacred Journey Oriel Pendant: Remember

Mirror Mirror Challenge: June

If you are interested in joining the Mirror Mirror Challenge, just email me!

Journal Page Creations...Day 65

Journal Page Creations...Day 65: Bouquet

Journal Page Creations...Day 64

Journal Page Creations -- Day 64: Marvel

Journal Page Creations -- Day 64: Surprise Me

Two new pages from my Kentucky Girl Biz Journal

Journal Page Creations...Day 63

Journal Page Creations -- Day 63: Masai Mara Dreams