Blog Feed: The Unfolding Moment

From there to here, and beyond

Published on 2012-05-19 07:07:00

I attended a day-long retreat this week where I enjoyed the gift of spacious silence for reflecting on my creative path—how I got here and where I'm headed. I created this sketchbook spread:I also made an aspiration card that sums up many of my life principles. You can see it on the Bent Tuba Studio blog. > read more

Adventures with Tina the Tuba

Published on 2012-02-21 19:15:00

I'm so pleased to announce the birth of Bent Tuba Studio - art workshops for adults in Greensboro, NC. The first class will happen March 17, and registration is open until March 10. And if you're wondering about the tuba, you'll want to read this: The Tale of Tina the TubaI've also been dabbling in the Sketchbook Challenge. More of my sketchbook images, like the one shown here, will be posted soon at the Bent Tuba blog. I hope you'll play along! > read more

Rest is not the opposite of action.

Published on 2012-01-03 17:19:00

Photo by shikeroku (used under Creative Commons license)Sometimes my fallow periods are filled with resistance: I want something specific to happen and it's just not happening (yet), leading me to recognize that things are still germinating. At other times, lying fallow is a deliberate choice that I make.Six months ago I received two devastating pieces of news within a few days of each other, and the nature of my circumstances led me to choose rest as the best course of action. It's as if I were [..] > read more

Metamorphosis

Published on 2011-08-31 09:31:00

I created this mixed media collage/assemblage, titled Metamorphosis, to donate to the "Art Lives Here" silent auction fundraiser for Hirsch Wellness Network, which provides creativity workshops to cancer survivors and caregivers. This piece is a diptych that incorporates tea and coffee stains, vintage pattern paper, ink, image transfer, magazine collage elements, and found objects.A few detail views:Some of the other art works to be featured can be previewed at the "Art Lives Here" auction Flick [..] > read more

On the creative process

Published on 2011-08-22 11:07:00

1. "Just being at the piano – egoless – is to reach that place where the only thing that exists is the sound and moving toward the sound. The music on the page that was outside of you is now within you, and moves through you; you are a channel for the music, and play from the center of your being. Everything that you have consciously learned, all of your knowledge, emanates from within you... You are at one with yourself and the act, and feel as if the playing has already happened and you a [..] > read more

Sketching mindfulness.

Published on 2011-08-10 10:56:00

I started a new sketchbook. A record of liminal space.Making marks / old friends in a new space: seeds and mandalas.Finding one thing to love in a place I don't want to be: crooked lamp in a waiting room.Seeing the sky: clouds.A breath, and a breath, and a breath. That's what I know. > read more

Scenes from the studio.

Published on 2011-05-28 21:56:00

I love, love, love having a studio space again. This one is finally really starting to feel like home, and I look forward every weekend to my studio time and the corresponding (almost physical) act of stepping back into my artist identity.The followi > read more

Postcard exchange: Everyday mandalas

Published on 2011-04-12 07:08:00

Here are just a few of the 25 art postcards I've made for the international postcard exchange hosted by Art Therapy Without Borders. All made with love and delight in my new studio space.My weekday schedule has become very busy now that I'm being sup > read more

On being enough.

Published on 2011-03-08 19:38:00

Lately I've been experimenting with what I think of as everyday mandalas. You can see one of them at Tracey Clark's I Am Enough blog where I am today's guest blogger (and artist). > read more

Or is it more?

Published on 2011-02-02 21:11:00

I'm keeping a visual journal as a form of professional processing. This is what showed up this week.is this my same broken-open heartor is it more?more brokenmore openIt's an echo of process work I was doing in 2007 during my first year of graduate s > read more

Be your own lifeboat.

Published on 2011-01-09 16:26:00

I began this blog nearly two years ago, in a place of transition and unknowns, just before graduating from my master's program in Colorado and moving 2000 miles back to the Southeast. For the past 18 months since the move, I've struggled to maintain > read more

Reverb10: Letting Go

Published on 2010-12-05 20:59:00

This month I'm participating in Reverb10 with creative responses to daily prompts as a reflection on the year. I'll be including some of my written and/or art responses here.Today's prompt: What (or whom) did you let go of this year?I can't see > read more

Reverb10: One Word

Published on 2010-12-01 09:07:00

This month I'm participating in Reverb10 with creative responses to daily prompts as a reflection on the year. I'll be including some of my written and/or art responses here.Today's prompt asks us to choose one word to summarize 2010, then cons > read more

How can I keep from singing?

Published on 2010-11-19 15:06:00

It sometimes happens that when I have a strong drive to express something, it seems impossible to name or describe that thing. Or vision, feeling, experience... I don't even have the right word to categorize its very thingness. I can't tell you, with > read more

Happy colors and happy news.

Published on 2010-10-31 08:15:00

Among many things that are bringing me happiness this week, here are three of them.Thing 1:My fiber art piece "Circle the Ring Again" (shown above) was included in Patti Digh's book Creative is a Verb as an illustration for Patti's essay of the same > read more

Meantime.

Published on 2010-10-25 09:52:00

This time last year, I was ruminating about how I'm always surprised by the advent of autumn and all of its emotional connotations. Now, although many of the small details have shifted in a year's time, none of the big questions have been resolved. I > read more

Small and simple: ATCs on a theme

Published on 2010-08-30 10:30:00

Here are the ATCs I created for the Art Therapy Alliance swap, "Collage Unleashed." Each of my four ATCs features the use of tissue-thin paper from an unwanted sewing pattern. Each card focuses on a variation of a personal theme: awareness of emotion > read more

Keeping it small and simple

Published on 2010-08-24 09:21:00

I've been making scrap mini-journals, inspired by this series of posts by Lisa Sonora Beam. We had a box of collage ephemera left over from a recent creativity workshop, and it's been a thrill to juxtapose these ragtag materials in booklet form.My mi > read more

I feel more human when I play.

Published on 2010-07-29 19:05:00

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