Muse Group Reunion

As soon as I got back home to Olympia over a week ago I was able to move into the art studio that I have been waiting for with great anticipation for the good part of a year. I’ll be sharing some pictures of that soon. But I am now finally getting around to sharing the last chapter of my California visit: an in-person reunion with my beloved Muse Group in Sebastopol.

Since I moved away nine months ago, these ladies, dear friends all, have continued to meet and share their passion for creative expression through mixed media art making. When I said I was coming to town for a visit, they rented a space at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts so we could do a Muse lesson like I used to teach before Covid. It was a rare treat for us all, vaxed and boosted and careful as we all are, we shared time and space and summoned the Muse! I shared poetry and we meditated. Then we stood up and put the whole body into expressive mark making on big sheets of paper with sticks and brushes and fingers while listening to music. 

This group no longer needs instruction for these techniques! We moved seamlessly into more painting and collage and then finished with a free write, harvesting words from the images which had come through us.

The day was a great gift to all of us. For me it bestowed blessings on a return to the mixed media Muse work I’d practically abandoned for the past months when my studio was under plastic in the garage. Now I can’t wait to get back to it as I unpack all the inks and acrylics and textures and papers and collage items! And this group will of course continue their rich creative collaboration with each other!

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I Voted

Actually I voted weeks ago. It’s been a slow agonizing wait, or has it been fast? Feels that way now suddenly on the eve of election day.

w/c paper textured with light molding paste and finished with fluid acrylics

I VOTED

Speedy goes the clock

Goes the calendar

Goes the daylight time falling back

Goes the leaves changing falling

Down to the wire

Down to the red and the blue

Down to the finish line

The donkey and the elephant panting

With so much to weigh them down

There’s that down again

Is the up on its way?

Hope you get some sleep tonight!!

 

Sheltering

As I closed up my studio last night I thought that I had let another day end without completing the various art projects I have going. Common enough. Then I remembered that there are no longer appointments, gatherings, events, classes to compete with my free art making time, and I added this to a growing list of much needed silver linings in these anxious times.

Yesterday I got out a pile of unfinished Muse Group demos, hand made papers and more and started putting things together. There was something about the “leftover” shape of the blue piece below that suggested house so I made it more so, but not overly literal, and here’s what came.

Powdered graphite patterned textures, acrylic and collage on w/c paper, 10 X 11

What would you find if you pried the roof off any house now?  No, no, best not do that!

Come up to the door and knock softly. Carry a rose to show you care.

Be ready to say “Your lawn is so beautiful and green, your landscaping so artful, your windows so cozy.” Be ready to say “hope all is well with your family.”

Be ready to step back as the door gets closed in your face because you stepped too close.

Go back to your own Place and don’t cry. The people who loved you before still will, but only if you keep your 6 feet, or is it 10 now?

A friend brought her laundry over yesterday to use our machines. We managed a clever hygenicly safe protocol dance to protect both sides from the virus which, most likely, neither of us has, but we suppose could have. Then we stood a good 15 feet apart to chat for a while before moving on with our days. I’m sure others are as curious as I about how other people are coping, hence the desire to “pry off the roof”.

A peek here at the unfinished pile of mixed media work from which I drew to create the piece above. I just measured the pile at 4 inches tall. It’s really a gold mine from which I shall continue to extract gems. The serendipity of the raw occurences ends up being the most satisfying to me.

If you’re a mixed media artist you doubtless have hoarded treasures galore. Now is truly our chance to play with them, and to realize that we may actually be afforded lots of time now to do so. And it costs nothing.

Stay tuned for another video lesson.

Get Your Art Groove On: Free Lesson!

OK, is your sock drawer straightened up yet? Larder stocked? Then it’s time to sit down for some art fun. Here’s a lesson I videotaped 7 years ago as part of an online course called: In the Company of Muses: Adventures in Mixed Media Art Journaling. I think it’s time to release it again.

To watch the video demonstration click here.

Have a go, have fun, and let me know how it goes! And I’ll post another lesson next week.

 

Muse Group Selfies!

Some of you probably think that we do serious art in the mixed media painting group I lead. And you’re right! We just finished up an 8-week series of lessons where we explored window imagery, coffee and tea stained designs, sgraffito and zany self portraits!

The portraits were perhaps the most un-serious of our works. You decide for yourself. Here are the Musers’ own self portrait musings. Have you ever seen so much glamour in one place, short of the Academy Awards!?

self portrait by Ruth

self portrait by Patricia

self portrait by Pat

self portrait(s) by Nancy

self portrait by Muriel

self portrait by Denise

self portrait by Brigette

 

As you can tell, the teacher did not give any specific instructions here. We did however take advantage of the Comic Strip filter in the PhotoBooth program in my computer to pose, print out and use our images as a starting point for serious (ahem) self searching contemplations. In case you missed it, I posted my own selfie a few weeks ago here. I like to think each new self portrait should reveal a different one of our many secret selves.

As the Muse Group proceeds I like to hang my demos on the wall before putting them in portfolio books with the writings. The wall is full right now. Time to switch up and make room for this current session.

This is a good time to try out the Muse Group if you’re interested. There’s space this time around to try it out on a drop in basis or to return, see your Muse friends and get a renewal of that creative energy. For more info, times and dates, visit my website.

Workshops This Spring!

It’s a busy spring season coming up, and I’ll be doing what I enjoy most – sharing approaches to painting and spreading my own creative wings with like-minded people! Hope you can join me.

For more information about these workshops and to register visit my website!

Join me this fall for some mixed media fun!

Do you want to put the play factor back into your painting while learning to recognize your intuitive voice? Each session will add a new mixed media painting technique to your repertoire, pushing the boundaries of inks and acrylics, adding textures, collage and more. Meditation and writing are added into the mix to evoke that powerful Muse energy!

For more information and to register, please visit my website. And come paint with me.