New Painting, "Each Day I Return Anew"

16" x 20"

Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas

Available

To me, yoga has become a way of life over the past few years, and in many ways quite different than the life that I was accustomed to. This painting is a dedication to my daily practice. Yoga has empowered me to embrace life, which helps me be a more enriched wife and mother. Each day I arise before my household, sneak away to practice and I return to my family anew, refreshed, inspired, full of love and post-Savasana bliss that I try to carry throughout the day and impart on my children. 


 The reasons why we embark on the yogic path are different for everyone. Simply put, we could say that yoga guides us from a life of ignorance, selfishness and ultimate dissatisfaction into a ‘higher life’ – into a life that is lived with proper understanding of Universal laws and of the true nature of ourselves and the world around us – with the aim to bring greater meaning into an often otherwise aimless and frustrating existence, and to guide us along a path of evolution during our time here on this earth.

Yoga teaches us to know what the behavior is that will support a fruitful, spiritually advancing life, and helps us to perform the right actions, in the right manner, at the right time.  For these tools and knowledge I am grateful and inspired.

The kids and I were at the Dallas Museum of Art yesterday and I saw this quote on the wall in the Egyptian Artifact room. I snapped this picture while trying to explain to kiddos that the mummy and sarcophagus is not "yucky"...it's amazing. 

Love those wall quotes...it resounded with me on so many levels, and I feel struck a special chord with me as I had just finshed this painting and was searching for the meaning behind it.

Art Therapy, Play Therapy

 It's a funny business, this business of being an Artist. There is so much of the Self involved in your work, and it can be hard not lot let your ego get in the way. Sometimes you want to create and you can't.  The Muse is often fickle. Sometimes paintings sell and sometimes they don't. The incredible highs (I sold a painting! I'm in so-and-so gallery!) and lows (If I had more time I could be more successful! Why didn't they come to my art show?) are part of the ride.   And  when it gets to be a little overwhelming I try to remind myself that it's all about the journey.  That deep down inside I am still the little girl in third grade who hid in the art room and drew while the other kids played outside at recess, and whether or not people "like" my art is irrelevant to them liking ME. Cue deep breathing exercises...

This is my daughter at the DMA, but could have easily been a photo of me twenty five years ago.
What could be more special than coming to that realization?

I was having one of those low days last week and I took the big kids to the Dallas Museum of Art. It is one of our favorite places to visit. I was lucky enough to consult on the design of their Center for Creative Connections, which they re-vamped about five years ago, and I love the stations where you can make a project with dry media (aka mess-free media) just for the fun of making a project. My kiddos got so into the foil sculptures they would not leave the work table until I finally had to bribe them with treats I keep in the car just for the sole purpose of getting them into the car. I loved watching them create just for creativity's sake. Seeing them and the sheer "art brut-ness"

(Art brut: French for "raw art", the art of children and outsiders; actually, anyone not producing art for profit or recognition.)

of their whole experience was like the rain for me, washing my insecurities and hindering ulterior motives away and unearthing the pure, the true, the real.

How do you get out of your creative ruts?

My creative ruts always seem to come from overworking, which is really tempting when you are running a small business on your own. I have to constantly tell myself that it's okay to shut the door of the studio and go do something completely unrelated to Utopia Pkwy. Art Studio...my little passion project, my happy place. The longer I work in the creative field, the more certain I am that 'working through it' does not lead to great ideas. It's a combination of life experiences and incubation time, mixed with some heavy trial and error. When I feel like I have no other creative ideas, I try to be gentle with myself and have faith that, with time, my next inspiration will arrive when I least expect it.