Let Me Come and Be Still in Your Silence

24" x 48"
Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas
SOLD
Khudairi Collection
Houston, TX

This painting now belongs to a wonderful couple form Houston who came to visit my studio in Dallas. Mr. Khudairi asked me to  explain the meaning behind the painting,  specifically,  what did those words say that were  barely legible in the background. As far as the writings, I frequently incorporate the written word into my  works. Poetry has really found a unique place in my life.  I collage  favorite poetry of mine into the background of my pieces.  I've found that  most of the writings are barely legible in the background, it is a way for me to give my  even though  paintings a "voice", and convey a meaningful, personal message from my soul  to the viewer,  a message that is left up to them to interpret.  Pablo Neruda is my favorite spanish speaking poet, hands down.  Some of the writings  in the background come from this poem below, as does the title.  The rest are pages from my handwritten journals.  Neruda directs his language so well in this poem,  making you almost whisper most of it.  Beautiful.  I Like for You to be Still I like for you to be still: it as though you were absent, and you hear me from far away and my voice does not                           touch you It seems as though your eyes had flown away and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth. As all things are filled with my soul you emerge from the things, filled with my soul. You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream, and you are like the word Melancholy. I like for you to be still, and you seem far away. It sounds as though you were lamenting,  a butterfly cooing like                           a dove And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach                           you: Let me come to be still in your silence. And let me talk to you with your silence that is bright as a lamp,  simple as a ring. Your are like the night, with its stillness and constellations. Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid. I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent, distant and full of sorrow as though you had died. One word then, one smile, is enough. And I am happy, happy that it’s not true.

This is why I do what I do...

"A Season's Awakening"

Fine Art prints available here.

Please see the words below from a client of mine who purchased the original painting above. Her email nearly brought tears to my eyes...it is always my hope that my art will bring those who decide to hang it in their home the same sort of joy that I felt while creating it.

"I have always loved to draw.  As a kid I always said I would be a teacher and artist when I grew up.  I started out as an art major in college but ended up switching to languages mainly because my art classes were so early in the morning and I am a night owl--how lame is that? But really, who can create anything at 7am? Part of me has really regretted it. I still like to dabble in things whenever I can and I try to at least make all the cards we give out for birthdays, thank yous, and such.  Honestly, when I saw your painting A Spring's Awakening, the colors, the style, everything reminded me so much of myself and my love of art as a child that I mourned the loss of my childhood dreams and cried all the way home.  But it also helped "awaken" in me a hope that I can make time for such things again.  

See, you are inspirational!"

Pre-Show Insomnia

Throughout my life I have dealt with bouts of insomnia. It was at its worst during college and during each of my three pregnancies. One of the unexpected benefits of my yoga practice has been that these little spells have been kept at bay for the most part. That is, unless it is the night before an art show. Then nothing can keep me asleep.

So, in a pre-emptive strike, I tried to go to bed early last night, like senior-citizen early. Without fail, I "woke up" at 2:45. Around 3 I decided to go into the studio to work on some commissions. But despite the deadlines that are looming on those, I was drawn to these tiny canvases in the studio and decided to create some more little paintings from my "Lyrical Forest" series.  7 new little guys came to life! I am going to run them up to Elle Realty today so they will be on display this evening. Here's a description:

Lyrical Forest

5" x 7"

$50 apiece

Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas
Gina often incorporates text into her works. Her paintings express things she cannot verbally convey. Art, for Gina, is literally her way of processing her thoughts and feelings. This "mini" series was created in layers incorporating pages from Gina's personal parchment paper journals, transparent layers of color and texture, and her signature birch trees. 

At least if I can't sleep I can be productive, right? Now I can look forward to spending the entire day loving on my kiddos before Mr. D and I head to the show tonight. Which by the way is from 7-10 at Elle Realty in Lakewood, a cute little boutique real estate office right next door to the Green Spot. 
Elle Realty
718 N. Buckner Blvd., Ste. 304
Dallas, TX 75218

Hope to see my Dallas friends tonight!  Now, off to go make pancakes....

Why Do People Buy Art?

Absorb, Absorb, Absorb

11" x 14"

Acrylic and Mixed on Canvas

Available for purchase via Etsy

People don't just buy art. They buy the experience, the memory, the feelings that it evokes. The object of art itself is simply the vehicle to preserve this.

Every painting represents something. It is a part of my journey, and when someone decides to purchase it for themselves, it becomes a part of their story.

What this painting means to you may be something completely different than what it means to me or someone else. I will forever look at this canvas and remember working in the little studio in my old house, with my daughter, then 3, coloring alongside of me. I remember her chubby hands awkwardly holding the markers, the smell of Elmer's glue drying next to us from a craft we had just made together, and watching the free and organic way she drew with abandon.  I remember thanking God for that very moment I was able to do something I love and share that love with my child.  That feeling is forever attached to this painting, much like the way listening to a certain song instantly transports you to another time and place.  It is a snapshot of my life.

I wonder what will become of this, how the story will continue.

New Painting, "My Kingdom Awaits"

24" x 48" 

Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas

This painting will be featured in my upcoming Art Show next month. 

Prints of this original painting are available on Etsy. 

"I’m coming home
I’m coming home
tell the world I’m coming home
Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits and they’ve forgiven my mistakes
I’m coming home, I’m coming home
tell the World I’m coming

Back where I belong
I’ve never felt so strong 
feeling like there’s nothing that I can’t try
and if you feel me put your hands high "  -Diddy/Gray/Cole



Finished up a new piece.  Who's to say hip hop music can't inspire?  I love the energy this song gave me while playing in the studio. 


The soft bright colors reflect the Spring Fever that has taken over our household.  I always imagine myself walking through these forests I paint, and in the midst of getting lost in this one I couldn't help but think of  the beauty that awaits when we truly arrive home...wherever that may be, maybe for some it's literal and for others it's only a feeling, a metaphor. When we truly realize our full potential, our dharma, our abundant life, and the sacredness of each present moment we can see that it's all so beautiful, even the sad parts. 

New Painting, "Stand Calmly"

36" x 36" x 1.5"

Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas

"Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. there is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." -Leonard Cohen

This piece is 36" x 36, a little on the large side of normal for me. Sometimes working bigger is so intimidating for me, yet then when I finally suck it up and get to work on a large canvas I am usually pretty happy with the results.  I think it's the journey to the finished product that can be long, arduous and keep me up at night that scares me.  It's hard to believe the painting above started out as the painting below a few weeks ago....

but I just wasn't feeling it.  I would go out into the studio after leaving it alone for a while and hope to look at it with a different perspective, with a new appreciation, but every time I laid eyes upon it I was  overwhelmingly aware that it was not where it needed to be.  It was screaming at me to evolve.  Which was frustrating because at one point , the point it was at in the pic, I thought it was nearly done. As my mom (who is also an artist not to mention my biggest sounding board) says, "It's only paint, you can always paint over it if you want to change it"....that's what I did. 


And if I hadn't put all the blues and browns underneath the trees that manifested themselves yet again on my canvas, there would never be the subtle layers of color, the rich texture of unintended but beautiful shapes, the carved lines that give the finished piece depth, and substance, and "me-ness"...

Another reminder that it's all about the journey.  The twists, turns, doubts, discoveries, uncertainty .... that's how the light gets in.

A Poem for Wednesday: XLV by e.e. cummings

"Snow Falling on Birches"

8" x 8" x 1.5"

Acrylic and Mixed on Canvas

This painting is currently on display at Buli's Cafe on Oak Lawn Ave. and is available for purchase.

New Painting, "Spaces in Our Togetherness"

24" x 28" x 1.5"

Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas

“But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”

 Kahlil Gibran

After I finished this painting, I tried to make some sense of it and figure out where it came from within me. Sometimes I know before I paint, and sometimes, as in the case of this one, it only becomes obvious afterwards. 

Anyone who follows my work can see that birch trees are one of my favorite subjects. They simultaneously convey a strength and frailty that I find fascinating. I looked at the painting above and realized that there are five trees in this one. "Why did I just paint 5 this time?", I asked myself. Then I realized that there are 5 people in my family and discovered upon reflection that this painting was inspired subconsciously by them. My husband and my three children are my whole world. However, without the spaces in our togetherness, without my time to myself, often spent in the studio, to nourish my spirit and my soul, I am not fully me. These spaces in our togetherness make us whole, make us strong, as much as anything else.

If you are interested in purchasing this painting, email me for details.

New Painting, "Lead Me to the Truth"

16" x 20"

Oil and Mixed Media on Gallery Wrapped Canvas

"Lead me to the truth and I 

Will follow you with my whole life."

-Mumford and Sons

I have a serious addiction to my Ipod. If I pick it up in the morning and realize the battery is dead, I can kiss my run goodbye. Similarly, I am just as dependent on it while working in the studio.  When painting, music acts as a conduit for everything I am trying to express and the words just flow through my brush in this wonderful process that unites thought and sound. It wraps me up in my own little world and I love every second.

As a working mom of young ones, long gone are the days of finding the time to discover new bands and delve into music the way I used to.   I was caught in a rut of listening to my "comfort music" (aka warm and cozy songs that I know I love to paint to from baaaack in the day...circa high school and college) and lots of Yo Gabba Gabba and Top 40 hits that the kids are begging me to play in the car.

Then, in walks my dear friend Beth, who skips into town from Austin and brings sunshine with her wherever she goes. Beth is a knockout trendsetter who has Austin-chic style down pat and has her finger on the pulse of all music indie and cool. It's all I can do to glance at her fb pics from Austin City Limits and not be filled with jealousy that I wasn't there alongside her with my cowboy boots, flowy dress and shades sipping a frothy delicious bevvy. However, no jealousy necessary--Beth is such a great friend that she reached out to me and sent the music to Dallas. I am so grateful to her for my CDs. Like little rays of sunshine they arrived in the mail and have opened my eyes to some great bands that are not necessarily new, but new to me. One of them is Mumford and Sons and their song, "Blank White Page" has a haunting power that takes my breath away every time I hear it.  That's where the title of my newest work is derived.

It's no coincidence that I have been struck by inspiration in the studio since my new tunes have been playing. While listening to music, I am able to sort out what my subconscious is doing on the canvas and make it all connect. I know a painting is finished when the audio  and the visual come together for me.  Thanks, DJ Jazzy Beth, I love you!

 (detail)

See My Light; Love My Dark

12" x 16" 1.5"
Acrylic and Mixed on Canvas

“There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion” -Carl Jung

The most terrifying thing is to accept yourself completely. I created this piece with the sentiment that nobody is perfect, everyone is flawed in some way.  When you truly learn how to love someone, you love them as a whole person.  You love the dark and the light.

Sunshower

12" x 12" x 1.5"

Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas

This is a new painting, part of my 'Four Seasons' series. I am always taken by a spot of rain when it's still sunny outside, and that little natural phenomenon has happened several times these past two weeks. I tried to use colors that capture this exact time of year, when summer is finally all around us.

I'm not a huge movie person, but one of my favorite films of all time is 1998's "Great Expectations" with Gwenyth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke. I watched that at a pivotal time in my life and I feel it heavily influenced my psyche and my artwork. The song, "Sunshower", by Chris Cornell, is featured on that soundtrack and is hauntingly beautiful, much like everything else in that film...

I hear you laughing

And my soul is saved

Crawl like ivy

Up my spine

Through my nerves

And into my eyes

Cuts like anguish

Or recollections

Of better days gone by

But it's all right

When you're all in pain

And you feel the rain come down

Oh, it's all right

When you find your way

Then you see it disappear

Oh, it's all right

Though your garden's gray

I know all your graces

Someday will flower

In the sweet sun shower

Eyes like oceans

So far away

A feather trail

To a better way

Worried mornings turn

Into days

Then into worried nights

But it's all right

Oh, in a sweet sun shower

It's all right

All you'll be you are today

A Poem for Wednesday

Night Cometh
16" x 20"
Acrylic and Mixed on Canvas
This painting is available on my Etsy site:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/37201051/night-cometh-original-painting

If You Forget Me
by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Miles to Go

12" x 12"
Acrylic andMixed Media on Canvas
SOLD

This piece was commissioned by a client who wanted something similar to my painting, "Before I Sleep" (shown below), but needed a smaller size to fit her decor.


The painting above was inspired by one of my favorite lines from poet Robert Frost:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
Miles to go before I sleep

So I thought it was only fitting to pull the title of the new commissioned piece, "Miles to Go" from the same poem.

A Poem for Wednesday

Into the Dark
12" x 12"
Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas
This painting is available on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32935416


The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (an excerpt)
by. T.S. Eliot

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

Etsy Front Page News!

11" x 14"
Acrylic and Mixed Media on Gallery-Wrapped Canvas

Birch trees are fascinating to me. They convey a simultaneous strength and frailty that I can really identify with. It was delightful to wake up this morning and discover that my little birch tree painting above was featured on the front page of Etsy. This is the second time in two months one of my paintings has been featured--what an honor! I am so grateful for the exposure.

"A tree uses what comes its way to nurture itself. By sinking its roots deeply into the earth, by accepting the rain that flows towards it, by reaching out to the sun, the tree perfects its character and becomes great. ... Absorb, absorb, absorb. That is the secret of the tree." ~~Deng Ming-Dao ( Everyday Tao, 1996)

Snow Falling on Birches

Snow Falling on Birches
10" x 10" x 1.5"
Acrylic and Mixed Media on Gallery-Wrapped Canvas

This painting is a part of a series I am working on about the changing seasons, see also "Autumn Rapture" on the blog or in my Etsy shop. Huddled next to my space heater in the studio (my students always refer to it as "Mr. Toasty") this painting just came to fruition on its own. Of course we never have this much snow in Texas, but we don't have many birch trees either, so I guess my mind is in another place right now. I love to include a lot of texture in my art, as if by reaching out and touching the landscape you can actually become more a part of it.

"There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself." ~Ruth Stout

Autumn Rapture

10" x 10" x 1.5"
Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas

Here is one of the most comforting, wise quotes I’ve ever read:
“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer…”
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Night Cometh

16" x 20"

Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas

"I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of stars makes me dream." Vincent Van Gogh

That is one of my favorite quotes of all time because it reminds me that the possibilities are limitless. In the face of vastness, life is what we make of it, and what we create is up to us. So inspiring.

This painting is available at Artisan Style Gallery

(Uptown's newest cultural addition!)

2417 Mahon St.

Dallas, TX, 75201

http://www.artisanstyle.net

Lyrical Forest

7" x 15"

(3 canvases, 5" x 7" each)

Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas

The words of E.E. Cummings speak volumes to me, especially the poems about love an all of its mysteries. Their directness, their play with the concept of oneness, and their emphasis on the linguistic affirmation of "yes" gives them an unrestrained sincerity. I decided to write one down and tucked it in the background layers of these paintings:

it is so long since my heart has been with yours

shut by our mingling arms through

a darkness where new lights begin and

increase,

since your mind has walked into

mykiss as a stranger

into the streets and colours of a town__

that i have perhaps forgotten

how,always(from

these hurrying crudities

of blood and flesh)Love

coins His most gradual gesture,

and whittles life into eternity

--after which our separating selves become museums

filled with skillfully stuffed memories

I can't decide if these pieces work best together as a unit or separately, so I guess that means they can go both ways. I find the small size charming and plan to make more in this series.

This painting is available at Artisan Style Gallery

(Uptown's newest cultural addition!)

2417 Mahon St.

Dallas, TX, 75201

http://www.artisanstyle.net