I've been thinking a lot about superpowers.  The ones you have, dear reader, and the ones I have.  You know what they are - those things (or that thing) you do so well and without effort, which seems like a big deal to others but is just, well, the thing you do.

Those superpowers can be amazing - uplifting, productive, informative, comforting, rescuing, nourishing, building, examining, illuminating...except they can also have a shadow side - when the use of your superpower makes another person feel less than wonderful.  I did that recently.  I inadvertently went along tralala doing what I do and caused someone I love to feel something not positive at all.

​"Wandering" - a work in process?  Acrylic and charcoal on cradled wood panel,  30" x 40" x 1.5".  Ready to hang.

​It was a wild and crazy week in the studio, with an Instagram takeover at Portland Open Studios and continued progress toward a passel of KaBOBS (unicorn-inspired art).  

The takeover theme for the day was AMUSE/A-MUSE.  To entertain, and to seek inspiration.  One of the modern day aspects of being an artist is learning to use the visual tools of social media, video and video editing, which sometimes has me crawling back underneath the blankets.  But it is a great stretch to see what can be done when you put your mind to it, and so here's a little glimpse of what happened when I was both amusing and a-musing. :)

To the right, a (maybe?) work in process.  Which means I haven't yet decided if I'm going to splatter it with hot pink and destroy all of its realism.  I am enjoying its expansive capture of a beach wander, as it is a big piece in the studio.  But you just never know what the muse will whisper in my ear....

​A little conversation about horizon lines.  

I'd love to know what YOUR eye is drawn to in landscape/seascape paintings?

A peek inside the inspiration pic, the painting and where my mind rests when creating a seascape.  Along with a little happy music for your day!

"Believe in You" - mixed media on cradled wood panel, 8 x 16 x 1.5.  Ready to hang.  Available Sept 5-6 at Artistic Souls Gallery.

“Sometimes we all need a unicorn to believe in. Sometimes we need a unicorn to believe in us.”
Claudia Bakker.

​Recently, I've felt like a unicorn.

No, not the fuzzy beauty with the luxurious mane and the rainbow poop.  My version has tangled hair, droopy eyes, a clumsy gait and an occasional belch.  Not a pretty unicorn.  Pretty gangly and inelegant.  The queen of awkward.

We all have these moments of inelegant humanness (or unicornness, in this case), and it's ok.  It's what you do with it - that's who you are (quoting Abner from the local play "OK Abner").  Those moments are when the inner critic wants to elbow her way in and make you doubt everything about yourself, even the brilliant stuff.

Upon reading the above quote, I wondered if I might want to develop an inner unicorn as well - one who believes in me and thinks I am the most magical of rare beings?  Maybe the critic and the unicorn could battle it out while I enjoy a peaceful cup of coffee. :)

“I love the way a list makes a big hodgepodge of things simmer down and behave.” - Blue Balliett, The Danger Box

It's time for some lists.

There is a hodgepodge in the studio, which spills down the stairs, down more stairs, into the garage and maybe further than that, I'm not sure. It started with admiring burl wood on hikes.  You know, those burly burls growing out of trees, weirdly misshapen and sometimes looking like faces?  It's hard to come by an untethered burl unless a tree comes down that happens to have a burl upon it.  And then there will be a mad melee of arm-wrestling to see who gets the burl.

Unless you stumble upon eight pallets of burls at a local lumber salvage place.  OH!  

So Malcolm and I brought home as much burl wood as the car would hold.  (How much wood could a subee hold if a subee could hold wood?).  Mind you, we have no experience whatsoever with wood, let alone burls.  But two 2D artists with a vision will try anything.

Then there was sanding and sawing and a Dremel and attachments and plumes of sawdust and a clue here and there.  Which led to a painting on burl wood (to the right, sold!  Thank you collector!). Wait, I can PAINT on burl wood?  Ooooooh.  Except most of the burls are, well, burly.  

Which leads to thinking in three dimensions.

If you've been following along with our hiking adventures, you might know we come across a lot of bones.  Which, when arranged as a fossil on a super sanded, glossy burl, can result in some amazing beauty (notan to the left).  And a need for paleo glue (on the way!) and more Dremel attachments.

Meanwhile, bones lead to thinking of horns, which leads to unicorns, which leads to KaBOBS (work in process above), which just might be the theme for my next series of paintings.

Wait - didn't I say I need a list?  Well, some sort of strategy, anyway.  Oy!

"Intergalactic Corvidae" - acrylic on wood panel, 12 x 16 x .75.  Ready to hang.  Available August 11 - 12 at Fusion Gallery.

The nightly crow show here at malarkey central has invaded the studio.    And taken over the spaceship.  Fortunately, this particular guy knows how to drive a hyper-loop rocket engine to the stars.

​It's hard to resist the crows.  Aerial acrobats soar across the darkening sky each evening, combined with cackles and caws and all matter of coos and chucks as bird-speak fills the airwaves.  The trees around my house are the staging area for their nightly gathering - they begin calling each other after dinner, gather noisily in the trees, then suddenly take off in a gorgeous mass to wherever it is the murder roosts for the night.  

Wonder Mike ignores them completely, searching the yard and peering through the fence for raccoons, cats and squirrels.  He covers ground duty; I watch the sky.

Because the neighborhood is a nightclub for corvidae, the streets and sidewalks are littered with feathers.      Dog walks become feather hunts.  A bag for feathers becomes part of the walking uniform.  The containers on kitchen shelves fill with feathers until the collection becomes a little unwieldy and spreads into the dining room.  It's just a matter of time before the exterior of the house grows wings.  Plans for feathered costumes run amok in my head.  Yes, yes - soon I will paint with them.

If you're in Southeast Portland and happen to be in need of feathers, stop by.  I'll hook you up. :)

"Settle For The Stars" - acrylic on cradled wood panel, 12 x 16 x .75.  Ready to hang.  Available August 11-12 at Fusion Gallery.

Wanting to be in the sky
with the stars
and the moon
the clouds
But for now, she will have to settle for the stars at her fingertips.
- girlspring.com

The helmeted explorations continue.  But today, let's reach for another star - a writer, editor, creator, imaginer and artist who just published a book which touches on the thing we often explore here - bold, brave, edge of the eyeballs living.

What if young you and your sister were abducted by a traveling preacher in the 1970's in the south?  And what if that story had been festering within you for a lifetime, waiting to be told, covered in scars and shame and pain?

What I'm learning is that age is not the distance from the beginning of our lives but the distance at any moment from the heart of our aliveness. - MARK NEPO

Oh Mark Nepo, you've grabbed. me again, stopped me in my tracks and made me pay attention.  How far am I from the heart of my aliveness?  Not far at all.  Practically sitting on top of it. The goal is to always have that place, the heart of my aliveness, within sight.  Which means stretching, pushing, saying yes even when my heart is pounding in my chest or my inner critic says HELL NO.  

My friend Nancy (an extraordinary abstractionist and wickedly smart human) says the answer is always yes.  Which I have begun to adopt (often, not always) - just answering yes  without stopping to overly analyze it.  Hike two mountains in one day?  Yes.  Begin the loftiest, most extraordinary collaborative book project ever?  Yes.  Stay up too late, nap too long, teach a chihuahua (the most unteachable of animals on earth) to walk without a leash? Yes.