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Our Wild Ride Into Modernity
oil on canvas panel
20 x 24 x .1 inches
This item is unframed
(click on the image to purchase)

But I want to extol not the sweetness nor the placidity of the dog, but the wilderness out of which he cannot step entirely, and from which we benefit. For wilderness is our first home too, and in our wild ride into modernity with all its concerns and problems we need also all the good attachments to that origin that we can keep or restore. Dog is one of the messengers of that rich and still magical first world. The dog would remind us of the pleasures of the body with its graceful physicality, and the acuity and rapture of the senses, and the beauty of forest and ocean and rain and our own breath. There is not a dog that romps and runs but we learn from him. - Mary Oliver, Dog

It is becoming more and more difficult to resist the allure of the wilderness.

Of forest, of ocean, of mountain, of river, of meadow and desert and butte.

Which is an interesting conundrum as my aging self requires more and more modernity to be comfortable in its own skin, and to function well.  Let's just take a bike ride, for example.  Helmet, padded gloves, special shoes, ankle wrap, knee supports, KT tape for my right foot.  And yet...I don all my accoutrements and set out like a ten-year-old every morning I can, gleeful and playful and powering up and over bridges and down again. 

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A little animation (with music!) of Medb, who was inspired by a Bluesky human with an inner warrior of feisty and fierce proportions.  I want to be like her when I grow up. :)

Just one more week until the winner of the July Reader Giveaway is announced!  This month's prize is this oil painting on driftwood brought home from the Olympic Peninsula.  

To enter, leave a comment on any blog post this month (or more than one!  Each comment counts as an additional entry).  A winner will be chosen at random and announced righ here in the blog on August 4th.  Ready?  Set?  WIN!

This land and I are rewilding.
A bird I don’t know, but follow with my still living eye. 
The day before me undresses in the wet Southern heat:
flower mouth, 
pollen burn, 
wing sweat.
I don’t want to be only the landscape: the bone’s buried.
Let the subject be
the movement of the goldenrod, the mustard,
the cardinal, the jay, the generosity.
I don’t want anything,
not even to show it to you--

the beakgrass, bottlebrush, dandelion seed head,
parachute and crown,
all the intention of wishes, forgiveness,
this day’s singular existence in time,
the native field flourishing selfishly, only for itself.

The Rewilding,  ADA LIMÓN
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I don't know about you, dear reader, but much of my life has (in many ways) been all about unwilding.  Becoming civilized is kind of the task we undertake in growing up and taking charge of our lives.

Becoming conscious of the calendar, the clock, the responsibilities, the discipline, the routine, the right things to do.  And it has (and does) serve me well - I can juggle a few plates with aplomb.

But the older I am, the more I desire to be rewilded.  I want to forget the clock and the alerts on my phone.  I want to be lost in the day, lose  track of time and tasks and just flow.​

I want to reignite the untamed Lola.  To reclaim both delight and outrage, to follow the wandering path and also to speak my mind and heart.  More and more,   I am drawn to those who embrace their own wildness and flaunt it and spread it around.  The more I want to join in the chorus of that universal songline.  

There is only so much time in one lifetime.  I think I can walk away from the plates, leave the beautiful broken pieces on the ground and wander across the way.  Is the grass greener on the wild side?  Let's go there and see!

In wildness, truth.  ​oh yes.

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​"Song and Sadness" - oil on canvas, 18 x 36 x 1.5 inches.  This is unframed but ready to hang. (click on the image to purchase)

​...we all turn out to be a rather weak watery solution of salts and carbon compounds, more or less jellified. You and I, with all that we eat and the various bacteria, fungi and viruses that live so happily within us, are a mingling of the wind and water and dust that constitute the surface of the earth. The miracle is that such stuff as we are made of should walk and talk and know such things as song and sadness.  - N.J. BERRILL

The boundary between my self and the natural world around me feels more porous when we're hiking in the mountains or when we're rockhounding in the ocean.  The wind and water and dust are part of me - I can feel it.  And the more I am around and in the ocean (and jellyfish), the more the barrier between my self and the jellified salts and carbon compounds erodes.

The miraculous part, as Berrill says so eloquently, is that this stuff we're made of has the ability to move and think and feel. 

And this becomes more manifestly obvious when the things we count on to move us (our bodies) or to think and feel with (brains and hearts) are glitchy or injured or off.  As a person who struggles with panic attacks, I can tell you there are times when I wonder if jellified me is melting back into the primordial ooze, flickering and softening at the edges.

At some point, we all return to the wind and water and dust  and that's ok, that's expected, that's the cycle we're born into.  But I think I'll enjoy the miracles that come along with my jellified self for as long as possible.

Scuba boots.

Wetsuit pants.

Fanny pack, waterproof phone pouch.

Now you're ready to go rockhounding in the Pacific Ocean as the tides roll in and out, without losing toes or limbs to the freezing water.  We go for the low tide and the ​shallow water, but the ocean here doesn't really like to be pigeon-holed as "cooperative."  Sneaker waves, sudden surges, unexpected surf - just as you reach for that egg-sized agate beneath the water. Oy!

I am the solid ground of the shoreline, the. mountains, the rocks, cliffs and loamy forest floor.  And I am the tempestuous, ever-changing ocean, sometimes with rip currents and sneaker waves and other times glassy and warm against the feet wading within it.  We don't have to be one thing or the other - we can be both.

We live in polarized times - black and white, one way or the other, you're ok or you're not.  

But really we are ever-changing beings, growing and transforming with each day, each experience and every thought and interaction.  It is really alright to wake up one day and be the mountain, and another day the ocean.  We are many-layered, complex beings, expansive and ethereal.

I've spent a long time trying to put myself in boxes that no longer fit (or did not fit in the first place).  This includes creative boxes - trying to make the things other people think I should be making, or that the market says are hot, or that my skill level feels comfortable with.  Oh no OH NO!

Do you find yourself sitting inside those boxes, too?  Let's bust out together. 

"Get Up And Wander" - oil on gallery wrapped canvas, 18  x 36 x 1.25 inches.  Ready to hang. (click on the image to purchase)

​Up too early again. Listening to the patter of rain dripping from the tree limbs onto the tent and the hush of the creek in the darkness. Breathing in the scent of earth and rain. I can’t believe we are here, surrounded by these old trees and mountains, with days ahead of us. I’m a little boy all over again, incredulous that this place actually exists, and I am here in it. I want to get up and wander down to the creek and feel its black, wet, cold aliveness on my skin.
- RICHARD J. NEVLE

There is nothing quite like old trees, mountains and the ocean to make grown humans feel like kids again.   And the exquisite luxury of time to enjoy it, more than just a day or two, makes the experience fully immersive.  

​I get a little antsy if I don't get outside enough.  My nervous system responds to nature with a deep exhale, sheds its anxiety and just is.  Even when the hike is long, hard and uphill both ways.  Even when it's raining and cold.  Even when it's blisteringly hot and oppressively sunny.  

The world we live in sends us messages which can keep us away from this balm - too busy, too tired, it's too far, it's too buggy, it will take too long and so on.  And yet every time I overcome these ne'er-do-well thoughts, I am instantly glad.  And feeling like a kid again?  Heck YES! 

​Big thanks to artist and blogger Dotty Seiter (dottyseiter.com) who recently posted about tearing up a piece of art that just wasn't working.  It inspired me to rip a piece to, um, well, pieces.  No worries - those pieces will become fodder for collage later.  Yay!

"Sorrow is the True Wild" - oil on Yupo, 17 x 24.  Available here and at Artfinder.

Is sorrow the true wild?
And if it is -and if we join them - your wild to mine - what's that?
For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation.
What if we joined our sorrows, I'm saying.
I'm saying: What if that is joy?
- ROSS GAY, The Book of Delights​

We leave Alice exploring in the background for a bit as we dive into the wild-er-ness.  Wilder than Alice?  Oh, indeed.

This month, mixed-media mosaic artist Helaine Abramson and I explore wolves, women and art in A Song For The Hunted.  When creating a show like this, there are a lot of things that end up on the cutting room floor, as they say.

We give ourselves a restricted number of pieces for these shows, but the muse doesn't care for rules or guidelines, so there are stacks of wolves and women who appeared along the way.  And threads of thought and inspiration less explored, like this one - sharing sorrow, joining wilds, creating joy.

If the "wild" is the sorrow and the sorrow is the wolf, then my wolf looms large and feisty behind me.  Hovering, coloring what I see, shadowing.  But that very thing, shared with another, does, indeed create a visceral JOY - a connection unexpected and energetic and healing.  Oh yes. 

We've launched softly this month...little fanfare, a few cheeky adverts.  We are so incredibly grateful for the hundreds of you who have already stopped in on opening weekend, left comments on Facebook and Instagram, sent emails and encouragement.

The show is open through July 31.  Pop in as often as you'd like!  And who knows?  One (or more!) visitors and commenters this month may win a little something from us. Woot!  Or should we say "awoooooooooooooo"?

"The Wild Edge of Sorrow" - oil on canvas, 15 x 30 x 1.  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

[Shame] is unspeakable because we do not want anyone to know how we feel inside.  We fear it is irreparable because we think it is not something we have done wrong - it is simply who we are.  We cannot remove the stain from our core.  We search and search for the defect, hoping that, once found, it can be exorcised like some grotesque demon.  But it lingers, remaining there our entire lives. anxious that it will be seen and simultaneously longing to be seen and touched with compassion. - from The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller.

​Even as the skies are watering us with spring, it seems there is a great weeping sadness in the world.  

Perhaps it is just my own clouded view, my own lens, my own filtering of news and social media posts and lessons learned (an often deep source of shame) and recent loss.  

And yet...here in the studio where the will god prods, there sits a book on the supply shelf waiting to be digested.  Recommended by a divinely creative friend and collector, Weller's book unpacks sorrow in a way both scientific and spiritual.  As that book sits in my own two hands, the lightness of connection, compassion and being seen lifts the burden of loss and says, "Lola, you are not alone."

Here in the community of tender hearts (artists, writers, sensitives, creators, collectors, deeply feeling humans) we can put wings on each other simply by seeing and saying.  As one tender heart commented last week in the blog, "I've learned that I'm not alone in these feelings anymore and that really helps a lot..."  Whoa.

​Wonder Mike and Lilly selected TWO winners from the April Reader Giveaway commenters!  Congratulations Carol K. and Kelly M!  Send your mailing address to the shipping hounds at [email protected] and your big prizes will be flying to you in the post.  And thanks SO much for participating!