A new year, a full cup

 

                                                                       

                                                                             One full cup  

                                                                  oil and cold wax on canvas

                                                                                    9x12

I've spent the past week reading a lot of writing I have done over the years. I was struck by the flow of language and my response to living and making that I was engaged in.  What is most interesting about looking back and reading and feeing again what I was expressing - is how everything changes ...life happens.  It seems that the depths become deeper, the findings become memories or are forgotten and somehow the seat from where I sit and see and think and feel still seems to be me, but even more so as time goes on.....

Sometimes my experience  is changing on paper or canvas in paint. 

Sometimes it is changing as good ideas come to plant seeds that grow me in new ways. 

And sometimes it seems down right surprising that a sense of self that was so curious and joyous and courageous can be blanketed over or even cracked by life's experiences once again...

amazing......

So, here I am, again. Sitting at a keyboard, preparing to put something into words in relation to this creative process I continue to move with and be moved by. I was curious to read the AI search for this writer part of me, it made me want to read what this woman was living with and expressing. I can't even remember the name of the other place I was writing from. Two blog spots and one other - oh yes...Wordpress. That one was called woman happy to be painting and musing. My last post there was in 2018. Yep. That's me. Even through the most challenging experiences of this year I was amazed by all the layers, all the feelings of being a human being woman. WOW. And honestly I am not much of a reader. I like books with pictures. Paintings. Collage. Color.

How many times can one be taken apart -- to find, once again, what is still truer about really being --about being oneself....in relation to what seems to be indescribable, ever changing and ever present....

Let's see if I can finish this with some kind of intention ....where do I want this to lead ? 

How do I want this to feel?

Am I committed to writing and how often?

I don't know. I'm quietly reconnecting with my creative process with an openness that I have not experienced before - it's like I am beginning a new relationship with myself, and in relation to what I create with and maybe even, for.

 I'm also experiencing less comparing how others do this. It's almost like what I imagine freedom to be.

I'm quieter about naming this ...there is a new trust that carries less of the excitement of earlier years when I was amazed to put any of this into words as well as into paint. And I still am in awe of the process of living, of being myself. I think that's life. How can it not be this way no matter what is happening? There is a gift here and we get to unwrap it ourselves in the midst of the whole nine yards of the world. 

My intention is for trusting the depth of feeling I carry within me to receive and the natural response to share the beauty it reveals.

All goodness is wished from here for you in our world as we begin 2026.

renewal as returning and remembering

                          mixed media collage 8x8 inches on watercolor paper

   

 It has been two years since I wrote on this blog that is painting inspired. 

What surprised me in a serendipitous way was that the first post I had made in this blog format, (sistermotherbeloved in 2009) was also at a beginning, when I moved to Bavaria. 

This is interesting to reflect on ....how many beginnings we are given throughout our lives. So many experiences to come to know ourselves, to know what really matters.....

Two years ago I had stepped into a process of painting that would lead me deeper in touch with myself than I could have imagined. 

I'm kind of excited to see myself sitting at this desk, with my new computer from last year that I've hardly touched...maybe it was waiting for this moment, to write again.

It feels that way.

So that process did bring me more in touch with myself and now - yeah, it's just me in the house. Just me in the garden. Just me in the studio. Just me in the kitchen, on the porch, mending the fences where the persistent groundhogs still enter the field garden. Just me, landing more gently. I thought I knew what landing was all about.

There is a returning to myself. To realize I am fun to be with. Maybe this is too personal. 

Well, that's where I'll start. I'm tucked away on Blogger while everyone else is on Substack. That's ok.

 I will find an image to share of the renewal, of the remembering, of the returning. 

Abstraction has called my intuition awake to a new way of expressing myself in paint and collage....I follow where it leads. I ride the bumpy parts of the road. 

I enjoy the flow when I notice that, too.

i'm very grateful to be here, that's for sure.

If my words reach anyone who is a reader, even though it might sound like I am talking to myself....may they feel the gentle whisper of remembering that calls us all back to ourselves, back to what we have aways known matters most in life.

That knowing, that remembering matters now more than ever.

Anew 2023

I’m feeling the beginning of that next layer of the onion being peeled.

Last year was a wide open door activated by the creative visionary program of Nicholas Wilton.

Now I feel more like a beginner than ever.

I’m aiming for a deeper trust and confidence in myself to take root this year. 

Music of a Wedding Feast

12x12 oil and cold wax on panel 

Being your self

 

She got my attention

She wanted to be herself

in fact

in awe

She wanted to be me.

I join you now

whole

outside of the false prison of unworthiness.

I have joined you,

without moving an inch.

 

The gift is being opened

it has always had our very own name on it.

Detail of Another Village

18x24 inches

oil and cold wax on canvas 

The experience

 

I’m watching so many changes happen in my paintings during this CVP course it is often mind boggling- and with each change I get the chance to say “oh I really like this, this really feels like me.” 

That is what this course really serves- each of our personal and unique life expression. 

I really like the yellow ochre and the bits of whatever floating above the structure of whatever below them !! 

It’s a joy to be ourselves. 

Some more thoughts on this process:

A finished painting really is feeling like an artifact of the experience I had painting it.

The decisions

The not knowing 

The play

The choices 

The discomfort 

The wonder of being led from “the inside of the inside” (Thank you Chameli Ardagh for that pointer 💫)

And everything in between - an experience of me.

And to share it——

that’s the bonus feature!

Look what I found !!

12x12 acrylic

The Eye of the World’s Heart

All eyes are on the people of Ukraine.

Our hearts are with them daily as we watch and feel from a distance the destruction that is being brought upon their homes and lives as a direct result of unwarranted aggression.

We are moved to help in so many ways. Our prayers call for a miracle to stop the killing and destruction.

Feeling this helplessness in the face of war I turned to what I can do directly to bring my own attention into a place of power. I paint. I brought all I feel into this painting - the crush of the aggressor, the spirit of the Ukraine people, the heart of all humanity, and the eye of the world.

May there be a miracle to end this war in our lives.

May all beings know peace in their lives.

The Freedom Spirit

36x36 oil and cold wax on canvas

does completion take form from only one direction?

 

a bit of pondering has come my way again

i worked on this painting yesterday from one direction

when it felt complete

i leaned it up against the wall in another direction 

and i saw a painting that really touched me through and through from yet another direction!

so, i ponder the intention I carry within.

my intention is to reveal what is going to take form as i paint, as i follow my own process.

that sounds a bit wide angled but i think that is how i work at the moment, and since i entered that door into the room of non objective painting. 

my focus is sharpened and yet my tight hold on getting something soon has eased. 

I'm watching what I see on the panel, I am feeling what impulses come my way, I'm not listening to my thinking and I am enjoying the process that color reveals in shape and line. 

it's just a mystery

and i am glad to still be taking part in this mystery of life through paint.

it surprises me and brings joy forward into the room, into the moment.