Meet Bekah

After much planning, procrastination and prayer on my part, I have asked a very talented  woman to join my team and keep my online presence in order. Bekah Willis  is a gifted writer who knows the ins and outs of cyberspace. She has fearlessly visited all my online sites and corralled them all into one place. She suggested that perhaps it would be easier for people to find me if I were to use my name instead of the anonymous  "Meanderings Northwest." She's kind of smart that way.

As a disorganized, Creative Explorer, I feel successful if I occasionally post images of studio progress. Never mind that my store (s) and gallery have not had a new posting in ages. My Etsy store listings expired months (years?) ago, never to be renewed. Keeping up with that kind of business is not something I enjoy. I  simply prefer getting my hands into the paint.

Bekah is the solution to this problem. She will be able to keep my store and gallery online up to date. She will motivate me to communicate with you more regularly. She has already taken a mishmash of sites and streamlined their presentation. She is truly a gift. I did go in and tweak some things (don't shoot me, Bekah), but she has the final say. I am so grateful for her willingness to apply her gifts and talents to my work. Once she gets me shipshape, she will be looking for other creative souls to organize.

Bekah is currently located in Florida with her husband, expecting their first son, Peyton, in the fall.

Joy in the Water

The benefits of sharing studio space are numerous:  encouragement, accountability, instruction, inspiration and critique, to name a few. I have the privilege of sharing space with six other artists. We are a diverse group including painters in a variety of mediums, those who collage, recycle artists and even one fiber artist complete with antique 4x4 loom. Our studio schedules do not always coincide, but we all usually come together the first Friday of every month between 6pm-9pm for the monthly Downtown Bellingham Art Walk. Next Friday, August 7, is the August Art Walk.

Many of you know I have been recently working on creating women. Next Friday, many of those pieces will be available for viewing for the first time. The last few ladies in this process have become a series I've entitled the Gaudy Ladies, due to their vibrant primary colors. Most of my ladies have simply been faces, but one of my studio mates challenged me to create a full scale Gaudy Lady on a 5' x 2.5' (really BIG) canvas I had stashed away. After resisting for longer than I care to admit, I began the work I have currently titled "Song of Joy"this week.

It began with collage, using sacred sheet music from my grandmother.

After that I added a sheer coat of yellow as an under painting. I then added my lady.

I particularly like her hair at this point. Everything else is up for grabs...
Next came the flowers I knew she needed.

Yesterday I began the work on the background.

I expect to get her finished this weekend and have her hanging for Friday's Art Walk. Come out and see how she ends up.

This is not something I would have tackled before my association with my studio mates. My fear of failure would have kept me from even trying. In fact, I must regularly tell my Inner Critic (I.C.) that this is simply an experiment... That it doesn't have to be perfect... Or the best... Or sell! I simply must continue doing the work.

So far my I.C. has been held at bay even though he is rarely silent. Perhaps I will surpass his ugly expectations one more time.

Please don't let your nasty, negative, nit-picking Inner Critic keep you from even sticking your toe in the water of your dreams. Thank him (or her!) for his opinion, but you are choosing to risk all those terrible things just this once. That you want to see for yourself what will happen.

And you can even tell him that Jenny thinks he may be over-reacting, the water of your dreams is truly magical and worth ricking a little splash.

I think your dreams are yours for the making. I think that is why they were given to you. Go for it!

Because I love you. Bunches.

Unintended Consequences

When I began my journey of creating 100 pieces centered on women, I chose the ambiguous word "making" to give myself the freedom to use any medium that seemed interesting. I've learned to draw a recognizable female face, both with realism and abstraction in pencil, pen, marker and various types of paint. I've begun to explore highlighting and shadowing to bring dimension. I've grown in confidence as well as skill.

These outcomes I expected.

What I didn't expect was how my day now feels incomplete without creating some kind of lady, how 100 days passes in a heartbeat, how quickly one can assemble a body of work, and how I could easily spend the next year exploring this theme.

But 10 days ago my paintbrush introduced me to my growing tribe of Gaudy Ladies. Who knew I had such joy and delight and color inside me? I can barely wait to get into the studio to see who my brush will create next. What an adventure!

Would I have found them without first doing the 80+ pieces that came before? Who knows. And that no longer matters to me. I'm having the time of my life with these colorful women!

I share all this with you, Precious One, because your own version of my Gaudy Ladies hides inside you wanting to be discovered. Your "ladies" might be songs or dance moves or photographs or poems or stories or flower beds or teachings or massive weights moved or clothes made or closets ordered or books read or any number of skills. You need only choose a task to practice regularly. Your heart is probably giving you hints where to start. Your Creator is faithfully giving you clues on your genre.

I think you may already know where to begin. And what begins as a chore might just develop into incredible joy. Really.

Don't be afraid; dare to follow your heart. Share your task with one other person daily.  Sometimes the accountability of texting an image daily was the only thing that kept me creating!

You truly do have it in you. I believe in the process and I believe in you.

Because I love you. Bunches.

Offerings for the Ninth Week of Making

I met with a friend this past weekend who commented that the ladies created here over the weeks of this challenge have one thing in common. Aside from the wonky proportions of my style, she wondered at their absence of happy expressions. I explained that I'd been working so hard at shape and proportion of facial elements that any expression at all seemed incidental. Truth be told, I've  been pleased if my efforts were recognized as faces at all!

If a person wants to become accomplished at anything, she must be willing to be a beginner every day. And a person must be willing to be bad at something in order to become good at the same thing. How many skills have I chosen NOT to attempt simply because I have been unwilling to expose my ineptitude? More than I'd like to admit, certainly.

I knew a child once who would climb up his new 2-wheeled bicycle and say he knew how to ride it. I believe he thought that he was supposed to know how to do it before ever learning the skill. He'd sit on the bike, kickstand down, and insist he could ride. How many of us approach skills with this same attitude. How many of us are willing to save those ugly, ungainly first attempts? Whether the skill be riding a bike or dancing or shooting a 3-pointer or drawing?
 

 

Micron Pens

Micron pens, Derwent Inktense pencils

 

Derwent Inktense pencils, Sharpie paint pens, Micron pens

Loved this quote found on Pinterest.

Micron pens, Derwent Inktense pencils, Sharpie paint pens.

 

This one is called: SOMETIMES GOD IS SILENT

Micron pens, Derwent Inktense pencils. 

Acrylic paint brayered background, gesso, stencils,

Micron pens, Derwent Inktense pencils, markers.

Princess Be-Right-Back told me about a song by Sara Groves she thought went well with these last two ladies. She was right. You can listen to it here.

So this week's ladies are all works in progress, like we all are. Let's all dare to be beginners this week. And hold our first, tottering attempts at the new skills as precious. Because they are. And so are you.

Love you. Bunches.