Category Archives: Life as an Artist

Rigid Containers

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Animals and plants and directions and elements, that’s my inspiration typically and it’s no different here.

I started working on this design a few weeks ago, just picking it up, doodling a little, putting it down, picking it up… D was sitting beside me for much of it so this project will always have a bit of his energy in it and always tug my heartstrings more than I thought it would. I made a lot of progress on my trip but much of it is still in my head. I worked on it on my first full day on the coast in the sun.

Each side of the box will have a corresponding plaque with an animal and a plant. The longer sides of the rectangular box will have smaller plaques with either viney stuff or witchy stuff like cauldrons or the like…

The lid is still puzzling me a bit. I like what I have but I’m still not sure how it works with the sides, which I love…

I was sitting there on the beach in the sun gazing into the universe and this bird, a bird I didn’t recognize, flew into my field of vision and then hovered there staring at me. Its body position was unusual as it was facing me the way you would see an angel hovering over you with wings spread out to the sides. The bird did this for probably 10 seconds. I just watched with my mouth in an O and felt blessed. Immediately after this blessing came to me. I made a note about the bird on the page in the above photo so I would remember it. This blessing will be on the inside of the lid of the box. To some it will be obvious that it is based on some of the elemental blessings/exorcisms from many witchcraft traditions but this was very personal to me. It makes me cry a bit because I was thanking the Goddess for the love she brought me even though my heart was, and still very much is, breaking.

My Summer Vacation

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Not the best portent eh? Certainly reflected my state of mind before I began the trip but the drive to this point had started to clear my head and fill my heart.  The first song of the journey?  Galileo from Rites of Passage by The Indigo Girls. Three hits to the heart son and it’s poetry in motion…  Yeup, that was me. Job loss, relationship loss (I knew it in my heart even though it didn’t happen officially until I returned), leave of absence from coven, funeral…

The views were lovely if more appropriate to early autumn (which it kind of is but I need summer right now)…

The further down I got the more sun I saw… Devil’s Punchbowl

Waldport, the town where I stayed for 3 nights had sun the first full day and no others. I did fully enjoy the beach and loved this bridge which made me think of dinosaur spines.

I got some sketching in for a work in progress, a large wood box that I will burn and paint. More on that in a future post.

More fog as I begin traveling further south. Mind you Seattle was in the middle of a heat wave in the very high 90’s (Seattle is a temperate rain forest so temps in the 90’s is unusual and always worth commentary). I went on this vacation to find sun and as soon as I left Seattle, it got sunny there and foggy and cloudy on my trip with rare exception. The day I got back to Seattle?  The clouds came in and we’re expecting rain this weekend. Guess the sun isn’t going to come out for me for awhile.

Yachats Oregon is my favorite coastal town from 35 years ago and it still is. I didn’t actually like many of the towns along the coast. The bigger towns were ugly to my eye and lots of evidence of serious recession shows it’s dreary head in Oregon towns these days. But Yachats still charms me and attracts many wonderful artists too. I purchased a small water bowl for west and a new cup, both items for my solitary practice when not in coven space. My first trip to Yachats we stayed with a potter and I made a couple of bowls myself, if I still had them I’d use them, they’d be perfect.  So this was in honor of that memory and of my budding artistic expression.

The surrounding landscape was what I was there to see thankfully, not the towns…

Took lots of photos of Vetch, a wild sweet pea, one of my favorites. Very inspired and this might be showing up in my work in the not too distant future…  I don’t have photos but saw much wildlife on the trip. On the way down every time I started to think about job woes a raven, an eagle, or a vulture would fly out of the trees right in front of me. Still pondering that one. On a walk with my friends, 4, count them 4!!, snakes crossed my path. They’ve lived there 15 years and never had that happen. As much as snakes give me the complete phobic body twist, I am well aware that they are one of my totem animals and have much to teach me. FOUR. I saw 2 gray whales and one of them gave me a high spout. Elk, deer, pelicans, wonderful. That said, the snakes and the ravens and vultures were really speaking to me this past week…

Thank you to my dear friends who made this trip possible, who showed me lovely locales, and treated me very well when I was so fragile.

The wind is so intense that it can hurt the ears, especially if you are musician who now has ear troubles… It wasn’t cold, just windy.

The music on the way home?

Star Boxes

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Coven Birthdays in July.  We have 2 Cancers with Leo stelliums, one Leo with a Leo stellium, and one Leo.  What a fun bunch of folks.  We ate Thali at our High Priests restaurant, gave presents, laughed, talked, and generally really connected with each others energy.  Awesome.  I then left to go to my home group AA meeting where I got my 15 year chip.  Yes folks.  I celebrated 15 years clean and sober this month.  Yes.

Here are the little boxes that I made for my coven mate’s birthdays.  Note the butterfly box, each side has a snapshot in the life of a chrysalis becoming a butterfly.  The sun is for the other Cancer with Leo stellium, and the flowers for my fae friend, the Leo with Leo stellium.

Shadowscapes Tarot

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OMG. It’s finally here!  The Shadowscapes Tarot.  I think it’s been here for awhile. I didn’t have a job and therefore, money, so I assumed when I purchased the Shadowscapes Tarot and the amazon page said (Paperback) that I was purchasing the book because the cards weren’t published yet.  What arrived was the full deck of cards and book.

OMG.

I’ve been waiting for this day for 5 years at least.  A total fan of Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, I’ve been drooling over this particular project of hers for so long I’m just stunned that the moment is here. I can hardly wait for lunchtime so I can go outside and play with them.  Until now the Druidcraft Tarot has been the deck I use, almost exclusively (I own probably 3 dozen decks or more), but those cards are very large for my smallish hands and this new deck, that speaks to my soul?  Fits just right.