Inspired

In The Closet

 

This is where I've been hanging out for the past week...yes, in my closet!  My amiga's took me to Ajijic's art supply shops and out I came with a canvas, paints and brushes under my arms.

I wasn't planning on doing anything here that required purchasing art supplies (and just how do I get this home if I decide it's a keeper?  No problem, they told me...just take it off the frame and roll it up!)  

I started off painting swirls and lines and then covered up what I didn't want and followed the lines and shapes that I liked.  It's morphing into something organic with seed pods and leaves and petals and....who knows what's next!  Every time I sit with it, I see something new and the next step reveals itself to me.  It's painting intuitively and allowing each step to inform the next.

It's not surprising then, that this is also how I'm endevouring to live my life these days.  Step-by-step.  Allowing this day...this moment...to inform me of what I want to experience in the next.  Not always easy but I'm working at it!

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying painting in this way...and not having a predetermined outcome.

 

Ajijic is keeping us busy...there's just so much to see and do. It has a very lively art, music and cultural life and there seems to be an endless supply of cafe's and restaurants to explore and enjoy.  If you're not into the arts, there are three golf courses in the area as well as a raquets club and thermal pools.  Add to this, a sunny and moderate climate and it's easy to see why so many expats have chosen to retire here.

I'll be back with a painting update soon...meanwhile I'll leave you with another poster that I created for Veronica Torres/Eloheim.

 

 

Adios amigos!

 

 

 

 

Everything Will Be All Right In The End

watercolor with digital text

quote from the The Eagle and The Hawk by John Denver

...a page for my art journal

We’re back home and fully into catching up in the garden…lots of weeding,  pruning and planting going on here.  It makes us both very happy to nurture and cultivate our small plot of land.  There was lots of oohing and aaahing over what had come up while we were away.  We planted so many things in our new garden last year that honestly, we’d forgotten half of what was there.  It’s like Christmas in the spring!

Yesterday we saw The Best Exotic New Marigold Hotel and loved it!  It may be that I related to it because I'm at the age of retirement...so I’d be interested to hear how people younger than myself felt about it…but we LOVED it.  It was just so upbeat and positive.

It’s about a group of British retirees who decide to "outsource" their retirement to a less expensive and seemingly exotic India.  Running through it was the quote by the young hotel owner “Everything will be all right in the end, so if it’s not all right, then it’s not yet the end”…what beautiful wisdom! 

I haven't looked at the reviews at all but I would recommend this movie…it's not "great cinema" but it has wonderful talent (Judy Dench and Maggie Smith to name a few) and watching it felt like being in a lovely oasis of joy and happiness...not the usual gloom, doom and despair that the media normally feeds us.  The rest of the audience in the theatre must have agreed, because there was a round of applause at the end…not something that happens at many movies.  In fact, I think the last time that happened was at the end of The Kings Speach.

Sending hugs and blowing kisses to all of you around this big, beautiful and amazing world of ours,

30 Days of Gratitude Project – #20 - Faraway Dreams

Faraway Dreams 

Mixed media (acrylic/paper/ink)  Kate Iredale

 

I finally finished my latest painting…as usual it sat for weeks, untouched until last week when I got so tired of looking at it I just dived in and wrapped it up.

After years of repeating this pattern, I finally figured out what it’s all about… why I start something, let it sit unfinished for weeks, if not months…and then finish it up really quickly.  It’s a very old pattern of mine that I’m (happily) changing.  For much of my life, I've started projects and then not finished them.  at. all. If I didn’t finish something, then I couldn’t be criticized.  In fact it was only today that I realized that by not finishing, I not only couldn’t be criticised by anyone else…I got to criticize myself for never finishing anything!  Oh the games we all play!  LOL

Happily, once we understand our motivation (or lack there of), we’re 90% of the way to overcoming it!

I began this canvas by overlaying it with several pages that I ripped out of an old book. I wanted abstract and I wanted simple.  The multi coloured portion on the left was done with a palette knife and much of the remaining image was done by rubbing paint on (and off) with a moist cloth.  Finally I rubbed a stain over the finished piece (and then wiped it off) to bring up the texture.

I’m grateful today on this, the 20th day of the 30 Days of Gratitude Photo Project, that I finished this painting!

 

Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of resistance.

Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul.

That’s why we feel so much resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no resistance.

Steve Pressfield, The War of Art

 

Magic and Alchemy

Love’s Glow

acrylic paint and water soluble crayons on canvas (24” x12”)

"In love's glow, there is great magic"

 

I finally finished the painting that I’ve been working on (more off really, than on) all summer. I wanted to create something that felt magical to me and was inspired by Stephanie Lee’s sweet lanterns and yes, I’m still obsessed hooked on turquoise.

Magic and alchemy happen when we live from a place of love. Alchemy isn’t just about turning lead into gold…it’s the transformation of one thing into another. Love transforms life. Oh, I know that’s the simplistic version but truly, when we bring love into the equation, it transforms us, it transforms situations, it transforms relationships and it transforms the world.

This painting is, for me, about seeing the ordinary with new eyes…with the eyes of love. It’s transformative. A whole new world can appear that never before seemed possible, especially when we perceive ourselves with loving eyes.

 

One way can be learned by starting to see the magic in everything. Sometimes it seems to be hiding but it is always there. The more we can see the magic in one thing, a tiny flower, a mango, someone we love, then the more we are able to see the magic in everything and in everyone. Where does the mango stop and the sky begin?

Joshua Kadison

 

Where indeed does the mango stop and the sky begin? Blessing of love, magic (and the blurring of lines), to each of you.