IF: Zoe Wanted Wings

Inspire Me Thursday (Altered Ancestor,Stage II, Metamorphosis)


Adaptation:

a. Something, such as a device or mechanism, that is changed or changes so as to become suitable to a new or special application or situation.

b. A composition that has been recast into a new form.

c. Biology An alteration or adjustment in structure or habits, often hereditary, by which a species or individual improves its condition in relationship to its environment.

Altered Ancestor

This is a portrait of my third cousin Zoe, that I created for Inspire Me Thursday's Altered Ancestor Challenge. By the time I was knew Zoe, she was sixty-four years old , deaf as a post, had ill-fitting dentures and a bushy shock of white hair that looked oddly like a mohawk. But this is what I imagine Zoe looked like back in the day. My mother was an only child born of a mother who had one brother. She was, however, raised with her first cousin Zoe, as though they were sisters. I remember the two of them as old ladies, chattering wildly and giggling like girls in my grandmother's kitchen. My mother says Ava and I are just like them.

Totem

This is a collage I made for The Created By Hand Insect Challenge. Please check out all the lovely bugs and crawly things the artists created this week. This collage is also for my favorite Flickr challenge group called CollagePlay With Crowabout. Every Saturday morning the group administrator, Nancy Baumiller, posts a printable page of images, and members of the group create collages. Very aptly named, this is a group of some of the most fun irreverent, supportive artists I know. If they don't get your muse in gear, nothing will. You'll recognize the names of many of the members in my blogroll, and if you'd like to play, just click here and join the fun.

Back to Bali

for Mixed Media Monday and Creative Therapy

Transcendence

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and your discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” Patanjali


Only one more day of school and then I'll move my easel out on the screen porch and have whole long, slow days of uninterrupted painting, where I can watch the birds and feel the sun and smell the jasmine blooming. I can take long walks with Ava in the morning and nap outside on the daybed in the afternoon. I can pick blueberries from Mr. Al's garden and make gallons of spaghetti sauce from his tomatoes. I can eat figs right off the tree and read so many lovely books. Summer is just perfect.

This last week has been so hectic, though: giving and grading exams, finishing iep's, packing to move to a new classroom. I've had no time for art for almost a week, and that has not been fun. When I saw this challenge, though, at One Powerful Hour, I was immediately inspired because my new issue of Elle magazine had a great spread featuring this striking Asian model. Black and white fashion photography is something I've used a lot on my journal pages, and I thought, "This is a challenge I think I really could finish in less than an hour." And did I ever need to make a journal page! Something about journal pages loosens me up and helps my creative spirit flow. So, this morning before I left for school, I used some of my most familiar techniques on my favorite color and completed this page in about a half hour. I immediately felt energized and happy. Art and color have that effect on me. Making art helps me find my power, makes me feel closer to the real me, at least the me I want to be. What gets you going? Where do you find your power? Please leave me a comment and tell me where you get your sense of self or purpose and what you're going to do this summer. Remember that "a goal without a plan is just a wish." (Saturday Surprise) Find your power!

Love,
Alberta

MMM: Altered People

I know that I've mentioned how much I longed to go to Bali in April for Anahata Katkin's week long mixed media workshop, Since I couldn't go to the retreat in person, I studied the photographs she posted on Flickr, and today I had my own private Balinese art retreat in my studio. Because one of my favorite subjects is altered people, the wallpaper panels she demonstrated were of great interest to me. You can see samples from her students here. Although mine is very miniature, I tried to apply the techniques Anahata taught, and here's my version of a wallpaper icon.

IF

"Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Under The Sea

for Wednesday Stampers

I'm sitting out on my patio with a good glass of red wine, listening to Mozart and the frogs down by the pond, waiting for Wesley and his girlfriend Brooke to come by for supper. Sigh, life is good...

How Does My Garden Grow

Mr. Al designed our Woodland Garden, and together we planted it with shade loving plants. Come down the path with me, and stop to smell the jasmine and sweet bay magnolia.


















Mr. Tumnus stands sentry in the hellebores and sweet woodruff..


















Rhododendrons bloom under the oak trees.




















A long view of the back garden stretching toward the pond.



















A tiny cottage garden lines the walk leading to my kitchen. This is where I grow my herbs and the flowers I use for cutting.


















A winter storm felled the arbor last November, but my Mozart Rose blooms undaunted.


























Foxgloves, my favorite flower, mingle with David Austin roses Othello and Mary Rose.





















Zephrine Drouhin and Constance Spry roses clamber over the walls of the house in the front cottage garden (for Inspire Me Thursday and Saturday Surprise).

The Spy Who Loved Me

On this Mother's Day, I'm going to reprint something I wrote last year for my mother, the queen of all Amusing Muses:




During the Cold War, spies were all the rage. There was James Bond, The Man From Uncle, and Maxwell Smart. There was Emma Peel, Agent 99, and Jethro, the Double-Naught Spy, but, most notorious of all, was XLo05. Ava and I had a slightly dysfunctional, somewhat unpredictable, magically creative childhood. The magically creative parts were due to one lovely, irreverent crazy woman we fondly call "Mother." Other mothers in the '60's, were known as "Mama" or "Mom," but our grandfather insisted that we address her by the very formal "Mother." There was little else formal about her, except, perhaps, her manners. Almost all of her other appellations, suited her better. There was "Pot," (a nickname given her by her sorority sisters in college, mysterious because it was a decade too early to have today's connotation). Then, there was the affectionate "Nan-nan," a name I invented as a toddler, attempting to pronounce her real name, Katherine Ann. This was also the name her grandchildren would be allowed to call her, since my grandfather wasn't around to encourage the use of the very proper title "Grandmother." To her high school students, she was "Flash Gordon," the hip, five-time Star Teacher of Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, romantic poetry and American transcendentalism, yearbook sponsor, Scholastic Bowl coach, and stage director of high school theater and beauty pageants.

But to Ava and me, behind closed doors, she was.....XLo05! On muggy summer afternoons, when it got too hot to read or decoupage purses in the carport or even run through the sprinkler, she would beckon us into her bedroom, turn on her window unit, shut the door, and dole out a strange blue candy we'd never before seen. The candy looked like Jolly Ranchers, but Jolly Ranchers didn't come in that color. No matter how we begged, she refused to tell us where she bought them. She remained enigmatic on that subject, and, with a barely straight face, she informed us we didn't have proper clearance. She would divulge the name of the candy, however: XLo05. In the murky underwater dimness of her bedroom, we whispered and giggled and gossiped. She told us stories of secret missions and dangerous feats in which we were the heroes; alter egos for the all of us were born; we were intrepid spies of international fame and fortune. On those afternoons, she was quite a different person, nothing at all like the other mothers we knew, who played Bridge and attended Junior Auxiliary meetings. She was a co-conspirator of silliness, a collaborator of folly, a spinner of tales of mischief and adventure. Behind her closed door, in the the damp frigid air of her bedroom, she created a secret triumvirate of superheroes. She instructed us in the martial arts of spreading magic and mirth throughout the universe. She gave us the armor of laughter and imagination. She made us believe we could do anything. We were undefeatable.

Happy Mother's Day, XLO05! I love you.
Alberta

Another Self Portrait

Earlier this week my friend Roc made a postcard that I fell in love with. Coincidentally, the card was called "Albert." So I made this journal page as another self portrait demo fo rmy class and as an entry for Theme Thursday's Dance challenge, Illustration Friday's Parade challenge, and TGIF's Childhood challenge. Check "Albert" out here along with all of Roc's brilliantly quirky art.

I realize this isn't the best scan, but I was journaling at school on a watercolor pad that was too large to fit directly onto my scanner. I had to photograph the page, scan it, and then do the editing, so it ended up slightly crooked and some of my swirlies were cut off. But it was a lot of fun to make and that's what counts, isn't it?

Zetti Mom

My all-time favorite journal artist is Teesha Moore. Last summer, shortly after I began blogging, I discovered her website, which includes a wonderful description of how she creates her funky journal pages. To see her art and read about how she makes her pages, click here. This page is a demo I made in Teesha's Zetti style, on the spur of the moment, for my fifth period writing class and for Created by Hand's Mother's Day challenge. For my end-of-semester project, I assigned a written autobiography and a creative visual representation to go with it. In an attempt to get my students to make something besides a poster, I showed them some of my art journal pages and explained that they didn't have to go out and purchase a bunch of exensive art supplies. Most of them have their poetry journals from first semester, and I told them just to grab some magazines and start cutting. The elements in this collage came from my top desk drawer and are just leftovers from other projects. "Mom" came from an old issue of Glamour, I think. I also had to resort to using construction paper (for her hat) and a crusty old bottle of Elmer's glue (hence the bubbles and uneven spots on the page). Today I'm going in armed with glue sticks, bottles of cheap acrylic paint, and more magazines from my endless stash. I can't wait to see their self-portraits.

Infinite Mind

"Perfect peace to the soul as we rest in the realization of our unity with all there is, was or ever will be." Ernest Holmes (for Saturday Workout and Lots To Do)