Tag — collage
Soulcrafting: a gallery
I’m getting ready to teach Soulcraft for the first time over at Flock. (I’m so excited!) To get ready I gathered up a lot of my past work — from 2004 onward — to share as examples. Wow! Was I surprised at how much I’d produced! (And these are only the one’s I’d already taken photos of or scanned into the computer.)
What would happen if you gathered up all the projects you’ve worked on in the past year to two? You might be pleasantly surprised! Stack all your knitting, gather all your sketches, print out all your poems. Let’s open a gallery!
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| a selection of my collages, with ideas for supplies |
Saturday Housekeeping
Hello Loves,
There’s a lot going on over here, and even now I hear the sound of my hubby vacuuming —unbidden!— downstairs. While he does the IRL housekeeping I’ll do the virtual stuff. Here’s what’s going on today in Magpie Girl world.
Soulsisters!
Are you coming on the Soulsister’s ‘09 Retreat? Do you wish you were? Do you want to form your own tribe of soulsisters (or soulsiblings?) Follow our progress and learn our hopes here.
Fun & Helpful Twitter Play-a-Longs
Do you Tweet? So do I! I’m starting some fun new trends on Twitter.
- #gigglepics: photos to cheer you up or soothe your soul via TwitPic.
- #dailywhimsy: cheeky little tweets about the playful things we do to embrace whimsy.
- #dreamboards: do you dreamboard? share your results using links to your blog, Flickr, or Twitpic.
- #soulsisters: for those of us attending the first retreat and dreaming or forming the next one.
- #doless:join The DO LESS Revolution and learn to do what Leo Babatua calls “the fine art of choosing the essentials,” and achieve what I call “concentrated living.” (Plus, just feel better!)
- #soultribes: follow the “How to Build Your Soultribe” series and share ideas and plans with others.
- #*8Things: to share your weekly *8Things and see what others come up with. (It’s fascinating)
Wreck this Journal
Over at Starshyne Productions, my soulsister Jamie Ridler offers The Next Chapter — virtual book clubs for the arty at heart. Right now she’s encouraging us to make a mess with Keri Smith’s Wreck this Journal. Eden, Cate and I started wrecking ours two summers ago. But I’m working on finishing the demo now. Here’s my page for this week. The instructions were “cover this page with white things.” It’s doubling as this month’sdreamboard. My theme for the month is “be still. be now.”
Hope you all have a wonderful Saturday. Don’t do too much housekeeping…go outside and do something whimsical!
Love,
Magpie Girl
Sacred Life Sunday
Photo by: Silvia at DreamerGirl. (blog:art work)
Song by: Me by the Sea, Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians (listen)
Love for: Miss Lynette F, emailer extraordinarie
All My Pretties: Altered Postcards
Mr. Rhino came from my personal Mecca, the Getty. He always makes me think of the word “ancestor.”
I have new friend over in Finnland, the creative and lovely Miss Silvia at Dreamer Girl. (With a blog name like that we had to be mates, yeah?) Silvia and I follow each other on Twitter, and when she tweeted a postcard exchange I rushed to join. Late, as always, I’ve only just packed mine off to the post office, but I think they turned out rather fun and quirky. Take a look. Oh, and if you get inspired to send me Me ME a love note on a handmade card, email me and I’ll gladly send you my digits. ;-) Cheers!
On Pain, Mourning, and Telling the Truth
The cover from my current journal, made with a postcard of Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist”–my personal icon of mourning.
I am coming to the realization that I have two functional weeks a month. Otherwise the pain level is too severe. I can’t write well when I’m this foggy.
For awhile there, for a beautiful hopeful season, I was in better remission and I had most of the month free and clear. But now, it’s back to just two weeks. If it gets worse, if it gets to be more than this, I’ll have to fly home and see my super special Dr. Woo-Woo and get back on top of this. You all have to hold me accountable to this okay? If I’m out of it more than two weeks a month you have to say, “Rachelle, it’s worth the money. Fly home. Spend a week or two on Dr. Lewis’ treatment table.”
Chronic pain is such a complex creature. It is a large part of your life, but it is not your life. It is a big part of you, but it is not who you are. Living within those paradoxical realities is challenging, perhaps as challenging as figuring out the physical bits and pieces of it–the medicines and the food allergies and the exercise and sleep needs and all the more attainable nuts and bolt-ness of it all.
I’ve wanted to write something about this for while. Something like Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Lament of a Son which not a self-help book, but the author’s story about the death of his son. The telling itself though, is helpful. The telling itself is the companionship for the journey.
In the beautiful children’s book Frida, the author says “she turned her pain into something beautiful.” I’d like to do that. I’d like to tell true things – stories that are also helpful.
I don’t know why I always leap to the idea of a book, when clearly articles and essays are my most natural length. (I just get so distracted by sparkly things, and without a real deadline I skip from project to project. This is not a boon to my agent.) At any rate, maybe an article would be more reasonable here….maybe something for The Sun. I have a couple little bits that might turn into something. This one for instance, or this artsy bit here, or here. Or maybe these more practical stories. And then there is what I wrote this morning, based on an image that came to me while I was doing Shavasana on the living room floor:
I offer this pain to you on a gilt platter.
No, held aloft in a silver bowl.
I give it to you coiled, or swirling and boiling.
A dark depth. An oily surface.
I give it to you as an offering because it is a part of me.
Because some days, it is all of me.
I give it to you as a gift, you who the wise ones says want all of me. (Though perhaps they are not so wise.)
I give it to you as a gift to see what you will make of it.
Will you touch it with a long-nailed finger and turn its surface to silver? Sprinkle it with some earthy magic? Feed it drops of Lucy’s cordial? Will you blow on it and part the waters; wave a hand and vanish it all; speak and make it to run clear; drink it down within yourself?
What will you do then,
with this pain that drains from the trinity of my eyes and the bridge of my nose?
What will you make of this dark offering?
Play us out Sister Alanis.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
May you have warm words on a cold evening,
A full moon on a dark night,
And the road downhill all the way to your door.
(An Irish blessing from an Irish lass. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!)
Matchbox Shrine: Mary’s Prayer
“Blessed is the one who shares
the power and your beauty.”
Here’s another little matchbox shrine for the current Creativity Challenge. This fun project is perfect if you only have a little time to be your creative self. I made this ode to Mary in a half hour, while the kids ate afer school snacks at the kitchen table.
I’ve been carrying this vintage enamel token in my pocket for a couple of months, ever since I found it at our local flea market. I’m constantly afraid I’ve lost it, until I dig through the pile of dirty clothes to find her resting serenely in some pocket or another. I’ve been yearning the past few years for more feminine images of the Divine. The BVM, or Blessed Virgin Mary, is a good stand in. While while Mary doesn’t quite fit the bill for me in that regard, (DaVinci code conspiracy theories aside), I do find it comforting to have a nurturing mother figure at my side.
I’m having fun putting together a nice little ephemera package for making tin-box shrines. It will be the prize in the matchbook shrine drawing on October 5th. Carve out a little time for yourself this weekend and indulge in some mucking about with tiny things — make a matchbook shrine. There’s plenty of room in the pool!
P.s. Do you remember this song? Sometimes it gets stuck in my head when I’m wishing for Mary…
“So if I say save me, save me
Be the light in my eyes
And if I say ten Hail Mary’s
Leave a light on heaven for me …”
-Mary’s Prayer
Danny Wilson
Wednesday Review: Water For Elephants
a photo of a circus page in the shared journal Jen and I passed back and forth the last time we were blocked
I was so good about advance-posting things for while I was on vacation, and now that I’m back I’ve barely had time to touch the key board. The kids are bored with thier toys and feeling twitchy about the upcoming transition back to school. I’m longing for some studio time but loath to say goodbye to the few sunny days we’ve had this season in Seattle. Does anyone else find the last two weeks of “school’s out” a bit trying? What’s your solution? Post ideas below!
I did manage to happen upon a fun summer read while on vacation, and offer it to you now as twlight read for the dog days of Summer. Check out my review of Water for Elephants over at Magpie Reviews — and enter to win your very own copy! (Ooooo, I love give aways!)
Wednesday Review
Today’s review over in Magpie Reviews is of Karen Michel’s very useful book The Complete Guide to Altered Imagery. This is a great how-to for magpie artists like me. I’ll also be using this book in September to launch Magpie Girl’s First Friday Creative Challenge. Mark you calendars for the roll out of this every-one-can-play project starting September7th!
Decision
This week’s theme at Mama Says Om is “decision.” We happen to be standing on the edge of a pretty big decision. We are looking at some employment opportunities overseas. This comes up every six months or so, and up until now there’s not been a very good fit. But something new is on the horizon and we’re wondering if it might be for us.
There’s a kind of artwork that I do which I tend to think of as “art as spiritual journey.” These pieces are more craft and meditation than they are actual “art.” (Whatever that means.) I often find that they solidify a concept I’m trying to get my head around, or point me in a direction that I didn’t know I was longing for. Working on this piece for Mama Says Om helped me feel like the possibility of relocating was real, was firm. The collage embodied a concept in a way that my mental imagination alone could not. Now I feel like if we pursue this as an option it’s less ethereal — there’s something solid to stand on, and that is making me feel less afraid of the exploration.
To make this collage I used a piece of stationary with a travel theme as a background and applied a map from a European tour book. The birds are a stamp I carved out of a wine cork. The big red “you are here” arrow was cut out of electrical tape and the letters are stickers that I cut up so they didn’t look quite as scrapbook-y. Small pricing tags from an office supply store detail out the verb “to decide.” More stickers on the bottom spell out what I’d have to do if I moved out of familiar surrounds. The sentence in handwriting says “I have a fork” in Danish — the only thing I remember from the round of language lessons I took a year ago. (Actually, that’s not true. I also remember the word for apron and the word for living room … I’m sure those three things will take me a L-O-N-G way!)
Mama Says Om is a great experiment to help creative mom’s hold on to their art-and-soul. You can play too! Just check the weekly theme, and write, photograph, paint, collage, or whatever your way to a post on the topic. Then link to Mama Says Om to inspire and be inspired. Mama Says Om is brought to you by the wondergals at Elaine and Krystyn.
Ps. Here’s some links to other art-as-meditation projects that I’ve done in the past. A little note for context…I am an ordained minister and work with artists who are trying to find a new way to practice old faiths, as well as with interfaith communities, and with women who are trying to access the feminine divine. I teach workshops on art-based meditative practices. Contact me if your interested in booking me for a conference or retreat. moi at magpie dash girl dot com.
Other Stuff
spring equinox
dia de los meurtos: derrida (by Lindell Alderman), altar for darfur
feminine divine,
ignatian examen high point,
ignatian examen, low point
thank you
perched
tsunami intercession
justice (by Rebecca Dallin),
The Ramadan Collection
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