Tonight I'm sharing a work in progress with you ... as part of our Color of Woman journey we each are to do a painting of our Legendary Self... this is one of the painting sessions that has challenged me greatly, and took me a long while to get from its beginnings.. to the middle stage that is pictured below. I am sharing it because, it already has given me such joy by its sheer existance, it's showing me a strength and grace that I admire very much and I guess I seek to embody... it's somewhat empowering to and for me... to see qualities emerging in a painting that I want to embody in myself.. this is an intrinsic piece of the alchemy that I have been witnessing in this Visionary painting method I have been learning... and will soon be teaching. ![]() She has messages for me.. and one of her totem animals seems to be the Heron.. Strength and Grace are central characteristics and the 'little red riding hood' reference goes back a long way, and probably has several meanings. One of the memories my Dad recalls having is of me as a young girl; I was wearing a hooded red rain coat and riding on the back of my sisters bike "you looked just like Little Red Riding Hood" he always says. My view of my Dad has been tainted by many years of stuff, so having small cherishable memories like that, is precious to me. I also never liked the feeling that Little Red Riding hood seemed helpless to the trickery of that wolf, so now she has grown up, she carries her own damn axe and is not beholden to any wood-cutter to come and rescue her. I feel empowered when I look at this painting, and so.. with a deep breath.. I'm sharing it here. Oh... I had my 45th birthday on Saturday, wow!! that was fun too, I went to Noosa National park and swam!!! got spoiled by my husband and daugther for the weekend, went to a fancy dress party with a friend who shares my birthday! might share some pics tomorrow or this week sometime... oh.. and pressies... two new tea cups with Klmpt art on them.. ooohw, LOVE those... they will feature in new little tea pics soon. I really love when people offer specials when it's their birthday.. if you've been eyeing off a print let me know and I'll see what kind of birthday discount I can offer you. with love,
Denise. Hello creative one, I have been mentioning the idea of 'Visionary Painting' a little more of late... and so I wanted to share a new painting I just did this week, using this visionary painting method. I had a canvas that I'd covered in pictures creating a vision board back in 2009.. most if came true in the following 12-18 month time period. (yes, imagine that, amazing!) So... I painted over it and dripped paint, stenciled did a bunch of playing.. then set it aside deciding... uuuhm.. I've kindof ruined that, may as well throw it out.. but in true artist form... put it in a stack of 'wtf-do-i-do-with-these-canvas' against the wall in the corner of my studio. So.. when I was given a video series in my Color of Woman course by Shiloh.. I thought .. hey.. I'll give that a whirl.. and voila this gorgeous lady appeared... I'm jazzed about her because.. the intention I wrote in behind the layers of paint was for her to find me gorgeous venues to hold my painting workshops, I am gearing up to be teaching this beautiful method of painting and it would be ever so helpful for me to find just the right spaces in which to welcome you if you would like to come paint with me and a circle of women. "You must give from the overflow" I rarely use glitter... but this Lady of the Divine Spark asked for some! She has a sparkling candle, rose and magical tea is pouring from her teapot into those cups.. and the overflow onto the saucer - reminding me of a valuable lesson... You must give from your overflow, so that you're not depleted all the time. Fill yourself up with the things that strengthen you and keep you grounded, fueled, inspired, feeling loved.. THEN... you have so much more to give. Secret wish... I'm sharing with you ... I have a desire to travel to New Zealand once or twice a year and teach a workshop or two.. and visit my Mum & Dad on the Kapiti Coast ... so... I'm putting that out there, with this Lady of the Divine Spark watching over top... that we will be welcomed to just the right places, meet just the people who are calling out to be able to paint a visionary painting with me... and be in circle with a red thread ceremony. Christchurch is on the horizon for May 2014 with a friend of mine who is also a teacher of this painting method.
Visionary Painting Workshops are coming... I'm hoping to offer one in Buderim in September.. and another in October ... this kind of painting above can be created in a one day workshop, if you have a group who already gather and you'd like to hold a red thread ceremony / visionary painting workshop with my facilitation, do contact me. [email protected]. That's about it for the minute... and I'm sorry I'm not a prolific... organised... same time same place blogger... I do write on a whim a lot of the time... that may or may not change.. and I had thought I'd share a whole lot more of my CoW journey here... but truth is... it's been really full on.... a lot of inner work has been required, and I have been tending toward going within and not writing out here all that much about it... it needed to settle in me first. And.. I had my trip to California, which just blew me away, heart and soul so uplifted and loved up, truly amazing ... I don't think I've even written much about that here either? see... intermittant at best... sigh... if ever you have questions about this journey of mine.. you can ask.. and I'll do my best to answer.
with love Denise xo Oh my goodness... I just hit send... if you're on my newsletter list you'll be the first to receive the invitation to join me on a very special one day retreat/workshop. It's less than 2 weeks away... and I can't believe I'm offering it before I head off overseas on 18th July ... but these paintings have quite a mind of their own.. and I felt so moved by the creation of my Magdalene.. that I wanted to share that with a creativitea class as soon as I could. Below is a picture of the flyer... but if you'd like more information visit the webpage here. I'm excited.. and even a little nervous.. this is leaping out in faith in a direction I've never gone before... but it feels like a warm summer day to me... perfect.
love Denise xo I was inspired to write this as I was heading to sleep last night. off to pick up the brush,
love Denise xo With a few hours with the house to myself this morning I set about doing some cleaning up.. and also listened in to a podcast of my favourite blog talk show - Awakenings with Michele Meiche.. it REALLY helps me to not notice that I'm cleaning... trust me I need allll the help I can get in that area because I would rather do anything else much of time. Anyway.. let's not go on a tangent of the boringness of housework. Grateful I have a lovely home, *nods* excellent reframe!. o o o O o o o I noticed Flora's pic on her instagram, counting down the hours til she goes to Bali.. and of course it got me to thinking what it would take for an artist to fly all the way down yonder and gather a bunch of keen participants and hold a retreat where we will do some yoga in the mornings and paint in the afternoons.... and what does it mean for me to be joining her in less than two weeks ... I want to be very mindful... well not mind full of crap.. but awareness, readiness, openess to access parts of myself that may not come out to play in normal life situations... that's the gift of retreating... especially in a completely different environment.. and in this case different country!! than my home. I'm already in an aware and receptive state of learning due to the Color of Woman course I'm doing... so this is just more than I can put into words, to have this in the midst of that. o o o O o o o Below is a snapshot of the three paintings I'm sending in to the Immanual Arts Festival next week... I have been repainting and finishing them this week.. they are part of series I was excited to begin a bit a while ago... on the chakra's... and it was a time when I was really intent on going within, centering, seeking peace... and lots of solitude.. I really was tickled with Klimt's spiral'y trees and wanted to paint loads of them... I love spirals. The Sacral Chakra, red one has lots of affirmations written in the branches of the tree... yummy grounding energy is evident to me in that one. The 'Speak Your Truth' one with blues and greens has such clear blue eyes on that girl.. I quite love her the best at the moment. Meditative, healing and calming... that's the essence of these. Meditative Healing CalmingAura joined me for my morning cuppa... which I loved in between the cleaning. bye for now,
love Denise xo When I set the date for a full day 'Creativitea' I didn't actually realise it was 'Good Friday'.. and therefore a public holiday.. but this allowed for three beautiful lady's to come along who might not have been able to had it been a work day. I am sometimes finding it's not always suitable for people to come on the dates I set, so please be aware, that if you have at least two friends who would like to come to an artclass/tea party hosted by me, then you can always contact me to see if we can make a date that will suit you. I am looking at doing an evening class on Friday night 12th April - 6pm til 9'ish. ... so be quick if you'd love to come along to that one. The idea of these current 'Creativitea' classes is really quite free... you're free to play and explore, and I am there to assist you in whatever way I can. It's been described as very relaxing, and many women express the joy of having given themselves time out to do something creative. I will be introducing a more structured workshop/retreat style class in the not too distant future, so keep in touch if you'd like to hear more about that. You can join my mailing list here. I love the diversity of these artworks... all fabulous... and all so very different from eachother. Magic happens!
with love Denise. Yesterday I made my first little video... I had a bunch of photo's from my second solo show back in 2008, that were waiting for me to get to them. As I worked my way through it's creation I was moved by the smiles on the faces of my family and friends and visitors to the opening, it was an incredibly celebratory day for me, and the gallery in which my work is represented shines beautifully thoughout the pictures.
On a more personal note... I felt like I was making a movie about someone else... someone I actually love and admire, but have not been so in tune with for the last 18 months or more, with the global financial crisis in late 2009 came a bit of a jolt and a personal artist/life crisis as well. Various things have contributed to bouts of depression and the fact I had allowed myself to become anemic once again, have brought me to a big check point where I am taking a long hard look at my life and health and wanting very much to clear out the rubbish and embrace my true self once again... with renewed strength and clarity. I’m not quite there... I’m somewhat confused about my work... but more ok about that lately than I have been these last months... after all, beating up on myself for not doing enough, not being enough, and not having enough is really the most unhelpful I can be for any kind of progress to come out of that same scenario. This little video actually made me feel genuinely happy, the music by Frou Frou is such a gorgeous accompaniment to the feeling I had for the artwork. It is my pleasure to bring something joyful into the world. Love Denise xo |
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Books I Love“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.”
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