Category: Meanings

My Dragonfly Spirit

6/22/2016

Dragonfly Spirit

I just came in from sitting on my front step. I love watching the masses of dragonflies that dance above my yard and surrounding fields every year around the same time. I don't mean just a few dragonflies, there are literally hundreds of them and they are here for many days on end. I know the nature and science behind their gathering. There must be an abundance of their favorite food here since there is no water source any closer than Parker's Creek and the bay which are about a mile or so away from me as the crow flies. I just happen to have the honor of living at a location they choose to converge. It seems to be in their life cycle to meet here close to the summer solstice every year. The first time I looked through my bay window to see them in mass, "Oh my God" fell out of my mouth. It was an amazing sight to see for the first time and is so each and every year. I always look forward to their return.

They are a beautiful and amazing creature. Almost every culture in the world regards them highly and uses their symbolism in the essence of their collective being. This website gives a lot of information regarding their symbolism: http://www.dragonfly-site.com/meaning-symbolize.html

One of my favorite pieces of art I've done since I've lived here is called Dragonfly Spirit. She is a pencil drawing embellished with mixed media; beads and metallic threads sewn to the paper. Cut outs in her negative space reveal handmade paper and a feather headdress protrudes from the paper. She is my homage to the dragonfly.

I have only ever had a small digital image of her and reproduced her on small greeting cards and small prints until now. She just recently came home to me and I will be selling full size giclee reproductions of her. I will list her in my store when I have some ready to sell.

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Sometimes It's Just About Friendship

2/10/2016

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I've written several blog posts about my profound reasons for creating some of my art work but before I get too far into this post let me first apologize. I apologize for not being a writer. I apologize for all of the writing errors I put out on the internet for all to read. I apologize because I mix up tenses and if a dangling participle is a bad thing then I probably have a lot of them hanging out there too. (I remember the term from English class but couldn't tell you what a participle is, much less a dangling one.) I end sentences in prepositions. The worst grade I ever got in elementary school was for a poem I wrote in sixth grade. I liked it, the teacher didn't. The worst grade I ever got in high school was in a creative writing class. I was guilty of hyperbole. Really bad hyperbole.

I write like I talk in my head and then I try to correct it after I type it on the computer screen using some of the rules I remember from high school English class. As you can see I'm guilty of long compound sentences. I know that, but I like the way they ramble on in my head. Then I write a short sentence. I like the flow even if it sounds choppy to others who might read my words.

What I don't apologize for is taking the advice of my webpage creator Rachel. Her advice to me was to tell the stories that move my work because people like to hear why a piece of jewelry was made or how a painting or a drawing came to be. She seemed to see my life in my work in a way I hadn't. She designed my webpage more around me the person rather than the art. So I jumped off the cliff she put before me. Hiding behind my computer screen, I started sharing some of the motivations behind my work.

I've gotten positive feedback and no feedback. But the focus of my webpage is not my writing. It's my art. My art and earning part of a living with the sale of it. I write about myself, my thoughts, my dreams, my impressions or my intentions. That is all. No matter who I refer to in my writing, it's still just about me; how I relate to my work, how I relate to the events in my life, and how I relate to the people in my life.

Now I'll bring it back around to why sometimes it's just about friendship. I have been blessed with some very special friends in my life. A few of my mermaids were motivated solely by those friendships. The Mermaid and the Swan is one of those pieces. She was done for one of my best friends, Susie. A friend I rarely see anymore. I hope The Mermaid and the Swan portrays the joy I feel when we do get together. There is such an ease that comes with a good friendship. An ease that allows me to feel the softness of my soul...her soul. An ease that allows us to continue just where we left off when we do see each other.

The Mermaid and the Swan

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Some of My Art Prints and the Motivation Behind Them

1/30/2016

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Pearl - Tear of a Mermaid

It's taken me awhile but I have gathered some of my mermaid illustrations from their owners and now have beautiful digital images of them for my records and to have giclee prints made. The photographer, Christian Sams, has done a beautiful job in matching true color with magnificent detail. He is a perfectionist and I admire that quality in a person. There are a few more of my mermaid images out there somewhere but I don't know who the owners are. That's ok, I'm sure they are in good homes. I am very flattered that my work spoke to them in such a way that they wanted to take it home with them.

My mermaid titled Eternal is already listed for sale on this site and I have Heron's Wisdom listed on my Etsy site for sale. You can read their stories with their respective listings. I never shared any of their stories before but now I find myself compelled to share some of their hidden meanings by telling those stories.

I shared in a previous blog post how I was raised by an abstract thinker. One cannot ignore how one is raised now, can one? I chose to focus my abstract thoughts, symbolism, allegories, whatever you choose to call it in my illustrations. I only call them illustrations because by some art standards my style falls into the illustration category instead of the fine art category. That's ok. It really bears no matter to me.

Pearl - Tear of a Mermaid is an image of a mermaid wrapped around a pearl and was done for my youngest son as a high school graduation gift. When you look at it and read the verbage I added to it, you would think it is better suited for a daughter. I had the hardest time through the years raising only sons. All of the things I made for them, even the colors I chose for their bedrooms ended up being a "bit" too feminine. When I look at the baby blankets I made for them, they too are better suited for a daughter; some of the colors falling too close to the color pink. (I know, I know, this is sexist thinking. Color is color.) As adult men they have a wonderful sense of color in their lives. Although they do steer away from pink.

It's pretty commonly said that it is easier to raise sons than daughters but I humbly disagree. Boys aren't supposed to cry but they do, even teenage boys. I was never a mother to tell them to suck it up and take it like a man. Social peer pressure took care of that. It wasn't until I watched one of my sons, a very young man at the time hold back his tears as he shook the hand of his childhood friend at his father's funeral, that I realized he had conquered his emotional displays. That undeniable quiver of his chin held the tears back in front of a crowd of peers. Even though his friend's father had been a huge part of his childhood too, he had learned to hold his emotions in check.

Boys fall in love too fast. They want to be the "bad boy" to impress the girls. They hang with the wrong crowd. They have to choose between their childhood friends and the right thing to do. If they're smart, they don't want to seem like nerds. They can't back down to a fight. They need to live up to the male standards of toughness and never show their softer side. All of this and more; along with all of the other trials of growing up that both boys and girls share in today's modern cyber society. They were young teenagers at the forefront of social networking. Remember My Space?

Along with making some bad decisions on their own, both of my sons have at some point in time been victims as well. They made themselves vulnerable. It was those times that I found myself the most helpless in protecting them from other people's actions. The simple truth is I couldn't. Those betrayals hurt them emotionally, physically and financially, but taught them the biggest life lessons. Trusts were broken, allegiance failed and different paths were then traveled. They came out better people on the other side. They stood up for themselves and at times stood by themselves. One of the demands I made on my boys was to always accept responsibility for their own actions and they did. It wasn't always easy, but they did. It was always harder and took longer to get out of the holes they had easily and quickly dug for themselves, but they did it.

The verbage I added to Pearl - Tear of a Mermaid is a wish that every parent might have for a child, son or daughter. A wish to protect them from the unknown, to believe there is a greater power that will hold them up when the world wants to push them down. A talisman that represents a greater power that provides inner strength.

"Pearl - tear of a mermaid - symbol of love, protection, wisdom, purity, and wealth - representing the ultimate talisman for warding off the evils of the world."

Whether my son knows it or not, this drawing holds a great deal more of sentiment from me to him. My own tears often escape my eyes when I think of some of the things he has experienced. Things our family experienced both together and apart. Things that made us better and stronger people when we came out on the other end.

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I Am My Father's Daughter

1/20/2016

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My first bathroom selfie.

I have the pleasure of remembering one of my first dreams of the year 2016 in the early morning hours of January 1st. I very seldom remember dreams of any kind. It was a dream I had longed to dream. I dreamt my dad came to visit me for the first time since his death in 2005. Many nights through the years I've fallen asleep hoping he would come for a visit.

In my dream I didn't get to visit with him very long. Two of my sister's took up most of his time; they had much more urgent matters to run past him and they swooped him away, but I waited alone patiently. When it seemed to be my turn with him he couldn't stay much longer. In the last few moments of my dream I could see him so clearly. Although the dream was in color, he stood beside a painting of a tulip rendered in shades of gray. He said "I made this for you" and was then gone. I woke up sad and exhausted. Melancholy followed the rest of the day into the week.

For weeks now I have thought about what that dream might mean. My mood lifting as each week passes as I think about him. My dad lived a very ordinary life. One filled with family, love, success and loss. Disappointments and loss were sometimes met with dark sarcasm and inappropriate humor for the moment at hand, but I loved that about him. He would not let anyone on the outside see what it felt like to be him on the inside.

The thing I loved most about him is that he would always have a story to tell about any situation. Sometimes the stories would seem totally off the wall until you thought about them. Sometimes his stories would make you think for days, if not weeks at a time. Sometimes the stories would shock you into laughter. His stories always spoke to a lesson or a moral. At times he spoke in idioms as well as allegorically. For the longest time in my life I believed that most of what everybody said may have dual or hidden meaning. But through life experience and a little bit of common sense I figured out that most people just say what they mean.

Dream interpretation is not something I know anything about but I have been consumed with trying to figure out why my father left me with a colorless painting in my dream. I have looked up the meaning of flowers, the color gray and what the combination of the two may tell me. It was yesterday that it came to me what it all "might" mean and at the risk of sounding trite in my interpretation I will share.

I have always felt my parents built a very strong foundation of ethics and morals on which I have always been able to rely. It has never failed me to be the person they raised me to be, never a quitter and always, always finish what I start. To be kind because you never know what others are going through, to favor the underdog and to realize that not everyone will like me; just because.

Even with all of the trials my family has gone through, the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, the microcosm of life tragedies that have touched our family, my father (and my mother) painted me an under painting on which I could add my own unique layers and colors. One with which I could "bloom". He just came to remind me of that and that is all.

He was an abstract thinker...he liked to shock people with his off the wall humor....he was too nice...he was avant-garde...he was a normal guy...he was an honest man...he was such an intelligent man and I miss him. And so, as this 56 year old orphan sits and laments over all she has lost, so does this 56 year old woman pull up her big girl panties and says "I got this".

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Vermin or Messenger?

12/26/2015

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I live in an old house, built in 1937. So, as with all old houses, at times it can become obvious that there are unwanted visitors of the rodent variety more so than usual. I say unwanted because it is most often associated with uncleanliness when we see them most and they usually are visiting my kitchen in the cold of the winter months. I may be confusing them with the rat, but that's ok. I am not a fan of mice in my home even if they are cute little creatures. But they are a fact of my life.

This winter I have seen them more often than in years before. You would think with the mild weather we've been having so far this season they would still be out frolicking in the fields and barn outside my home, but no. I have seen them, or evidence of them, in almost every room in my house. That is what is so unusual to me.

Then it dawned on me. I am a believer in animal spirits and their symbolism. Call me a kook if you must, but there always seems to be a connection or a creative influence inside of me when I notice energy sources that seemingly cross my path on purpose. Maybe it's just my creative subconscious that makes these connections but it never fails to either start or end in a new piece of art work.

As I said before, in the past the mice just seemed to visit my kitchen where there is an abundance of food for them to find. Yet this year, along with the kitchen, I have either seen them or evidence of them in my sewing room, my studio and my bedroom. Neither of which has any food or remnants of food in them. So this afternoon, when I was contemplating what could be done about their invasion into my space, I had an epiphany...maybe I should look up their believed attributes as an animal spirit and this is what I found:

Mouse: Attention to details and examining closely, fastidious, may be getting too locked into details or may need to see them more closely now, need to focus on where your attention is. Are you too quiet or too loud? Mouse can teach lessons of stealth and invisibility for sometimes great strength lies within quietness. Time to be aware of new discoveries and possibilities. Listen to your introspection and intuition.

Regardless of whether I am just a nut case or if there is a message to which I should be attuned, I find their symbolism fitting to my thought process at the moment. I am at a crossroads of where to focus my attention and how to best suit my creative tendencies. I fully believe I am on the right track but there are some details I know I need to adjust. Just how I will do that is to be seen...

...if I'm quiet, I just might hear the little mouse roar.

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Eternal

12/17/2015

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Eternal

This mermaid is named Eternal. She symbolizes the sanctity of marriage in our societal spectrum. The simplicity of a golden ring is enough in itself to symbolize the eternal love we vow to hold for the partner we choose in life. But it is through our love, joy, laughter, simple silence, pain, suffering, sadness, and all of the other emotions of our human condition that intertwine between two people that we find profound and infinite love for one another. A way of loving that cannot be defined by any outside influence; only by those who choose each other.

This is a limited edition of twenty five giclee prints. The image is 9 1/2" by 14 1/2" printed on 10" by 15" Moab Somerseat Museum Rag 300 paper. The original mixed medium art was done in graphite, watercolor and metallic gold acrylic, with applied glass beads and marbles, ribbon, wire mesh and tulle hand sewn to Arches Cold Press watercolor paper. Sections of the finished image were cut out and backed with paper depicting light reflecting on water.

They are available only in my store on this website and will be available at my upcoming shows in 2016. Contact me if you are interested in a framed and matted print.

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The Meaning of Harvest

10/26/2015

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harvest
[hahr-vist]
noun
1. a supply of anything gathered at maturity and stored
2. the result or consequence of any act, process, or event:
The journey yielded a harvest of wonderful memories.
verb (used with object)
1.to gain, win, acquire, or use (a prize, product, or result of any past act, process, plan, etc.).
Synonyms: accumulation, collection, return.

I've taken the definition of harvest from the dictionary and excluded anything related to the harvest of a crop to show the way in which I use the term in my life. As I gather images to include on this website, I realize I am much more prolific than I ever realized. In so many ways, I once felt I had wasted time by not living my life in self absorption of the arts. But now I see how wrong that line of thinking truly is... I realize that by living my life in such the way I have, it has given me the very reasons to create.

In the times of grief my friends or family members have endured, instead of a purchased card, I have given a drawing or a painting and sometimes jewelry I have made to honor their loss. For the celebration of life events, I have given works of art. In times of just observing my children grow, I have recorded a benchmark or a milestone in their lives that I wanted to immortalize. And it wasn't until the making of this website, done in the name of "shameless self-promotion", that I realize the direction my journey has taken me by way of my job, my family and my talent.

I had forgotten how one of the pieces I added to the gallery this morning looked. When I saw it again, the memory of my thoughts when I completed it rushed back into my head. I remember thinking, "I hope she likes it. I hope it speaks to her in a way that touches her. I hope she doesn't think I'm weird for not getting her flowers or a card" and unable to face her to present it to her in proper fashion, I left it between the the screen and the door of her mudroom entrance all those years ago. Such is the testament to my level of self-confidence both then and even now.

Along with the compilation of images to share here on my website there are a number more that I have lost any form of record of them other than in my memory. No pictures were taken and attempts to contact some of the people who purchased them have yielded no answer. I still have more to share and will update my galleries as I have time with both old and new work.

One more gallery will also be added eventually. At one time in my life I thought I would make my living making stained glass windows. I have a small collection of pictures, some good, some not so good to share of my windows that I need to scan. Along with the windows I also sold stepping stones made of concrete and stained glass at my husbands produce stand one summer. The stepping stones were very popular and I was given many orders to fill. I also had a plan to pursue making a line of outdoor stained glass windows for display in gardens but that idea fell by the wayside because I wasn't patient enough to see if there would be a market for them. My son has a stained glass trellis I designed that my husband and I built with treated lumber. The stained glass roses now reside in a plastic version of the trellis in his yard. He did a wonderful job converting it to a maintenance free garden structure.

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Messenger of Wisdom

10/11/2015

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This morning found me watching this feather drift down in front of me. I had just heard the song of a mourning dove and the flutter of its flight from my Lily of the Valley tree. My camera was not ready to catch the image in mid descent but the backdrop of the blue chip gravel in my driveway defined it quite profoundly...soft as a feather, hard as a rock. Yin and Yang. (My cell phone takes the best macro pictures.)

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The Meaning of "A Mermaid's Harvest"

9/13/2015

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1.mermaid
[ ˈmərˌmād ]
NOUN
noun: mermaid · plural noun: mermaids
a fictitious or mythical half-human sea creature with the head and trunk of a woman and the tail of a fish, conventionally depicted as beautiful and with long flowing golden hair.

Definition of harvest (Entry 2 of 2)
transitive verb
2a: to accumulate a store of

I took great care in finding just the right name for my business in the arts. My friend at work, whose desk sat across from mine, became my sounding board in many conversations about just the right name. I wasn’t going to make the choice lightly considering it was a name that I planned on never changing. It was a name that was to carry me throughout my career as an artist and as a craftsman.

The name really did start as a dream, one I had many years prior. It seemed to haunt me with its potential interpretation. I dreamt that I was underwater, and instead of fearing drowning, I found myself surrounded by flowing apparitions that I somehow knew would keep me safe. This dream was so vivid that I truly believed I was awake. Following that dream, I was drawn to listen to messages from the deep; in other words, listen to my own soul.

Not all of my work has the imagery of a mermaid. But I do hold within each piece of work I create the “philosophy” of a mermaid’s harvest...to use the bits and pieces of personal understanding that I've gained in this life journey. With this "harvest" I create.

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My Dragonfly Spirit

Sometimes It's Just About Friendship

Some of My Art Prints and the Motivation Behind Them

I Am My Father's Daughter

Vermin or Messenger?

Eternal

The Meaning of Harvest

Messenger of Wisdom

The Meaning of "A Mermaid's Harvest"

Author's Note

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