Feed your creativity.

There are times when the creativity is blooming and times when creativity is germinating. Then there are the in-between times when creativity needs to grow at its own pace. Faster some days, slower on others.

It's hard for me to not want to push my self, force those blossoms...right now! But I also know that forced blooms just don't last as long. And why, when I love creating would I want to hurry the process to finish, to be over? I'm sure you know the answer to that question. It's fear.

So that's why this week, I stepped away from the studio. I left my many unfinished pieces, in pieces, and headed to the beach.

Sometimes to feed your creativity, you've got to step away from it. Let it germinate alone. While you feast out in the world, tasting the salty sea air, feeling the sand in your shoes while listening the the concert of the waves cresting and crashing.

Metal screening and Freeform crochet: A New mask.

With the title, Phoenix, this mask not only fits the show’s theme of myth and magic, but fits my life as well. This mask started out as a tropical bird. But I burned out, didn’t finish it and it wound up in my studio closet gathering dust.

Thanks to the inspiration of the 2011 International Freeform Crochet Challenge, my unfinished bird rose from the dusty closet to be reborn as a Phoenix.
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Although I’ve crocheted for years now, I’ve only recently started to experiment and combine my screening work with crochet work. I taught myself to crochet over 5 years ago using instructions on the internet. I don’t know why I felt the urge to crochet, I just did. And as a studio artist, I kept it a secret. But now, my little hobby has crept into my studio and reformed from hobby to art form.

To me, this beautiful, amazing mythical Phoenix symbolizes living a life with passion and even when it feels as if that passion has burned out, it can be found again.
You can see my 2011 Freeform Challenge: Mythologies, Stories and Fairy tales, alongside an amazing creative global collection of other wonderful pieces here.

Sometimes things have to come apart to come together.

I’m working on a variety of projects lately. New sculptures in the studio. Clay wheel pieces in class. Crochet and screening mask for an online group show. Writing essays and a short story. Some days, it feels good, life flowing from one area to another. Other days, it feels bumpy and lumpy. And I wonder then, will anything ever come together, let alone get finished.


Getting from start to finish, as any artist or writer knows, is not a straight line. I don’t know about you, but sometimes, I’d just like to get from A to Z without all the fits, starts, zigs and zags. But that just isn’t the way it goes. What really gets it to go?

Falling apart. Picking up the pieces and putting it together. Clay chunk by clay chunk, word by word, crochet stitch by stitch. Concentrating on just that one small action creates, in time, a whole, finished piece.

Right now, these pieces are, in pieces. But I do know, with all my heart and soul that they are coming together. Day by day in their own way.

Movies and nature and sculpture.

The movie, ‘The Fountain,’ was an engrossing story about one man’s struggle to save his wife’s life. The story spans thousands of years, using the Spanish quest to find the Fountain of Youth or Tree of Life, a modern day researcher searching for a cure for cancer and the birth of a star. Made in 2006, the movie was nominated for several Golden Globes, but didn’t win. I didn’t see or hear about it then, but thanks to Netflix, I saw it this weekend.


Hugh Jackman was mesmerizing. There was a dark, rich quality to the entire film that held all scene and story changes together and the editing was impeccable. The story of a researcher who stumbles on the Fountain of Youth while trying to cure his wife’s cancer, his denial of her death and how the death itself fuels his research into the tree of life. It was riveting.


I’ve doodled in my sketchbook for years with my own version of the Tree of Life and last year, I was commissioned to make a Tree of Life for a local school out of copper. You can read more about it and the process here.

The Tree of Life depicted in the film is a twisted, gnarled tree much like the ones that captivated me on a recent trip to Bryce and Grand Canyon.


The trees I admired on my trip grew up out of the rock. This one looked like it was dancing even in the hard weather conditions.


The Utah Juniper tree has a shredded bark and twisted limbs. Its ability to grow in rock and over the edge of the cliffs is amazing. I admired this tree’s strength, rootedness and ability to grow in spite of broken, torn and damaged limbs. Trees have always inspired me but these trees will influence my sculpture work and my writing now and for years to come. And it obviously inspired the filmmakers in The Fountain, too.

Sculpture by Mother Nature

Walking through Bryce Canyon, Red Canyon and the Grand Canyon, I am humbled by Mother Nature’s talents.

Sculptures created day by day over millions of years using the water and ice.

Minerals and fossils are the color palette.


Pressure and time are the techniques and tools.

Awed. I am inspired by Mother Nature’s immense talents and her patience.

Blog-cation: Road Trip

I really needed to leave it all behind…studio, work, home, children and even my beloved dog, Jilly. It was time for an adventure for both my husband and I. See new places. Map our way through unfamiliar territory. Enjoy long periods of the silence and the changing landscapes of the open road.


My husband and I have always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. He suggested taking the trip a few years back, but with all the changes we were experiencing then, an adventure into another unknown was not appealing.

What I didn’t know then, was that he’s wanted to trek to both Bryce and Grand Canyon for decades. And even though he was in the marines, stationed in Yuma, Arizona, he never made it there. So, when I mentioned a few weeks ago that we could take the trip, he was ready to pack up and leave within days. I held him off a week to do a little planning, like book hotel rooms near the national parks, get maps and AAA trip planner at least. Good thing we planned a little because the hotels and parks were crowded with people even though they’d just opened for the season.

Although we had 2 cell phones, 2 laptops, 2 digital cameras, an iPod, and gps with us, we didn’t use them much at all.

What did we rely on? The printed AAA trip and park maps were our main guides. The cell phones got used as additional cameras for the most part with a few calls to check in with kids and dogs. If we listened to music at all, we used the car’s CD player but on the way back, we relied on local radio. What was even better was hearing live local voices talking about live local events in the towns we passed through along with great music.

I thought I’d blog along the way, but it just didn’t happen. What happened was a lot of looking out the window. Watching rolling hills, mountains, valleys, high desert plateaus, canyons, cities and farmlands in Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California pass by with rain, snow, sunshine and temperatures ranging from 30 to 88 degrees.

I’ll be posting more about the trip with pictures and journal snippets, now that I’m back from my blog-cation.

The Fuzz Factor

The goslings are out floating in the lake alongside their proud and protective parents. It’s always a joy. I wait for their birth each year, but I noticed something different this year. Maybe it’s because they were floating in the lake on an overcast day, but here’s what I saw: yellow green fuzz balls floating on the lavender gray lake. The yellow-green color just jumped out at me, and I realized that although I’ve been watching and taking pictures of the goslings for years, I’d never really seen their true color.

I wondered.

Why were they this color? To survive. Their yellow green color matches the new grass growing up around the lake, making it harder for hungry eagles, hawks and herons to spot them from above.

That got me thinking.

How many times do I, too, clothe myself so as to mix in with the scenery around me? I can see that to be accepted is really a deep seated survival need implanted in me and not a sign of weakness.

I wondered.

Maybe there’s more here…and then I saw it. The goslings yellow green fuzzy camouflage allows them to grow and develop in a safe environment. When they’ve grown big enough to go out into the world, they shed their fuzz for bold white and black feathers.

That got me thinking.

Creating new work, as an artist or writer, requires a certain fuzz factor. You need a bit of camouflage to protect you from those swooping critical voices. You need a soft fuzzy, solitary space in which to grow and develop your work.

I wondered.

When will I know that my fuzz in gone? How will I know I’ve grown enough feathers to get out there and fly? Notice in the photo below, the goslings are darker, growing out of their camouflage. Maybe it'll happen for me, just like it happens for them. Naturally.