origin story of bird women
After much reflection and deep self inquiry, I want to share the origin of my bird women series of art I’ve been working and playing with for the past 3 years.
It all began in India, as we were stranded there at the beginning of the world wide covid pandemic.
Covid
Corvid
Corvid
Covid
We were in India, stranded, with canceled flights and no way home.
This created stress and anxiety as everyday the situation felt more and more dire. What would we do? How would we get home?
We made homemade masks and used “Thieves Oil” on the inside of the mask as some layer of protection, if only to soothe our nerves. “Thieves Oil” is a blend of different herbal ingredients that Doctors who treated the plague victims used. They put the herbal infusion on their hands, ears, temples & feet, and wore beak-like masks stuffed with cloths containing this special blend.
I was seeing this image from the Thieves Oil bottle floating around the internet and it intrigued me, these men with bird heads and long gowns. In my art journal, using collage papers I wanted to subvert/amplify the idea a little by changing the man in a gown to a woman in a mutlicoloured, patchwork dress, with a bird-like head/mask. Having just traveled to Rajasthan, India, my mind was filled with imagery of patterned and multicolored clothing and textiles of all kinds.
And the series began.
This first messy and wild mixed media paper piece became my Priestess of Protection. She hung on the wall in our rented room while we scrambled online trying to secure a way home from our travels.
On her I wrote the words:
“I am safe and protected”
See pix and READ the rest of the story BELOW.
Eventually we made it home, safe, sound and incredibly grateful to land here on beloved Gabriola Island, on the unceded traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.
I arrived home to ravens in the trees all around this land, calling and playing. Beginning their spring ritual of nesting and raising young ones.
The idea that had hatched in India stayed with me, and I continued playing and exploring with this bird woman image on everything from beach wood, to full size sheets of plywood to teeny tiny canvases.
Eventually they found their way into my glass art too, because that’s how creativity flows, right?
I created 2 stuffed raven women dolls out of patchworked fabric with brown corduroy heads. These bird women want to be seen in every medium I work in.
I’m obsessed with them! We’re having a seriously playful relationship!
They want to be seen, they insist on being created, they insist on BEING.
I choose to L I S T E N….
They arrived in all forms: tall, short, thin, wide, colourful, plain, friendly, distant, warm, cool.
Their names changed from Priestess of Protection to Raven Priestess to Raven Goddess to Raven Women to Bird Women….they morphed and grew and shifted and changed.
Gradually over time they came to symbolize more than protection.
I began to inquire of them:
Are you a bird or are you a woman? Or both? Are you stuffed in your dress or are your wings gracefully hidden? Are there even wings under there? Are you captive or are you free? Or both? Are you real or are you mythical? Or both? Do you love to adorn yourself with your patchwork, multicoloured and textured dress or do you feel stifled by it? Or both?
Maybe like me, YOU feel and resonate with them too.
We have a mutually nourishing and enriching relationship, these bird women and me.
They’re maiden, mother, crone. Sister, auntie, cousin, friend, acolyte, lover.
They’re wild women, witches, priestesses, queens, goddesses, healers, dancers, singers, drummers, young, old, tiny and larger than life.
They travel solo, or in groups each to their own preference.
They are sovereign unto themselves, their own self appointed queens.
There are hundreds of influences at play in this series, maybe lifetimes of influences, from the most obvious ones I’ve already shared and more.
My own love of colour, adornment, patchwork, mismatched prints, checks and polka dots in my clothing, to the Hutterite women’s clothing that I saw all the time where I grew up on the prairies, to the house dress and apron my Gramma wore. Balinese shadow puppets, Venetian masked balls, textiles from Guatemala and India and on and on all have an influence.
My love of the feminine, my love of sovereignty, freedom and authentic expression.
These bird women are badass!
They’re Sovereign Bird Women, feminine, fierce, tender, wild, strong, vulnerable, playful, serious, messy and gloriously, gloriously ALIVE!
With conviction I claim them, and in return they claim me.
Goddesses and deities
Creating a custom installation art is challenging!
In the best possible way.
When the request came for me to create a fused glass window install with the Hindu deity Goddess Lakshmi as the inspiration, well let’s say I was excited but also thought uh uh….NO WAY.
Why no way? Because this is extra potent sacred art, number one and number two, because most depictions of Lakshmi are very refined, intricate, highly detailed, REALISTIC!
I know this because I have stickers and postcards with her imagery all around in my life. I know her, I honour her.
However, while talking with the client I remembered Madhubani folk art from India. I love this style of art and I even have some of these kinds of paintings in my own collection.
And I thought, if we can use that as the starting point I can be a full juicy YES for this project.
Still, it was daunting, sooooooo many things to consider, making all the colours and patterns, and using 14k gold on her jewelry and coins.
Plus, knowing it had to fit into the size of the clients space exactly! Ugh, my least favourite part.
Happily Ode's Alchemy Shop (Ode Howard) did the calculations, created the amazing metal framework and did most of the install on his own. Whew!
So I took a risk, I said yes to a commission that was edgy for me, but I think that also helps me to stretch into a more expanded version of myself and my art.
These pix here show a tiny glimpse of the many layers of process, some of the install (stressful much?) and the end result. It really helps to have the best possible clients for my work!
The client said “Ohhhhhh, I LOVE IT!! It’s even better than I imagined!”
P.s. she told me she’d waited several years to have this piece! If you’ve been dreaming of super special art for your home, why wait? Send me an email and let’s chat!
Just click HERE to start a conversation about your dream project!
off grid, off line is liberation
As I sit in a rustic sea side cabin on a tiny island I’m very aware of the weather. It shifts and changes so rapidly at times, a squall moving through and frothing up the sea and sky, waves crashing wildly onshore. It looks and feels like the storm might stay tumultuous forever.
Sometimes the winds settle in for days at a time and I wonder if it will ever be calm again.
And then…...a clearing, a settling and all is calm.
I’ve noticed similar patterns over the the 20+ years I’ve been actively creating and selling my art. There are times of immense flowing creativity and huge waves of output…wondering if and when this flow will end, wondering if my work is any good, what creations will be here to see when the storm is over. Then, a lull in the action. A calming, a time for reflection, critiques and refinement of the work.
The weather feels exactly like my creative process.
Creator and critic. Calm and storm. Asserting and retreating. A time and place for all of it.
I’ve learned a lot about the cycles of creativity, indeed of life itself. The fears, doubts and pain AND the joys and feelings of aliveness in my creative process.
It’s taken time and intentional work for me to learn to trust the flow.
I wonder:
Do you understand and notice the cycles of your own creativity so that you can relax and embrace all of the stages of the process?
Would you like to understand, accept and enjoy all the “weather” patterns of your creative path so that you can create whatever and however you want?
Do you want to get to know AND befriend your inner critics (yes there’s usually more than one) so that you can feel free to create whatever the heck you want?
Do you want to feel safe to fail so that you can ultimately succeed and create art that brings you alive?
I’d love to show you what I've learned over many years and what I intimately understand about exploring the edges, trying new things and adventuring forth with an open mind about the creative process.
When to push further and when to let things rest, how to dance with it so that you can learn to trust yourself to take risks, going “beyond the edge” of your own creative comfort zones. In this way you can also make your own art that frees your soul and spirit, so that you can feel empowered to create paintings that really speak to you, and that feel like an authentic expression of you and no one else.
So that your paintings and journal pages have the colours, textures, imagery that you love, even if you don’t totally understand it. So that your art is a reflection of you, your experiences, your preferences, your beliefs. So that you feel authentically aligned with your creations.
Wanna know more? Click the button below for a FREE taster of my Creative Sovereignty Visual Journaling course! Created just for YOU!
on being a creative guide
Mixed media art journaling is SO FUN!
Why learn from me? That’s a good question and here are a few of my answers.
I’m a successful self taught artist with over 20 years of experience creating and selling art. I know this stuff because I live this stuff - aka,, the highs and the lows, the joy and the pain of art making!
I’m wildly creative and I believe creative blocks are a myth we can leave behind so that we can feel free to make whatever we want, whenever we want.
I know the exuberant joy of painting, mark making and playing with a free and wild abandon and my #1 goal is to encourage others to give themselves permission to create and feel this too!
I have a compassionate approach to the tender vulnerable parts of ourselves that can be revealed when we paint, make art and express ourselves.
I know first hand the pain of feeling stuck and frustrated with my journaling practice, and I’ve created my own uber- effective method for finding my way through so that I can really love all the pieces of my art and journaling experience.
I know how to transform the negative energy of the inner critic voices so that I feel free to create whatever the f^&* I want.
I LOVE creating, and I love to inspire people to make creativity a BIG part of their lives without feeling held back by self-doubt.
More and more I truly live my life as art.
And so can YOU!
Are you ready to have creative exploration with a visual journal a regular part of your day to day experience so that you can feel a new, invigorating sparkle in your life?
Join me in my free training and let’s get going!!
Gabriola Studio Tour 2019
Gabriola Thanksgiving Studio Tour was a smashing success here at Studio #53! Ode’s Alchemy Shop and I had an abundance of happy people, sweet golden weather, and super supportive community!
Gabriola Thanksgiving Studio Tour was a smashing success here at Studio #53! Ode’s Alchemy Shop and I had an abundance of happy people, sweet golden weather, and super supportive community!
Some of these pix show pieces that were SOLD! Other pix show old friends and new ones too. This was my 16th year in the Gabriola Studio Tour. Every now and then I think, I’m going to take a year off. And then when it comes time I sign up again. The opportunities that result from the tour are too good to pass up. Most of the publicity is done collectively, so it’s much easier than launching a solo studio show. Plus, masses of people are here on the island especially for ART so my studio might be one of the chosen stops, people I might not otherwise meet. I also have people come to my studio on the recommendation of other artists, which is a super boon!
One visitor said this beautiful sentiment:
“Arriving in your studio is like walking into a dream.”
Thank YOU all for coming to visit, to bring gifts, to leave with new pieces for your collections.
I have deep appreciation and immense gratitude.
xoxo
