Some INK.... NEED MORES!!!

Changes!

I'm in the middle of a career change. Yes, I am CRAZY! I left a good job and stepped outside of my comfort zone in the midst of an economic crisis. The move was one that benefits my family in a way that is much more important than just a career. I have a bit of a work life balance, self prescribed, for once since college. I must admit that I now must go to bed like a little old lady, sometimes even before the sun sets to make it to work before most of my friends are even awake, but there is a payoff.

I make it home most days before 3 pm and have a chance to hang out with my family. Family is the one thing I have taken for granted over the years. Maybe because I come from such a small one that I fail to see how important this time really is as I have come to expect it. Could it be that growing up in a house with just two adults could warp my perspective on home life? Was I just another little adult? Perhaps. Now that I have my own tiny family I see how important just hanging out is. I also see how lucky I was to grow up in such a loving household. I love to come home and I love to come home to one that is now my own. After a bad marriage, countless family health concerns, and losing most of the family I finally just smile when final destination is my driveway.

I am thankful everyday that I have had the insight and the drive to simply follow my heart. Call me selfish, crazy, or driven. The rat race is still being run by my father. He's my hero, my role model, and my reminder that work can provide many things in life but can also take all of the valuable time you had to enjoy the fruits of your labor. That's why for him and for the furry waggle butts that greet me every evening... I work. I put my heart into my work. I will work until you tell me I can't work anymore and I need to go home. If that work ensures me the ability to go to my favorite place and to keep it safe and perpetuating then I win. If the job feels less like work, more like an adventure, and they pay me... Even better!  I encourage you to take a risk, put in that application, network, meet new people, love those who become your friends, say "yes" and just put yourself out there. What do you have to lose? Nothing. On the other hand, if you don't do any of these suggestions what will you end up doing? Nothing. See! Go on now, change your life!!

Since I live by the beach now I find myself embracing the following motto: If you're lucky enough to live by the beach, then you are lucky enough! I live in a vacation and I working to embrace it!!

Tiki Time... Having creative fun with my lil' 50's beach house.

Spontaneous chain saw Tiki mess!!

Silly Tiki Sign for the storm door project. Like it??

Kickin' it Ole Skool....

It's funny how there are certain people that you meet over the course of your life who connect with a big piece of your soul. On some occasions this connection slowly develops with time, yet others the moment you meet them they smile and speak to you like it has always been.

One special person in my life was a mentor. 13 years ago after a chance meeting involving our love for Volkswagen beetles and Taco Bell.  It was soon realized that we both used Krylon as our preferred medium. One artist was an expert, a well versed, traveled, and experienced street warrior. The other artist, myself, was young, naive and making the transition from drawing on paper to working with canvas and various surfaces/ landscapes.

To this day I wonder how fate crossed our paths. I also recognize that I must just be thankful that someone was willing to show me the ropes, getting me out into the streets and sharing my guerrilla art form with our world. I must say that watching a talented visioneer draw, paint, and write was more than inspiration, it helped to shape me as an artist.

At this particular point in my life this friendship helped show me focus, drive, and kept me out of trouble.... Well, for the most part, outside of slingin' the spray paint. (Which, by the way, is an entirely different post for a different time!) I don't even know if he fully realized that I was actually paying attention despite my ever present and aloof state of childlike wonderment. Beauty in a can. Political discussion to prompt casual awareness. Pieces of true art from the heart to outshine the trash and rust - the crumbling urban landscape we called home. I had found my favorite distraction and a mentor.

Just wanted to take a moment to say "thanks yo" to that special Bad Ass. You know who you are. If you read this you will know too. Keep on creating, you're making more than just art.

"You'll understand when you're grown" meets Time...

For some reason there is still a very lucid fall day within my childhood that is oddly yet clearly filed in my memory under the "Time" tab... Crisp cool air circulating through open screen window on the storm door, the smell of apples and fall leaves permeate the air... I am in the living room patiently awaiting the grand and exciting culmination of coming to pick me up, which still leaves me wondering why I was so excited?!? The teal blue-green lines on the VCR somehow keep time for the entire world while gracefully synchronize swimming on the display in various configurations. I sit on the piano bench, maybe on top of my hands... while counting the minutes. I was hyper aware of how long the minutes were lasting counting all 60 seconds silently in my thoughts as the house buzzed busily along in it's usual day time routine. Quite suddenly it dawns on me, that moments like this will not last forever. I, like in a dream, seem to be reading a cue card to myself that informs my subconscious that I only understand this long moment, defining time, as my childhood perception allows. Somehow this moment forces me to understand all of the times a grown up turned green with envy while snapping a retort along the lines of "I only wish I had nap time" or "Stop asking, we'll be there in only 10 minutes". Also the ever famous "One day you will wish you were bored!" The reason I think of this moment is when I yearn for more time, a hidden resource, one that I often overlook. One day I hope that I can spend my day creating instead of answering phones and typpity typing all day. Oh Time, how I miss thee. Let me count the ways...

Inspiration VS. Time

Man, it sure has been a while... Life has changed so much for me recently. Another cross country move under my belt personally, and a new territory to explore beyond my childhood summers. It's strange to reside somewhere amongst your childhood memories.... In a place you remember more from pictures, and visits, and day dreams about the memory both of the people and events before. Nostalgia in it's realest form. I feel as though I am living in a virtual time capsule. Thank goodness I dig this kind of transformation! A new little beach abode where my Grandfather made his home for over 50 years. Day to day items, retro finishes,and boxes of dusty personal memorabilia. I feel the inspiration rise up into the air along with subtle poofs of dust from plastic tchotchkes that haven't seen the light of day in ages. A familiar smell like that of an old museum and the delicate surfaces of vintage fabrics lend themselves to the mind discovering new aesthetics. This is awesome. I must tease you and say there is studio space now... it's super small but it's better than the previous one bedroom apartment!

This is where I ask that you stay tuned. I wrestle with time currently. New job, new home, new ideas.... JUST a lack of time. It's always something isn't it?? 

If you're out there and you can offer some moral support for my creative endeavors please let me know that I have a reason to create. I need some poking and prodding right now. I feel as though I am on the verge of starting to produce inventory right now....

SOON to be shared is my collage collection. During the move I was able to recover most of my previous works. Super exciting to have them all in my possession after so many years. Please if you <3 the artist's journey.... STAY TUNED to your Grease Kitten ;)

Need some Inspiration!!

Currently I am simply dying to paint. The hair accessories seem to entertain my creative eye only when I am bored with what I have to wear, and not my true creative spirit. I cannot wait until I have studio space again as I long to stretch a huge canvas and let the mind take over the body. True release, the mind over rides the body's calculated, functional movements for fluid, unguarded dancing of the limbs.... I yearn for these ideas to escape onto a taught, crisp blank void through my mind's eye. Today color fills my thoughts. Cans of Krylon seem to be the medium of temptation once again. Oh Spring, hurry up as your arrival allows for greater artistic opportunity. I miss the Texas skies at night in the spring and the fellow artists and muses who emerge under their cover.....  I feel that this place would never understand the art I have left behind.