Counterculture

Say what you will about the Boomers, the mainstream cohort of them really trashed everything, the selfish bastards. But the rest of them? Gave us the counterculture. Helped to give us the Civil Rights Movement. Recognized where we were headed fifty years ago and tried to change course. This GenXer...well, so much of what’s good in me, so much of the me that tries to do better and be better and live better for the planet...came from the counterculture that Boomers created and nurtured. They’re not all bad. 

Raven Friends

In Norse mythology, Odin’s ravens are Thought and Memory. In many cultures, Ravens and other corvids symbolize wisdom - sometimes the wisdom of the visionary, and sometimes the wisdom of the trickster. Sometimes our thoughts and memories bring us wisdom, and sometimes they trick us. 

Raven Friends is available as a print, card, and phone case on InPrnt.

Hummingbird Woman.

Hummingbirds are symbols of hope and strength in many cultures. These tiny flying jewels cover vast distances on wings much smaller than my hands. They are good companions for anyone on a journey that needs hope and strength. To me, dandelion seeds blown like wishes on the wind will always symbolize adventure and the leap into an unknown future.

Hummingbird Woman is available as a print, card, and phone case on my InPrnt shop.

Happy Inktober!

Spring is gray around here. I want COLOR! 

I’m almost afraid to post this. I’m afraid to scare it away, whatever it is. So, for the last six months or so (or longer) I’ve been battling depression and creative block. Every bit of creative work I’ve done has been accompanied by a chorus of internal voices screaming things like “pointless!” “useless!” “a waste of time!” “you’re nothing and you’ll never be anything, no matter how hard you try because you are pathetic and pretentious and stupid and HOW DARE YOU CALL YOURSELF AN ARTIST.” Stuff like that. 

I finally realized how bad things had gotten and started taking steps to get help. Went back on antidepressants. Started getting more exercise and sleeping a bit easier.  While those things helped me get through the day, they weren’t enough to get me creating for the sake of creating again. So I went back to Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” which is the best tool I know of for getting you through creative block. 

I went through it a few years ago and found that it helped rather a lot. And here I am, four days in, and I was able to tell myself “Just open Photoshop. Just do it. No excuses. Don’t put it off. Don’t think about it. C’mon baby, CREATE.” And this collage was the result. The first one in months. Its title is “Imperious Princess of the Night”, which is a secret nod to something that makes me smile AND proof that I can be just as pretentious as I want to be, inner critic be damned. 

And I’m terrified to post it, lest this reprieve be temporary. But tomorrow, I’m going to try to do the same thing: Open Photoshop. Just do it. Don’t think about it. Create.

Like life, very much a work in progress.

Sorry to be posting this so late, but the holidays were CRAZY. I got my Secret Sanza gift from the marvelous @frycurious and I love my hat and fingerless gloves for, as they put it, “those cold Vadran heists”, as well as the tea and crossstitch pattern! Thank you so much and thanks to @ariaste and everyone else too.

Inktober 5: Collecting.  Just a quickie today. I was doing fall housecleaning all day like a mad bastard.

Inktober 4: Reaching

Inktober 3: Autumn Queen

Inktober Day 2: Snailicorn.

Inktober 1, 2015. "Dance With Them That Brought You"

My artwork is on the cover of a local magazine!  https://www.facebook.com/crowgirlstudio/posts/628173063991755

Sketchbook exercises.