Monday, June 25, 2012

The Journey

" There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives."
   -  Josephine Hart




Discovering what you feel passionately about....something that defines who you are and drives you forward every single day....is an adventure that I urge everyone to take in their lives.  For some people, this is an easier task than others.  For me it has taken hitting bottom, repeatedly, before the smoldering embers of my creative spirit took hold of a warm breeze and turned into a roaring flame.  It has taken patience to quiet the voices in my head that were screaming at me about the work that I 'should' be doing,  so that I could really hear the more gentle, nearly silent voice of my soul.  I can honestly say that  fire has saved my life....saved me from some really dark places that I have needed to travel through, and stood as a beacon of hope in a calmer harbor.  Everywhere I look I see little landscapes of what inspires me.  I am always aware of the dark places, but my mind is filled with color....and the beautiful sound that a needle and thread make as they are pulled through layers of cloth calms me so that I hear more clearly where my soul wants to sail....

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Friends....

" Good friends are like stars...You don't always see them, but you know they are there."

-Anonymous


The end of the school year is a strange time for me.  I am excited for having survived all of the car pool time and the homework and at the same time I feel an ache in the pit of my stomach for the friends that I  rarely bump into outside of the school setting.  They are writers, animators, poets, fine artists and teachers...ridiculously creative deep thinking people with wonderful stories and interesting, humorous perspectives about life, art and parenting.  I have never thought of myself as a very good friend.  I watch how other people keep friendships; meeting for coffee, having dinner, throwing parties, going shopping....spending real time.  I'm not very adept at spending time that way....I am easily overwhelmed by the  demands of my "real world", and when there is any time that isn't filled with requests, I take a running leap off of the end of the dock and cannon ball into the world of "my head", which at this point is beginning to look like an episode of " Hoarders" for all of the unfinished work that is stored there.  I lose track of the real world when I'm in my head....being forced to resurface from this peaceful coral reef of color, texture and possibility with a chorus of, "I'M BORED!" , quite frankly makes me want to throw a shoe !  I hope that my friends know how much I feel blessed in every moment that we spend together.  How much they mean to me.  How much I miss the texture of our conversations and the impact and influence they have in my life.   I think about you every day, and look forward to and treasure when we happen to run into each other while racing through our days.  I am comforted to know that we look up at the same night sky....

Friday, June 15, 2012

" I work in a meditative manner.  My visual language is pulled from my unconscious and I express in my work what I cannot express with words."          - Pat Gentenaar-Torley

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Resuscitation

"As one gets older one sees many paths that could be taken.  Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion."  - Jasper Johns


I've been going through my years of archived photos today. It will be 10 years this Fall that Kafuffle Designs was born out of a need to find my creative voice again so that I could survive my failing 16 year marriage.  After my first daughter was born, I had decided not to go back to the 16 hour days of movie advertising.  I continued to do freelance from home, generating all of the artwork for KROQ calendars and events,  hand tinting photography for advertisements and greeting cards, creating logos, and even illustrating a book.  When computers deemed my skills archaic, I stepped away from advertising....a bit sore from being replaced by a machine pretty much overnight, but also a bit relieved because I HATED what I was doing.   I didn't hate all of it...KROQ was great, and they paid quite well, but everything that I created was about reading other people's minds...trying to extract what was in their heads and getting it down on the page.  Ever since I could hold a crayon, my creativity had been my voice, as I was terribly shy, quiet, anxious kid.  I preferred to say things with artwork than with words...and as an adult, that is one thing that hadn't changed.  As my marriage was ending I immersed myself in paint and paper and found objects...I became obsessed with resurrecting broken things and breathing life back into them, and they in return filled my lungs with the fresh air that I needed to find my voice again.  When I look back at my archived photos I am reminded of all of the different stages of growth I have gone through.  It's difficult to describe " what I do", because it kind of looks like a shotgun blast of unfocused creative output.  I find it easier to say what I need to say if I combine a lot of different mediums....I don't like rules very much, which is funny coming from a person who keeps her anxiety under control, not with drugs, but with a ridiculous amount of structure and planning.  Art is my release valve...it is the one place where anything and everything is possible and I let my hair down.