EYE Mandala

Still looking through old art and came across this "eye" mandala. I called it that as there are EYES in each of the four directions as well as in the center.

As usual I forgot how to do the continual downloading thing so all the images are not together.
Anyway, you get the idea of it all.

2004 SHIFT Altered Book

I happened to be going through some old altered books and came across this one from 2004.
It is interesting to see that a lot of what was relevant then is also still true. Here are some of the pages from
2004....SHIFT altered book.

PROTECTION MANDALA

I suddenly got the impression to make some Mandalas, or shields. They are to help people focus on various aspects of life. The designs and intentions were clear to me and it seemed that these were to offer to people to purchase and would also include an information sheet as to how to use the and
a short prayer or affirmation. This is the first in the series and is titled "Protection".
I'm not including either the information sheet or the affirmation as I may be offering these as individual Mandalas or as a series at some point. I already have some people using this one and I am waiting to see what their results are. Guess I will post any results I'm given here at another time. Comments on this mandala and any results you may have with it are welcome.

hands 2

here is th other side of the decorated hands. Click on pictures to enlarge.

HANDS

Well, it looks like I can't seem to master getting the right pictures up. Anyway, the decorated hands proved to be very popular and I got many requests to make them for people. They are very labor intensive however, so took me awhile to make them. They contain tags and hearts, and collage pieces as well as gold designs, ribbons, beads and whatever else I decided to add.

Another Grid picture

Grid pictures

I was looking through some art supplies the other day and ran across these collages. I did them some years back.
I love the "grid" I would love to know where to find more. It was white and came in sheets and had a sticky back. If anyone knows where to get these sheets of "grids", please let me know.

sculptured books

Recently I ran across some pictures of sculptured books which reminded me that I wanted to learn to make them. So I made a couple of VERY RAW attempts. I wanted to see how they would come out. Naturally I "had" to paint them! Anyway. Here is a couple RAW attempts...just to see how the process works. I may try to make more (neater and better) ones later.
I can see how the form would be great for altered books!!

Birthday Card

For so reason a number of my friends have Birthdays near the beginning of November.
So I decided to make a couple cards for their birthdays. Here is the outside and inside of one of them and the inside of another.

To those who read my posts

Well....I never said I was perfect or even close to it.
You may have noticed that often things may get posted twice! This is due to my lapse in memory.
No, I don't mean to post things twice. If this blog thing would let me edit things more than a couple of times I would remove the duplicates. However my tech knowledge is slim and if it is possible to edit at a later time, then I haven't figured it out.
So Sorry.

Magic Circle

I seem to have gotten off into a huge burst of creative energy yesterday! ( Maybe because mercury retrograde is over!) Anyway, Both the poem and this 'writing" just seemed to 'show up"....I really didn't think about them...they just sort of wrote themselves!
I sent the poem separately. I have no ides what to call this except to say it is a 'writing".

Mandala...."magic circle"
what happens in the magic circle? Wonder! Amazement! Exploding colors!
The fairies come out to play!
Anything can happen!
Anything is possible!
The unusual and the unknown show up!
Rays of light play across the lily pads of creation.
How do I allow the flow of creative ideas?
How to translate them into images that reveal their inner meanings?
Am I washed in the tide of discovery, or do I sink into the darkness of judgement?
Laugh!
For in laughter is the breeze of unfoldment.
Where is that creative genius hiding?
Up a river in a boat with no paddle!
( row, row, row the boat).
Fearing to drown in the waves of mediocrity.
The undertow is strong.
Stagnation sucks the moving feet into the abyss of quicksand....deeper and deeper.
What rope is strong enough to overcome the muck?
How to stay in the wonderment of the magic circle?
How to stay skimming across ordinary landscapes,
enjoying the potent possibilities?

Altered Book pages (3)

24 hour dream connection

Here are some pictures of an Altered Book I did awhile ago called 24 hour dream connection.

MANDALA....magic circle

Mandala....."magic circle"
What happens in the "magic circle"?
Wonder! Amazement? Exploding colors!
The fairies come out to play!
Anything is possible!
Am I washed in the tide of discovery....or do I sink into the darkness of judgment?
The unusual and the unknown show up!
Rays of light play across the lily pads of creation.
How do I allow the flow of creative ideas?
How to translate them into images that reveal their inner meanings?
Laugh!
For in laughter is the breeze of unfoldment.
Where is that creative genius hiding?
Up a river in a boat without a paddle.......
( row, row, row the boat)
Fearing to drown in the waves of mediocrity.
The undertow is strong.
Stagnation sucks the moving feet into the abyss of quicksand....deeper and deeper.
What rope is strong enough to overcome the muck?
How to stay in the wonderment of the magic circle?
How to stay skimming across the ordinary landscape....just enjoying the potent possibilities?

Sitting In The Void

Sitting in the Void
watching the chaos
and destruction collapse
in the wake of past footsteps.
The destruction lies behind....
Still smoldering from the fires of transformation.
The observer watches,
Allowing the movie to play out.
The ribbon of road stretches into
the unknown destination.
Nothing suspends it,
no landscape is viewed,
Just the unknown
waiting for the traveler to ride.
Both the road and the void
await the traveler's magical colors of creation
to paint in the details,
to decide the destination,
to drive fearlessly into the sun.

universes in raindrops

Waking between raindrops, each one is a universe.
Each one is complete.
Each one is different.
Each one is real.
Which one to choose to experience?
Each one gives a different way of perceiving.
Each one has its own way of knowing.
Each one shimmers like a beautiful jewel.
What surprises does each hold?
Are the experiences wonderful? Sad?
Each holds a different promise and even deeper secrets.
There is no music, no sound that can rival the potentials that these universes hold.
How to view them all?
How to allow them to show their inner worlds?
Each one would take lifetimes to explore.
Yet, they call, like the mythological siren's, tempting.
They all are so inviting.
They call out, waiting to be explored.

2 dreams on symbols

Recently had 2 dreams about symbols...
1) a man was showing me important papers with many symbols and writing that I could not understand. he was in a big hurry. He put his hands on my head and said he was downloading information to me. He says that I would b able to figure out the writing and symbols.
2) Someone was explaining secret meanings behind the Hebrew alphabet and said that many language had secret and hidden meanings behind their alphabets and words.( Such as Sanskrit.) They said is was too bad that English didn't have any of this as it was derived from so many other languages, it ended up lacking in the spiritual realm.
The next day, I was talking to another Dream Worker and they said that they also had had a couple dreams based on the same theme.
I found this very interesting and am wondering if other also got this 'information"?

Iwas thinking about strip mining and how ugly it is. So made a collage of it.
I was also thinking about the various significant things in our lives and the biggest one...death.
So I made a collage about it.

On my latest art (below)

Seems i got of into an art phase and did a few pictures lately.
1) The Loving Eye...... more like a mandala. shows an eye coming out of a heart surrounded by
layers of color, circles, and symbolic language. I had found an archery target and wanted
use it somehow and this ended up being a perfect way.
2) String book . This was due to my reflection on how we tie ourselves up and "tag" ourselves with
labels. We end up just believing the labels we put on ourselves.
3) "Big Brother" ..... saw a documentary about all the new surveillance methods that are in use
and how really there is no privacy anymore.

I have been working on noticing more of the things that are around me. I keep saying that one day I will get out with a camera and take some pictures of all the things that I find "artistic".

Latest art

I got an email with this blog attached.
It is about someone who visited LA from somewhere else
I fell in love with the pictures of ordinary places that never seemed anything but "normal" background to me. It woke me up!

http://urbanpaperar ts.blogspot. com/2008/ 08/sunday- sweet-sunday- in-valley- aug-10.html


I was so taken with the whole thing, I ended up emailing him to let him knw how much his work had affected me. Here are my thoughts.

Since I lived in the San Fernando Valley for so long I was very taken with this whole blog.
It amazed me to look at all the pictures of places that were so familiar to me...since you see something often , it seems commonplace and not worth noticing. These pictures were by someone who had never seen them before and was impressed with them. WOW! back to the idea of 'seeing things differently!" What is in front of us that we don't notice? Don't admire? how much are we missing?
I am astonished!
I am not a photographer, ( would love to learn)... although I do have one o those cheap digital things......I hardly ever think about taking pictures of anything. And surely I don't know anything about photoshop or paint to play with the pictures after taking hem.
This whole thing interests me. I am upset with myself that I have missed so much...what am I missing now? I am so stuck at being mad at being in this desolate place that I"M NOT SEEING the beauty? .......elihgowihroawihrglakurjhgawkjhf ,,,,yea that's how I feel right now!
I see the strange shaped dead or dying Joshua trees and think, oh that would make a good picture...oh but I am in a hurry, I need to get to LA or home or somewhere other than in the NOW! I see the rock formations and think...oh... that would make a great series of pictures....but I don't stop...keep going....run run run... to blahville.
Patterns? Probably there are toms of them around, but I am not seeing them.
This whole thing is making me cry.
What else am I missing? what else am I not seeing?
what else is passing me by?

.

Better Questions

I have thought many times that in order to get better answers, we need to ask better questions.
How about these?
Are my perceptions stopping me from really seeing?
What am I NOT seeing?
What is my heart's longing?
How can I let go of resistance?
How can I allow the MORE of mySELF to emerge?
How to let go of the stuff that holds me back?
How to see how I block myself?
How can I allow myself more freedom to express?
How can I allow my art to evolve?
How can I be more creative?
How can I let go of the self imposed boxes I continue to put myself in?
How can I best express the ideas ( art, writing, poems, music) that I have inside me?

STRING BOOK

I was thinking about how many things we are attached to in our lives.
How many things we "tag' as ours. The "strings" that bin us to things and how we seem to "name" things and attach "tags" to them. Maybe even how those "tags' hang from us as we try to move though the world. I decided to make a "string and tag" book. It does not open. the strings and tags hang down from it.

Silver Moon

Adding a collage of "SILVER MOON"
Done some time ago.
I did not reallize it had een so longsince I added anything here.!

The multi media altered book pages I just published are:
How deep is the Rabbit Hole? Quite a comment on the times!
I dreampt of Magical Eggs: from a dream I had
My Dreams: My dreams lay shattered like broken glass scattered on the ground and eaten by bugs. ( That's the whole title.) ( Self explaining)

How Deep is the rabbit hole?

My Dreams

I drempt of Magical Eggs

Here it is, a year later. Just can't seem to get into the blog thing.
Anyway, for whatever reason, I was going through some art work I did last year and decided to
put it on this log. So here goes.