NOLA Rising

New Orleans rising. Like a lotus with roots in the mud and flower rising for the sky, Louisiana is rising from the Katrina mud. I just wanted to celebrate the new, improved New Orleans, so I painted this digital picture.

Woman with Crane

This is a digital painting from the series "da Vinci goes Digital". I downloaded a low resolution da Vinci sketch. Low rez images encourage me to totally repaint the resource pictures, giving them my personal imprint. The sketch was sienna toned, I added more color. Warm earth toned schemes are a favorite of mine. I updated her hair. The face indicates sensitivity and introspection. I think that she is beautiful.

The crane and background are Japanese influenced.

My Air force father was stationed at Yakota Air Force base in 1950, when I was six years old. The Japanese experience has been a huge influence for me. Children are so impressionable. Experiencing a foreign culture at a young age expands the mind. Between oriental cultures and western cultures there is a million miles of difference. Knowing that there are alternatives for everything has given me a wide range of choices all my life.

Traditional Japanese aesthetics are beautifully elegant. Before western contact, Japanese art was tradition based. Revered craftsmen and painters refined what had been done before. The old ways were respectfully studied. An artist worth his chops assimilated the masters and built on the past.

Western art has a long history of breaking the rules. Creating new aesthetic guidelines every generation. And WOW! we have created some mind bending art.

Now we have exciting easy access to a long tradition of world wide aesthetics. We can easily see pictures that span art history, from Lascaux cave art to current global trends. An embarrassment of riches. A visual buffet to satisfy the most omnivorous appetite. So little time, so much art.

As an artist I happily create syncretic images. Reference what ever is available to realize the concepts in my head.

Art is communication. Visuals transfer intimate, deep information osmotically from one consciousness to another. Art spans our separate minds. With art, I am able to make visible my rich inner life. Growth occurs when there is a true meeting of minds. All parties are holistically advanced.

It is good to be an Art Goddess!!!

Puzzled Child

Puzzled Child

Here is a digital image that I created a few years ago. From the "Time and Space" series. The little girl is my sister Kathi. I love the innocent anger in her face. My mother had taken us to see ALL the monuments in Washington, DC, one long hot August day. A photo was snapped before we headed home. This face image is from a small , old photograph. Two year old Kathi is burned out on tourist sites.

Kathi was brutally murdered before she reached 21 years of age. I do not want to write about the details. That room of my mind is barricaded.

He was a casual acquaintance. How did he become a subhuman monster? A despicable childhood? Psychosis? Was he possessed by the devil?

There are subhuman monsters in this world.

At two years old she seems to be saying, "WTF, why is this planet earth so stained with horror?" She is puzzled about the dark side of human existence.

The clock numbers remind us that time is our constant companion. Time is always ticking out. Start each day with reminding yourself that it is good to be alive.

In the background is a beautiful water lily. Water lilies are a Buddhist symbol, lily roots are in the mud but the flower is reaching for the sky. There is a lot of mud, static, glitches and occasionally downright horror to this earthly gig. So I remind myself to meet the challenges with a good attitude and focus on the positives.

Quan Yin

This painting is 18"x24" acrylic on canvas. Completed October, 2008. Modeled by Shawyuh Karen Wang. The painting does not look much like Karen. Karen is much thinner. For this I apologize to the model. I was going after a stylized, jolly, round, female Buddha look. Karen also posed for The Source, which is more flattering to her figure.

Karen was such a good sport and adventurous. She drove all the way from New Orleans to Silver Creek for the session. I took photos and we did some nude shots in my private woods. Delighted, Karen said, "I'm naked in the woods." If you have never been naked in the woods or skinny dipped, I suggest that you try it. It makes you feel free to occasionally break through boundaries. It expands your view of self.

Quan Yin is a Goddess of Compassion. The eastern equivalent of Mary Madonna. She is sitting on a lotus, which I painted with impasto gold petals. The impasto contrasts with the flat paint of the figure and background.

The overhead arch is also impasto gold and set with "jewels". I have worked, trying to make jewels out of paint for years. I use Golden interference paints, Golden mica flake paint and a little glitter. Layers of gloss medium give the faux jewel depth.

Mary by de Bayou

Mary by de Bayou, May you be merry by you bayou.

Here in the Louisiana boon docks there are signs of budding spring approaching. We have done a lot of clearing work over the winter. The chopped places look scraggly now. Soon the spring greening will start. Trees and privit bushes will leaf out and polish the rough edges.

Dave and Janet's Adventure

Recently Dave and I explored the "far side" of Silver Creek property. We have 15 acres here, with two creeks. The larger creek, Silver Creek, runs along the northern border of the property. The smaller Gold Creek runs through the property and divides it into the "near side" and "far side".

We have been here eight years. The house is built on a small knoll. The rest of the property is subject to flooding. Ecologically rich, inland, Louisiana wet lands. I bought the property primarily because I have a strong NEED for nature. Communing with nature is necessary for me to maintain joy. Also, I wanted a place for my family to gather and feel Mother Nature. I want to retire in a place with grandchild appeal.

The property was clear cut for timber before it was sold to me. The first phase of secession wove an impassable tangle of privit and vines. It is so jungly and thick that people cannot walk without bushwacking. The vines include fox grape (delicious, steeped to make juice) and muscadine and a savage fast growing thorn vine.

The near side is about five acres. We have cut trails and clearings in this area where the two creeks meet. Clearing with hand tools and chain saw is labor intensive, but, this is a really good way to discover the land intimately. I want to identify every wild flower, herb and mushroom. (One of those unrealistic goals, but at least I can try.) There are culinary and medicinal plants to protect.

One of my favorite activities is clearing with hand tools. To justify spending hours every week at this laborious, slow activity, I review my reasons. It is good exercise, it is meditative, it is good for the ecology, and it is helping my family to stay connected with Mother Earth.

I am not coordinated enough to use the chain saw. When asked what I want for my birthday I tell the guys "chain sawing".

Recently my sons, Derek and Ben were chainsawing to widen the trails. I thought, "Oh, how wonderful, they are helping to make my beautiful dream of The Silver Creek Natural Walking Meditation Garden come true". Dave pulled me back to reality, "They are doing that so they can ride their buggy in the woods." Oh well, whatever their motivation, the trails were improved.

We enjoy the five acres on the "near side" but very rarely cross Gold Creek to get to the "far side". There are whole acres that I have never seen. A nice sand bar is located at the western property edge. Previously we waded the creek and walked a narrow trail to swim there. The trail was destroyed by that bitch, Katrina with a tornado.

Dave and I start out midmorning, the weather is perfect, cool and sunny. Dave carries a branch cutter and I have a machete. We walk the back trail to a place where the shallow creek banks on both sides are gently slopping with small sand bars. We cross easily in our rubber boots. Immediately on the other side we start bushwacking our way through, doubling back north west, toward the big sand bar.

The barriers are Mother Nature's thick weaving of privit and vines. I find more Star Anise (or Carolina Allspice) trees. Another big Tupelo tree. Magnola. Lots of Water Oak. What joy, to see the land recover from the timber cutting. Deer tracks are everywhere. We do not see any deer because we are making noise and we smell like humans.

We transverse swampy bogs and higher ridges. I look for areas of shallow digging, for signs of wild feral hog wallows. People say that they are surely on the low lying areas of the property. Two hundred fifty pound monsters that may charge intruders. I have the machete; like I could stop a charging hog; for Goddess sake, be real. I look for a tree to climb. I do not know if I am relieved or disappointed, but, we do not see any wallows or hogs.

Bushwacking, we finally make our way to the big sandbar. I am happy to see that it is still beautiful. Big pine tree still standing. River birch. This is a good place for family swimming. Sand gently slopping into the tea colored stream. We must have good access to this private petite bijou. I have been campaigning for a cable crossing the creek for years, no luck yet. We can swim up the creek and take the children in the little boat, but we need something more convenient.

Once when I was alone here, sitting on a mini island, a large owl landed on a branch and stared at me for five minutes before flapping away, swooshing its strong wings. Another time a deer waded toward me and then turned into the woods without even noticing me. This is what I need to make my day worth all the glitches and bullshit.

Dave and I bushwack back toward the house. He is doing most of the cutting. Really, I am klutzy with the machete. I whack at a branch, to make him think that I am helping, but nothing is cut.

In some places the going is easy. We go down a gulley, and up to white sand ground area with a low canopy of privit and willow trees, where the cleome will bloom come spring.

The place where huckleberries grow. Beaver sticks, knawed to eat the bark. Blue Heron fishes the water. Kingfisher glides above the water surface.

Close to where the creeks converge, Dave cuts through a thicket of thorns. Then we see that it is too deep to cross there. Make our way back south and cross close to the Witness Tree.

Back in relative civilization, my appreciation for our trail cutting labors is renewed. I see the beauty that we have sculpted from tangled vegetation in a new light. Our little adventure has shifted my perspective just a few degrees. Feeling grateful.

Fats with his Guardian Angel

Fats Domino's angel, (code name, Pink Cadillac) belongs to the Celebrity Elite Angels Corp. They have special training in skills related to guarding famous people. They protect their charges from things like paparazzi pandemonium, spotlight blindness, tabloid notoriety, and sociopathic fan stalking. They also try to prevent the famous one from "Big Head Celebrity Arrogance"a prevalent psychological condition . BHCA does not distress the celebrity but causes severe stress to the people surrounding him.

Pink Cadillac prevented uncountable traumas that the Devil tried to instigated against Fats. She was especially vigilant during Katrina. When we whine and moan about our life, we do not give our guardian angels the credit that they deserve. We are not even aware of most of the tragic shit that they have prevented.

Mary in de Nint Ward

Here is Mary in the Ninth Ward, she is looking for a rockin sockin, go to Sunday morning meeting at that church with the hallelujah gospel choir.

BETTER THAN SEX

***We human be-ins have a cerebral area that lights up on MRI when people meditate in the cold tube of examination. We are hard wired for spiritual states. That brain spot itches to be scratched. Some of us itch like crazy, others have a barely noticeable tickle. There are many ways to get a spiritual high. I spend time in the woods and make art. It feels so good when the spiritual neurons fire up.

***People will do the strangest things to activate this biochemical neuronal event. Think of whirling dervishes, snake handlers, pilgrims crawling up mountains on their hands and knees, think of raves.

***Sometimes people crawl into tiny huts with dangerous hot glowing rocks. They pour out quarts of stinky perspiration crowded in with other stinky wet people. Recently three people, in the Sedona Arizona USA, died in a sweat lodge, longing for nirvana.

***I must tell you sweat lodges have worked for me. During and after sweat lodges, smelling like a skunk, I have had visions, inspirations, dazzling euphorias.

***Humans also create magnificent art to activate those nerve centers. Think of St. Louis Cathedral, Notre Dame, Zen gardens, Stone Henge. Think of Aaron Neville singing "Amazing Grace".

***Dali's "Last Supper" in the Washington National Museum of Art did it for me a few decades back. Zapped me to cloud nine.

***Seeing Monet's water lilies for real, the first time, in a Boston museum, I began to glow. Salty water dripped from my eyes. I was transfixed. Were people staring? I do not know because my consciousness was in another realm.

***Here's to that nameless longing to rend the curtain of so called reality, and join "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Spiritual states are Better than sex.