Images from My Life
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| New Spring Altar! |
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| My husband, the scavenger, found a bunch of giant anatomical hearts. He's a giant himself, so I love this photo. |
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| I had my first skin allergy test.... |
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| And it turns out I'm allergic to the plastic tool they use to GIVE the stupid test! I hate being such a sensitive flower, sometimes! |
I've just started taking a really fantastic class, offered by Vivienne McMaster of Be Your Own Beloved fame, called Beloved Camera Class. I've always been petrified of my Nikon D5100 DSLR camera. It's so intimidating, with a million controls and delicate pieces that could break if I drop it! I've always admired Vivienne's photography and she's such a fantastic teacher (her and Flora Bowley have both taught THE BEST online art classes I've ever taken - and I've taken a lot, y'all)!
The above photo was taken as we learned to use the self-timer on our cameras. It was fun to tune in to my camera's rhythm and know just the right time to JUMP!
Books I've Read
A friend recently returned/gifted me with all my old Lynda Barry books and I've been re-devouring them. These books saved my life in high school//college and they saved my life all over again. Isn't amazing how books come back into your life, just when you need them? I actually don't even have the words to describe how important her books are to me. I'd have to draw you a picture instead. When I finish my current art journal, I'll share some of those drawings with you. Her latest book, Picture This: The Near-sighted Monkey Book is SO FANTASTIC and so great for all of us struggling writers/drawers/weirdos.
I also really enjoyed a few other art books this month, including Painting Your Way Out of a Corner: The Art of Getting Unstuck by Barbara Diane Barry. It is a really sweet book that essentially takes the basics of process painting (originally taught by Michele Cassou) into a variety of exercises for self-healing. Throughout the book she shares interesting research about the human brain, including how we can re-train our brain to work more creatively. There's also a really sweet section on "myth, magic & psyche" that speaks to Carl Jung's "active imagination" practice as well as a re-connection to the old myths of our cultures (and bonus points for acknowledging how the Grimm Brothers re-wrote all the old myths, removing the "darkness" and complexity of the "bad characters"). She even mentions Baubo, and Baba Yaga, two female characters that do not fit into the "Disney-fied" mold our culture so obsessively puts forth.
I also really enjoyed a few other art books this month, including Painting Your Way Out of a Corner: The Art of Getting Unstuck by Barbara Diane Barry. It is a really sweet book that essentially takes the basics of process painting (originally taught by Michele Cassou) into a variety of exercises for self-healing. Throughout the book she shares interesting research about the human brain, including how we can re-train our brain to work more creatively. There's also a really sweet section on "myth, magic & psyche" that speaks to Carl Jung's "active imagination" practice as well as a re-connection to the old myths of our cultures (and bonus points for acknowledging how the Grimm Brothers re-wrote all the old myths, removing the "darkness" and complexity of the "bad characters"). She even mentions Baubo, and Baba Yaga, two female characters that do not fit into the "Disney-fied" mold our culture so obsessively puts forth.
I also re-read The Once and Future Goddess by Elinor W. Gadon, which is also a book that changed my life back in high school. It
begins with showcasing prehistoric Goddess art and details several
hypotheses as to how and why the sacredness/worshiping of the Goddess
was ground out by patriarchal forces. Interspersed throughout the book
are some incredibly powerful images of works art, covering almost all
mediums. If you feel a need to re-connect to your inner Goddess Creative Power, I highly recommend picking it up.
So far, I've read 30 books in 2014.
Music I Dug
This month I've listening non-stop to Sleepy Kitty. I used to have an all-female-voiced radio show on KZSC, back in the 90's and they remind me of that great, lady rock I would blast in that little treehouse on the UC Santa Cruz campus.
Movies I Dug
Even though I love Katharine Hepburn, I had never seen Pat and Mike. It's got that perfect back-and-forth, romantic chemistry that I love in movies from the 1940's & 50's (another one of my favorites of that genre is His Girl Friday). It's also a powerfully feminist movie and lo and behold, it was co-written by one of my heroes, Ruth Gordon! One of my mantras is "What Would Ruth Gordon Do?" She's amazing.
I also enjoyed Improv: 50 Years Behind the Brick Wall since I am kind of a stand-up comedy nerd. There was a great balance of men and women represented, which you don't always see in comedy documentaries.
Thanks for going on this month's ride with me! See you next time.
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