Something Totally Different-Calder's Circus

Furi the Acrobat

The Twin Saviour's and the Magical Lang

Merle the Fortun Teller and the Magical Lang

Mahidabel of the Spook Tunnel

The Lovely Veronique

Goose the Strongman

Siri the Belly Dancer

Kimi the Clown

Afar the Ring Leader

OK, time for something totally different. I am working on commissions for dolls and need a little break. I am looking at my Circus/Carnival Characters that I did for the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. They were done to be part of an Exhibit of Alexander Calder's work-especially his Circus themed works. My pieces are collaged monotypes in 3D form so they are peaking out from behind their borders. I put them in gilded shadowboxes that I made. Each of the smaller pieces is about 2x3 feet big and the biggest piece is 3x4 feet.

It was a very colourful show and I loved Calder's pieces from his larger mobiles to his little paintings. What did I love best? Photos of his studio! Why? Because it was the biggest mess I have ever seen! Ha! It makes my messes look just silly. There was even some film footage of him in his studio with a friend who is saying something about the mess and Calder is just laughing about it. I love that too! So here's to making art and plenty of messes while you go!

I Survived With Help From My Friends

Thanks to everyone for your kind thoughts and messages for me over this weekend. It may seem like a Wedding is a personal thing to be put away and not talked about again, especially with a divorce. But, I really felt like our wedding, well I guess it is just mine now, was so full of the things we loved and we made it together. I am such a visual person and I had spent most of my 20s helping make my friends make their weddings the day they really wanted by making them special jewelry, designing the decor, helping pick out colours, places or by just by being there for them. For me, our weddding was like one huge installation art show and I was so happy and blissfully thinking my groom was happy too when he really wasn't or he was for a while-who knows.

Every year after it, we celebrated with more art and that just added to it. I would add more pages to the book I was making about our life together. There would be more cards and I would make a new "cake top" and decorate it like the original one. I thought these were fun things but I know now that I was wrong. I am finding it so hard to untangle myself from this web of life and art my ex and I made together. How can it all still be so shocking to me? So, I survived this weekend. It is still really hard. I am not sure what I "AM". I am at a weird age. Things don't come as easily as they used to. I can't stay up all night like I used to. It is confusing and I am a little bit ticked off that I am still having to figure this out but I know everyone is. I am puttering around feeling like I must be at least 500 years old. So, It really touched my heart to receive some amazing packages in the mail from Faerie friends-they have really touched my heart so much! I took some pretty pictures just to make sure they were real and they are!

My beautiful and talented friend Heather E. Hutsell sent me a copy of her new book The Inter-Twinning and I am so excited to read it. I was excited to read this about it: Forget everything you know about time and all you know of reality, for they have no place in these pages...

Here is a little bit from it:

Unknow to one another, four unrelated sets of twins are born and later brought together by way of eight mysterious invitations. They quickly find themselves paired off with a stranger among themselves and must conquer a labyrinth unlike any other--or have it conquer them..Before it is all over; they will find that they have far more in common with one another than just merely being twins.

I have promised Heather to be the first twin to read her novel! It is all very exciting. It is available now at http://www.lulu.com/ or visit http://www.snailpie.com/

(c)2009 All Rights Reserved

Then, another friend, the lovely and talented Lorianne Jantti of Plumevine Jewelry http://www.plumevine.com/

sent me a gorgeous package from Norway. We are doing a trade! Her part of the trade was already made-she says it was a fluke but it is so gorgeous! I finally opened the whole package(I saved it for my sad day) and I received a gorgeous Faerie Crown. I promise I will get going on some new Self Portraits wearing it! She also sent some other things for me. I am making her a doll so she has made teeny tiny "doll jewelry" for her doll to be wearing and she sent some gorgeous fabrics for the dolls clothes. They are all very "Plumevine" and very "Lorianne". I hope I don't let her down!

I have been working on my own little stuff just trying to get through all of this weird time. Now it is time for me to really get going again-hopefully.

24 April Will Be Hard

The Old "Family Crest". Our 3rd Baby Cat was just a twinkle in our eyes!

You know how sometimes you think you know what is going on and you think you can control stuff and all that. Well, I have been even more tired lately, weepy, feeling really more down than usual. I have found out from my doctors that there are some physical reasons, some depression stuff, but then I looked at the Calendar and Yikers, this Friday 24, April would have been a Wedding Anniversary. Well, mine and my ex-Mister's. I am still very sad about this.
We never talked about divorce. I felt a big change come over him in our last year-the way he dressed(I started not being able to recognize him really). I knew something was horribly wrong though when he threw out his beloved black doc marten boots(he had given me the girl's version one Halloween all wrapped in Orange and Black paper and ribbon). He told me how growing up in England and having to wear a uniform of a jacket, waistcoat, shorts, knee socks and black shoes was just so painful when he had reach 6 feet tall by 5th grade. What saved him was being able to wear his "way cool" doc's. To me, this is just one of the the many things that made him "him". When I saw him throwing out his docs I couldn't help but feel like I was being tossed as .





Soon after that, I was, divorce papers were filed by him and signed by me(what else could I do-he was in love with someone else now). I was out of the 1900s house we had remodeled and he was engaged and is now remarried. And, to be truthful, I have been angry, confused, sad, sorry, regretful and more and then all over again. I have wished I hadn't been an "Artist" or worked with artifacts at a museum-where we first met. The first thing he said to me was, "I like your boots!" apparently-I don't remember. He said I gave him a glare and walked away. He was, to me, a dressed fancy man who worked with computers in the fancy offices and I was a Collections Preparator working in the Lab with Artifacts and wearing aprons, lab coats, big work boots and big goggles. Why would he want anything to do with a nerd like me?





I did eventually talk to him and saving all the details, why we would get along made a ton of sense. So we were friends, and dating and then together and laughing and fixing up an old house and finding kittens and suddenly he was popping and antique East Indian Ring on my finger and asking me to marry him and I found myself naturally saying yes! Then there was a trip to the Indian section of Chicago where he bought me a sea green and aqua sari gown which was just gorgeous(this was supposed to be my wedding dress but my mom was surprising me by making me one). Then to Glastonbury, England for some history and magic and more saris-this time he surprised me with fuschia and rust coloured velvet embroiderd ones with gorgeous beads and metallic theards. He just seemed to know all my favourite things all the time and I tried to do the same for him. We played all over my home in the states and his in England. We got married here in an 1920s ballroom with Chinese Lanterns, gilded mirrors, chandeliers all surrounded by our family and friends and turquoise margaritas! He surprised me with an Irish Folk band so we could all dance in the round which was loads of fun. We already had our home routine down. He built me a studio off our house. I got my first printing press ever-what a dream! Our best friends were my twin and her husband and their little boy. We all had fun together and he met more of my friends too. He was there when my twin had her 2nd baby boy and one of the first people to hold him. We got in fights and made up. We mainly laughed and laughed and shared a crazy sense of humour. Of course there was more. But, of course there was less and more that I didn't know about.



I never ever thought I would get divorced from him or that he would want me gone. I never saw it coming which is what still makes me sad. I never got closure so I have to make it on my own and that is hard. I will never know what happened so I think the worst-that it is all my fault, that I didn't try enough, that I often got lost in my own little world too much to work on my art especially for shows and big events. Maybe I didn't put him first enough. Maybe I wasn't young enough, pretty enough, didn't dress fancy enough or try to look pretty for him-I was pretty much always in my work clothes with my hair up in a knot on my head.





So, I will think about this and run this around as long as I need to I guess. I know my friends want to help by saying he was "all bad" and that if he was ever good to me it was part of an act. I know they mean the best, but those kinds of remarks me feel like such an idiot and that only a liar and a big jerk would choose me. So, who knows. Will let you know how things are this time next year. Here are images that still float through my head. One thing I do know is that I sure don't want to be married to him anymore-not at all-not now or ever again. Will let you know how things are going this time next year-hopefully I will have forgotten all about him.

So far now, I am feeling like Miss Havisham or Giselle even though we did live together as a married couple in our house and had plans for a future. It is an easy feeling to put on-that of being cast off.

Why Was This So Hard?

So, I finally finished 2 paintings today and 1 beaded headpiece. Nothing like the pressure of them needing to be done by Saturday to get me going. Still, they took so long! I am a zombie! Here is one of them. This is "The Goddess Diana in Spring". The Race for a Cure is tomorrow and I will be seeing my good friend Diana who was diagnosed with Breast Cancer after having her 2nd baby at the age of 32. She is now cancer free! At the time of her diagnosis, I did a painting for her of "The Warrior Goddess Diana".

I used to live in Greece and studied all kinds of Myth(I am forgetting stuff so sometimes I am getting the Ancient Greek and Roman Myths and Gods and Goddess mixed up-I know-pitiful)the Goddess Diana was thought to be the Queen of the Amazons who were the best archers and cut off their breasts in order to be the best. I told my own Diana it was her call to be a Warrior, an Amazon(where the inspiration for Wonder came from-who didn't want to be Wonder Woman? I still do!). So, in my first painting she is in warrior paints, armor, and is standing strong with a steely look of strength, ready for battle with her loyal greyhound.

But, this time I wanted to make a different painting for her. I wanted this Diana to put her bow and arrow down and her armor. There is definitely a time to fight and hopefully a time for rest, dancing and stopping and smelling the roses too. But, we all know we can be Warrior Goddesses when we need too. That doesn't mean we don't stop liking girly stuff and a pretty dress too! I wanted her to be dancing with the flowers of spring and with her beloved greyhound(who is often depicted by her side). So, finally, here is the "The Goddess Diana in Spring" followed by the first painting I did for her "The Warrior Goddess Diana"(she is wearing a Katinka Patinka inspired headpiece of fleurs, leaves and feathers too http://www.katinkapinka.etsy.com ).

And, it is always nice to see one of your pieces in a Treasury! I love this one by Fivesisters called "Banana Pudding". Fivesisters esty shop sells amazing beads so check it out http://www.fivesisters.etsy.com
I love Banana Pudding and she chose my piece "Venchenza" for her Treasury. Thanks so much Fivesisters! You really made my day/night and I love all the other pieces too-I want them all.
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=53292

It's been a tired Spring

So far, this Spring has started with me finding myself just tired all of the time. I am not producing nearly what I am used to doing and it feels like what I do make takes forever. I am not sure why. This has been a hard year full of changes and I still am not sure where I belong. I keep going back over things I have done and want to do again and I wonder how did I do it? So, I will see how things go.

Photos are always nice so here are a few. My relatives are very interesting and funny people!