Wednesday, February 24, 2016

stagnation

i'm feeling so lost right now as an artist, and i feel it's so strange that i have this new kitty and i don't feel the color right now.  it could be that i'm still depressed and the kitty is keeping me from feeling the full brunt of it (thank you, pixel!).  it could be that i'm waiting for spring to make it's way to new england to thaw my emotions a little.  i'm angry at myself for not being able to force the muse.  i read about how this or that or the other artist works daily on their creativity and i am not able or willing to do that.  maybe in time i will have that dedication, but not now.



is it dedication, or is it just pushing thru the bad stuff?

is it wrong to push?

i don't know.



i feel it's the season of rest for me.  even though i'm angry about the rest, about needing the rest, about my muse abandoning me, i know i must do what i feel is right for me and to not push the ebbs and flows of my art.

i know she will return to me.  she has before.

i've been watching all the videos for my Life Book classes, printing the pdf's, being inspired and taking it all in, but i haven't been faithful with actually doing all the lessons the way i want to.  i'm getting frustrated that, when i do, it hasn't come out the way i had wished.  some of that is discouraging me from putting brush to paper.  but i have been learning by watching and by seeing others' takes on the subject at hand and that's a good thing.

i am not totally put off by others artwork.  sometimes i get angry with seeing all the beauty others have made as i am friends with many artists on facebook.  and the anger is toward myself and my insecurities, not at the artist, nor is it a jealousy that others have this 'good fortune' to be successful.  i know it takes hard work- or just raw talent sometimes- to get as good as these people are.  and i'm even looking at 'primitive' art and seeing how wonderful it is and knowing that if i had painted the exact same painting that i wouldn't love it as much and wouldn't see its' beauty.  why is that???

so, this is just me coming to let myself off the hook.  letting you know i'm still alive but in a cocoon state at the moment.  i will be back, hopefully soon.

i'll leave you with my favorite view of one of my first favorite paintings, and a powerful word that i also have tattooed on my arm;



until later,
jenny

Monday, February 22, 2016

kitty is in the house

introducing, pixel gabrenas!





this is one awesome kitty.  he adores people and loves on them with kitty kisses, lots of purrs and plenty of drool, which i find endearing.  i'm strange.  


nobody can agree on how old pixel might be.  we do mostly agree that he is under a year.  how far under is the question.  the vet thought he might be around 6 months old, but he is big and tall, so the animal control officer puts it between 8 and 10 months.  this won't matter in a year or so, but right now it's only a little confusing.  we decided on the paperwork to put down 10 months, and then counted wrong, so on our official documentation he's a year and 2 months.  whoops.  he was neutered and microchipped before we brought him home.  i highly recommend saving a kitty from the shelter rather than getting a 'free' kitty from someone who thought kittens are cute.  this guy is still young, but i already know his personality!



however old he is, he is adored!  today is day three of his habitation with us, and he has mostly been locked in our upstairs bathroom which connects to the laundry room.  much bigger than the cage he had been in for 10 days, but he's pretty sick of being cooped up.  we have been giving him time to get used to our older dog, pita, who loves everyone, and that has gone very well, with pixel even attempting a few kitty kisses with pita!



yesterday we had pixel come downstairs for a longer time with our younger, cat-chasing dog, lucy. lucy was on leash and i holding chicken slices to give her tiny taste when she ignored the kitty.  it went well enough that today i let pixel out for about an hour while i was alone with the animals and with no chicken in hand.  lucy was still on leash, and i gave her lots of attention when pixel did kitty things and lucy ignored it.  there were only a couple of outbursts from lucy, of which pixel ignored.

i have to figure out how to feed pita when pixel is roaming the house.  pita is a hard one to feed, so we keep food out for him all the time and celebrate when he goes to eat of his on volition.  pixel seems ravenous all the time, and when he is downstairs finds ALL the food, wherever it may be.  this may take some thinking.

trying to find the food on the shelf.

lucy trying to sit still while watching kitty

we also have a bird that pixel seems interested in, but he has been respectful so far.  the first few nights that i decide to let him roam i will sleep on the couch to make sure he stays respectful of the bird and not let his stomach rule his brain.  not that he could catch the bird, but he could give it a lethal scare!

we are going slow and steady with these introductions, and i'm very pleased with how well it's going!  it all comes down to how great a cat pixel is, how polite pita pup is, and how willing lucy pup is to keeping mommy happy with her.  

in the meantime, we will watch as pixel finds his favorite kitty spots.





until later,
jenny

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

my magical yearbook

i mentioned in my last post that i'd been working on a big journal about my goals for the year.  taken from prompts at journalwild.com, this has been a great start to figure out what i really want to do with my year.  i'm almost finished with the journaling part of it, and then i will start to be more consistent with the actual work of the book.

i used an old discarded childrens' book i bought from the library and gessoed the pages enough that my details would be the focal point but you can still make out sweet drawings and some text.




dreaming of my ideal year



i needed to think of several goals i wish to accomplish this year and then figure out how to work small tasks related to the goal into daily life.


getting to some heavy stuff, the mean things i say to myself and which ones i want to try to get rid of this year.  slow steps


it's so pretty underneath, though


in another prompt i needed to come up with 52 things i love about me.  that took a little while and a lot of thought.



my favorite pages so far are the ones about spirit!

 pretty textures!



for one spread i knew i wanted a big tarot reading for the year.  twelve cards, one for each month, plus a card for the beginning of the year and one for the end.  i printed a mini version of each card chosen from my deck, Colette Baron-Reids wisdom of the oracle card deck.



 the spread with each months card in place.  
i chose a different deck for the beginning and end cards 




makes for a very fat book!

this was a great project for me to get my bearings on what i wished to have happen this year and figure out what little steps i can take every day to succeed!  


and, in other news...


this little man will be coming home to live with us in a few days!!!  he does have a name, but i am not sharing until he is safe and warm in my home.  his shelter name is dijon.

i had been extremely depressed lately and mark decided i needed something to distract me from my thoughts.  

since my loki kitty died suddenly in his sleep on my oldest sons birthday over a year ago, a hard enough day for me made more difficult, i have been wanting another kitty in my house.  we were down to zero kitties from 2, and i am not used to no kitties in my home.  i'd been wanting a ginger kitten.  my dad had one at the farm when i was little and he was a sweet guy, even putting up with a wedding between he and another tolerant kitty we had.  i have a sweet spot for gingers.  

so, mark said yes to a kitty in a text from work, but he wanted a cat from a shelter, not a kitten.  he wanted to help out the shelter, and not have to deal with the neutering and such ourselves.   i knew the cat i wanted.  i had seen a big brute of a cat in a photo at our grocery store for a long, long time.  i messaged the animal control about him and they told me he was feral, that he doesn't allow people to touch him.  i knew that if it wasn't for our crazy pup, lucy, who chased our kitty previously, that i wouldn't have a problem with the cat being antisocial.  but two crazy animals in one house is too much for even me.  i was heartbroken for the poor guy, though.

the next day the animal control Facebook page posted the photo you see above, asking if anyone knew the owners.  i fell hard for that sweet face!  he looked friendly and young.  a couple days after that, on a saturday, we went to the shelter to visit and see if his owners had shown up.  they hadn't, and the weather was bitter cold!  so glad he was in a safe, warm place.  i let them know if the owners didn't show that i was very interested in him.  i got to cuddle with him and he is so social and sweet!  they took my name, as the director was not there, and told me that she would give me a call.  when she called later that day, she had remembered me from my time working with a wildlife rehabber in the area and other times when we donated to the shelter.  we talked and she needed to know i was serious, as they needed room for other cats coming in left and right.  they would bring him to another shelter to make space for others in our area.  this guy also needed to be neutered, and would take money from their funds.  mark assured me we would find the money they asked for, for them to just break even, and she told me they wait 7 days for an owner to contact them.

today has been seven days!  i contacted them this morning, and they let me know that my little orange kitty will be going to the vet tomorrow, thursday, and we can pick him up on saturday!

i will update later with more photos of him in his new home and with his name.  i'm very excited, if you can't tell!

until later,
jenny