things to ponder

10 Easy Steps to become a miserable artist:

saw this on fb and thought it was great. 

How to Make Yourself Feel Miserable as a Creative person: 

1) Constantly compare yourself to others in your same craft

2) Base the entire success of your career on one project

3) Stick only with what you know

4) Undervalue your expertise

5) Let money dictate exclusively what you do

6) Only work on what you think others will love

7) Do only what the client/patron/gallery owner asks

8) Base your artistic merit on the comment sections of your posts

9) Never take time to recharge

10) Set unachievable/overwhelming goals, to be accomplished by tomorrow.

**I was finally able to track down the original post -  see it here on this blog, Craft, Create, Connect. 

Nominate someone deserving

Those Art is You girls (Sallianne and Ellen) are at it again! These 2 women are constantly giving back to the community through their events,  charitable contributions, their generous spirit and the understanding of how to encourage women to bring more art and creativity into their lives.  

This time they are holding a contest where you can nominate someone deserving to attend one of their retreats (Petaluma, CA or Stamford, CT), a $1000 value! Here is what the prize consists of:

3 nights’ accommodation at our host hotel – King

 Room with Breakfast.

3 Full-Day Workshops (Chosen by winner but based

 on availability) and Kit Fee subsidy ($20 per day

 where applicable). Lunch each workshop day

.

Full access to events such as Morning Motivators,

 Art Trunk and charity events.

here's how to nominate someone: 

Tell us who

 you’d like to nominate to win the prize above

 and why you feel they deserve this special

 creative-outlet treat.

We’ll be making a new 

post here on Create Mixed Media each week

 for the month of June and we’ll announce the

 winner of the prize the first week of July.

 (Winning nomination to be chosen by Art Is 

You andCreate Mixed Media.) You can leave

 a comment any week, but please only one 

nomination per person.

To spruce things up

 and increase the fun, we’ll randomly select

 one commenter each week to win a North

 Light book.

You can enter the contest here:

Hope for Oklahoma

A couple of my cool facebook friends (the Heather's) ran a really cool auction a couple of weeks ago to raise funds for victims in Oklahoma, following the hurricane. With all the items donated and then auctioned, they were able to raise almost $9000! how amazing is that. I donated 3 pieces myself. 

Well the girls are starting round 2 tomorrow. I am donating this piece that I have called, Angel of Hope. The auction takes place on this page and you bid under the photo of the item you are interested in. You have to have a paypal address to bid. Visit their and like their page here. 

"Angel of Hope":

Angel of Hope is a mixed media hanging piece, measuring 12" long and 7.5" wide. She is made up a variety of objects because she represents the disentanglement of life after a hurricane comes through. Her feet are old spoons. I imagined finding them on the ground in the rubble afterwards. Her body is an Altoid tin and can be opened to view the inside, which contains a small painting, meant to illustrate the wounded voice to all that have lost so much. She has been soldered and her head (and old vintage bisque Charlotte doll part) has been anchored down with a screw. This screw now holds her together; much like the support offered by Hope for Oklahoma. ~kecia deveney

Mysteries

I love a good mystery. In fact, I can very obsessed about them, given my over curious personality. I find things like this so interesting and really glad I stumbled upon it (via facebook, of course).

The coffins of Arthur's Seat

In 1836, five boys were hunting rabbits on the north-eastern slopes of Arthur’s Seat, the main peak in the group of hills in the center of Edinburgh. In a small cave in the crags of the hill they stumbled across seventeen miniature coffins carved in pine and decorated with tinned iron. Carefully arranged in a three-tiered stack, each coffin contained a small wooden figure with painted black boots and individually crafted clothing.

how cool is that? I think they are so amazing. makes me want to create my own.

The story was posted on  the blog, The Museum of ridiculously interesting things (great name!) go to the link and read more about them.

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In a way they remind of these cool Nuches that I purchased from an antique dealer in New York (well I bought one and he gifted me the smaller one, since as he said, "he enjoyed my enthusiasm") Mine are from Panama. This is  what the dealer told me about them: 

These are healing figures that represents  medicine man, woman or Nele. The spirit of a vivo or an alive figure is summoned  in the healing process, generally for soul retrieval  to restore the balance of health to an afflicted individual.  The process is accompanied by a shaman's healing chant and the burning of cacao beans in a clay sensor underneath the patients hammock.

I placed my 2 nuchus dolls in an assemblage piece I recently completed.

(I carved the totem myself!)

looking into the heart of others

Wild Muse with Alena Hennessey

We were lucky enough to snag Alena Hennessey to teach a workshop here at the Jersey shore. She's on her way to teach at Squam, so it was great of her to squeeze us into her agenda. It was a wonderful weekend of laughter, some tears, good food, good company and amazing art. Although hot, the weather was gorgeous and it was wonderful to enjoy the yard. A couple of us even hit the Ocean Grove flea market early saturday morning before class. These are my pieces from class. 

dancing deer:

Koi pond: