Sacred Spiral Design

Spring Equinox

The Spring Equinox is on the 20th of March – next Thursday! We just had a lunar eclipse and then there will be a solar eclipse on the 29th. In case you didn’t know, eclipses always come in pairs. It’s been a busy month in the astral sphere! Over the last two weeks, I have been out in my garden, sowing flower seeds, pruning, digging, and generally mucking about. I just bought a fabulous generally eco-friendly small electric garden wood chipper and made a bunch of mulch for one of my flower beds. This made me so happy! Totally stoked to make my own mulch.

I finished my latest artwork a couple weeks ago – gardening has taken priority, getting my yard ready for summers glorious production. So, the making of art. This latest piece includes a female image that is AI generated via Photoshop. I had been playing around with it and decided to see how it would work in an mixed media piece.

When making an AI image, it is all about text to image generation. For instance, I typed into the generator something like female holding a crystal ball; long flowing hair; facing forward; shaman; witch. Add in style, technique, art period, etc, and then hit generate. Three images will appear to choose from, either to go ahead and use or riff more images from one most similar to what you want to end up. Fingers are a bit difficult to generate and probably feet/toes too. You will get reasonable facsimile fingers, which you can fix in Photoshop later or paint it in.

I settled on an image, and placed it into Photoshop in the size dimensions I needed to fit the support and general design. I wanted a more otherworldly lighting effect and played with the PS settings until I got close to what I wanted. It is printed on mulberry paper via my Cannon Pixma, fixed and glued on to the support. Acrylic glazes were used to heighten color, diminish certain areas, outline and define. I was thinking in terms of the tree of life – Yggdrasil, and sacred geometry. All the paper I used was cut out with a small pair of scissors and a exacto blade.

“Crystal Visons” 2/2025 Mixed Media ©NPA

I am still working with the mulberry paper and the printing process. I need a thinner paper for gluing onto the support. Not quite happy with the color, I think the paper doesn’t lend well for color brilliance, perhaps absorbs the ink too much. It is good for sepia or black & white tones with a matte finish. Paper, obviously is a primary part of my process. It has to take the ink without smearing and be thin enough to glue easily. I will have to ponder on this and do some research.

Below is an unaltered AI image – just to give you an idea of what you can produce. If you don’t have the cash to pay for a model, this could be a good way to go. The text to image went something like: Celtic Shaman female; wearing a lace dress; Deer ears; jewel necklace; flower crown with antlers. The image looks like a real female. Amazing, and since playing with AI generated images, I have become quite skeptical of too perfect images found on the web.

UnCaged

Finished my artwork this morning, feel pretty happy with it. I call this mixed media piece UnCaged – Libre de la Cage.

She pushed back the screen so that she could gaze out upon the garden which surrounded her small home. The garden was in full bloom, lush, smelling of flowers. Birds were singing happily as they went about their business. The young woman was loosely clothed in her favorite silk robe, her unbound hair fell about her shoulders and her skin felt clean without all the makeup she wore last nite, entertaining an admirer. She longed to be free from her circumstance, free like the birds winging through the treetops and clear blue sky. They do not own me here, she thought, in my secret garden I am free.

Nurturing the Woman Inside

I have been thinking about my motivational ideas regarding my artwork and the new piece I have begun. The hidden garden of a woman, the secret garden, the inner self. That place where only those with an invitation are allowed to enter, and readily kicked out if they trespass in too bold a manner. I have been trying to express that inner reality, my feminine ideas sculpted by my adventures with the moon lodge, Jung, O’Keeffe, growing up female in an American patriarchal society. It is important to me to try and express all the ideas I have entertained into the physical form of a piece of art.

This morning I watched a documentary of an English woman, who was always an artist inside, but needed to conform to societal expectations of her era ~ the wife aspect of being a female; raising children, laundry, cooking, cleaning ~ her loving husband encouraged her to go to art school and she became an artist. A very good artist, who painted the dilapidated houses of London. Unfortunately, she had a stroke which left her quite debilitated. She struggled to paint again but the stroke left her with essential tremor, and her shaky hands could no longer hold the brush steady. This film left me with the idea of not taking for granted that I will always be able to paint. Things happen ~ we are not immortal.

I bought some more decorative paper, and a new panel support. The panel is gessoed, I have chosen the paper and color pallet, and printed the main figure on mulberry paper. This piece will involve my admiration of Hokusai and the Ukiyo-e floating world. This morning, I watched a Museum of Fine Arts-Boston lecture about Hokusai, the Ukiyo-e block prints and the use of strong lines and color. I didn’t know this but Prussian blue became the rage. I bought a bottle of liquid acrylics yesterday in that same color ~ universal synchronicity. I worry that the use of an image of a Japanese woman will be branded as cultural appropriation. But really, it is exploring the inner landscape of a woman ~ perhaps a Geisha ~ who lives two different lives. The outer societal constraints and her inner world.

The Hollow Bone

Fog enshrouds my house this late fall morning. A warm cup of Chai at hand, and my Cat lies at my feet while I type. All is hushed, a perfect morning to blog, think, just be with myself. There are no outside distractions that I must attend to ~ not just yet. Winter will not be here officially until next weekend ~ Winter Solstice. The garden is covered in frost, tattered ruins of Summers glory. I have been unable to tend to its upkeep, working overtime for my employer (and wallet) and the seasonal buying frenzy. The new year will see me unleashed from the bondage of keeping my job ~ and again will be able to trim, dig, mulch, and transplant. The garden awaits me with patience. My studio awaits me with patience as well.

Meán Geimhridh (pronounced Mawn G+ev+ree), midwinter, or grianstad (pronounced Gree+awn+stod), “sunstop,” is one of the key points of the year in which the veil that divides our world and the supernatural Otherworld ~ non ordinary reality ~ is at its thinnest point. I love all the seasons for their own particular beauty. Winter is the time when the earth sleeps, self nurtures, readying herself for the push of Spring and the warming Sun. Like the Bear, I am ready for hibernation. Living in the modern world forces me to hibernate in spurts, only on weekends and evenings when I can shut the door and just be. It is what it is, I am patient.

I have been working on a new idea for my next piece. I found a daguerreotype, circa 1890, of a young Japanese woman for my central figure. I have Photoshopped it already, and it is ready to be printed. This idea is nurtured by a symbolic phase from Dane Rudhyar’s An Astrological Mandala. I have had this well used book since I was a young woman; drawing wisdom from its symbolic archetypes aligned with my natal astrological chart. The symbol for my Saturn placement in Scorpio. “A woman draws away two dark curtains closing the entrance to a sacred pathway.” This is the woman within, the mystic’s path, to face the darkness of the unknown and walk through the door. With faith and intuition, that all will be as it should be.

I bought some more decorative paper from Hollanders a couple days ago. The papers should arrive next week, a Christmas present to myself. I have not chosen the paint color palette, that will happen after the paper arrives. I am thinking it will be in gray and gold tones, with a touch of pink. The Japanese woman is sepia toned, she wears a flowered kimono, her long hair is down. I tinted it a bit with a magenta pink to give it more depth. I so look forward to having the time to let my own hair down and begin to work on a fresh new board.

I am a hollow bone, and welcome in spirits healing energy. My body is healing from the shock of the surgery, carefully I nurture myself. This will take some time ~ I am patient. The scars on my belly are still red, but have healed. My digestive system will never be the same, and so I adjust. I have lost some weight, and that is a good thing. I revel in this mornings quiet peace, far from the madding crowd.

My studio awaits me, hibernating, ready to spring forth, fecund with the birth of new artwork ~ A room of one’s own.

Collage

I have the day off – Thanksgiving – and was able to finish my latest collage at last. My experimentation with fixing the ink jet print on Mulberry paper worked quite well. I did a little research and bought a can of Mod Podge Clear Acrylic spray. The image set, and I was able to brush a sealer over it without smearing or bleed.

The female head shot is a daguerreotype image from the Library of Congress, which I flipped and manipulated in Photoshop for a more dramatic tonality of lights and darks. I used Thai marbled paper and Italianate Florentine paper plus acrylic paint. Most of what I do is intuitive, with an idea of where I want to go, what feels right. Influences are Shamanic dreamtime, Celtic knotwork and sacred geometry.

Out Sick

Pretty much my entire summer was lost due to illness. First, I coped with a banged up knee from weeding my garden last spring. Horribly swollen, unwilling to bend without pain. My bad knee is an old injury, from when I was a young woman, taking Kung Fu lessons. It has haunted me ever since. It haunts me still. Stubbornly, I do not want an operation of some sort to fix it… so I cope with magnesium lotion, Arnica and KT tape. I will consider an operation someday, just not now.

Second, I got Covid. It was more like the flu, not that bad, but of course I had to remove myself from society, my job, and hang out at home. My cat enjoyed having me home. I discovered that I could order groceries and have them delivered out to my car, while I sat in the car and spoke to the delivery person through the car window – with some hand signals. I wasn’t so sick that I couldn’t drive, just contagious for a while. My boss made sure to bring me my work laptop and I worked from home for a couple weeks. I enjoyed that. Now I know why the managers all work from home and the grunts have to go into the vast cube sphere and slog it out.

I had pretty much recovered from Covid, and had returned to work with a mask… and then was struck with sickness number Three. This was indeed, a horrific traumatic event for me. I woke up around 3:45 am, in horrible pain. I knew it was my Gall Bladder, but this time was different. The pain was intense, vomiting, sweaty. This is also when I discovered that being a solitary introverted artist type, without a friend to call – was not a good thing. The dude across the street was gone, he would have taken me to the hospital. I was in so much pain, I didn’t feel safe to drive. I finally contacted my boss, who freaked out, and wouldn’t help, and put me in touch with HR, who didn’t want to help… HR finally, grudgingly said, we will call you a taxi. I hadn’t thought of that – like duh – but accepted. Needless to say, I really was incapable of thinking about anything beyond my pain. The Taxi took me to the ER, and luckily there weren’t too many people waiting in line. I got in immediately, the surgeon came in and took a look at my distended tummy with an ultrasound, and told me I needed surgery immediately. I was in the hospital for seven days, infected Liver and Pancreas, Gall Bladder removed – a gallstone the size of a marble was the problem. Needless to say, I was quite sick, very fragile. My son came and took care of me for three weeks. I have since changed my diet, regained my strength and feeling much better. I never want to go through that hell scape again. Ever.

I finally was strong enough to start back to work on my latest piece. I am needing, wanting to move in a different direction… and I feel like I am succeeding. It is a mixed media collage piece, female figure of course. It is not quite done yet. Still a little more to do. Experimenting with tintype images in Photoshop, printing the image on mulberry paper, fixing the image, acrylics and cut decorative paper. I have an idea and then work intuitively piecing it all together on gessoed board. I use an exacto knife and tiny scissors to cut the paper; often using tracing paper over the piece to figure out the proportions before I cut. I am conscious of color, and there is always some thematic consistency of spirals built in. Here is a portion of it:

Art Gallery

Today, I have been busy uploading my collage’s and paintings to my art gallery page. I did it in a slide show form, so unfortunately the names, dimensions etc. aren’t included. I grew exasperated with WordPress and my need to precisely place each image and the titles. I may change this, with some practice. The artwork was created over the last ten years, maybe a little longer for a couple of them. Time is fleeting and only a construct of measurement to figure out where you are and how did I get from here to there? Cue Talking Heads-Stop Making Sense.

I finished Greensleeves Summer Solstice last weekend, signed it and added an acrylic medium finish over it this morning. I feel pretty pleased with it. Doing so, I came to the realization that it is a companion piece for Greensleeves Winter Solstice. I suppose I should do Greensleeves equinox artwork as well and complete the seasonal cycles. My mind is thinking about it, and so I am quite sure that I will commence as soon as I can get to the art store for another clay board.

Greensleeves Summer Solstice © NPA 2024
Acrylic & Decorative paper on clay board 20″x 24″

Greensleeves Winter Solstice © NPA 2017
Acrylic & Decorative paper on clay board 20″ x 24″

What direction are you going? Head for a life of meaning.

Be your own heroine or hero. Your personal story can a be viewed as a mythological journey into the depths of your being. A story in which you can win or fail. You are your own archetype.

We can cling to old narratives, dependency, inferiority, and deficit thinking; which can be so limiting, which will anchor us to ideas that don’t fit our personal paradigm. Faced with the liminality of not being able to see ahead, but knowing that you have to walk through the door, is daunting. But never the less you persist. This is the heroines journey.

I have been thinking about liminality lately. Nothing seems certain anymore. The path I was on, had become precarious, unpredictable, filled with frustration and anger. So much has changed, ended, and no longer holds true. The old ways are no longer viable. I find myself at the threshold, the curtains are drawn back but the light is dim and I cannot see the new path, yet I know with absolute certainty, I must walk upon it or die.

Sabian Symbol phase 230 (Scorpio 20 dg): A woman draws away two dark curtains closing the entrance to a sacred pathway. The deepest intuitions of the soul, a path to the mystics life is opened up once the darkness of fear, egocentricity and dualistic morality is removed. It reveals what a positive reliance upon faith and intuition can bring about. Courage is needed to go through the veiling darkness – the courage to venture beyond the familiar and the traditionally known, to plunge ahead into the unknown. ~ Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala

Dreams of Art

Have you ever had a lucid dream? In general, I have about one lucid dream per moon cycle. This mornings lucid dream was me making artwork. It began with a vision of a female Shaman in a leafy wooded surround. It was a mixed media piece ~ decorative paper and acrylics. I “saw” the artwork and then consciously began to look at the different parts of it and “see” how it could be done. I re worked it several times. This image has been haunting me for a while, and most of what I have come up with is pretty stilted, stiff, disappointing. This morning, I went to my local art supply store and bought a new clay board. Doing this, following up on a dream, lets the subconscious know that you are paying attention. This encourages a conversation with the subconscious, with dreams, visions, bringing into being the inner vision. I have begun the making of art.

Roses

English Climbing Rose
Photoshop, Camera Raw

Today, I have been experimenting with my Epsom scanner, Photoshop and Camera Raw. I cut some roses from my garden this morning, scanned them in and played with the filters in Camera Raw. The entire day has been set aside for being playful and creative. I have needed this very badly – self care. The windows are open, and a soft cool rain-filled breeze clears away the residue of civilization which has worried my mind to distraction.

Of course I am listening to my latest Audiobook, Carl Jung’s, The Red Book. Unfortunately, the artwork does not come with an audiobook. The girl just can’t help it, I love to understand as much as I can about the psyche. I blame it on my Pluto in the eight house… Thus my intense interest in shadow work.

I also experimented with my gelli plate this morning. I like to use Hahnemuhle Rice paper or Mulberry paper. These papers are great to use in collage artwork. If you want a defined edge a pair of sharp scissors or an exacto blade works pretty good. I tried to use a Silhouette cutting machine, but it tends to bunch up the delicate rice paper and stick to the sticky cutting pad. Wetting the paper around the image and carefully pulling apart the fibers works quite nicely and will give you a feathery softer edge. These papers take acrylic paint, ink, pencil and pen quite agreeably and can be transparent to any surface images beneath it as well.

You are the artist of your own life, don’t hand over the paintbrush to anyone else. The garden is a sanctuary for the soul, a place of refuge and renewal amidst the chaos of the world. I am an artist and gardener. What is your super power?

The Road Well Traveled

Hey Diddle Diddle. NPA© 2024
Photoshop Composite

I have been listening to a new Audiobook, Lisa Marchiano ~ “The Vital Spark, Reclaim your Outlaw Energies and find your Feminine Fire.” It is a Jungian analysis of a woman’s journey; do you negate the soul kernel – who you are meant to be in this life time – and follow the path that society demands that you follow? Or, do you take the road less traveled, listen to that soul whisper, refusing to bow down to cultural norms? I listened to part of a chapter this morning, where the author is describing a woman who was an artist, yet took the path of getting married, having children and only dabbled with her artistic skills. She then had a dream and a coincidental meeting with an old schoolmate who had gone on to become an artist. This profoundly changed her life and she went on to explore her artistic self. I have been duking it out with this sort of dilemma for years. It has to do with the stuckness I have been feeling of late.

This mornings dream: I found myself consenting to marry a man ill-suited for me. I was in a kitchen, dressed in the same style pajamas that the man was wearing except that my pj’s didn’t fit, way too tight, constricting. The scene felt like the clothing and kitchen were very old fashioned, in a Victorian sense. Meanwhile my friends had been waiting for me in a park, sitting under a wooden sculpture of a Turtle skeleton. They knew that I would be walking down the path next to the sculpture. They had brought along a man whom they wanted me to meet, and that they felt would be well suited for me. Finally, when I had not appeared, one of the men friends got up and went to look for me. He found me in the kitchen after I had consented to the engagement. My friend was very upset with the both of us, demanding that the ill-suited man take back the engagement. I just stood there giggling, overweight, blonde, in the too tight, silk, dark striped pj’s. (I don’t look like that, this is a shadow self). My friend asked me not to take the first offer made to me.

This dream has much to do with my unhappiness with my corporate job and not finding enough time to make art. It is out of the question to quit my job, that would be a financial disaster. One of the managers made the comment the other day, “I am glad you have a hobby”, after I had told her about my home art studio. This comment, though meant well, made me mad and stung my pride, even though she was kinda right; my art is only a hobby, I only dabble at it. I came to realize that she meant my corporate job, designing greeting cards for corporate customers was legitimate and making your own art was only a hobby. I think this is a typical way of thinking about creatives. I can still remember a dream I had when I was a twenty something young woman, asking me if I wanted to be a poor starving artist or find a legitimate job which would support me. This dream has haunted me all my life. I took the road more travelled, found job after unsatisfactory job, and have lived to regret some of it. I should be glad that I finally do have a legitimate creative job, it is putting up with the corporate crappage that is depressing.

My frustration gets the best of me, I look for a quick fix, but know deep inside that I must take my time, get it right, and the work will follow.

Turtle medicine exploration: I carry my home with me where ever I go. I go slowly, but eventually get to where I want to go. There is plenty of time. I exist outside of time. Time is a man made construct, as long as I inch forward towards my goal the universe will eventually gift me with my dream. The feeling of lack and frustration is impeding me from a deep connection with the great mystery. There is nothing more important in life than to keep trying, keep moving forward towards my goal.