Hate Breeds Hate, Love Breeds Love

I've noticed that no matter how messy or disorganized our homes are, we as humans seem drawn towards organization. Especially when it comes to people. We organize them into groups of sex, color, race, religion, age, etc. Often we make generalizations, labels, categories and subcategories for each of these groups. The danger, of course, is that this can ( and often does ) lead to segregation and prejudices. In my personal opinion there are just people. Human beings. Sometimes these people do good things, sometimes they do bad things.

I have been noticing quite a few organizations trying to help out Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries. They seek to help these people recover from recent natural and war based disasters. When newspapers have sought to promote these acts of kindness they receive an onslaught of readers' comments voicing their opinions. I was shocked to see how many hateful comments people had! Comments essentially saying that these people are murderers and that they should suffer and die. I was so incredibly saddened by this. These are people who are suffering. SOME of them have done bad things, but there are plenty who have not. Every race, culture, sex, age, religion, etc contains individuals capable of great evil as well as great good. In our need to lump people into categories we want to punish an entire culture based on the actions of a few. How can we wish for death and destruction for an entire culture based of the actions of these few?

Atrocious acts have been performed throughout all of history. White people, black people, yellow people, etc. Heck purple, pink and blue people too. No one is exempt from this. This is merely my opinion, but from my small and insignificant existence I have realized this one truth. Hatred will bring hatred and love will bring love.

I vote for propagating love.

Falling Beautifully

I was recently able to spend some time in North Carolina. It was wonderful getting away from the stress of my daily life and spend a moment being awed and inspired instead. My family and I were heading to North Carolina to spend time with my little sister and her beautiful daughter who was celebrating her first birthday. In the end, we accidentally timed it perfectly to see fall in all of it's glory. It has been a long time since I've been able to see fall at it's peak and I was so amazingly happy to get to see it this year. I really felt like I needed to see this. It's simply awe inspiring how gorgeous nature, and life in general, can be.

Here are some pictures from my trip. Enjoy!

                                           Happy Birthday Coralie!

Being Busy in October

I feel like such a slacker when it comes to my blog! I’ve been so terribly busy with everything else that my blog sort of fell through my fingers. It’s been an exceptionally busy week and a half or so.

Of the many exciting things that have occurred, these are some of my favorites:

I was featured a blog by shabby n’ chic

I made a treasury collection on etsy that stayed on the treasury front page for over a day!

I've also been featured in a dozen different artfire collections.

It’s just been wonderful the overwhelming amount of support I’ve received from fellow artists!It's all been happening at a much needed time in my life as I was beginning to question my validity as an artist and such. (the usual artistic angst)

OH!! Before I forget, go to this blog post and enter yourself into my giveaway for a $25 gift card! Many of you are already followers of my blog or facebook page so you can already qualify for more than one entry. It’s just silly to not enter for free stuff.

On the home front I have been admiring the amazing resilience of my bougainvillea bonsai tree. It’s actually BLOOMING! Many of you might think nothing of this, but to me, the fact that this bonsai is even ALIVE is beyond a miracle. I’m just stunned that it’s managing to be happy and blooming when I am its mother. I am such a horribly absentminded gardener. (Especially during the times when I’m in a creative trance.)

I’ve been very productive as far as my jewelry goes and I am excited about some of the new pieces I’ve been creating. Here are some samples. 

I also finally received an original drawing that I got from sarambutcher, also known as Sara Burrier. I just LOVE her work and while I can’t afford any of her original paintings right now, I COULD afford to get one of her lovely drawings. The one I purchased is of the Lady of Autumn. I just LOVE her. Sara was also kind enough to include a print of her Lady of Peridot as a bonus. Highly recommend her store to anyone who loves fanciful, beautiful work as much as I do. 

Halloween is Getting Closer!!!

Halloween is getting closer and the baddies are coming out to play! Here are a couple more ACEOs that were clearly inspired by the upcoming holiday. I'm getting in touch with my dark side. They aren't really bad, they're just drawn that way! ( sorry, I couldn't resist ) They are also now available in my etsy shop.

I'm having so much fun with these!

Rough Night, Worse Day, But Something Nice to Show in the End.

Last night, a little after midnight, I got a creative itch that wouldn't stop. I knew that this was a big one and that no sleep would come until I had satisfied this late night urge to create. So I sat down at my drafting table and went to work. The only problem is that after I was done, my brain was super stimulated and I spent the rest of my night desperately trying to sleep while visions of artwork not yet created danced on the insides of my eyelids. When I woke up, I received a nasty surprise as I discovered that an ex-friend of mine had decided to attack my artwork on a public portfolio page with over a dozen nasty comments. He also decided to post my address and phone number all over the comments as well. Pretty sure that this isn't legal. Also not sure how this man thinks that this is anything other than extreme loser behavior since I haven't spoken to him since last Thanksgiving. Definitely a bit more than pathetic.

Not the best way to start the day.

Overall, I've had a pretty rough night and day, but I'm excited to share the small ACEOs that I created last night during that feverish burst of creativity. I also worked on a small painting of some zinnias picked from my parent's garden, but it still needs about another hour or so of work before I'll be ready to show it.

" Sisters " ~ 2.5" x 3.5" Watercolor and ink

"The Blue Flower " ~ 2.5" x 3.5" Watercolor and ink



Has anyone else out there ever gotten a creative itch that just wouldn't stop? Have you discovered, as I have, that the internet is a lovely place to meet lovely people but also a terrifying playground for psychopaths? Just wondering...

Through the Looking Glass

 In the past I have been writing about artwork by deceased masters. Now I want to begin incorporating artists who are currently creating and producing amazing works of art. As some of you know, I took my first mosaics class earlier this year and loved it. It was such an exciting new way to create! I took one of my illustrations and simplified it for my first mosaic. It was extremely time consuming, but also very rewarding. It was a lot of fun to create an illustration using such a permanent and sturdy medium.

I would now like to share the work of an amazing mosaic artist that I have recently stumbled across. Her name is Doreen Adams and she is currently working on some AMAZING mosaics that she hopes to have completed for Lewis Carroll's 150th anniversary of 'Alice and Wonderland'.

Her work perfectly combines my love of children's book illustration with my love of mosaics. This is such a time consuming medium to use and is also quite difficult. The amount of detail incorporated in these pieces astounds me. She is a definite kindred spirit and shares my love of illustration, children's books and mosaics. So much so, that she has also written and illustrated a book entitled 'Skinny Malinky Long Legs, Big Banana Feet'. I have only shared two of my favorite Alice in Wonderland mosaics. For the rest, as well as more information about this artist, please visit her website. www.creativemosaics.com
Spread the word, share the love and put a smile on someone's face!

Grand Opening Sale!!

I'm afraid that I haven't been nearly as active on my blog as I would have liked. I have been super busy creating fall inspired jewelry and getting my new artfire shop up and running. I've posted a few images of items from my Fall 2010 collection. They will be available for sale very soon.

  I would also like to announce the grand opening of my artfire.com shop!
 To celebrate I'm offering 20% off of everything in my shop from now until Oct.1st!! Please help spread the word! This is a great time to pick up some gifts for yourself or a loved one.

http://www.artfire.com/users/phoenixartstudio