cliodhna’s wave

I have a picture in my head waiting to be painted.

A woman standing with her feet on the earth and her head in the sky. She holds her heart in one hand and the other points to the stars. The land is flat and ochre and there are mountains in the distance. The land only comes up about a fifth of the picture and then the sky starts so my woman is standing in the sky it looks like. Her head goes all the way up the top of the paper. Her hair flows into the sky and becomes part of it. She looks out of this image with a proud expression, not an ego ‘proud’ but a sure ‘proud’ a sense of herself and her place in this world and her connection to earth and the stars. She is rooted in her own self and nothing can shake that.

Her dress is light blue with butterflies of white and yellow. Her feet are bare and around her neck is a necklace of green jade stones with a carving of the head of a jaguar carved from leopardskin jasper. The night sky swirls and moves and the stars twinkle and shine and the earth has faces that emerge from the dirt and the rocks, some eyes open some still shut but all looking upwards to the sky.

I have taken a break from constantly sketching ideas and drawing pictures to wait to see what comes in its own time. When I have an idea it comes fully formed into my head with only the details left to work out and how best to get across the original idea. It’s a new one for me; normally I am trying to have lots of ideas just in case I need them and I don´t feel good unless I have one in the process of being painted. This way is slower but I will see how it goes and what happens.

One resolution I made on my recent trip was to stop ‘doing’, to stop constantly trying and instead see what happens. Make room for opportunities to come into my life, stand still so they would know where to find me instead of constantly spinning like a top trying to get somewhere not really knowing what I was doing or where I wanted to go but doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing.

Anyone else care to comment on a picture they have in their heads?

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Sitting in Temoris train station waiting for the train I was thinking about waiting and what it means to me. We rushed to the train station to get there for the half three train only to be told it wasn’t going to arrive till seven. I used to hate waiting, I was the world’s worst waiter. I had to have something to amuse me while I waited; a book generally or my phone games or something to mull over or sketch. Anything to fill the gap so I wouldn’t have to reflect on me or my own life. I was actually the world’s best day dreamer also, when there was something I had to pay attention to off I would go into daydreams.

I had to change my view of life and come to peace with myself and the present moment before I could learn how to wait. How to be present and aware of each moment and use the pause in movement to look and take in where I was and where I was going.

The osho zen tarot have a wonderful card about waiting. She is pregnant and smiling, with a peaceful glow. Expectant possibility and looking forward to the future but also enjoyment and thankfulness for the gift of this growth and peacefulness in the acceptance that she is not going to rush what is coming, that would spoil it, she lets whatever is coming to develop in its own time and she holds it in her heart until it is ready to emerge.

When it rains white fox puts on her rain dress and goes dancing.

Celebrate sadness, be happy you are crying, sadness is moving through you, you are not the sadness, but it is being cleared for something clearer and fresher. A peace, an acceptance of life in all its forms. Unafraid you face the unknown and welcome it.

xx

I am designing a t-shirt at the moment for a site called Threadless. If you don’t know them check them out, fabulously cool t-shirts. Its an open submission site with scoring from other members and finally if your design is picked to be printed you get paid from them.

So, I got into action and have been painting for the last two days and working on the computer. Its interesting, I am only allowed use eight colours, (shades of a colour count as a colour) so its restricting but challenging at the same time. Reminded me of being in college when the tutors would give us an exercise and then a rule to go with it.

I will post the design when I am finished but there are snowflakes in it and I went searching on the web for inspiration. When I draw snowflakes they always end up looking like stars and I wanted very definite snowflake looking snowflakes. Unmistakably large soft quiet looking snowflakes.

After searching a while I ended up in a treasure trove of snowflake portraiture. (that reminds me, Paul told me the next morning he was dreaming of snowflakes but each one had a differant face!).

Wilson A. Bentley took his first photo of a snowflake in 1885, when photography was still a new developing science and he went on to take hundreds of photos of snowflakes. He was known in the local area in Vermont as the snowflake man. There is a library of some of the images at the Bentley Snow Crystal Collection

They are all beautiful and all different. Like people, maybe thats why Paul dream’t them with faces. They are like people, each one is unique..

I went to Leon yesterday (that is in Mexico not spain by the way) to the ‘Feria’. Sooooo many people. Just follow the crush around the stalls until we got wise, abandoned our friends who were looking for ceramics and got outside and headed straight for the ‘mechanical toys’. They are kind of old here, Paul reckons they are the rides that he used to go on when he was young, there are almost no safety harnesses (although as I pointed out its nice that mexicans assume you are not going to jump out of the ferris wheel car whereas everywhere else I have been they see a possibility and immediately fill it) and I reealllly didn’t trust the look of some of them. We skipped the old rollercoaster and went on the middle-aged one (twice), went on the haunted ride, took a spin on the spinner, ate churros, did the water-ride, ate cotton-candy, felt sick…. usual fun… I am like a child in these places, I never went to them when I was growing up. I make lists of all the rides we HAVE to go on and drag Paul around behind me!

Anyway, I bought these

which are the cutest things..a hobby horse an a hobby tiger.. they are from paper mache and I don’t know how long they would actually last in the hands of a child, I dented a tiny hole in the paint just taking a picture. But they are gorgeous!

and these

they are feng shui frogs and if I put them in the right place they will attract riches into our house. I will have to find a nice place for them to live.

Lastly.. to some art work I am progressing with the two oil paintings. I have got to the stage where I start to have some real fun. The backrounds and major details are done and dry and now I get to do stars and dots and spirals and flowers and suns rays and other wonderful things.. happy monday ya’ll… make a wish for the rest of the week!

I see new artists all the time now, on etsy and outside through others blogs. Some I like, some I don’t really have a connection with, some are really sweet, some I know I like because they remind me of my style and some I look at with a critical eye and would love to give them a few tips or ideas on pushing the edge of where they are. A very few I love, because they inspire me or because they make me happy or I connect with the person who is making the art on some level or just something abstract that art critics have been trying to define for centuries. ‘Why do you like a particular piece of art and not another?’

But! very very rarely I see someone elses art and it just makes me stop. Makes me come to a halt and almost get jealous, (well, ok, leave out the almost) for a second or two. Can’t compare! I have my own paintings to paint!

this is the shop I found the other day ‘obsoleteworld‘

They make me sad and lonesome and draw me into the little worlds that are in each picture. I showed them to Paul and another artist friend later that night and we ooohed and ahhed and ‘this one is my favourite’ and ‘no, this one is I think’! Read her profile too..

Well, time to return to my personal world and keep on with the two paintings I started. I have taken pictures of them and am going to post as they progress! Happy days when my hands are covered in prussian blue and my head aches slightly from the smell of white spirit. Have to move onto linseed oil but I find if I use oil for the earlier layers of a painting it becomes to glossy and washes won’t stick. I actually know nothing about oil painting, I just love the medium and am discovering tricks as I go.

Here is the first stage of the paintings..

I was doing a tarot reading with Paul last night, the osho zen tarot, I love them. They have a directness and a simplicity and a connection with here and now that I like. Anyway, I asked for me and ’sorrow’ came up and I was explaining to Paul that, for me, to really release sorrow you have to go into it and experience it and not try to run from it into control (whatever form that takes.. television, books, cigarettes, food, anger, however) and also what was I hanging onto in my life that I didn’t want to let go of, didn’t want to fully mourn and accept that it was gone. For me also tears are about the fear of letting go, the mind goes to fear and out come the tears.

I started a path about three years ago working with the toltec teachings and I don’t think I have ever cried so much and in front of people too! Its my first port of call and sometimes I hate it and try not to and other times I accept it and accept the fact that it will pass in time.

I know when I am in control because I feel a pushing in my solar plexus, a frustration, a want that cannot be satisfied, anger, a feeling of wanting to pick a fight, a need to make someone else wrong or make them little. It is my flag, this feeling, that it is time to relax, let myself fall into truth of here and now, stop trying to twist the world into my idea of how it should be and let it flower in its own time. I think I have been feeling this way recently, I have been doing so much administration, getting the past in order, setting up structures (like this blog and my shop) looking at other amazing blogs, making a web of myself on the ephemeral world that is cyberspace, that I fell into the illusion of control, I could, by much action, shape my world into happy and successful.

This is my fear, an old one, to control how others see me, to make them like me, to manipulate the world so I get what (i think) I need. The fear of really truly being exactly who I am right now because it might not be enough and the sorrow is to let go of the facade and let truth shine through. There is only truth.

The second card I got was ’sharing’, the image of a woman offering a bowl of fruits. She has so much she can give and she gives from endless abundance. This is the way past my fear, to share with the world what I have because each of us has a unique path and wisdom to give to the world and there is always enough for everyone. My mum used to say that we each born with our own packet of love and each child had his/her own.

I have been connecting with others who are on the same path as I. I got a wonderful email this morning from A Fanciful Twist (a really cool blog I discovered recently) which gave me a smile and encouragement. And of course Paul, the ever present love, with his own viewpoint on life. Sometimes we are completely in sync with each other and sometimes it’s immovable force meets unstoppable object! He got ‘the master’ card in this reading last night, but you know, I think I am going to ask him to write something from himself for that!

So, a deep breath, relax, time to put the admin in perspective and stop organising for a while. I am going to get the oil paints out this morning. I ADORE the smell of oil paints, they surround me in a cloud of magic or possibility, don’t know why but they do. Start creating and letting it flow once more. If anyone is feeling too much ‘doing’ and trying to control this morning, sit back, have a cup of tea, get a piece of paper maybe and doodle or write or hum a tune or sit under a tree or ring a friend you haven’t talked to in ages. These are the things which make us happy!

x cliodhna

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I am feeling sad right now, I miss my girlfriends in ireland I think. Not that i want to be there but it would be nice to have a portal like in star trek to zip home for a few hours, have a cup of tea and a natter and then be back here in time for dinner. Mexico is so far away from Ireland sometimes.

I had a dream this morning I had a magic donkey with white curly hair who could fly. We were zipping around the place, like in google earth when you zoom in closer and fly across continents. I was wondering why it was a donkey and the word stubborn came to mind.

I am very stubborn.. I know this. It cuts both ways, I can be stubborn about something I should really just let go of but I can also be stubborn and stick my feet in the dirt when it is something I want for myself.  The trick is working out the difference.

Ok, be positive.. going to go have coffee with a friend here in Guanajuato and talk about playing some music with her and another girlfriend. Oh, and get some more prints organised. I will be sellling them on etsy when I get the paper right. Should be soon.

Thanks.. x

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So… it is time to get the new years resolution into action! I decided this year I would try and clear as much of my past as I could. Release old ways of thinking and behaviours that don’t work any more, finish projects or definitely say good bye to projects that aren’t working. Use up the big pile of fabrics I have on the floor of my work room before I can buy new fabrics. I get more inventive when I have to improvise.

I did this once before, about four years ago when I was coming to mexico for the first time. I reckon, looking back, I was about 95% ruthless. I burnt old diaries and sketches and stories and writings that I had been hanging onto since secondary school. I went through my clothes and books and jewelry and gave away anything that I never wore or rarely wore or just some items I knew a friend would really like. It was really hard to do but I felt so light after it was all gone.

Clearing the past is not forgetting people or places or times but rather clearing any old negativity or limitation round the memory and remembering with love and acceptance. It also clears any energy blocks that are preventing me from going forward or achieving my goals.

I bought paper this morning to get started on the illustrations for the crow story and I have three nearly done embroideries waiting for borders and a skirt hanging waiting for a hem. All the new stuff can wait for a week or so while I get everything sorted.