Flower of Life Mandala

This mandala took about 20 hours to finish.  I hope you enjoy it.  xo

Whirlwind of Dreams and Opportunities

Since the Design Team announcement for Artistcellar, I have been quietly working on my pieces for my weekly contributions to their site.  I will have posts up both on their site and on my blog every Wednesday starting the first week in February.  I am utilizing their amazing collection of exclusive stencils.  Similar to the way I have used them in the background of this piece and each of my posts includes a tutorial.

At the same time, I started teaching Intricate Doodles at The Doris an art gallery in my town.  For the Intricate Doodles class, I am working to create a greater variety of colored pieces to teach my students how to use color in their work.  Both of these projects take time.  An intricate doodle like this one takes me about 15 hours.

I thought that the opportunity to teach and to work for Artistcellar was exciting enough and then The Doris requested that I submit pieces for a gallery show they are doing this weekend and for the month of February at the Florida Community Design Center in the Chamber of Commerce Building.  So, for the first time in my adult life, I have three art pieces in a gallery show.

The show opens with Artwalk this Friday night.  I am in the amazing company of the Artists' in Residence at The Doris and some of the other art teachers like my beautiful friend and Mosaic Artist Limor Ben-Naim Herb.  

As I spoke with Turbado Marabou, one of the incredible Artists In Residence at The Doris, he expressed interest in the Artistcellar stencils.  It was a surreal moment as my online art world and my local art world came together.  I will be sharing with Turbado the amazing line of Artistcellar stencils and I hope to discover his methods for using them in his work.

To say that I am amazed that all of this is happening at once is an understatement.  I am also extremely grateful for each of these opportunities to express myself through my art.  So, while I might be more quiet than normal, I am in my studio working away and bursting with excitement that I am able to participate in the art world both locally and online.  I am immensely grateful for your generous support.

Tell Them Anything You Want a Portrait of Maurice Sendak

Yesterday, I found: Tell Then Anything You Want a Portrait of Maurice Sendak on Hulu it is a wonderful portrait of the author of  Where the Wild Things Are.  I found it refreshingly real.  Hulu says this film is only available for a short time.  I hope you get a chance to watch it.

Here are some discussion questions:

1. Notice the ladder in the story of his mother's pregnancy and then again in the kidnapping story. What does a ladder come to symbolize for him?
2. From an early age his parents explained to him that he was another mouth to feed, that he was a burden to care for. He says that in the book Outside Over There he explains how he sees his relationship with his sister. (Notice also the ladder.) How does his relationship with his sister compare to his current companion and caretaker? He describes her as, "The person who thinks I am worth the trouble of being cared for."  Do you find him to be worthy of being cared for?  Are you worthy of being cared for?
3. How did his father describe his childhood laughter? What do you think happened to the bell?
4. Why do you think he stays within the genre of children's literature? He says that when he is in his studio he feels sublime and talks about purity. At the same time he says that he doesn't think that children have to be sheltered from the truth. He believes he has been more truthful than other children's authors. He says, "you can tell them anything you want if it is true, if it is true, you tell them." Do you find any synthesis between the sublime he experiences while creating and the truth he faces in his work?  Why do you think he longs for purity?
5. He found great vindication when he met the author who had a copy of the newspaper article he had seen at 2 years old. Do you think that Sendak's work vindicates the truth of his reader's experience, especially children, or is he simply honoring his own truth?
6. Do you think Sendak is embracing his whole heart?  Why or why not?