Heart Box Studio

To and From

There is still no snow. Just the quiet gray and black lined limbs of trees waiting to hold the white dust like vintage Christmas cards. I'll need to be patient. Shake my snow globe and visit the glittered, white fabric holding our little village of houses and snowmen. Tip toe past the beaded glass garland and pinecone band of elves playing their flutes and trombones on my kitchen counter.

We lifted the tree from the top of the car this morning after the boys scattered through the door and waved their goodbyes. There is always a moment, the moment when the tree is released, the twine once holding all of its soft white pine, cut, branches falling into place, waiting for the hands to decorate it. And it is in this moment, when true shape is revealed, when the gift opened, the bow torn, this faint line of love outlining the very meaning of these days. 

The boys will come home and rummage through boxes of handmade ornaments and I will teeter over the box marked FRAGILE, gently craning to place each glass globe out of harms way.

There are these words, To and From, gracing the cardboard and paper creations. The sweet scribe of his four year old hands, the jagged outline of fingers and thumbs turned magically into trees. 

And I think of his heart and the way it poured out onto the page. The way he reached and wished for this way to reveal this tender place inside of him. And the excitement bubbling and churning inside his stomach as he thought of the secret gift he would place into my open hands when he got into the car. 

And his eyes watched as I opened his gift, the tapping foot, the leap and kick of his toes, his arms swirling in the air, "Open it! Open it!"

And the anticipation of this love opened like a closed flower blooming under the soft backdrop of white snow falling, melting on the car's warm windshield. 

"I love it so much. It's beautiful."

And the shoulder up to the ear and his arms reaching to pull me in.

"Beautiful."

We made our own gifts this week in the studio. A papercut version of this love, a gift to hold behind our backs until the moment is just right, when our hearts can take it no more and this creation must be given and our heart and eyes seen.

"Beautiful."

So we brought all of the festive we could find, the cheer and merry, the happy and holy, and carried it all into the studio. The moments we made and gave, held and shared, and poured them all into one handmade poinsettia vase for a very special To and From.

And there was the imagining, the wondering, the waiting. The anticipation building for the glue and the cut that would come together to create a moment. To. From. 

And the certainty given to this moment, extending into the heart of another, the hands unwrapping, the toe tapping, the hands wringing, the heart waiting. And the string cut, revealing the true shape of love, held tight in these eyes and hearts.

Poinsettia Vases How To:

Materials:

Several pieces of tag paper or a sturdy cardstock in any color.
Green Paper in three various shades (dark, medium, light)
Red Paper in three various shades (dark, medium, light)
Liquitex Matte Gel or a simple glue stick will suffice
Wire cutter
19-20 guage wire
Needle nose pliers
One thrifted milk glass vase (Goodwill, Salvation Army)
Hot glue gun and glue 
Scissors

Let's begin....

Use your medium colored red paper to cut 5 large petals. 
Use your light colored red paper to cut 5 small petals. The light petals will be the interior flower inside the larger flower. 

Use your dark red paper to cut long stems for each flower petal. The dark stems will go on both the medium and light petals. Use your glue (either gluestick or matte medium) to secure the stems in place. 

You will end up with 5 large petals and 5 small petals, all ten with dark red stems.

Now, cut our two to three leaves for the flower. Start by cutting out the large petals with the medium colored paper. Then use the darker colored paper to create an interior petal that will be glued inside to create shading.

Create stems using your light colored green paper and glue them securely onto your petal.

Once you are finished with the leaves and petals, you can begin assembling the flower. Start with a sturdy piece of white paper. I use a nice tag paper. Start with your leaves. Placing a small amount of glue on your paper, begin creating a star, moving around in a circle. Follow the shape of your stems to create the star.

It is important to note: Do not glue the entire petal down onto the paper. It will create difficulty when you go to cut it off of the paper. Just glue under the center if possible.

Once your flower is dry, you can cut it out. Be sure to cut from behind the flower, so the paper it is adhered to is left unseen.

Take your wire and cut a size appropriate for the vase you are using. It will act as your stem. Give yourself a bit extra to create the coiled area the flower will be glued onto. Using your needle nose plier, wrap the wire around the nose of the plier until it looks like a small coil or nest. At this point I use the palm of my hand or the top of the pliers to flatten the coil.

Use hot glue to attach the coil to the bottom of the flower. I sometimes place an additional piece of paper over the glue when it is hot to give extra reinforcement. At this point you can place your poinsettia inside the vase! 

Use ribbon of your choice and make a special handmade tag of your design with words of love and merry wishes.

Your very own To and From.

XO

Bird Girl

The light moved fast, painting shadows over the faded green field. There was the last cold kiss of a regular Tuesday and my hands cupped his fingers as his feet swept the frosted field. There was the crack of branch and swing of arms and the quick break of fingers falling apart from the nest of palm and thumb. And there was the race to the pond, the sound of nylon scratching with each stride and his small chirp of discovery.

The air was still and we made small waves with our hum and breath. The abandoned cities of cattails and tall bent grasses opened doors and windows to mark our return. And the quiet light sent secret messages only our hearts could hear.

And there was a yawn in the bend of his hand, a hollowed out center that yearned to be thread with the quiet presence of love and her melodic song.

And it was his small fingers inside my hand, the pulse under his nails, the criss cross veins running alongside my worn wrinkles that told me to listen.

The red winged blackbirds were gone. The ones that dove under deep blue skies and sang in urgency as we moved around the nests once filled with egg and chick.

And her voice, the one hidden behind thunder, the warning that rumbles behind the protective mama heart, telling the rain just where to land. She was there, in the shadow of fall, under winter's restless light. She whispered. This is home.

She said she needed words. Something that could line the inside of her coat on winter days, when the light felt broken and dim. And there was some kind of respite in her wings, a hiding place from all of the feeling and hurting. And her feathers were lined with dust, the kind that came from uncovering secrets.

Sometimes the light can bend in a certain direction, turning all of the leaves into wings, the branches into bare, naked limbs reaching for the nearest cloud. And there, when the light is just right, I can see the outline of her nest, still warm with memory.

These fingers entwined, these moments engrained, are the intricate weaving of her smile, her eyes bright with hello, a dangling paintbrush between two loose fingers. It is the faint breath between twig and leaf, the protection and warmth seated in the depth of her hold.

He held the nest close and lifted a leaf from its center.

"It's made from all that remains, the stuff left behind. A shoelace or wrapper from some old gum. A broken piece of grass or ribbon left in the rain. Bits of paper and mud. It's all here. Inside this little nest. Nothing is forgotten."

And her love feels like the wind blowing even when the windows are closed.

And there are the times I feel most alone in the forest, when I can no longer identify specie or skin, when the smell of grass is dull and the bark no longer a pattern to follow. When my eyes are closed and the caves covered with doors of boulder and stone.

"Will you hold my hand?"

And her words of love, the ones she wrote on the insides of her fingers, so when our hands met, I could feel her story told between my thumb and the curve of her nail. These words are my ladder to this place you call home.

"Will you hold my hand?"

"I already am."

And I can hear her quiet song on the flutter of a bird's wing, carrying away the worry, the fear, the small voices caught in nets. And the place she wrote her story still remains on these hands, each vein a path past grown wrinkles and tree lined fingertips, each holding a nest from their wiry bends.

And her heart, the one that shines each time a leaf lifts in a breeze. Her heart, entwined in the deepest part of this nest, rests with each rise and fall of breath.

So I move things around, make a space for the cutting and grafting, the weaving and stitching, the building of nest and home. So these moments, woven in love, the curl of her hair, the way her eyes filled with tears just before she laughed, the way her voice paused before exclamation, the way the light would soak up her motherhood just so it could shine. I will place you here. Forever.

And I remember the hands that cradled this wreck of a girl with one, curled lash wink, the way love can sometimes feel like a leap, a dance over hot stone ash. 

And the fragile walk through dark forests, searching, while your hands lift me over thorn and brush. And there you are, making friends with the moon, smiling over a bent sunset, pushing its warm blanket over our skin. And your song, the fingers tucking in each loose corner.

And to find love perched, held between breaths, enough time for my eyes to fill with tears. Sometimes all I can see are the lashes under her eyes, all of the wishes set loose on the wind, and the sunset when the waves were so loud we had to yell over their roars. 

I will place you here. Between the dew of this one morning and the crest of this fallen night. Your love thread between wrapper and twig, damp clay and fallen hair. Between the bend of my finger and the joint of his hand. In the motherhood I forgot to own and the friendship I carry in the smallest pocket of my heart, this nest,

made from all that remains.

*And a film made during the creation of this shadowbox, filmed by the lovely,  Lara Vagenius. Thank you, beautiful girl.

One Year Wings

I moved the computer to the laundry room. Along with all of it’s tangled cords and lonely plugs-in’s waiting to meet their perfect fit connections. And it feels like I have placed an entire city into the sea. The skyscrapers of electric lights, neon advertisements, pulls on wants and where’s and it’s wreckage of static now silenced by the rhythmic hum of the tranquil waves of fall.

I can feel the quiet settling in, the open window studio days. I’m battening down the hatches and melting into the studio light.  I’ve been holding things closer to my heart. The buzz of summer now dulling with color wheel shades of orange and sandy bottom beach bags hung to rest.  I haven’t cut paper in almost three months. And my hands feel atrophied. I try to stay very intentional in the summer months about not working while the boys are home.  I gather and sketch, collect verse and composition and wait for the opening to come when this collection of notes can be cut into symphonies.  

It’s been a year, a year since I’ve put those words and cut pieces of paper into the world. A year without the protection of my island shyness, my insular armor and rusty shields.  It’s been a year since Heart Box Studio opened the doors of my heart.  And there are boats on my shores, sails opened wide, anchors lifted, adrift in the current and wind of trust.

So I cut again. I open the book and spread my fingers over the words and tear the page from the binding and cut. I start again and feel the beginning give it’s approving tip of the hat.  And the words may fail and the paper may wrinkle and the adhesive may not hold. And a year ago, I hesitated at risk. I leaned into my heels and waited for assurances. I waited for the hand of absolutes and for sure’s to give me permission. A year ago I cowered at foolishness revealed. But one year, 365 days later, I am leaping and hurdling off cliffs I once kneeled below. I have been saying yes to the things that pile rocks inside the pit of my stomach. I no longer worship at the altar of outcome. Today I worship the holy, the divine intersection where creativity meets my hands, the sweet kiss of mornings lost in paint and paper and strobe light flickering sunshine through wind bent trees. And I wait for the Spirit to fill this empty cavern once again. 

We went back to the dunes, the place where we made this movie last year, the little piece of film that inaugurated my first post. And the boys were one year smaller and the button was still broken on his pants and he still loved to wear his Frank Sinatra shirt. 

    "I lay down my fever dreams for you.
I believe them all, 
even if they never came true."

We watched the birds become black silhouette cut outs against the afternoon sun. We watched as they hung on watercolor clouds, the miniature mobiles spinning in circles of migration. And the gray moon seagull with it’s wings dipped in charcoal opened his wing, revealing all that was hidden underneath, the tender space between heart and wing.

These wings, these fallen sails, drifting over open seas, wait for the spirit of trust to lift them into the clouds. And there was a call, a sweet reminder that the boat has made it to shore, reminding us the sail and the wing are the same.

And these wings have the distinct scent of sea and sand, travel and hand holding, the way a small child can smell of hard wind, seen only through the witness of tangles and knots in his hair.

“It's not as windy as before.”

Sometimes the wings take us places, places that live far outside the tiny island heart, well past memory and pain, over the moon and through the night.

Sometimes the wind picks up speed and it feels like the sky is too big, too wide to secure the ropes, the strings of the sail. And the trust is the eyes closed, dip and plunge past cloud and harbor. It is the bent wing giving in to the whispers of both breeze and squall. It is the hard blown gust that has me holding onto tree trunks and telephone poles, chasing after loose paper bewilderment.

And there is the kind of tornado wind, the wind that tears at your very walls, tearing your home apart, leaving parts of you in fields, hanging from tree limbs, thrown past median strips and county lines. The kind of wind that changes things forever, that comes without warning, in the middle of the night, ringing like the weight of steel on thin tracks. The kind of wind that leaves you collecting these parts of yourself for years, finding a lost smile under wood planks and deep gut, laughter in shallow, muddy creeks. 

There are these people in my life, people who have whispered over me beautiful harmonies, sonnets of wisdom and encouragement. Voices that have plucked away all of the broken and torn feathers of my once upon a time wings.

I told myself I wouldn’t do it if it was just to keep things shiny, to hold up all of the right words, to paint a picture of false happiness, to maintain the facade of wings opened wide. I told myself I wouldn’t do it if I couldn’t be brave, if I couldn’t bring my guts to the page, if I couldn’t watch fingers grow around nerves and worry. 

Because the art is made to remove the layers, to allow God into a space of opening, where love sits in holy silence rearranging this forest inside my heart, making paths where there are thorns, holding the raw and igniting the beat.

Your words, your encouragement and strong arms, each a feather in the wings I carefully stretch wide over these dark forests.

And these are the new wings beginning again, a new shadowbox, that will connect together with many more to become a new story, a new girl with a new heart.

So, I will slip back into the quiet, find a seat in the unknown, faithfully close my eyes and let my heart be led. I will pin these new wings onto an open heart and take another leap into love’s open hands.

What is it for you? The thing that opens your sails, that lifts your wings over fear and wonder? What is the thing that calls your name in the early morning hours and taps on your shoulder from the bend of your knees? What is the thing you are sure you can’t do, the thing that has been written and folded into four corner square love letters and sealed for another life, another day, when the winds are calm and the sea has settled, when safety is just a dip of your toe into the full aquatic beauty of the underwater unknown.  What is it that stirs your heart into wide open skies, that leaves feathers on the shores for you to discover?

Fly. Leap. Run off cliffs and feel the hands of grace catch you in the wide net of mistakes that don’t matter and fears that can’t fly. Because this creation is worth it. These new beginnings have God’s hands all over them, rooted deeply in the excavation of fear and the gentle cultivation of love.

And a giveaway for these one year old wings, because this art only has life if it is held in someone’s hands or reflected in someone’s eyes. This art only has life because of you, because of the space you give for splintered moments of fear, for the balanced hands that hold the sail, the feathers you have placed in wings that hover between the flight and the landing. 

"Spread Your Beautiful Wings and Fly" is a 16" x 20" signed and framed giclee print of the original drawing. Simply leave your name in the comments and I will add you to the list. Let's meet back here on Tuesday, September 25th, and I will let you know who won:)

And when you finally spread your wings, when the wind has gathered and the sails have been lifted, be ready. Because you just never know where this wind may take you.

Thank you for a beautiful year.....

*I'm sorry, no international shipping for this giveaway.

 

Bloom

It's here! The warm air, the blue sky, the whistling chirps of busy birds, calling and singing. It's too sweet here, with my window wide open taking in all of the breezy whispers of the leaves and distant wind chimes. 

In all of it's wonder, I have to say I do have a faint spot of worry. I look at all of the delicate petals open and the newly born stems finding their way from the ground and I want to shelter them, make sure the cold frost doesn't find them again.

But for now, I will rest in the hope that it is over, the darkness and the cold. I will let the afternoon light spread it's warmth over my face and give my raincoat a wink for good luck.

I started working on a shadowbox when the skies were still dark and the air was cold and frigid. There was snow on the ground and it was hard to imagine this shadow box, with it's color and lines reaching for the warmth and the light. But I guess, all things start with just one seed, the idea, the intent. Some magical picture that gets placed in our hearts so we might be able to birth it from our hands. 

But I was daunted. Overwhelmed with it's size, I wondered and feared. Maybe it was all too much, too big, far too ambitious. So I took a deep breath and began, where all things begin, with belief. In this tiny seed, this whisper and nudge, there lives this moment so I might believe it to be true. That I might believe something so small could become something so big.

Sometimes it's hard to see the seed when it's buried so deep within the heart. It takes cutting and moving, pruning and shaping to even begin to see the faint outlines of what might be hidden deep within. So the canvas is prepared, the soil moved and nourished with this hope of the dream, the impossible imagination unearthed.

And this hope is the secret, the place unseen that grows it all. The movement under the darkness, the strength underneath the hard dirt and clay that waits for the right moment to grow towards the light. 

And so I wait. I trust that this seed is growing in places I will never know until the first green stem finds it's light and the delicate blooms unfold to reveal what, maybe, I've known all along.

That these roots grow deep. These roots are strong. They will hold me when I am weak and lift me from the darkest of places. And even in the dark, when the cold wind still blows outside my window, there is a seed, unseen in the night, waiting for some kind of spring.

So I watch the life of this little flower find it's way through the darkness. 

And the smallest of blooms begin to appear.

The leaves unearthed, the petals unfurl.

A garden born from the tiniest of seeds, this secret place I couldn't see before,

keeping it's promise, 

That this secret kept hidden, behind the veil of winter, under dark, cold nights, has been growing roots under the soil, waiting for the kiss of one butterfly,

To finally bloom.

***And in light of spring, this new season of birth and bloom, I would love to celebrate by giving away two, x-large, 22" x 24" archival giclee prints of this new shadow box. If you would like to be part of this giveaway, just leave a little comment below and I will put you in the mix! I will choose a name randomly and let them know by Monday, March 26th. And be sure to LIKE Heart Box Studio on facebook or sign up for email alerts on future giveaways! Happy spring!

 

Lift and Fall

It's been windy here. Cold and blustery, wet snow and indecisive rains. I've had a strong desire to hibernate and nest, to build walls and climb in and pull the blankets up to my chin. But my heart, the small girl alone in her room, spinning to see her dress lift and fall, the girl with the tippy toes and the ponytail on the side of her head. The girl who twirls her hair between her fingers and fashions the occasional purple jumpsuit with the tie closures at the ankles, she is busy making other plans.

There are all of these questions waiting for answers. 

"Can you____?" "Will you _____?"

And the small girl takes my hand and whispers,

"Come on. This way. Follow me.

This is what we've dreamed about.

Remember?"

She seems so sure, spinning around in that little dress, pony tail tight against her head, Carly Simon on the record player. But my old heart, the one with all of the ragged edges, and the places that have been stitched back together, this old heart, digs her heels into the ground and tries to stand against the wind.  

And I wonder, as my fingers twirl the hair between my fingers,

When will my heart look like hers again? When will this heart grow roots from the sky? 

 

I've been wandering these days trying to find her. Through the fog and the wind and the all of the reflections laid down at my feet.

In the paper and the cuts, the creases and folds.

In the blooming and growing, the harvesting and dying.

In all the ways I wish I could fly but remain grounded and broken.

In the tiny assurances, of wings folded and planted, beginning to spread out to my sides, preparing for the first of many flights into the wind.

Through new sets of eyes, three boys and the simplest of words.

Searching in new places, uncovering childhood with each overturned stone, she finds a spot in the tall grass to spin and feels her dress lift and fall in the wind.

In mossy jars and abandonment, there is a heart that remembers what it was like before the stitches left so many marks. Before there was ragged edges and rust that kept treasures locked.

She waits and listens and hopes that I will believe her when she says I am free, free to walk on my tippy toes and make believe under the tall trees that we are safe, that the enchanted forest is home. And sometimes when the wind is blowing and the world outside has crumbled, I can see her, arms outstretched to her side, the tall grass scratching at her legs as she begins to turn and twirl under the bluest of skies, while her voice is lifted over the wind,

"Come spin with me."

And I let my dress lift and fall. Lift and fall.

 

"You're The Best" dinosaur watercolor by Dallas Clayton, www.dallasclayton.com

Kryptonite

She's been there from the beginning.

Those were the words I said when they asked me about her. The one who held me up when my legs gave out. When my world seemed to be rolling away from me, the snowball at the bottom of the hill, caught in the gate of hopelessness. She's that kind of friend. The one you hope for when you receive the call that makes your knees buckle. She is strength under the crumbled weight of fear. She is a flower bowing over the tangled roots of uncertainty. And her petals open up to share her hope.

And it's when I sit down at my table to start something new, that I can hear her words pushing me off the cliff while holding my wings in tact. This beginning of every new piece of art waits for the end. It waits for the failure. It holds all the doubt. And there is a moment when it is all I can do to just jump, leap into this beginning and trust that somewhere in this unknown, I will find it's end.

There are these times, when at the very start, I can feel it all hesitate. There is a restraint that holds me back from taking this wide leap into some kind of unknown place. 

And she is there.

Sometimes I draw her. I cut along the printed paper and hope all the words will line up to tell the story of her strength, her heart that wavers in weakness to bloom where she is planted.

And other times there are so many friends, so many flowers holding me up in a bouquet of love, I feel it is all I can do to step off the ragged edge and land in this garden that waits for my weakness to find it's way from under the soil.

Between the beginning and the end, there is a long collection of moments that gather at the foot of every new piece I start. Sometimes the moments are crushing. Two in the morning darkness surrounded by suffocating quiet. And other times, laughter and release, held together by the daylight.

He asked me, "How high can you jump?"

And I told him softly I had never tried.

"You should try," he said. 

"You can touch the sky if you put your hands out like this."

And he tickled my feet.

And something was set free. We laid on our backs and let the sun make black spots behind our closed eyes and I wrestled with all the burdens that waited to climb back onto my shoulders. And his playfulness was my kryptonite. The weakness that gave me my strength. 

And inside there was a battle. The kind that uses every bit of strength available. So they lined up all of their vintage Transformers, the ones they saved for, the ones with the golden faces and the outstretched arms. The ones they found at the flea market on the table with all of the missing parts. 

And they read the words out loud and waited for some sort of magic. The transformation. Because these kinds of battles require a full army of strength, all of your resources, the words, the magic, the hope and belief. 

That somewhere, hidden behind this armor, is a strength that has yet to be discovered. A strength that comes from the very weakest of places. Because it takes some kind of super hero power to admit I was wrong, to say I am sorry, to tell the truth when it may bring rivers of tears. 

And he stood and waited for it to come. For it to speak. This language that is recognized only by it's measure of fear. The language that speaks to our smallest of parts.

"Jump."

"I will catch you."

And in the leap, in the midst of bravery, a strength is born.

And in this willingness to let all of your weakness rest beside your strength, to become the smallest of the small, you can lay down, look up into the sky,

and see just how high you jumped.

Just A Visit

It's been almost a week since I packed up my truck with the twenty four shadowboxes that make up The Gift. I was lucky enough to have a local gallery, The Lubeznik Center for the Arts, offer to hang The Gift in it's education gallery.

And now I can say, officially, that I have been in more than one show. But it's still new. All of it. The letting go of it. The packing up and hanging and saying goodbye, like these boxes are two dozen, long lost children, crying at the door. And I tell them it won't be long. I'll be back soon to pick them up. It's only a visit. I promise.

Or maybe it's just something you get used to, like letting go of your son's hand for the first time as he walks into school. Or seeing the sun disappear behind a field of orange trees. All of the things laced with memory and time and disappearance.

But standing there, in the gallery, looking at these shadowboxes hanging, I could see every part of me, in each piece held together by glue and paint and loss and grace. I wondered how much of me could be seen and I wondered if there was still room in those boards for me to crawl back inside and hide. Because I wanted to see from behind the words, behind the paint, behind all the places I had covered up.

The boys had friday off so we decided to go into the city and visit the Art Institute. There was a snow storm on the way so we took the train. 

The windows were big and clear and his eyes studied the sky for snow. 

We did picture search books and followed our eyes to find all that was hidden, all the tiny details that stood up to be seen.

And when we got there, we visited the miniature rooms and we could see inside all the secret places behind windows and glass. The places we could see but were only allowed to visit because staying too long would make it familiar. Routine. Invisible.

And we found an exhibit of one of my favorite paper cut artists, Steven Jenkins, and his amazing children's books and the boys moved their eyes close to the glass covered illustrations.

"You can see all the places where the paper was cut."

"It's all the cutting that brings it to life." 

And we studied and gazed and viewed and watched...all from a distance, careful not to get too close. 

And sometimes you could see through it, catch the outlined reflection of all the light the artist held as he created it.

And we wandered down long hallways with open windows and searched for this very same light in the trees, in the sky as it waited for the snow to give in to it's wishes.

We found a quiet space, and they took out their sketchbooks and they saw with their eyes.

They saw the artist's open hearts hanging from white walls. The hurt, the love, the joy, the grief, extending itself in each stroke. A mark, a soft pencil touching it's white page.

"Is the artist still alive?"

And the snow began to fall.

And it became harder to see.

"It feels like he's still alive." 

And we looked inside a fallen tree, preserved, in a room all alone, hand carved, lying on it's side. Seeing each single cut, maybe we felt what the artist felt for a brief moment, only long enough to see just a stroke of his heart. Just a visit.

Because the places we see are only the parts the artist has left behind. But if you look really hard, you can see the artist, standing very still, hiding behind every stroke, the marks, the cuts and the soft pencil lines.

And as we walked back to the train station, we could see His creation pressed up against ours. A heart made vulnerable, hanging from a white wall sky.....

Waiting to be seen.

The Road to my Heart....

The Road to my Heart.....available in 11" x 14" and 8" x 10" giclee prints.

Thank you so much for all of the wonderful and sweet notes I received on my last post. I had several people ask about availability of prints and cards for this new shadowbox. So I thought I would post the link here for those interested.

I am also going to be offering a Valentine's Day coupon soon so I will post it as soon as I have it available!

Thanks again for all your love:)

Winter Baby

It all started with a winter storm watch on the news. The quiet anticipation of a snow day. This, being our first of big snows, he pressed his nose close to the window and watched for the first, fluttery signs of confetti to fall. My heart swelled with the idea of a snow day, a go out and play day. 

I am a January baby. I remember my mom telling me the story of how I almost didn't make it to the hospital, how the snow had covered the roads, the paths to where my heart would beat on it's own for the very first time. 

Maybe this is why this blank canvas of white always feels like a new beginning, the start to what is yet to come. And all of the beauty that lays in wait under this white canvas. The ideas ready to spread under thoughtful direction. All of this white, it buries and keeps safe all of the tiniest of seeds. The same seeds that will become the loveliest of gardens.

"If you're quiet, you can hear it snow." 

"I hear it."

This gray sky asks something of me. It asks for intention. It asks me to look closer, to find the beauty beyond the obvious, beyond the easy flowers of summer, between the shed limbs of lifeless trees. Winter is waiting, trusting, certain that something is being born under this blanket of white. Under the quiet and lifeless exterior, there is a seed and it is gaining energy, shedding it's skin, preparing for the day when it's roots will be strong enough to hold the heaviest of blooms. 

"If you're quiet, you can hear it snow."

"I hear it."

I have been working on a new shadowbox this week. An idea that was ready to bloom. Petals waiting to be made into flowers. Paper ready to be cut. Paths ready to be walked on.

But on this day, we went sledding. Because petals can wait. Because when the snow is past your ankles, you sled. Sometimes headfirst.

We climbed in the car with three sets of wet snow pants and one very excited dog.

And we made paths. And our feet felt the snow and all that slept beneath it.

"If you're quiet, you can hear it snow."

"I hear it."

And there were some paths that were already made. Ready for us to walk them. And we were led to where the flowers sleep,

And we took rest and let the snow bury all of our secrets,

"If you're quiet, you can hear it snow."

"I hear it."

We let our cheeks turn red without worry.

And in the end, when our boots were shaken and the coats and hats and lost gloves were laid to dry, I found my path once again, 

to the gray winter clouds asleep under the white canvas of a snow day,

to a garden of buried flowers,

to a heart ready to beat on it's own for the very first time. 

Once a upon a time......

I am just finishing up the final tweeks on this year's Christmas card. I have enjoyed creating these cards for my family and friend's for the past five or six years. It is really here that I have been able to experiment with my art and be brave with my words, always knowing that they were being sent out to kind and loving hearts, hearts that would receive the work so gently and lovingly, sparing me critique, embracing the pictures I gave. These little images, all the cutting and the messy glue, always reminding me of the source of my work, this season, this gift....of love is where it always begins....

I encourage you to give your heart this season, to be brave with your words with those around you, to say the things you want to say even when fear holds you back. Because Christmas for me is sharing this gift of love inside your heart, letting it fly even for just one day, when being open, and soft and vulnerable is forgiven, is excused and skeptism is held at bay by the twinkly lights and red, velvet ribbons. Be bold. Be brave. Be free. Be loved.