About 25 years ago I studied Feng Shui with a local teacher. I learned a lot about how energy moves through spaces. It was a Western form of Feng shui called the Black Hat School where they believe that energy enters your home through the front door. As energy circulates through your home it impacts different aspects of your life. It’s like tai chi for your home. You do something on the physical level and the effects create change on the …
What Two 15 Minute Soaps Taught Me About Elections
When I was a teenager I would come home from school for lunch and my father and I would eat and watch soap operas together. There were 2 and they were 15 minutes each. My dad made fun of most everything and this was perfect ground for some lunchtime laughs. We enjoyed the over the top drama but especially appreciated when a new face would appear and we wouldn’t know who they were until someone called their name. Sometimes my father would be away …
What A Cigarette, The Orient Express And The World Today Have In Common
I think about the world a lot lately. Sometimes I send it love and prayers and hope for the best and other days I am afraid for us all. But there’s a story that keeps returning to me. Because sometimes what you can’t explain becomes clear in a story. In December 1975 my partner and I boarded the Orient Express in Paris bound for Greece (there are many stories in that week long trip without proper currency and visas to pass through …
Sometimes You Catch Things Sometimes You Don’t
People sometimes ask me why I paint, and on a bad day I sometimes ask myself the same. It’s mysterious really, the pull to return to the canvas day after day. My daughter has pointed out, as I stand in my paint splattered clothes that not everyone spends their time this way. Have you ever wondered what draws you to what you do? To what you love? For me over the years the answer to my question has come, perhaps strangely, as a recurring …
How I Hibernate Not Like A Bear
We are in the last act of hibernation season in my part of the world. As an artist living in the Pacific Northwest the bruised blue/grey skies of winter seep into my internal landscape. Rich green moss, red branches of arbutus and the green forest serve as exclamations of brightness against the sky. On my morning walk a hawk perches on a wintry branch by the path, an owl calls from a thick stand of fir. Magic is afoot. It seems so much is …
Do You Ever Make Mistakes?
Robert Motherwell said “I begin each painting with a series of mistakes” I love that! There is something freeing about those words. But what is a mistake anyway? Dictionaries define it as “a wrong action proceeding from faulty judgement, inattention or lack of knowledge; a goof up, a slip up.” But what if a mistake is just part of the process, something unintended, maybe something we don’t even like. And like Motherwell’s position, maybe …
Is Art Just Something You Hang Over The Couch?
Is art just something you hang over the couch? Is it simply an aspect of decor? Or can art be medicine? Is that a radical thought or just a weird one? I am imagining a meme that shows a doctor saying “Take two paintings and call me in the morning.” I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot lately, not the meme but art as medicine, art as a healing element in our lives. It's an idea that feels relevant in these difficult times. I …
Does Your Story Need A Rewrite?
Nature's Netflix has been showing in my backyard. One morning mallard visitors waddled down the gravel path, fuzzy ducklings in tow while I peeked out the window. I rooted for a tiny junco that had fallen from it’s nest as it was tended to on the ground by anxious parents. Skittish herons drop by spooked by our tiniest movement. But what really captured me was some serious owl and raven drama in several episodes. I have become …
How To Reinvent Yourself
Last week in a quiet studio moment I pulled out a few older works. One struck me in particular. “That doesn’t feel like me anymore” I thought and I put it up on the easel. Over the week I added paint and marks to it. At one point I marvelled that I hadn’t ruined it yet, which is always a possibility. It requires a bit of bravery as ruin is always close by and a real possibility. It rested on the easel and received more paint, some green …
Finding Peace Amidst Chaos
It’s been more than a hot minute since I last wrote a blog post— maybe more like a stone age ago. Some of you have been with me on this art/life journey since 2008 when I started blogging at ZenDotstudio, and some of you have recently boarded this little train. Welcome and all aboard. I have felt lost in the woods of life, roaming around in the hinterland of 2 moves and 18 months without a studio. Not to mention the pandemic-induced global …
What’s Missing In This World?
First of all I’d like to say welcome to all the new subscribers who’ve hopped on board while I’ve been off divesting myself of stuff, burning old paintings, packing, moving, looking for a new home on a new island and generally turning my life on its pointy little head. It’s been a time of change and transition, one that I was ready for and looking forward to. It’s offered lots of opportunity for spiritual practice but a lot less time (and …
How Do We Find Home?
How Do We Find "Home”? I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of home as I get ready to leave one and find another. That's right, I'm moving! What makes a place home? Geographically, energetically, emotionally speaking. And how does a house turn into a home? How do the people who make up a place figure into the concept of home? And does a place choose us as much as we choose the place? I love this idea expressed by storyteller & …
The Tangle of Beauty & Heartache
Every day there is something to feel said or bad about. Someone kills themselves. Someone kills someone else. Or maybe no one kills anyone but there is a mood in your heart or out on the street that feels like someone did. In this world, where news and informations are instantly available to us at any time of day, it’s easy to get bummed out. I used to tell my daughter when she was a teenager who liked horror movies, I can get bummed out all …
How A Random Act of Kindness Transformed My Understanding of Art
A few weeks ago I was the recipient of a random act of kindness. I was sitting in my car waiting for someone when a man approached my window holding a lovely handmade pot and asked me if I’d like it. Turns out he was a potter who was randomly giving away pieces of his early work that he found less than perfect. To me it was perfectly wabi sabi and beautiful. I took the pot home, put a little plant in it and set it on my kitchen window …
What Do You Do When You’re Stuck?
Last fall was kind of like the movie “Groundhog Day” in my studio (except Bill Murray wasn’t there). My work felt stuck somewhere between I don’t really like this, I’ve painted this at least a thousand times before and didn’t Monet throw paintings out the window that got caught in trees? My paint scraper seemed stuck on repeat. I felt like I had reached the end of something but didn’t know where to go next. Maybe I should …
Turning Toward Your Own Inner Wisdom
I just packed up and mailed out a painting called “The Silent Edge of Winter”. I wanted to tell you about it because it contains a story that feels important for this time of year and mostly forgotten in our modern world. Did I ever mention that every painting has a poem on the back? When I name a painting a short poem emerges connecting the work to a spiritual teaching or personal growth idea. I then transcribe the poem on to the back of …
Are You Alive?
What is it that we all crave? What are we looking for? You might think there are many answers. Maybe it's adventure, or the desire to contribute to the world. Some might say they want a nice house, a new car, to never have to worry about money, to be healthy. A few might tell you they just want to be happy. But I’ve had a couple of experiences lately that make me think that we what we really crave is to feel alive, really alive. Last Friday …
Walking Each Other Home
In these unsettling times I find more than ever it is necessary to infuse myself with things that inspire me on a daily basis. Otherwise it is easy to fall into a funk about the state of the world. It’s not like sticking your head in the sand, it’s like adding some positive tonic to the bad news that comes to us globally and in our own communities and personal lives. A friend and I discussed this as we walked down a forested, autumn road near our …
The Tiny Jewels Of Your Life
Small paintings dot my studio wall near the easel. Sometimes at the end of a day I turn my hand from a larger piece to these “littles”. I might use up some leftover paint or add a mark to one of them before I turn out the lights and close the door. These little ones can hang for months waiting for just the right bit of paint to call them done. These paintings have begun to feel like tiny jewels to me. They often require as much attention as …
Life Is Messy
This is not exactly a secret but it’s not something I usually lead a conversation with…. My studio is messy. There are bits of scraped off cold wax and paint curls on the floor. Paint tubes, jars of pigment, and brushes lie haphazardly on the table by the easel. Every few weeks the mess disturbs my peace of mind enough that I clean it up. The other day I was sharply reminded of how life is a lot like my studio - messy. And it’s not like we can …
Half A Shade Braver
Half a shade braver…. That was the title of poet, David Whyte’s recent public reading. I find Whyte is the perfect combination of wistful poet, philosopher, spiritual traveller and word magician. Half a shade braver…for me that had such a lovely ring, at once gentle in the half part and fierce in the brave part. None of us like to be bullied into action and yet we sometimes ponder pushing our boundaries, becoming more than our current …