All Things Anew

And just like that the year is through,

It's on to a fresh start and all things anew!

Our clothes and shoes will probably be the same

That doesn't matter really, it's what inside that will change.

We will get older and maybe grow taller or some may shrink

No matter which way we expand, it's creativity we should seek!

The Year of the Artist I claim this to be

So get ready and buckle up for the fun ride you'll see!

My dreams are to big for this very short read,

Just know, I am going to push myself harder and my creative muse must lead.

I dare not try to hold her back,

She is strong and stubborn and gives no slack!

Yes, late nights are in my future for this new year,

I will walk tall and proud and carry no fear.

So, come with me I say to each artist in you,

Make this an exciting year, one that you never knew!

To a memorable year of artist holidays!

Cheers and Happy New Year-

hannah

Becoming One

She could barely get the paint on the canvas quick enough.  She couldn't believe it has been years since she had touched a brush to canvas.  It felt so natural and with that first stroke, it all came back to her so abundantly and so quickly.  She could barely catch her breathe.  The pushing of this buttery paste made her well up and realize she did have time for this in her life.  She would make time for such a release unlike any other medium she has worked with.  It was time to include brush and canvas in her arsenal once again.  She knew her paint visions could be unraveled with each new canvas and her creative energy released in a whole other way.  It was just the beginning....

Becoming One

Charcoal, Acrylic Paint 12x12



This painting was recently accepted into the Squared2 Exhibit at the Visual Art Exchange Gallery in downtown Raleigh!  The call for artists listed that squares should be a dominate component in this show.  

  http://www.visualartexchange.org/january2011.php 

This is just what I needed to propel me into 2011,  the Artist Year I shall call it! 

Trying to start on the right note this artist holiday, hoping you are too!

hannah

 

Never Find the Key

I pray for peace to come sit with me,

and tell me what will be.

I pray for peace to come stand by me,

and show me how to see.

I pray for peace to come walk with me,

and listen to the trees.

I pray for peace to come run with me,

and let the doves be free.

I pray for peace to come fly with me,

and soar so gracefully.

I pray for peace to come dive with me,

and live among the seas.

I pray for peace to come dwell in me,

and never find the key.

hannah

This is a wall hanging made by Carolyn Hyland.  I received this piece during the "Winter Holiday Gift Swap" reader challenge published in latest issue of the magazine Cloth Paper Scissors.  Carolyn was published in the same article!  Congratulations to her!!!

I am thrilled to say that through this swap, I have been able to get to know the person who received my winter holiday gift (Jill) and the person whose winter holiday gift I received (Carolyn)!  Both are great ladies that I am excited to call my newest art friends!  Thanks to you both.

See http://artistholiday.blogspot.com/2010/11/confidence-booster.html for further photos of the article.

Praying for peace to come from within on this artist holiday-
hannah

An American Road

Cracking a smile, I’m just driving along

got my kids in the back, relaxing, hearing their favorite song.

Cozy in my ride on the outskirts of town

this American road is humming with a patriotic sound.

Gently I turn the wheel for the curve up ahead

next I know to press the brake, the stop sign says red.

Passing the mailboxes of so many homes and fields of plenty.

That ditch may have been recently dug out, it looks fairly empty.

The kudzu is dying down right over there.

Wait, was that a deer in the field, eating the farmer’s share?

Now the used car lot on that corner typically thrives

and last week that produce stand sold me a bunch of tomatoes for two fives.

Have you noticed the utility poles or do you think they are unsightly for your ride?

I am thankful for the electricity they bring me and not having to solely depend on my own hide!

Those hay bales are as pretty as a picture over that sloping hill.

Now we are dipping down gently, on highway forty-two still.

Up next, my favorite part, the reason we can drive any gas grade.

No, not the gas station, that’s just where it is proudly displayed.

The American flag, so large, so beautiful, simply rippling in the wind.

My heart beams with pride and what this flag stands for, I will forever defend.

Yeah, this American road is here, but it is where you are too and all in between.

So take a drive, take it all in, and really see what you’ve never seen.

 

my country, my love on this "patri-artist" holiday-

hannah

Deep Sea Birdhouse

An administrator that I worked for previously asked me to paint an "ocean scene" on her birdhouse.  What a blank canvas it was!  Actually, 4 blank canvases!!  This was something quite different for me to tackle and it was such a learning experience.  I started really getting into it and below are the results....

I am thrilled to say she loved it! And even displayed it for everyone to see!!

My inspiration came from a children's book titled; Over in the Ocean in a Coral Reef.  The book was written by Marianne Berkes and illustrated by Jeanette Canyon.  She constructed it entirely out of polymer clay!

I knew I wanted something to wrap around the house and didn't quite want to do fish.  I remembered we had gotten this book for my girls last spring and once I saw that green seahorse, well it stuck with me! 

......take a dive out of your comfort zone this artist holiday.....

hannah

Purest of Creativity

As she stared at her daughter's drawing, she knew that she was looking at the purest of creativity.  None of society's views had penetrated her daughter's way of drawing or her way of thinking, just yet.  There was a rawness, almost uncaptured naivety, she saw and wanted desperately to get back in her own artwork.  She feared that it was never possible, she had already been formally trained to see the opposite of what she viewed now.  Her only hope, at this point, was to always cherish the drawings her daughter created.  Deep down, she knew that one day, her daughter would be looking at her own child's drawings, realizing the very thing her Mother once saw in her.

I see line, movement, harmony, proportion, color, shape and space surrounding the 2 triangular forms.

The interesting color combination of orange and pink caught my eye.  The circles within circles has always been a design I lean on.  The overlapping ends and unfinished circles are raw.  She's not trying to make the perfect circle.

I just enjoy the organic feel of these ladders with what we see as crooked and broken steps.  Again, overlapping lines, repetition, length, slow curves.  Very simple ideas to transfer into my own artwork.

Please do not mistake me thinking I have the next Picasso here.  I enjoy taking my child's artwork and breaking it down.  It keeps me fresh and the basics in front of me at all times. 

Hope you are enjoying an artistic holiday in some way.....
hannah

Ornament Delight

I am so thankful for my creative might

that I used to make these ornaments of delight!

So, with your belly full simply hop, hop, hop

over to my etsy and shop, shop, shop!

Thanks so much for your well wishes!

hannah

My Doughnut Beauty

Time has stood still for just a second at least.

You are my beauty and my sweetest beast.

I turn quickly to get a grip

and turn back slowly licking my lips.

You are one of those few things in this universe

that's better than imagined, so opposite of the worst.

I love your assortment, you outdo yourself each time.

So airy, so round and beautiful in that line.

It's just me and you right now,

we know what's going to happen, we know how.

Doughnut, my love for your sweetness is grand.

Now the only way to get in my mouth is by my hand.

I feel such calmness and peace as we are one yet again.

You are so divine and will never be my sin.

It doesn't matter where life takes me or what I do,

in your goodness my pleasure will forever ensue.

Until the next time my scrumptious bit,

the treadmill, stair-climber and ab machine I will hit.

hannah

Acronym #1

ART, act refined tomorrow

As a creative exercise for myself, I will be randomly creating acronyms with some of my favorite words.  I think this exercise will help me with my writings (that I am really enjoying, by the way!) and also an artistic outlet.  I have also been doodling lately.  Those photos are below. 

I shall doodle and play on this artist holiday!

hannah

Discovery Vases

Their pockets were full of the smallest of treasures they could find in a single afternoon.  She felt certain she just created another lasting memory with her daughter.  The type of memory she would maybe even cherish one day.  After doing several of these hunting and gathering trips, she finally knew what to do with these recently discovered possessions.  She grabbed an old canning jar from her pantry and suddenly it was created.  The "discovery vase" was born.  Inside each discovery vase were the simplest of things, cast aside by a fast-moving society, not bothering to notice or pick them up.  Different riches that she or her daughter inspected and felt worthy to be included in such a unique collection.  She was thrilled, at least inwardly, to know she was keeping the memory alive in her daughter, by simply having a visual reference. 

This vase was created circa 2009, when we briefly lived beside Queen Anne's Creek in a 100 year old cotton mill.  The beetle was dead when we found him.  He or she is a gorgeous olive green with black dots.  We decided against collecting the swamp snakes and other living creatures a swamp contains!

This is the other side of the vase.  A magnolia petal, painted gumballs, concrete bits, unusal sticks, moss, broken glass, palm cross, and a large elephant ear leaf are just some of the items inside.

These are the brick bits, broken china and drift wood found in and around the Chesapeake Bay.

Some of the shells have an iridescent look, very unique.  In the middle of this photo, you can see one lone empty barnacle on a brick bit.

These vases sit atop a shelf we can see everyday to remind us of places we have lived and/or visited.  Collecting precious things and memories at the same time, on this artist holiday.

hannah

An Artist Dream

I dream an artist dream today

probably not one you would think of right away.

It’s one of those dreams when you are awake

and this one in particular is just for art’s sake.

In my studio is where I begin

everything is thrown about, not tidy in its’ bin.

Such a wreck, such a whirlwind in my room

but such beauty does it show, nothing like a tomb.

For all this chaos does have a purpose and a plan

art projects have been created, millions by my hand.

The elements of art and principles of design

are shown divinely in every piece and every medium of its kind.

In just this one day I had experimented with all media to date

mastered every technique and every artwork mastered was my fate.

Then, I invented new techniques and new designs

nothing ever seen before, new everything, new lines.

All my work published made history in its sales

I would have to hire ten assistants to read all my fan mail.

No, I would read each piece myself with a tear in my eye

taking it all in, hoping each person was as happy as I.

In this art utopia I would live lively and free

sharing my experiences and knowledge to truly complete me.

After all, this is just an artist dream worthy to share

with all my family, friends and artists everywhere.

hannah

On the Shore

As she sits on the shore in her beloved fold up chair and faded towel, she is at ease.  She feels contentment throughout her being that she had not felt since last year sitting in this near exact spot.  It was a morning just like today, the sun feels fresh, the breeze is soft and the pelicans look as if they are enjoying the solitude just as much.  She found her mind drifting, but not staying in one thought too long.  She couldn’t risk being engulfed in her memories and not allowing her body to fully maximize the divine intervention she has become a part of on this perfectly harmonious shore. 

The shore inspires many and I am no different.  I find the horizon to be enchanting and my imagination to run wild with what is beyond that delicate line of blues.  I comb the beach for small treasures washed up that morning in high tide.  I like to think of the delicacies I find as beauties put there from the Great One, only for me to find and love.  Swimming in the ocean is one of life’s pure pleasures.  The waves are swift, sometimes warm and always refreshing.  I have found myself lost in the wave’s repetitive motion and free in the big blue.  Other times I enjoy the excitement of the next wave coming and satisfaction of sometimes winning the fold and eventual crash of one and having to dive into others, knowing I can’t win them all.  Of course this is where I could interject parallels of how fighting and dodging waves swimming in the ocean can be so much like life, but I will leave your mind to pull those similarities together.  Above all, the shore has so much to offer and you only need to bring your mind free of expectations to enjoy it.

My work can only benefit from my occasional trips to the different shores I visit throughout each year.  My collections range from shells of North Carolina’s creeks, rivers and the Atlantic to worn brick bits and unique shells from the Chesapeake Bay.  I may not always work out each idea, but the creativity is there.  I would like to share with you some of my collections and other ideas I am working on.

I used the netting bag my children's toys came in to collect my treasures this past summer.  The word "sea" written in steel wire, laying on hand dyed fabric.  Still trying to work this into a collage....

The center shell looks like toes

Fossil-like shells.  Something draws me to these porous fragments, I adore a find such as these!

Brick bits and a split clam.  Some brick bits have swirls of lighter shades you can see and the deep browns of the clam shells are beautiful.  Now, some of my recent artwork...

Artist Artifacts is a triptych I created with burlap, hand dyed fabric, glass and ceramic fragments, various beads, wire, wooden branches, cornstarch dough artifacts, a porous shell and a beautifully contoured shell

Closeup of the contoured shell, in the upper right

A word collage I created spelling "love" framed in a black shadow box.  The "o" is a shell with a pearl atop.  Other materials I used were wood, job tears beads, glass beads, white shell beads, wire, ribbon and hand dyed fabric

Organic Chain is a necklace where the large shell is strung as if it were a bead itself.  Strung with the large shell are also Egyptian clay beads, glass, horn and wood beads and handmade steel wire beads.



A bracelet created with small oyster shell beads, bayong wood bead, other wood and glass beads, as well as a steel wire bead basket around shell beads and two pearls.

The love of the ocean resonants with us all, now if only we could capture, not just the ocean's treasures but the beauty we see in our own masterpiece.  Well, what an artist holiday that would be...

hannah

Confidence Booster

This confidence booster began back in July when I made a fabric ornament with metal wire and small blue beads to submit to the magazine, Cloth Paper Scissors Reader Challenge “Winter Holiday Gift Swap”.  I like to think of reader challenges as something one of my art professors would have asked me to do in a college setting!  They get my creative juices flowing and whether I get the lucky chance of being published or not, my ideas usually spiral into other things I create.  So, without further ado, November/December Issue 33, page 78 (8 pages closer to the cover than the last publication!) J

And Jill Eudaly at http://www.jeudaly.blogspot.com/ (her blog; Recycled Daze) received my ornament!  Her beautiful shimmering and festive wall hanging was also published in the same article!  Congratulations Jill!

Cloth Paper Scissors is a collage and mixed media magazine. 

This really is an artist holiday!!! 

hannah

Tool Love

You gently turn my wire so neat,

making tight circles, twisting an end are all such a treat.

Round nose pliers you’ve never let me down.

whenever you’re needed, you can always be found.

Now I could go on and on,

choosing my favorite tool – oh boy – this could get long.

Steel wire, so bendable and dark

I put you near the top, my mind you do spark.

Oh, and then there’s the jeweler’s saw, tough and sleek

ready to cut through metal or wood.  Yeah, I’m a saw freak!

That brings me to wood, what a delight!

you do what I ask without any fight.

Wood, you are my versatile friend

that I do everything too, well, except bend.

Without you dear wooden bead, dowel rod or other,

my work would be lost like a child without its mother.

And what about you beads, my real true love.

You call me by name softly from that distribution hub.

You say “Hannah, sweet Hannah, look at me”

“I am so pretty and almost free!”

Heishi, coin, rondelle, glass, wood, horn and seeds

just to name a few, of my bead fetish needs

Beads, as we continue this relationship more,

I know I can count on you, not just in my artwork, but to be on my floor.

This next tool is mostly behind the scenes,

strong and sturdy and not always clean.

Sometimes you’re called adhesive, sometimes glue.

You help me most when wire won’t do.

Ode to paint, what an awesome medium to be,

paint is very special to me; it was almost my college degree.

Watercolors, oils, acrylics and glazes for finishing touches

You help me in just the right spot, at the nick of time, and in tight clutches.

Now where would paint be without that brush?

I can’t forget you either, you relay my perfect touch.

I can so believe how long this is getting. 

I know I could keep writing until my 7 year old’s wedding.

This next task can be a pleasure and my fabric stash I do treasure.

Sewing anything is my rule, by machine by hand, what a must-have tool.

But follow a pattern, no way

dress-maker patterns are for mixed-media, I say.

And as I look downward, I suddenly realize my hands are crucial to my artistic approach.

Just like the other day when I made the “Save the Broken Crayons” brooch.

I can’t forget about my eyes, they find my mistakes, specific colors and spaces I waste

Not to mention, my new artsy glasses I wear on my face.

Well, I must really stop and thank God for my imagination

because I have kept you this long reading my “tool love” creation.

So thank you dear Lord for my creativity and speed

for it only took me 3 hours to write this silly read!

Therefore, use any and all your tools and you will never artistically stray

is what I hope you take away from this artist holiday!

hannah

A Defining Moment

The alarm had not gone off yet, but her mind was already restless.  She still had her eyes closed, dreaming the same ole dreams of art grandeur and pure creative bliss, yet she felt something different stirring within her.  She waited, as she always did, for those fears of inadequateness and severe inhibitions to squash her dreaming and bring her back to her reality of living without art everyday.  But this morning, she knew was unique, the fears never came.  She decided then and there, to fight to be seen and heard and once she made that incredible leap forward, she would never have to regret looking back.  For the first time ever, she truly allowed herself to believe that using her talents, was going to be her destiny.  It was only then that she realized how deep her passion for art ran within her and she was thrilled realizing her lifework would be unraveling each handmade piece…

How easy would that have been?  Just a simple defining moment in time, to get a grip and move right into your artistic endeavors.  I wish!  For me personally, it has been a series of small events and small accomplishments, and motivation from my family and friends that have brought me to this point.  I am excited to start this blog saying that, although I may not be like the above lady completely free of all inhibitions, I have come pretty far personally.  So, with this first posting, I say art is my passion, I am proud of my work and yes I think I am a talented artist!  There I said it, I feel so much better.  Now that we have that out of the way, I am excited to share so many things with you, my ideas, artwork and other thoughts that may occur.  So, until my next posting, thanks for taking an artist holiday with confidence!

hannah