"The sole work of La Loba is the collecting of bones. She is known to collect and preserve especially that which is in danger of being lost to the world. Her cave is filled with the bones of all manner of desert creatures: the deer, the rattlesnake, the crow. But her speciality is said to be wolves.

She creeps and crawls and sifts through the monatanas, mountains, and arroyos, dry river beds, looking for wolf bones, and when she has assembled an entire skeleton, when the last bone is in place and the beautiful white sculpture of the creature is laid out before her, she sits by the fire ad thinks about what song she will sing." ~ Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Today I turned my day around and played it backwards. Instead of coming online and working, or being distracted, or getting caught up in feeling angry at the news... instead of finding myself at the end of the day with no time, or solitude, or energy to Be Myself, to connect with Wild Woman or Sing Over The Bones... instead I thought about my Bones first. I thought about the labels I want to give myself yet fail to honour... dancer, artist, writer... creatrix.

I thought about finding those bones and retrieving them from the desert, or the wild heather moor, or the depths of the sea. I thought about how best to return to who I am after the storm I have endured and I returned to my most favourite of books - Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes - and I started at the beginning. This paragraph jumped out at me:

"It is our brush with Wild Woman that drives us not to limit our conversations to humans, not to limit our most splendid movements to dance floors, nor our ears only to music made by human-made instruments, nor our eyes to "taught" beauty, nor our minds to those things we all agree upon already."

I thought about my feet, about how they connect with the earth and I thought about my pretty rounded toes with the sturdy width behind them that supports me even on my tippy toes. I thought about the curve of my arches and the graceful line of my feet en pointe. I got lost for a moment enjoying liking a part of my body before a hint of guilt crept in.

I looked down at my feet and beheld the expensive but chipped nail polish and the heels cracked with neglect. I thought about how far those feet have come and how far they have yet to go. I thought about how long it is since they simply danced.

I gave myself an hour, closed the curtains and played a CD that has lain silent for years. Almost immediately I loosened up and released my grace. I did not feel anything other than the joy of my own movement at first but soon I had to flick away the savage voice who tells me I am fat and ugly, who sidelines me, who says I chose to be the way I am. I shimmied past the long nose under judgemental eyes and let them fall into the shadows.

I became snakelike, or swanlike, or simply a shimmering sequin and I moved from free-dancing into a workout that is a cross between yoga and bellydancing. I raised energy and I could feel a cone of power vibrating even in muscles that rebelled and wailed.

I thought about my artist, my poor neglected pencils and I thought about the conversation at a recent dinner party where I had the audacity to define myself as "more of a gypsy artist." I recalled the response from a woman who has never seen anything that I have made, or drawn, or written. I heard her derision and her comments about art school and how competitive it is and her words suggesting I could not be an artist because I did not go.

I am not competitive. I find the competitive energy anathema to creative energy. It is narrow, constrictive and focused not only on a result - but on a result based on someone else's energy. I do not need the torture of such an environment to claim the word artist.

I remembered one of my loudest creative critics, a man who probably ensured I was saved from an art school environment. He was a lecturer on an art course I attended. He was trusted and paid to nurture young people in discovering their artist selves.

One day he took a piece that I had drawn in experimental mode, as requested, and verbally ripped it to shreds in front of the whole class. He belittled it, rubbished it, patronised it and had nothing constructive to say about it. I was mortified and any confidence that I had to experiment on paper dissipated.

Over time I have hoped that they chased him with torches flaring into the hills far away from the realms of young or developing artists. I wish that I had chased him myself.

He was still there today as I picked up pencils and began to make shapes on paper. He never let up and he is still there as I look over the first pencil sketch I have made in years.

I claim the right to make pages of bad art, instead of falling for the myth that every page should be a masterpiece.

I sit at the page scrawling ideas and images and conversations, moulding them, experimenting, freeing the voices. I write and write and write.

La Loba sits on the edge of the moor peering into my circle, grinning a toothy and wicked grin.

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Dancing With La Loba originally appeared on Taexalia on July 22, 2010.

In June @ and I travelled to Odense in Denmark to see the exhibition mounted by TSLO. We both had work showing and it was just a wee bit exciting. @ took part last year and we had both travelled over, and I pledged to take part this year.

In the end I was quite close to the deadline for submitting work when I decided to try and make an oil painting. I hadn't painted for YEARS and didn't quite know what was going to happen, but I had this vision of bringing Crow to a canvas and so I gave it a go. So this was my offering in oil:

Totem

I also chose the following four photographs, mainly because I like them and together they give a pretty good picture of *me*...

Kelpie's Lurk

This was taken during an 8 mile hike in the Lake District. I just really loved the colours in the water and the spot felt magical and mysterious. I see faces in the water and I like to imagine you could fall in and visit the Otherworld.

Frozen

This was also taken in the Lake District during our climb to the top of Wansfell Pike. The weather was glorious - blue skies with hardly a cloud in sight, but the path held onto evidence of the dismal cold and snowstorms that had greeted us on our arrival at the cottage.

Corthiemuir Wood Stone Circle

I took this during my first visit to Corthiemuir Wood Stone Circle. It is still my favourite photograph of a stone circle because I think it carries just a litte of the magical energy I feel in that place whenever I go. Can you believe some idiot wants to build a concrete car park that will accomodate tour coaches and cut down half the trees??? Surely these places remain sacred because only those who seek them make the effort to find them...

Remembering Tsalagi

I wanted to honour my friend who crossed over earlier this year.

~*~

I cannot really describe the feeing of walking into a gallery and seeing my own pictures hanging on the wall. I felt fantastic, I think I shed a tear, I nearly split my face with my grin and I definitely rate it in the top five best moments of my life. It was very empowering, encouraging and inspiring.

I was still overflowing with emotion when our wonderful organiser, Becky, started telling me about compliments my work had been getting and I felt even more weird. For me the challenge had simply been to get some work together and *do it*, I hadn't put any thought into people enjoying my work. The next day, when we went back for a long look at the whole exhibition, I had the very weird experience of being present while people were looking at my work. I wanted to run away! One guy spent quite a lot of time looking at my pieces and I wonder what was going through his mind.

Stepping out of the comfort zone and embracing life is quite rewarding, really

Taexalia ~ The Spirit Lives On 2007 ~ Filosofgangen Odense

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Art Exhibit originally appeared on Taexalia on July 17, 2007.

Totem

*satisfied sigh*

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Totem originally appeared on Taexalia on May 2, 2007.

Work In Progress ~ Totem

I think I'm working backwards! I think that if I paint Crow again, which I might, I would begin by making the sky and the standing stone and then add the crow - but I live and learn. I painted out his feet and legs and am in the process of re-working them. The sky is sort of blocked in and I am hoping for a fairy visit overnight.

He will be finished tomorrow and I want to start a new canvas right away!

Now, it's Beltane and I'm off to celebrate with my lover! Bright Blessings!

Work In Progress ~ Totem

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Work In Progress 2 originally appeared on Taexalia on April 30, 2007.

Work In Progress ~ Totem

This is how my painting is looking tonight. I don't think the details have photographed well, but the painting itself looks great. Hmm well Crow looks great but the background details haven't fully formed in my head. I've learned two things whilst trying to plot the background... either leave the background until the bird is finished, or do it first and let it dry a bit. I suppose it adds to the romance that I covered my hands and arms in paint - and I have no idea how paint got on my belly!

I am enjoying the oils. I have no idea about technique really - even at college I never had lessons in oil painting. I have one half finished oil painting in my dusty old portfolio and I think that's about the extent of my oil painting experience. So I'm making it up as I go along - but I learn better by doing.

I have no idea why I don't do things like this every day - because when I just do something creative and ignore all the blocks and predatory thoughts, I lose myself in these wonderful journeys. I find that oil paint is very forgiving - it's easy to blend in and out of things that don't quite look right... I know how many layers are under a certain bit of Crow and I feel that I'm just bringing him to life with each session. I'm really liking that this painting is also holding the spirit of the crow that visits me - this is why I am naming the painting "Totem".

My deadline for enrolling to exhibit at TSLO is May 1. I'm sure I will have this painting completed and I have chosen some photography chosen - so I will be exhibiting work in a gallery in Odense, Denmark in June. TSLO is a wonderful group who seem to believe that everyone can converse in art. Their annual exhibition allows amateurs to experience seeing their work in a bona-fide gallery. Allan exhibited last year and it was amazing to see him glow - this is the man who told me he could not draw when I met him... conditioned by stupid thoughtless teachers, who should never have been allowed near children no doubt! I committed to bringing "something" this year and as the deadline has gotten closer I have realised that I have good things to share. Which is quite an achievement for me - not least in the area of self-esteem!

A woman I met in one of the storytelling workshops said to me "Tell stories that you love... you will tell the best stories when they are ones that mean something to you."

It is the same with whatever medium/discipline you express yourself in - expressing what is in my deep self, my Wild Woman, flows better.

Keeping with the bird energy - I nipped out to Kemp's Corner to snaffle a bottle of red wine and as I walked up Restalrig Drive I was visited by a Kestrel. I mean really visited - she swooped so close to my head that I felt the breath of her wings. I nearly jumped up and down and squealed and she darted off over the bowling green!

I know that there are Kestrels in and around Edinburgh - I saw one last year on the promenade at Portobello Beach, and two years ago I saw one about 15 minutes walk away on Sleigh Drive. I've never seen one so close to home before For all that I dream of living in the wilds of nowhere, I love the diversity of wildlife here - only 20 minutes from Edinburgh City Centre.

I think I'm still Finding Water I have been doing Morning Pages without a hitch and I haven't missed a day yet. I have been out walking twice this week. I definitely tick the Artist Date box as I have been to a second session of the Singing Class I enrolled in. I've also been to a Celtic Knotwork workshop and been to the art supplies shop twice to potter and purchase.

Work In Progress ~ Totem

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Work In Progress originally appeared on Taexalia on April 29, 2007.

Diving In

When I was in primary school two things happened that I am remembering today... Actually I'm not sure about the first one because I might even have been in nursery still...

I painted a train and I don't remember all of the details, perhaps I should phone my Mum and prod her memory, but my painting somehow got entered into a competition. I don't remember painting the actual train but I remember we had to find our way to Hazlehead Park for the final. I believe the event was a Traction Engine Rally and I remember lots of big old brightly painted engines showing off their mammoth proportions.

Hazlehead Park was a million miles from home in those days - you know how distance seems to shrink with time? Well it seemed like a very long way from home - perhaps it was because we were still in the age of the corporation buses...

Well, my painting won a prize. I cannot tell you if it was first prize for my age group, or just a prize, all I remember is being a little stunned and a little chuffed and a little not really sure what it all meant. Then I remember being excited about getting a prize that might be a big set of paints and some brushes because such things would be a luxury in those days. When the prizes were doled out I could not figure out the logic of giving a budding artist a set of wooden cubes that made a picture if your spent thirty seconds looking at the shapes.

Where were the paints so I could make more art?!?!?

Well today I have been painting all day and my nose is full of oily paint smells, safflower oil and stinky distilled turpentine. I started out the day by heading into town with Allan to attend a workshop on Celtic Knotwork - part of the Beltane Fire Society's 20th Anniversary Festival. We were given a large piece of calico and a large selection of photocopies of various designs and some guidance and off we went. I have never drawn Celtic knots before. I have attempted to re-create a Pictish Crescent and V-Rod in a polymer clay cane, with a striking result that looked great - just not like the Picts carved it.

I got stuck in with my ruler and soon became engrossed in trying to replicate a sort of square pattern with eight triquetras. I loved the way my mind let go of every other thought and just followed the design - and once I got all the way round it even joined to the beginning strand! We started painting them up but, as is always the way with creative workshops, we ran out of time.

On our way home we popped into the art supplies shop on North Bridge and picked up some acrylics so that we could finish our designs. I also splurged on some oil paints, brushes and things because I had a plan...

The photo of the crow I posted the other day is now being used as a reference for a painting. I have not played with oil paints for about a million years. Perhaps I'm old enough to say I haven't painted with oils for 15 years. But I've had these blank canvasses sitting around with the intention of making art for the TSLO exhibition in Odense and I've been dreaming this crow painting for weeks.

Now I have begun... I think I will leave the second thing I'm remembering for tomorrow because I want to write here every day and I fail miserably at that - so now I've got a ready made topic.

Hopefully I'll get some time tomorrow to catch up on the blogs I love reading - I'm thinking of you even if I haven't popped by of late xxx

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Diving In originally appeared on Taexalia on April 28, 2007.

My hand made sketch book sat on my desk for most of the day. I picked it up occasionally and marvelled at my creation, felt good about the fact that I had motivated myself to just make it. The cover looks too white and tidy, I want it to resemble the tattered old sketchbook I made many years ago and filled with bits and pieces of ideas, but I want this one to be filled with better drawings.

As thrilled as I was with the idea of the new sketchbook, I didn't go straight to it and begin drawing in it. It's pristine white pages sat unmarked, nagging at me. I procrastinated royally, knowing I had to open it and pick up a pencil at some point... but resisting... what exactly?

One thing that gave me an excuse was "I don't know what to draw." I looked around our home and mentally discarded every object we own as "not interesting enough" or "not inspiring enough". Eventually I dug into my book case and found my old copy of Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain and began reading.

The first exercises are "pre instruction" - meant as a benchmark on my drawing skills before I work through the exercises. I'm not even sure I want to work through the book really - I was just looking for a prompt to draw. Anyway, the first exercise was "draw a person" - no visual stimulation. Help! The poor woman - some of her body was lovely and the top she was wearing was pretty, she just seemed to have picked up someone else's arms and been to a head shrinker - literally!

The second exercise - "draw someone's head"... well I couldn't be bothered wrestling a mirror, a pencil, a sketchbook and my ego so I drew Allan instead. It actually looks like him, captures his essence. So I've set the pencils down while I'm still on an "I can draw" note.

Now I have my first two drawings in the sketchbook. I don't care if they are the pictorial equivalent of Morning Pages - they are drawings that I made and I enjoyed making them. The first chapter of the book is called "Drawing and the Art of Bicycle Riding" - and the analogy for me is that picking up the pencils and getting into the zone are like getting on a bicycle after several years and discovering I can still ride. I wonder if I can still ride a bike?

I've set the pencils down while I'm still on an "I can draw" note - it's time for bed anyway as we lose an hour tonight when the clocks sneak forward. But I will probably just have a shorter day of being awake tomorrow... ahem

"True enlightenment is nothing but the nature of one's own self being fully realised." ~ Dalai Lama

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Picking Up The Pencils originally appeared on Taexalia on March 24, 2007.