Home Page: written down

This is my attempt at gluing on a cut-out from a magazine. I’m afraid I’m not a cut-out from magazine type of girl… but here it is anyway. The photo is of flowing lava and symbolizes being grounded and living in the “flow”. The background is kind of the cosmos… where I usually am. The message is about living here on earth – doing what it takes to be ALIVE. The quote is from the prompt of course. The rest says: “A Wise Woman told me to get out of my head, to stop thinking everything had to be perfect, and most importantly, to put some color on all those blank canvases I’ve had for years. She said if I didn’t, my soul would give up and Iit would be the end of me. NOW I paint as if my life depends on it – because It Does. (It looks a lot nicer in person – sorry about the crappy digi photo).

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...Maps. I’m the Map Queen. I can find my way home from anywhere. I’ll never get lost unless I want to or if the map is wrong or there isn’t one. It’s kind of interesting, to me anyway, that I drew I-90 on there with arrows at each end pointing HOME. Boston on one end… what a long ride that would be… and Seattle on the other. Either one would take me home though.

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This spread was what I first thought of as an “A-Ha” moment in my life. I was in ballet all my life but my parents used to bring me fresh cut daisies and I would wear one in my hair during ballet class. It was my very small way of expressing my individuality and I just always loved daisies. Purple daisies were my favorite and I would match the flower to my leotard. Thanks for looking and happy art!

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I went away to boarding school when I was 12 to study ballet. A family friend gave me a simple gift of a fountain pen and a black book journal that had a batik cloth cover. I started using it as a diary and then started doodling and drawing in it. This had a huge impact on me because it gave me an outlet to express myself. You never know what simple things you do for people will end up having a large impact. She probably didn’t realize that all these years later, this is still something I remember as pivotal in my life.

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It took me a long time to come up with something for this spark, but my recent health kick of drinking these healthy (though nasty looking!) juice blends definitely goes against my previous character.

Background is clear tar gel and various acrylics. Collage of photo, leaves, drink packaging. More back story can be read at my blog: http://www.kaleidoscopic-kris.blogspot.com

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My childhood nickname was “Queen”.
My siblings tell me that I thought
I was too good for them. Something about only buying my underwear at J.C. Penney’s but not buying actual clothes there. I didn’t say that. My friend Wendy said that. They got mixed up in their stories.

TFL,
~jane swanson

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Another spark that didn’t get me going to begin with, but took off with the idea that sometimes we have to crawl/evolve/cocoon, other times it is right for us to analyse/overthink/label, but sometimes we just have to SOAR!

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Had a lot of fun with this. I have learned alot about layering colour and colour media over the past months. I have also learned the mindset of if you don’t like it keep going, if you make a mistake, layer over it, but keep going.

For weeks I couldn’t think of anything that I was queen of, DH was a sweetie, but his suggestions didn’t feel true to me – Queen of Innovations – really? me? do you mean the catalogue? hmmm.
Then I thought of the one thing that makes me different from anyone I know, my Pollyannaesque faith in all things karma. Not that I am that much of an optimist, I worry ALOT and work out the worst case scenario ALL the time. But my core values are related to ebb and flow, destiny, etc.

The best story to illustrate what I am like is abbreviated on this page: I had an old car passed onto me by a friend. After the winter of excuses not to drive it, I decided to start driving it and taking care of it last spring. Went to Halford’s for brakelights, and ended up buying car shampoo. The bottle reads “first rinse to remove surface dirt.” So I go up to the flat, get a big bucket of water, and a sponge; carry it all back down again and start slooshing. Then the rain starts. My very first thought, VERY FIRST, was “Cool! The universe is helping me rinse to remove surface dirt.” DH looked out the window, saw the rain and thought “I wonder if she’ll come in, naw, probably not.”
Of course, the alternate interpretation is that I’m simply to stupid to come in out of the rain!

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O Moon …How is it you are one of my favorite things to gaze upon… Yet, I can’t remember the last time I saw you?

_ _ _ _ _ _ edited 8/23/05 _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Well… here is a story about spining in circles… until I discovered gesso (yesterday) I had given up painting in my bound journal because the paper was too flimsy… so I’d been painting on watercolor paper and was franticly trying to figure out how I was going to make them into a book… well… gesso solved that problem but I had to redo two paintings. One is done… and here it is – I don’t know which I like better, but I guess it doesn’t matter.

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sigh…to be young…a great day is building a great big tent in your bedroom with your brother…using sheets and blankets…pretending your camping…giggling…laughing…being silly…this is a great sight to see. The photo is of 2 of my children and the words were inspired by them. I used watercolour crayons and a calligraphy pen & ink.

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