Peacefulness: My 2011 Sankalpa

Ice Lake in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado is 

my peaceful place. It is where I go in my mind 

whenever I want to feel comfy and free!

01/20/12: An updated version of this article is published for the yoga/spirit/health community at ElephantJournal.com.

Each year, I choose an intention (sankalpa) to focus on. It’s like a new year’s resolution, except there are no specific goals—only an idea or thought that I bring into awareness for the year. I spend the year studying my intention to see how it affects my life and attempt to cultivate more of it. (You can see my past blog entries about sankalpa here.)

2011 was my seventh year doing a sankalpa practice, and this year I focused on peacefulness. There has been a lot of change and upheaval in my life this year, so focusing on peacefulness has been a challenging but worthwhile endeavor.

For some reason my exploration of peacefulness in 2011 brought up a lot of issues about another quality: passion. American culture tells us to “live your passion” and “follow your passion” to find fulfillment and happiness in this life. But after much reflection, I think passion is too strong a word; it doesn’t seem to be a truly positive quality to embrace, especially as an entire culture.

Passion implies a loss of control, a kind of tunnel vision where all the factors of a situation may not be considered. It connotes greed, irrational behavior, and unconcern for consequences of one’s actions—perhaps it’s where the phrase “crime of passion” originated. After considering the prism of passion from many different angles, I realized that at least for me, passion and peace are mutually exclusive.

Now, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that I don’t care about deeply — family, friends, healthy lifestyles, social justice, creativity, community, yoga, learning, and teaching, the environment, etc.

But passion cannot exist where peacefulness lives.

Passion says that where we are now isn’t good enough or right enough, and we have to keep searching outside ourselves to find self-worth and fulfillment. Passion looks too much into the past and future to the detriment of awareness of the present moment, where true living takes place.

As my sankalpa for 2011 winds down, I have decided to stop living with passion as a value. I would rather have peacefulness in my life than passion. I realized this when I began to describe to a friend how I knew that Matt was “the one”. I told her that unlike other boyfriends, I never felt that crazy teenager feeling of being out of control in my infatuation. When I was/am with Matt, I feel peaceful. I feel a sense of being “home”. I like this feeling of belonging and acceptance. So, choosing Matt was the first of many choices that have prioritized peace over passion over the past 9 years. I will continue to choose peace, because that is where happiness and fulfillment truly reside.

New Small Works

 Untitled Diptych. 18 x 8 inches. Ink and pastel on paper. 2011.

I just finished pulling together about 50 new small works for a small solo show that’s coming up at Grand Junction City Hall in Colorado. I’ll be posting many of them in the days to come... Here are the first two!

Untitled Quad. 16.5 x 16.5 inches. Ink on paper. 2011.

I’ve been in an introspective mood over the last several months, so it seems fitting that my work has shifted back to the smaller format. Most of them are even smaller than this, some even as small as 4 x 4 inches.

Stay tuned for more to come!

My First Commissioned Work

In the spring, I hosted a booth at the Beverly Hills Affaire in the Garden Art Fair. It was one of my favorite art fairs to date. While there, I met an interior designer and his client who were looking for something special. They loved the spontaneity and whimsey in my work, and they were impressed by the conceptual framework of yoga philosophy that drives much of my creative process.

They commissioned me to create these two new pieces for a new bedroom design. They’ll hang as a pair over a king size bed as a headboard. They are being framed now, and I can't wait to see them in place at their new home! After they’re installed and I get some photos, I'll be sure to share them with you.

I Dreamt of Things... A Covered Wagon

I dreamt that Matt and I took two horses and a covered wagon on a joyride through the city streets.

Nine Years Ago Today

Photo from the Angeles National Forest Lookout Association

Nine years ago today was my first hike with Matt: 12 miles round trip from Shortcut Saddle to Vetter Mountain Lookout in the Angeles National Forest. The lookout burned down in the Station Fire of 2009, but Matt and I are still going strong—I love that guy!! You can donate to help rebuild the Vetter Mountain Lookout here.

Inspiration in Barcelona, Spain

 Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya

There was a plethora of things to get inspired by in Barcelona, and one of my favorite places was the Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya. The museum houses an extensive collection of Catalan art from throughout history. Below you’ll see some of my favorite artworks from their current exhibitions.

 View of the Barcelona from the steps of Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya

 Painting on the interior dome of the museum

I’ve always had a special affinity for Byzantine paintings. I love the use of gold leaf and dimensional texture in the halos. This is a detail of the Virgin Mary.

 Ballerina, Pao Gargallo

Untitled mural by Xavier Nogues

I laughed out loud when I saw this painting: two bandits and a ginormous glass of red wine. I wonder what mischief they are planning!

 A beautiful eclectic cabinet, Josep M Jujol

 Chandelier, Josep Puig I Cadafalch

 Salvador, Unknown Artist

Yellow Aster Butte Trail to Gold Run Pass near the Canadian Border

Mt Larrabee (right), American Border Peak (middle), 

and Canadian Border Peak (back)

Matt and I spent this Labor Day hiking up the Yellow Aster Butte Trail in the Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest, near the Canadian border.

View from the top of Gold Run Pass

The hike is short, but steep: about 3.8 miles round trip and 1800' elevation gain. It was a good workout, and once we popped out of the trees the views were spectacular.

 Douglas’ Spiraea

Wildflower season is late this year due to an unusually cool spring.

 Lupine

I was playing with my camera on the “super vivid” setting, just to see what would happen. It really brings out the color, but I think I also lost some depth and midtones.

 Looking back at Mt. Baker from the Yellow Aster Butte Trail.

Mt. Baker is still completely covered in snow, in September! There is still so much snow there, Matt’s co-worker went skiing last weekend.

Colville National Forest: Northeast Washington Weekend

After living in Washington only a few weeks, we’re starting to get our bearings. We spent the weekend in the extreme northeast corner of the state, exploring a small stretch of the Pacific Northwest Trail called the Kettle Crest in the Colville National Forest.

The forest in eastern Washington is, at first glance, very different from the forests closer to the coast, where there is more rain. The Colville National Forest is dryer, less dense (although still dense by my own standards!), and more like what we're used to (California/Colorado mountains).

Kala always enjoys romping around on the trails—I think she must hike 30% farther than we do, since she runs back and forth and back and forth, the whole time!

Mojo likes to hike too, but I think he likes resting in his bed on the picnic table after a long day even more... what a little angel!

Exploring the North Cascades

 Ross Lake, N. Cascades National Park

Matt and I just moved to Seattle, Washington for his exciting new job as the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail Coordinator at the US Forest Service. We were excited to get out on our first trip to explore the area. Matt took these beautiful landscape shots... Check out more of his photography here and here.

 Canyon Creek

Coming from Colorado where the mountains are upwards of 13- or 14,000 feet, it seems odd to be in the midst of the Cascades where elevations are often lower than 8,000 feet. But, don’t let the lower elevations fool you, these are some steep, rocky mountains!

There are waterfalls and wildflowers everywhere! Check out some of my favorite wildflowers from our earlier adventures here. We also saw tons of roses and wild strawberries growing along the trails.

 Tiger Lily

 I think this might be a penstemon,but I don’t know what kind.

Flowers in Snowmass, Colorado

I spent last week making art at Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass, Colorado. Late June is the perfect time to spend some time high up in the Rocky Mountains. The weather is spectacular and the flowers are unbeatable.

These poppies were planted near the spot I chose for my daily meditations. Their scarlet color caught my eye every time I walked by . . . breathtaking!

I saw numerous varieties of Columbines, like this peachy-yellow one above, and this rich violet one below.

 

This is the traditional Colorado Columbine, the state flower. These flowers are so delicate and short-lived. They are truly a testament to the beauty and fragility of life!

And finally, I had never seen lupine in this shade of pink before. I have typically seen the silver, purple, and yellow ones in the wild. I’m amazed by the color variants found within one species.

Next week, we’ll begin exploring all new flora and fauna in our new home-state of Washington, see you then!

Anderson Ranch + Critique Workshop / Part 5

My final presentation at Anderson Ranch this week was really minimal and simplified. I narrowed down my concept so that the work would be more specific, yet also more open-ended.

I wrote up a mission statement to describe what I wanted my work this week to be about. It all boils down to this:

My work is about the material body plus the mental/emotional space that partners with physical embodied experience. It has a voice that is powerful but not aggressive.

I had worked all week trying to do too much within each individual piece I was making (especially the Stuffed Blue Heart). I wanted to strip away any extraneous visual information and leave only the essence of the physical/emotional experience in the heart center.

Each piece spills out from the wall at about chest-height, and is about 6x6 inches square.

I have about 1,000 ideas on ways to expand and build on this concept. I never thought about doing sculpture before now, and suddenly it’s all I can think about!

I hope I will be able to attend many more Critique Workshops at Anderson Ranch in the future. This was an amazing experience that has changed my work forever.

Anderson Ranch + Critique Workshop / Part 4

Ribcage Study

Finally, I figured out what I wanted to convey with my work this week at Anderson Ranch. But I still felt I needed to look at some other avenues for expressing it. I thought I wanted my work to be very open-ended and abstract, but I wanted to be certain. So I did these more representational drawings of the heart and ribcage, since the chest area became the primary area of the body to which I wanted to relate.

 

Heart Study

I like these drawings, especially combined with the ink washes, but the mood/tone I am going for right now is much more subtle. I think I should stick with abstraction for the final crit on tomorrow.

Anderson Ranch + Critique Workshop / Part 3

 Stuffed Blue Heart (detail)

Ink and twine on paper mounted on board

In process

I had been working on this piece for several days, trying to combine the ink work with the twine work. I worked out a lot of issues in this one, and I am able to really begin to focus on the issues that really matter to me: making art that is about a/the material body and the mental/emotional space that partners with physical embodied experience.

Stuffed Blue Heart (detail)

Ink and twine on paper mounted on board

In process

I began to add more and more design elements to this piece, which I think looks good, but was actually taking away from the simplicity of what I’m trying to convey. I love decoration (see my graphic design work), so it has been hard to let go of wanting to decorate everything with color and little graphic elements.

 Stuffed Blue Heart (detail)

Ink and twine + gouache on paper mounted on board

In process

Gary Simmons, workshop leader, suggested that I was using the painting surface as a crutch, because it’s something I’m comfortable with. Perhaps that’s true. He asked me if I really should be doing sculpture at this point, to which I responded ‘probably, yes, but that makes me uncomfortable.’ . . . So, here I go, abandoning the painting surface and moving my work directly onto the wall (look for that work tomorrow, it’s not finished yet!).

Stuffed Blue Heart

Ink and twine on paper mounted on board

In process

When this piece is finished, knotted twine will billow and spill out from all the holes in the center of the painting, creating a three-dimensional effect. You can see that the piece is really about the action in the center, and I need to get rid of the background completely.

Anderson Ranch + Critique Workshop / Part 2

Holes and Protrusions

Studies for twine

This week at Anderson Ranch, I’ve been working back and forth between using my inks and working with twine. You can see yesterday’s ink work here.

This series of studies is looking at ways to utilize the membrane of the paintings’ surfaces as something that can be penetrated in different ways with the twine (plus perhaps other materials).

Holes and Protrusions

Studies for twine

Tomorrow I’ll show you how the two (ink & twine) are starting to combine in new ways for me. The jury is still out on whether my experiments are going to be a success.

Anderson Ranch + Critique Workshop / Part 1

Self-portrait on a blank sheet of paper

Digital photograph

This week I’m at Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass, Colorado taking the Contemporary Studio Critique workshop with Gary Simmons. It has been interesting so far: Monday was spent going through a preliminary overview and general critique of the ten students’ work up to the present moment. Today, we’ve been working on our own and have had individual discussions with Gary.

Self-portrait on a painted sheet of paper

Digital photograph

I usually work on several different artworks at once, and it’s no different at Anderson Ranch this week! I have 6 pieces going already, and it’s only the second day of the workshop, and that’s not including the process photos  above and the video you’ll see below.

The painting with quivering aspen leaves

Digital video

I’m always interested in conveying some sense of spiritual energy in my art, whatever the media. Today was the first time I took my inks outside to work (I didn’t want to smoke everyone out of the studio with my rubbing alcohol), and now I wonder why I never did it before! I set up shop on a wooden balcony that sits on the edge of a rushing creek. The first thing I noticed were the shadows cast by the aspen leaves overhead, and how they moved over my empty sheet of paper. Then, again, as I worked on my painting, the little quivering shadows surely must’ve influenced my composition. I decided to shoot a quick video of the shadows dancing on top of the painting.

I’ll show you some of the other stuff I’m working on tomorrow. Stay tuned!