by Valores Moon | Apr 26, 2013 | Art, Creativity, Interconnectedness, Interconnectedness, Mixed Media, Painting, Soul-Searching
When I go through the world, I notice that everything has its own pulse – the people, the plants, the trees, the animals, the birds – and if we get quiet enough we can hear each other’s drumbeat. If we keep listening we’ll move to the same rhythm.
Do you notice that?
In my art when I try to find this drumbeat, this pulse, this spirit – I try to find something that connects me to others, my culture to other cultures, my mind to my body. I mostly use an object that I can hold in my hand which I will then photograph and use in a collage repeat on canvas. As an example: I used a smoking pipe in my series “Pipes”.
The Sioux tribe believes that a smoking pipe, Calumet, represents Creation.
The Stem is a symbol for masculinity and the animal world. The Chamber stands for the femininity and the plant world. The smoke represents the prayers that go up to the gods. I then selected a calabash pipe to connect my world to the world of the Sioux tribe. The pipe pieces made for a beautiful collage and gave my series the heartbeat of creation and its beings. Sometimes, if a new painting in a different series would relate to the earth and its beings (a.k.a. have the same heartbeat), I would use the pipe as a foundation again like in this painting.
Other objects that I’ve used as collages to form a painting’s drumbeat include words, buttons, scissors, irons, labyrinths, knits, hands and even complete paintings of mine.
Have a look around you and spot the drumbeat that speaks to you.
Keep connecting!
Liesel x
by Valores Moon | Feb 3, 2012 | Art, Bhoomies, Creativity, Creativity Preservation, Joy, On wings
I occasionally do creativity “preservation” sessions with kiddies. They are wonderful to work with. I once had a little princess (Isabel) and her chess-champ brother (Adam) over. They made this beautiful castle:
with this beautiful damsel:
and this super-strong superhero on his way to save the day:
We made our own custom tower-heads and carriages. When Isabel wanted me to pass her the blue she asked: “do you maybe have sea color?”.
How nice to see the world in your palette.
Then there was Emily the three-eared giant (so that she could listen better) by the lovely princess Isabel:
She is bigger than my husband (what he wouldn’t do for me:))
I recently had another little girl that came over for the second time. The first time was a little bit hard on me, because the little one didn’t speak a lot, which meant, I had to balance out the conversation ALL IN GERMAN (whew!).
So, we set up another date to play and wonder.
This meant getting ready. In preparation, I read the german version of “The Little Prince” aloud to my husband at breakfast in an attempt to loosen the tongue a little, should conversation be up to me, you know? I also removed gold from the palette for the session, as, in our first session, she made EVERYTHING in her best-loved color: gold:).
We decided to make fantasy animals, by drawing our favorite animals, cutting them up and using their parts to create our own animals.
Now, with gold removed from the palette I wondered what was coming. Surprise number one: she talked!! Yay! Then she made the most beautiful peacock, an oh-so-cute owl, a butterfly, a horse within a camp (so that he couldn’t runaway) and a flamingo with an egg hanging mid-air (so cute!!!!!!!).
As you can see the animals are super-cute. I felt nervous…
Would she really want to cut them up?
SO, I cut my animals up and glued my new animal friends into shape. When she was ready I assured her that she didn’t have to cut them up if she didn’t want to. And, to be honest, not sure I would’ve had the courage if they were mine… Then, without any hesitation, she cut off the legs of the peacock!!! [shocked!]
Here are her fantasy animals:
Strutting Rorse and Flutterfly
Flying Chorse
Flamingowl with magic wand (the pink oval shape was the flamingo’s egg)
Yes, ladies and gentlemen: that was natural creativity for you in action.
We can only learn from them.
play for all & all for play
-liesel-
