a gift to me... online class with Misty Mawn

if you have a fear of that white page sitting there... then this is the teacher/class for you! and it has been just what i needed... free - messy - fast.... without thought or courage... just get your hands in the paint and gesso and gel medium and let what happens.... happen...

backgrounds... of which i just couldn't stop making them... so i have a yummy stack awaiting their own discovery into what they want to become... i just love flipping through them... and i even replicated one into a larger format for a collage pce pictured down below.

I've never been this captured by a class... time to listen... see... enjoy the work of other students... share in questions... frustrations... hurrahs! so much so, that i "changed my mind" about being in an upcoming art show... i wasn't ready and i wasn't willing to step out of this class to get ready... so... i gave myself a "hall pass" and I'm just pleased that i honored what i felt down in my center... no guilt... because i owed this to myself... and realizing this might be the greatest gift of all.

the pictures above and below came from a trip i took to South Carolina and Savannah a few years back. traveling to the south is heavy on me - i don't know how else to put it - the history that still lives in some places and some people... and i by all means do not group everyone living in or from the area into this box... it's just that some difficult conversations always seem to find me there...my sweet man puts a gentle hand on my shoulder and says in a calm voice... just let it go keli... and so i try...

the pce below however is a perfect example... of how what needs to happen in a work... finds it's way out... i started with a collage of a birdhouse - taken on a plantation - and of my neighbors tree - she is also from the south, but has lived in montana for years now. then i added birds... blah blah blah... i wasn't feelin it at all. then this past weeks lesson came on and it moved us into painting faces... misty's signature. so for me i just have to give it a go with faces and see where it leads... and here sat this unhappy collage... i looked down along the edge of the tree... and those lips were there... so i grabbed a pencil... and working within the outline of that tree... i found her. now my painting technique has miles to go... but i love this pce now... i have thoughts to place on the left hand side... just have to work through the words.

i will never forget moments after i took that picture of the birdhouse, a man working at the plantation said to me " well it couldn't have been too bad for the slaves here... because when the northern aggression came through they (the slaves) all fled... but they (the slaves) all came back" it was at this point that hand laid gently on my shoulder.... and it was all i could do to "let it go"... somehow this pce helps me understand why i went there... listened and stood witness.

"facing south"

in remembrance and honor

a gift to me

now I'll let it go... maybe