I had a Wonderful Conversation Today With….

Jane Evershed.

I have been a fan of her work since I first encountered her posters for sale in a big open warehouse space in Lowertown in St.Paul probably 25 years ago.  I felt connected with it because it comes from a similar place as my inspiration does, the divine feminine.  I love her use of color, movement and playfulness in what is actually deep powerful messages.

I friended her on facebook a while back and have been watching her new work unfold.  Today she posted that she was going to be at a coffee shop with her paintings and I had to go see them in person.  I hadn’t intended on getting into a conversation with her that lead to us looking at my web gallery and my own paintings.  I was there to admire what she had done.

To get feedback from an artist that I admire means a lot to me.  I haven’t painted much in the last 5 years and just recently began painting again. Okay, I have done one painting.   I am not sure what my resistance has been but I have a sense that when I get started it is going to take me on a new journey, because that is what always happens.

Maybe it’s the journey I have been avoiding because I know how consumed I can get.  It is a good kind of consumed but the rest of my life often gets out of balance as I go off gathering images from a land far away.  A place where there is no time.  A magical place where I often learn something new and discover parts of myself that I didn’t know existed.

It wasn’t surprising that Jane and I could connect around art and art making the way we did because she goes there too.  We talked about painting with oils which I haven’t done since I first started painting as a teenager. She suggested I might want to try oils again and I felt myself getting a bit nervous.  It would me stretching out of my comfort zone and giving up control.   She share some tricks with me about creating an easy palette.  But hey, I love watercolors and it is easy for me.  I might have to try oils.

I talked about being stuck and not finding my jumping off place to start painting again. And at the end of the conversation she suggested that I start exploring anatomy books and see if they might inspire me.   It was an intuitive suggestion and I take those kind of suggestions seriously.

On my way home I stopped at the library and came home with a stack of human anatomy books.  I have a feeling this is going to open up a new body of work…no pun intended!

Thanks Jane!

This is one of Jane’s paintings made into a poster which you can purchase at her website

 

Opening to the Flow of Creativity!!

It has been 6 months since I left my career and one of my intentions was to get back into my creative flow.  IT’S HAPPENING!!

One of the things that has helped open the door is a new website.  It has been years since I had a update on my website because I didn’t have control with changing things and the women who created the site has long since disappeared.  Though I have a lot of visitors to the site there isn’t any fresh energy happening on my part.

I would love to have you check out the new website and let me know what you think.

Here is the old site: Katelyn Mariah Creates

and the new website, that is still a work in progress:

Katelyn Mariah Visionary Artist

 

Awaken The Goddess Meditation Cards

The Awaken the Goddess Meditation Deck was the beginning of my journey as a visionary artist.  I had been part of a group studying Peruvian Shamanism through the Medicine Wheel, when I got sick with a severe sore throat that wouldn’t go away.  I was worried that I might have something very serious.

One day at my art studio I began to draw and image and this was the gateway to this deck emerging.  When I finished the drawing I knew it was only the first of many and they came fast and furious over the next two months.  So fast and at such times that I wasn’t able to capture them all in paintings.  By the time the series was complete I had 44 paintings.  When the paintings were complete, my sore throat went away.  I believe this was the opening of my throat chakra, which is often closed in many people.

This was the beginning of a deep journey that would transform my life as a person and as an artist, and would awaken me consciously.  At times it was painful, at times it was joyful and in the end it would leave me stunned and amazed.

I met  the late Ron Mangravite, an expert on symbolism and esoteric mystery and director of a Modern Mystery School, at a salon held at Dr. Jan Adam’s home.  When he saw my images he assumed that I had studied esoteric symbols in great depth and began talking to me about them.  I had no idea what he was talking about because I hadn’t studied this subject.  It was hard from him to believe that I didn’t know what I had done because, according to him, I was using such an incredible “mixed bag” of symbolic, cultural images that one could not know unless they had done years of esoteric study, so it was amazing that they just sprung from my inner world.

What looks like simple drawings are provocative images that take one deep inside. They might be mistaken for a tarot deck is described this way by Ron,

” What we know as Tarot, was initially, a series of drawings illustrating an initiate’s true identity, discovered during a deep inward journey,” he said.  “These drawings, in the form of a deck, were presented to the master teacher to show what the initiate had truly discovered.  The master teacher could tell immediately, by looking at these images, whether or not the initiate had discovered his “truth”.  this is what allowed the initiate to graduate and have the right to say ” I know my identity.  That is why I am pleased to announce that Katelyn is an initiate of consciousness.”

I was stunned when Ron told me I was an “initiate of consciousness”, which he said was quite rare in our culture.  I was just following my inner inspiration where it was leading me.  In a subsequent conversation about my new art work, I asked Ron if I could study with him.  He told me that there was nothing he could teach me that I didn’t already know.  I write this with the utmost humility because this was 19 years ago and I still haven’t quite taken it all in.

The meditation deck came about when a friend who owned a book store saw them and said she wanted to support me to bring the images into the world.  She started a publishing company and produced the Awaken The Goddess Meditation Deck for me.  We had a big celebration when they were done and Ron flew in from North Carolina to speak about them.

I have some of this first printing available for sale.  When they are gone they will no longer be available.  If you are interested in purchasing a deck you can find the information by following this Awaken The Goddess

Cracking Open Creatively

I finally did it! My first painting in 5 years. I have done some small work which you can find in my 30 Day Art Practice, in this blog, but this is the first serious, visionary piece I have done. I have my last painting on my wall. It was painted in September of 2006.

I wasn’t sure what made me stop except a long list of excuses, including not enough time, nothing to paint and all of the usual things. Of course there was something deeper, there always is.

The painting above is an integration piece for me and the real reason I stopped painting. I didn’t know it at the time but I felt invisible. I felt like no one cared about my work but me, so why even paint. For years I painted at least on painting a week, sometimes more than that. Many artists feel that they are all alone when they are painting and I was no different, even though I love the journey I go on to discover the images that end up in my paintings.

I felt less alone and more out of balance because the inward process took me so deep that I never wanted to leave and go out into the world. It is interesting because the very thing that irritated me was of my own making. I felt invisible because I spent a lot of time in deep inner spaces.

Invisibility has been a theme for a long time in my life. I have felt it in all areas of my life. Invisibility is interesting because sometimes it has its benefits but a lot of time it was getting in the way of my life. Invisibility was comfortable. Going out into the world and being visible was not comfortable, and yet it was the thing I craved the most. Who doesn’t want to be noticed? Most people who are artists, whether they admit it or not, want people to notice their work.

What is interesting about this blog is that much of what I am writing here is coming to me as I write it and because of what I am admitting, I am becoming more visible.  Talk about risky business for a professed hider.

A couple of weeks ago, during a brief guided meditation, the only thing that came to me was the face of a fox. I only saw the face for a couple of seconds but that little fox took me on a deep journey during the days that followed. I began researching fox and a lot of things began to make sense.

I learned that there was an inward and an outward expression of fox. The inward fox is the keeper of the power of invisibility and camouflage. It’s ability to remain in plain sight and yet be unseen is its greatest gift. It is also one of mine! Other inward qualities we share are keen observation skills and gentleness, which is what made me a good therapist. We also share persistence, feminine courage and the ability to shape shift, which is where invisibility comes in.

The outward expression is the part of fox that I need to embrace. We share the gift of cleverness and quick thinking and the ability to express ourselves. The outward expression that I am less comfortable with are the ability to be visible with passion, desire and intensity. The fox medicine that really gets one noticed!

I learned from my research that:

“Those in business (which would be me) who have fox as a primary totem too frequently find that their marketing methods, no matter how diligent on is with them, bear little fruit. People pass them over even when the person’s business is in plain sight! Often such folks feel discouraged because no matter what they do, they simply cannot seem to attract anyone’s attention”

I have felt all of those things, in my business, with my art and in relationships. I haven’t felt as though I was a victim but have often been confused about why things I do share with the world go unnoticed and why I haven’t been able to shift that. It has been a source of frustration for me.

The image above was inspired by a collage I did about 4 or 5 years ago that I didn’t understand at the time.

I remembered the image a few days into my quest to learn about fox and was surprised by the meaning I felt now!  There was fox!  The title I gave this image when I created it was “Liberation” and how appropriate that is right now.

In May I left my career of 26 years as a therapist and one of the reasons was so I could paint when the inspiration hit me and not just ignore my creative inspiration like I had for 5 years.  It was strange because for the three months that followed I couldn’t start painting.  I wasn’t inspired and was using a lot of the same old excuses and avoidance techniques.

Three nights ago I had a dream that no one in my current life knew that I was an artist.  It upset me in the dream that no one knew one of my greatest gifts.  When I woke up I knew that it was time to start painting again.  I went into the studio, put a blank sheet of paper on my drawing board and stared at it.  I couldn’t come up with anything until I looked over at the collage.  I realized it was also time to integrate the fox.

As you can see the image at the beginning of the blog is inspired by the collage but not the same.  I wanted it to be bold, strong and visible, yet gentle at the same time to embrace all of the qualities of fox.  As you can see fox is standing in all of her glory without anything covering her and I can feel the integration of all of fox medicine happening inside of me.

This One’s for You Yoko Ono…

I am fascinated with the mind. There is so much of the creative landscape of the mind that we have not tapped into and if we did, the world would indeed be a different place. The imagination can be our greatest ally or our fiercest dragon depending on what path we follow.

I thought it was pretty cool when I found out that Yoko Ono was following me on Twitter because she is not afraid to stretch her imagination. I remember going to her YES exhibit at the Walker Art Center in 2001 and felt the pull of my imagination as my inner landscape was stretched in new directions. I was cleaning my studio a few months ago and found some of the cards from the exhibition. 4×4 white card stock squares who purpose was to activate the imagination created in 1961 and 1962. I found 9 of them as I cleaned and it made me remember the Yes exhibit and how it made me feel.

Here is an example:

“PAINTING FOR THE WIND

Cut a hole in a bag filled with seeds of any kind and place the bag where there is wind.

1961 summer”

On the surface it doesn’t seem like much but let your imagination go with it and imagine all of the seeds have been scattered on the wind and found a place to land and grow, or imagine birds eating the seeds and depositing them in parts unknown. Either way the landscape is forever changed.  Real art forever changes the landscape. It stretches the imagination and commences with an inner dialog that only your soul might comprehend.

Study the work of artist with mental illness and you will see the imagination undefended and unleashed and understand the depth of it’s landscape. I love to study art created out of madness. It may look crazy at first but if you study it you will find that the artist has just plunged into the depths of their imagination and brought back the journey they were on through their images. The images are rich in symbolism and curious images that make you wonder. Many mad artist get lost in their imagination and can’t tell the difference between what is real and what is not. Who knows for sure what is real anyway?

Albert Einstein wrote

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

With our imagination we can create new worlds. We can change the world we are experiencing into something we only dreamed of. Each and every day is a new opportunity to begin living the life of your dreams and it all begins in the imagination. All you have to do is say YES.

Sketchbook ready to start traveling…

I finished the sketchbook for the 2011 Sketchbook project.  It took me months to complete, a little at a time.  Now I have to get ready to let it go…forever…

I had wanted to illustrate this story since the first time I read it and the sketchbook project gave me an opportunity to do just that.  The story of Diamonds Dream struck a chord in my soul that was begging to be put into pictures.  As I did the sketches for the book I got into with the deeper meaning of the story.  Each time I thought about how to create the next illustration for  the story I understood more clearly what the meaning behind it was.

Here are a few of the illustrations:

 

Sketchbook Project continues….

Pages 12 and 13

Page 14

This is another tri-fold page.

Here is the part of the story that goes with it:

“While he gazed up, again he heard the cry. At the same moment he saw one of the biggest stars over his head give a kind of twinkle and jump, as if it went out and came in again. He threw himself on his back, and fixed his eyes upon it. Nor had he gazed long before it went out, leaving something like a scar in the blue. But as he went on gazing he saw a face where the star had been– a merry face, with bright eyes. The eyes appeared not only to see Diamond, but to know that Diamond had caught sight of them, for the face withdrew the same moment. Again came the voice, calling “Diamond, Diamond;” and in jumped the star to its place.

Diamond called as loud as he could, right up into the sky:

“Here’s Diamond, down below you. What do you want him to do?”

The next instant many of the stars round about that one went out, and many voices shouted from the sky,–

“Come up; come up. We’re so jolly! Diamond! Diamond!”

This was followed by a peal of the merriest, kindliest laughter, and all the stars jumped into their places again.

“How am I to come up?” shouted Diamond.”