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Plum Mad About You | 6"x6" | oil on wood panel

Plum Mad About You | 6"x6" | oil on wood panel

Elevating Small Things

September 23, 2015

I started reading about mindfulness and honoring the power of the present this past year (thank you His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Eckhart Tolle and Anthony De Mello). Painting still life offers me a valuable lesson in the power of presence--it's a rigorous practice in staying focused on the thing immediately before me. Painting also makes me mindful of the significance of small things.

This summer, I decided to partake in life coaching sessions with Marisa Weppner, owner of Sage Yoga & Wellness (learn about her integrative life style therapy here), to solidify my goals as a painter and business owner. I wanted to write a mantra for my business that captured my intentions as an artist. After a deep discussion about why I paint, why I paint what I paint and what I hope to share,  I honed my art business mantra to "elevating small things."

Small objects act like anthropomorphic symbols of our lives. Look around your office, your kitchen, your bedroom, your bathroom--what do you see? Some of my most treasured items are physically little--my grandmother's handkerchief, sewing shears of my mother's, a baseball, a Lego figurine, a Euro coin from travels abroad, handmade Mala beads. They feel like treasures because they represent a meaningful piece of my identity or conjure a happy memory.

I often find this kind of joy in small food items. My neighbor grows the lovely plums depicted in the painting in this post. She takes the time to cut a large bowl of plums for my family every year around early September and allows me to pick more whenever I wish. These plums have a beautiful frosty blue coating that reveals a vivid deep blue-purple beneath when rubbed. The golden marbled blue cheese came from the Boise Co-op, one of my favorite places to buy socially-conscious food for still life paintings.

In In the Studio, Still Life, Small Things, Chiaroscuro Tags still life, oil painting, plums, blue cheese, sustainably grown, Eckhart Tolle, Anthony De Mello, mindfulness, power of now, chiaroscuro
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Not a bad way to start the day. #yelapa #yelapamexico #miramar Happy Halloween from my goofy clan! Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? When your studio mate is 95 years old, you make special arrangements to transport her to work. It's a bittersweet day. Today I say goodbye to Double P's, my beloved "boob fruit" oil painting I created in 2014 while pregnant and later turned into the greeting card, "I hope you get a motorboat on your birthday." The new owner If you're shopping at Albertsons Market Street in Meridian or in Boise on Broadway, look for a whole freaking rack of my greeting cards! Thank you Albertsons for supporting local artists, and thank you fabulous followers of my cards for helping me gr Check out these two Boise Weekly articles by Jeanne Huff featuring local art events going on now -- BOSCO Open Studios Oct 9 & 10 + Boise Weekly Cover auction Oct 6 - 20. Warning: my responses are 3x longer than the other artists interviewed. Wha American Cheese / oil on linen / 12 x 24 inches - This one's still wet on the canvas. Come see it in person at my BOSCO open studio event this weekend, Oct 9th & 10th / 10AM to 6PM.
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#americanart #americancheese #cheeselover #stilllifepainting # Come party with us at Spaceport Studios for the annual BOSCO tour and witness artists in our natural environment! October 9th & 10th / 10 AM - 6PM.
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112 East 33rd Street, Garden City 83714 Prost! / oil on linen / 11x14 inches. Come stick your nose in the finished painting at Art in the Park in Booth 138. The show runs 10am - 5pm today.
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#beerart #beerlover #hops #oktoberfest #prost #einprosit #realismpainting #cheers #oilpainting #boi Art in the Park, y'all! Saturday until 8pm & Sunday 10am to 5pm. Find me in Booth #138.

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