I am an artist using whatever medium suits my creative process, from drawing & painting to ceramics, phototransfer imagry to encaustics, welding to tattoo design. I cannot hold myself to create in one form as my whole lifetime of work will culminate one day and then be cohesive (of course i will be finished or i.e. dead), however, I can see a thread that does run throughout all of my work, be it in imagry, created positive form or carved out negative form.
I love living in a peaceful, harmonic world and we all know that is not, at the least, existant 100% of the time in this world, but I try to create it for myself in my surroudings: my home, my small garden areas and in my mind. My entire life has been a struggle to find that centered place. I am now embarking on a different journey...not one of struggle, but rather, one of trial and error, with awareness as my tool for insight, my higher mind as my tool for my education and mostly, my body, whole, clean and physicaly well, as my means to purport all of my life's transactions and events. It took me long enough! I have always felt that it has been such a difficult struggle for me in life, but then through awareness, realized....THAT IS LIFE! Walking through each day, doing what we can, in the best way possible and along the way being thoughtful, aware and kind towards every living thing. That is what it is all about...us being part of the universe and the universe being part of us.
For a while now, I have not been working with my art at all. I have been very busy helping my husband run our new business. It is in it's third year and it made a very nice profit the first year, growing everstill. We are about to embark on a new path with our business as well, making our transition to becoming a totally GREEN, environmentally friendly business, using non-toxic products to perform our work. This is a positive step in our industry and we are very proud of our applications.So, with all that said...I love to garden, I love being able to live in a place where I can grow orchids outside all year long, I have little outdoor garden rooms I have created on my property that is almost an acre in the middle of the city. I love to cook, using as much orgainc as I have knowledge of, using the freshest things available to me...here we have of course, all kinds of fish, the fruits are awesome-i grow red bananas, there are mango trees, citrus trees and I can get the freshest veggies from farms that are east of I-75. I try to eat very little red meat but i do enjoy a filet mignon now and again.
We have several pet family members: Rex is our dsh cat that is twelve years old and survivied Hurricane Georges, our beautiful cat Tiamo passed away last year but he was my love cat. He was white with a big black heart shape on his left side, thus his name, which is Italian for "love", then there is Jack, a lab mix who I found under the Arthouse Gallery one day as I was locking up. When I saw him he looked as though he had been burned. I called my friend, Mezo and she took out her mad money and we took him to the vet. Turned out he had some sort of skin condition that was hereditary that was like mange...he came home with me after two weeks and I told him I was going to have to keep him in the room until daddy would except the fact we had a new pet and that he would have to be very quiet. For two weeks he went to the bathroom in a litter box and never cried, like new puppies do. Finally, daddy found out about him and when he learned that he had been in the room being so good for two weeks, he said he was a perfect pet, plus I named him Jack after my husbands best firend that had just passed away. How could he resist. Along came Samson...this was a good rescue...he had bad parents before...he is so loyal and loving..he is a rottie...Jack and Samson are about five or six years old. Now on to the birds: Zazou is my Umbrella cockatoo..she is beautiful and very loving...likes to cuddle and has laid many eggs, then there was Kiki-he passed away in February because he managed to get from his cage to the fruit bowl on our table and ate through an avocado, which is poisonous to birds. Needless to say, we don't have avocados in the house anymore! Boy, we had a hard time with that...he is buried under Gary's Oak tree in the backyard. Little mango is next...she is a sun conure and is snippy, bright in colour and so cheerful and full of energy. Last but not least is Bono, our newest member. Gary had seen him in the Petsmart when going to get bird pellets for the others (before Kiki's death) and became enamoured with him. The day after Kiki passed, we had to buy more food so Gary brought me with him to the store. When I saw Bono, I just went to pieces, we decided to buy him...something we don't do..all of the others were adoptions or rescues but Bono was special...he had been there eight months and he just needed out of prison. They had them quaranteened for a while and then we got to go pick him up. We love our family and they bring much joy to our lives as we all live together in our little slice of paradise. This layout was handmade with love by the folks at My space or yours? using original artwork by Marah Johnson. Go get one!
