Spring! Anonymous Content! Birthday!

I'm happy to celebrate Spring with Nix - my Crow-Hare fairy.  You may have seen her before or in one of her other seasonal themes. In any event, the Equinox has been welcomed and we're entering the Next.

Spring

Nix Crow-Hare Fairy

After the travel collages, it took a bit to do all the 'at home' things waiting for  you when you've been away.  Eventually, an image caught my eye 'just because' and this collage emerged from it. This is the first collage since I've been home.  I call these my 'anonymous content' collages, as I am not carrying a theme forward, instead letting the images 'find' their congruency together. 

The anchor image is the trio of retro-looking people, in the sepia tone, which I embraced.  I found it without any context except Kitty, Daisy & Lewis in the image name, who I discovered is a band. You can check them out here.  

Anonymous Content 9 

It's my birthday month, so naturally an 'annual' collage is in my plan. Totems abound - crow, octopi & such and this year, the trees of Forsyth Park in Savanah were still much with me and provided the background.

e @ birthday

Being away is nice. Being home just nice. Fortunate me. ꩜

Till next time.

 

Birthday Totems and Fond Memories

March is my annual birthday collage time.  I have certain themes and totems that appear in many of these birthday collages, but naturally, it's always a different mix. Totems are evocative and perhaps some of these will speak to and for you as well.

Birthday Totems Collage

My cousin Marianne sent me a 1950's photo of our Uncle Carmen with her, my sister and I and cousin Marguerite. I don't know exactly where or when this was taken. The saturated colors were in the original photos.  I often include incongruous elements in my work, but the train here actually has meaning to me, as Uncle Carmen had a large model train layout in his basement. 

Uncle Carmen was my favorite uncle; I always felt close to him. It was interesting working on this collage, as all the feelings of closeness and tenderness would flow, but very few actual memories of events or places with him. I'll happily embrace the feelings sans memories.

Uncle Carmen and The Girls collage

    Till another time.

Happy Birthday! Happy Spring! White on White!

Our time away was great, but being home is as they say,  it's own kind of wonderful. Many things to attend to to get back in the groove, but happy to be here.

Each year I do my own birthday collage and one of my gifts to myself is that I compile an annual book of my collages and cards.  Both are fun to do and it's always interesting to see what is revealed in hindsight.

e birthday 2022 collage 

Octopi are often an element in my collage and I often use octopi hair on 'avatars' of myself.  This collage was almost finished, when my husband gave me for my birthday an amazing replica of an ancient Minoan pot - famous for their Octopi imagery-  produced by a museum in Greece.  It was the perfect finishing element of the collage.

Crows are another element I often use and I consider the Crow a menaingful totem in my life. But at an earlier time, when I was doing work with Wendy Ashley, an astrologer who anchored her work in mythology, she saw the Hare or Rabbit as a totem.  In some myths, the Hare is seen as the messenger between realms, moving by moonlight between the human world and the Otherworld.  Recently I was moved to add rabbits to some collages.  So I am welcoming Hare into the present.

The idea of this collage came to me in a dream - a Crow-Hare icon.  As she emerged, I felt she was in the fae or fairy realm and her name, Nix,  popped up as I completed the collage.  She anchors Hare, who is the stronger and more wild rabbit and Crow.  Ironically, I completed her on Easter, which I see as linked to the ancient goddess of Spring, Eostre.  

The eggs are Ukranian 'Pysanka' eggs, a tradition going back prior to Christianity.  The eggs are meant as memories or good wishes, prayers. 'Pysanka' means to write upon, and the designs are drawn or painted with wax and then dyed.  I was really drawn to the one on the upper left with the golden symbol. I looked it up and it represented Freedom, so appropos at this time.

Spring - Nix the Crow-Hare Fairy collage

Sometimes themes appear from circumstance.  'White on White' was inspired by the members gallery theme for May at SVAC - the Shenandoah Valley Arts Center.   The background image, the Heritage On Main  restaurant, had apparently recently been painted white and I noticed it just as I was thinking about a white-themed collage.  It's always nice when the Multiverse collaborates with you.  There are some puns on white in this little grouping and some surprise players.  The happy couple are Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter on their wedding day in 1946.

Till next time. 

Mums, Donuts and Fish

I love all things Octo, which I got connected to from my son, who recently reminded me that Cuttlefish are pretty cool too.  

 

Octomum collage

 

My friend Jess, lovely muse, inspires me once again.  I told her I think she has great angles and her selfies really capture them in an 'artsy' way.  She wasn't sure about all that, but is happy to inspire me.

 

Donuts and Bulldog With Jess

Jess has just opened a new venture to inspire creativity in others too.  Check out her new studio/shop Paint It Orange [orangepaints.com]  in, you got it, Orange, Virginia. 

I came across a cache of vintage tattooed ladies. And quite tattooed they are. A world of their own.  All the images were in black and white but a bit of colorizing, amplifying and they are aglow in their true colors. 

Tattooed Ladies Among Fish

The large fish background is actually a photo of a feature wall in a restaurant.  The happy goldfish joined the crowd and they are the final images i got from my friends at Mischief Circus.

Two Crows and an Octopus walk into a bar

Ok. I couldn't resist the title - and why should I?? But we do have crows and octopi. These are my last collages [except for cards] of 2020.  Not particularly end-of-year significant, but just a bit.

Crows are my totem, an energy that brings me to closer connection with the 'other' in the world, to more than you can see, to sensing awareness, the interconnection of things.

I find that Crows often emerge in my work when I am feeling overwhelmed, in over my head, too much to bear and they bring with them a integrating effect.  Some collages carry a specific story, others do not.

Two Crows stands as a symbol of Crow energy.  She carries symbols, some personal to me, others not. She stands tall and strong.

Two Crows

Crows Don't Fly At Night emerged from a dream message.  I was lying awake in the middle of the night, thinking about things I needed to do, manage, handle.  I heard the message 'Crows don't fly at night', which I took as a reminder that I couldn't actually take any action in the middle of the night about the things I was ruminating over; to let it go, no flying at night.

Crows Don't Fly At Night

Some time ago my son had an affection for Octopi and I began using them in cards and collages for him, but along the way, I adopted Octopi as my own totem.  They are smart, clever, strong animals who adapt to their environment in amazing ways.  And I like to see them in settings where they are incongruous.   

Retro Octo Girls is just a fun, optimistic collage.  It began as 'anonymous content' collage - no specific theme -  when I found the Retro woman on the left. Other elements caught my eye and then Ocotpi became the cohesive element.

Retro Octo Girls