I'd never consider myself a book critic or reviewer, but when a book comes around that I adore, I wanna shout from the rooftops. And until someone lends me a rooftop or two, this blog'll have to do. Let me grab my bullhorn and away we'll go.

First up:
Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa by Hans Silvester 

Take a love of fashion, nature, color and all things tribal, put them in a blender, and you'd have Hans Silvester's new book "Natural Fashion." Though one of my guilt pleasures is Project Runway, I'd happily skip an episode to spend time in this book. The adornments are incredible and fill my head with ideas for art and design, but the people? The faces? Simply sublime!

 

 

Living in Morocco by Barbara Stoeltie

I am fascinated with Morocco lately. Dunno what it is. Well, ok, I kind of do. I'm entranced by the architecture. Intrigued by their landscapes. Intoxicated by the colors, shapes and styles of their design heritage. But when I think of Morocco, words escape me. I'm flooded only with emotion, a heady lust for all things beautiful, sensual and ornate. What I cannot express in words, this book expresses in photos. Ten minutes with this book and you'd understand my obsession. I dare you not to salivate.

 

 

Tricia Guild Pattern: Using Pattern to Create Sophisticated, Show-stopping Interiors

Love love love this book. A celebration of all things colorful, patterned and decorative. When I get depressed that I live in an adobe whose landlord is not fond of  paint (hence my pale, bare walls) I dive into this book. Ideas flow. Inspiration sparks. Even if I don't have the time to then rush to the studio table, I feel almost as much joy as if I had. I mean, with pics like this, can ya feel the squeal from here?

 

I've always loved themes of Beauty and the Beast. Above is a sneak peek of a collage I'm working on. Lots more detail and hand-work to come before its finished. It took lots of twists and turns (and has already morphed into something else since this photo was taken) and has taught me much already about staying open. I feel really joyful when I look at it. Must be those radiant colors. I'm such a sucker for red, white and and turquoise.

We've had the fortune of being the subject for two articles in the upcoming edition of Digital Studio Magazine (by Sommerset). While this is fantastic news, I have to admit it's a bit of a mind-tosser. (Not to be confused with a salad tossing, which is a whole other thing altogether.) What flips my brain is that during the process of interviewing, we've been asked to discuss our creative process from a technical point of view. I'm having to write the answers to the questions, so I'm struggling to put into words a process that seems ineffable. I mean you really have to stop and think about explaining to someone who doesn't breathe what it's like to take a breath. We take for granted what we do in creative flow. Most of the time it's as natural and as involuntary as breathing. We simply don't think about it. Know what I mean?

If you're creating from your heart, chances are you begin with an idea and follow it in a bit of a blissful (even if somewhat frustrated) haze rather than crystal clear awareness easily translatable into a step-by-step process. So here I am attempting to explain things like creating textures in Photoshop when, so often, they just kind of accidentally morph on the screen while we're playing around. Happy accidents are the corner stone of our art. If people knew how much we create while dangling from the seat of our knickers, they might be in for a shocker. Or not. We fly through air, sometimes with the greatest of ease, sometimes with atomic wedgies, but we do fly by the seat of the pants and we like it that way. I'm not sure that there's any other way for us anti-anal retentive rejects.

So I did what I could. It'll have to be good enough. I mean, on some level, the art's gotta speak for itself, yes? Never mind I'm a wordsmith and verbage is my trade. Sometimes even I have to resort to hand gestures and smoke signals. Some things just surpass language.

These are some of the images to be featured in the articles.

Look for it in the September edition of Sommerset's Digital Studio Magazine. By the way, we're also in the current edition of the mag. See that cover up there? The head of our "What You Think on Grows" is at the top of their cover and the original appears inside with a little "how to" section.

Things happen to me in threes. Well, not all the time, but sometimes. Like this time.

I love the word Abracadabra. Always have. Silas and I made a greeting card for our 2009 inspirational line with Tree Free Greetings, and the card reads "Amen Abracadabra Amen." Kind of intended to be a nod at JoAnn Harris's book Chocolat, but also a tipping of the hat to all the people of the world who mix magic and miracles, faith and fairy tales.

A few months later I'm sitting in Susan Wooldrige's poetry class. We're all calling out words to put on the blackboard, words we'll later use in poetry exercises. I call out one of my favorite words "abracadabra" and Susan, while writing it on the board, says "Did you know that the original meaning of this word represents true magic, not hocus pocus?" I sit up straighter in my chair. "It's original meaning is 'I will create, as I say.' " Wow.

The very next day, ruminating on my new insight into the enchanted word, I am walking the streets of Port Townsend, Washington, and turn into one of my favorite gift stores. I'd never noticed the name before, and later realized it was because they had never put signs out. This the owner told me, as she noticed me snapping up all these pictures. "My husband finally decided to make our logo sign," she said. "And he went a little overboard." And now of course I have to write about ABRACADABRA because I've had a sign. Or three.

 

What knocks my socks off here is that ABRACADABRA has, like so many other original, empowered words, been diminished in stature and relegated to Bugs Bunny cartoons and newspaper comic strips. Yet the original meaning far surpasses hocus pocus and speaks of the essence of human power, our ability to create with our thoughts and words.

From Wikipedia: The term originated from the Aramaic. The original Aramaic phrase was used with a Hebrew prefix Alef rather than the latter version with an Ayin. The difference was that the original meaning was "I will create, as I say," while the latter was "What was said has been done."

Like the word ABRACADABRA, the notion that we create as we think is an ancient one. Sacred texts, such as the bible, knew this: "As a man thinketh, so is he." And the emerald tablet, predating Christianity, states "The formation of the microcosm (mind) is in accordance with the formation of the macrocosm (matter)" inferring that what we create in our thoughts translates to the manifestations of form around us.

Do you realize what this means?

We are now tying our notions of magic, of creating something out of nothing or transmuting it through command, to our intentions and words. Law of Attraction teachers have been telling us this for years and spiritual mystics have been trying to clarify this truth since time out of mind. The magic wands, genie bottles and puffs of smoke and can stay in the Bugs Bunny world, but the creating of reality through our words and deeds? That's tangible magic and was never intended to be cartoon fare. It's meant for our realm and it's designed to empower us as creators.

I dunno 'bout you, but I tend to forget how inherently magical I am. I forget that the power is mine to create my reality and to allow my dreams to come true. I intend on turning ABRACADABRA into a mantra, to remind myself that my will is the genie in the bottle, and my word is its command. Next time we find ourselves in need of change, hoping to create something more joyous or liberating or healthy, let's remember Dorothy. The shoes and the power were with her all along. So it is with the will and the word.

As we think, so we live. As we say, so it becomes.

Abracadabra.
Amen.

 

 

Art. It's the cure for what ails ya. Swear it's true. The past few days have contained some overwhelming moments. And so, in the midst of it all, I plunked my not-so-happy ass down at the studio table and began playing with shapes and colors. Soon, this lady appeared. Maybe she's stalking me, 'cuz I swear I've seen her outside in the rose garden.

Dunno what she'll turn into, as she's far from complete. But she aleady intrigues me. It's almost noon here, and that means it's time for me to put the paints and pens away. We're off to forage for food and, if I get my way, this afternoon will see us on the ski lift. The daredevil Duirmouse has asked to see the top of Taos Mountain.

I've been saying for some time that I wanted to feature guest editors on Message from the Muse. You know, other creative visionaries who are contributing to the world's inspiration pool. Aimee Stewart is one of those people, and also a great friend of Duirwaigh, so I thought she'd be perfect for our first guest editor.

You'll find her humor, insight and enthusiasm a kindred thing, welcome and wonderful as home.
~Angi 

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No Place Like Home

During that bleak time in U.S. history known as The Great Depression, there was something called The Works Progress Administration, or the New Deal. In short, the government created an opportunity for artists, writers and musicians to put their collective muses to work in bolstering up the minds and hearts of people who had little inspiration left in their lives, while at the same time creating an opportunity for artists to put a little money back into their ragged pockets.

At the heart of the WPA was a need to capture the moment on film, in writing, on canvas, and in melody. They were to take what was happening, and document it in a way that served both as a historic record and a celebration to the determination and grit that kept people alive and the tiny coals of hope aglow.

Even beyond the government sponsored program, artists of all kinds heard the call of need and desperation. People needed escape. They wanted something that could transport them in that dark hour, to a place where their mind's could take flight, their hearts could mend, and they could forget the growling in their stomachs and the tears that stained their children's cheeks.

It was during this time, in 1939, that The Wizard of Oz came to the silver screen. With it's opening of a black and white life for Dorothy in the dustbowl of Kansas to the sudden sensory tsunami of color as she was whisked away to Oz, it was an epic journey that would make people's hearts burst open with possibility if only they would believe in it.

The message behind all of this is a poignant one. In a time when Big Business grinds to a halt and the hands of hard working individuals wring in worry and despair, it is a rallying cry for artists everywhere. The gift of muse and creativity that comes to us freely can be the glimpse of color through sepia tinted glasses, and the melody that lifts tear stained eyes. It can be the crazy cartoon that still makes children laugh despite the worn threads of their clothes and the worries that are beyond their years.

Art knows no limits. It does not need Wall Street to buy and sell it's heart. It does not need oil barons to back it's worth. It is oblivious to the deception of mortgage companies, credit card telemarketers, and gas titans. It exists, because it is the very essence of the world we live in. It is the rose that continues to bloom in drought. It is the blazing sunset that paints the sky over a closed factory. It is the dance of mist and sparkle of frost over homes in foreclosure. It is the diamond sky and pearl moon above a war torn city. Art exists, because our world exists. Our universe exists. We exist. And to those of us whose lifeblood runs in rainbows through our veins and our every breath is a technicolor sigh, it is our turn to be the infusion of hope in these anemic times. We don't have to wait for a government to set up a program. We don't have to wait to see our neighbor in tears. We know what to do. It is in our very nature to be empathetic to the shift in global consciousness. Now is the time to grab our paint brushes, our pens, our trumpets and blast away the tornado twisting at our back door with a rush of color, light, and song.

The tornado is not here to take us to Oz. We are here to bring Oz to the tornado, banishing it away with a click of our ruby red shoes, singing and dancing all the way home.

~Aimee