Creatively Invoking The New Year with Sorority, Intention, Incantations, Stitchery & Felt

All of Us CC's photo taken by Erin with Annamaria's Camera- thanks Erin!

I was fortunate this New Year's eve to have an opportunity to get together with a portion of my CREATIVELY CONSCIOUS Sisters (some of the original collection of women from my women's art retreat this past summer) and do a crafty version of a New Year's Invocation.

My gift to the women were little precut and personalized embroidered heart sachets that had charms, wishes and love stitched onto them.

One of the unsewn, unsealed, unstuffed New Years sachets I made for the Ladies of CC

As part of the process, I had each woman consider what the people, places and things that impede their daily dreams and goals are and on that sheet of paper physically write and name those things as what I like to call our 'Chief Censors'.

Beginning the incantation photo by CC Sharon

After that we wrote down what our deepest desire was for this up and coming new year...not so much a resolution but more something we wanted to see realized and manifested in our lives.

I wanted us to ritualistically experience a metaphor for being released by that chief censor into action towards our deepest desire. So I brought a stainless steel bowl in which to individually 'torch' the chief censor and watch it burn into ash and into the ether while asking to be released from it verbally. Our Burning Bowl photo by CC Sharon

We rolled up our our deepest desire and placed it along with stuffing and fragrant filling into the core of our heart sachet. Each woman went through the process of physically stitching her deepest desire into her heart....

the unstuffed sachet I made for CC Kesha CC Kesha Sewing her sachetCC Khadine Sewing her sachet CC's Khadine & Sharon working on their sachet's together CC Annamaria's sachet The Other side of CC Annamaria's Sachet

"Wishing you all a wonderful New Year!!"-Amarettogirl

Inspiring Artist You should Know: Denis Darzacq

Photo BY Denis Darzacq from his Hyper series Denis Darzacq is one of my top all-time favorite living artists. He is a French photographer that I would love love to interview (if I ever could be so honored). He is virally known for his most recent series 'Hyper', but I was introduced to him on the blogosphere with his earlier series entitled, 'La Chute (the Fall)'. Hyper is seemingly a continuation of his work in which he:

asks young street dancers from working class neighborhoods in Paris and Rouen to perform in the aisles of the "hypermarché," the massive supermarkets and global retail chains that have supplanted smaller shops in France and in many countries around the globe. Suspended in mid-air, these floating bodies bring an otherworldliness to common consumerism. Like baroque figures, the dancers rise and fall either victims or victors against the absolutism of globalized commerce. This opposition between being and having, between the person and the environment - a central theme in Darzacq's practice - questions the human cost of materialism.

La Chute was inspired by the 2005 riots in the housing projects ("banlieues") around the outskirts of Paris where many young, disenfranchised, and mostly immigrant inhabitants were blamed for much of the unrest. Like Hyper, the photographs present dreamlike scenes of hovering bodies but in this case they are contrasted against the sparseness of the desolate landscape. La Chute is a meditation on uncertainty, possibility, and desire in the face over overwhelming adversity.

LA CHUTE N° 09 BY Denis Darzacq

Last year I was in a two woman show with fellow artist Nova Gutierrez in the 2/20 Gallery in Chelsea, New York run and owned by Miguel Herrera. The theme of the exhibit revolved around our interpretation of the title of the show, the words 'Unearthly Woman'. Many (not all) of the pieces that I made for that show were loosely inspired by Denis Darzacq and his photographic work.

The Laurence Miller gallery states about Denis Darzacq's work:

The photographs explore the tension between being and having, between the human body and the built environment. They offer a fresh, witty and intensely colorful commentary on global consumerism and freedom of spirit.

I did not use Denis' images as that is not what I mean by inspired.

In fact, that is definitely a topic for future art-making posts, since it is sad and frustrating and much too frequent how many artists struggling for their own content can confuse inspiration with outright copying.

However, using his ethereal capture of frozen moments of the fall, I began to develop my own picture references of the female figure falling as a metaphor for my displacement within dual and competing cultures and locations (place and time) that I feel as a Nuyorican but also as my gender explorations are redefined from that of my biological sex.

Falling to me is a fascinating subject one in which even NPR's show Radio Lab has explored (that I would highly recommend listening to). Falling is at once a loss of control as it is a release of control and it is a fascinating state of altering time. I wanted my translations to be quick and loose, as opposed to my usually tight illustrated style, and done with unresolved marks that pushed the flavor of frozen motion. In my humble opinion, it is that frozen motion that Denis Darzacq captures so masterfully.

one of the charcoal and acrylic paintings for the Unearthly Woman Exhibit one wall of my work for UNEARTHLY WOMAN from last year's Chelsea NY exhibit- quick charcoal & acrylic paintings a scale shift as this is one of the smallest pntgs compared to the larger ones by me

What I'm hoping to convey today with this post is how an artist and their vision can be a catalyst to developing your own unique response and to exploring a communal idea uniquely. In addition, I hope to introduce you to this outstanding artist, his work, and process as he has now made it to one of my top creative minds list.

I also found this fantastic video that shows Denis at work with his process and I thought it an excellent addition to this inspiring artist you should know post:

Creatively Conscious Women's Art Retreat Continued For the Holidays!

My womens art gathering from back in August (Click HERE to see the post about it)has continued and is giving birth to some new opportunities! Sharon will be hosting another one (a Ceramics one) next and hopefully with some deliberate intentions on my part we will have our over night retreat soon! We need to name ourselves still, but so far Creatively Conscious has stuck!

Sharon reading her quote Busy Bees - Mandi, Linda and Esther (my momma) Kesha working on her design Sharon working on a silkscreen with glitter Sharon's card The Art & Design Girls (highschool mates)

Altered Book Pages

This weekend I get to start my holiday vacation with a blast- the continuum of my Creatively Conscious Ladies Art Class! During our last August Retreat day we started Altered Books, which can be very much like a sketchbook or more highly resolved pieces of art. I just realized there are many pages of which I never shared here- so I thought it seemed to be a fine time to do so.

My altered book cover by m.diaz Altered Pagealtered page by m.diaz matador altered pages by m.diaz Barren Queen altered page 1 by m.diazBarren Queen altered page2 by m.diaz altered page by m.diaz Ausencia altered page by m.diazRue de Reves altered page by m.diaz

Would have been nice if I would have shown you what the book looked like before I messed with it! Well hope you enjoy!

Ciao- Amarettogirl

So Excited! The Karma Seed LAUNCH is today! And I have MINE!

Overview- What is The Karma Seed

The Karma Seed UPDATE _ KARMA SEED NO LONGER IN SERVICE! THIS IS AN OLD POST! KARMA SEED enabled individuals to have positive, meaningful impacts on the lives of many, with minimal effort and cost. The Karma Seed was based on the concept of ‘pay it forward’, but updated the idea to fit the culture of the 21st century. The concept of ‘pay it forward’ is simple: A person does a random act of kindness for a stranger, but rather than returning the favor, that stranger instead ‘pays forward’ the good will by doing a random act of kindness for someone else. Unfortunately, an inherent problem with the traditional ‘pay it forward ‘system is accountability. There is no mechanism to track whether or not the favor is passed on.

Our Karma Seed package from former student Chris Loh

That is where The Karma Seed comes in. Karma Seeds are individually numbered plastic cards that can be databased and tracked online. Seeds were once able to be purchased online—$3.00 for a single seed, $5 for 2 seeds, and $10 for 5 seeds. HOWEVER UPDATE _ NO LONGER IN SERVICE!!! After a customer purchases they are no longer receiving seed cards, you can no longer register it online and hold onto it until an opportunity to help someone (preferably a complete stranger) arises. After the favor is completed, the customer hands his or her Karma Seed to the recipient of the favor,

asks them to visit the website where they can briefly share the details of the favor and asks them to pass the seed on by ‘paying forward’ the favor to another stranger.

The Karma Seed is ideally transferred from stranger to stranger until the card is physically destroyed or lost.

A consumer might question the purpose of purchasing a Karma Seed in the first place. Why pay to do a favor for a stranger? Why buy knowing it will be given it away. And, after all, a Karma Seed is simply a piece of plastic, with no obvious extrinsic value.

It is the potential for something amazing to result from that mere piece of plastic that makes a Karma Seed so powerful and desirable.

Embedded in The Karma Seed is the concept of ‘The Butterfly Effect’. ‘The Butterfly Effect’ is, “a metaphor that encapsulates the concept of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory namely that small differences in the initial condition of a dynamical system produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.” More simply, in the context of The Karma Seed the butterfly effect describes how the random act of kindness can result in something much larger that benefits hundreds of people.

So consider being a part of this and check out the Karma Seed Site as soon as possible.

Art & Design in San Diego Shots

Here is a creative glimpse of my time in San Diego which was like a scene out of the Fast and the Furious, but I packed a whallup out of the short time there.

Love the time difference, the weather and the people. In fact, I actually miss it! So here goes: restaurant across the street from Scott White Gallery Little Italy San Diego me in front of Scott White GalleryFurniture Shop Gallery Shot gallery shot Art & Design Bldg gallery shot Public Art detail shot art piece for window display @ the Contemporary Museum of Art San Diego