The Artist's Creed by Jan Phillips (2002)http://www.janphillips.com

I've been quite absent from blog-posting all of September - and even stretching way way back to the end of July ...

But this morning, I feel compelled to post this: The Artist's Creed by Jan Phillips
{you can visit her website at www.janphillips.com }.

I BELIEVE I AM WORTH THE TIME IT TAKES TO CREATE

whatever I feel called to create.

I BELIEVE THAT MY WORK IS WORTHY OF ITS OWN SPACE,

which is worthy of the name Sacred.

I BELIEVE THAT, WHEN I ENTER THIS SPACE,

I HAVE THE RIGHT TO WORK IN SILENCE, UNINTERRUPTED,

for as long as I choose.

I BELIEVE THAT THE MOMENT I OPEN MYSELF

TO THE GIFTS OF THE MUSE,

I open myself to the Source of All Creation

and become One with the Mother of Life itself.

I BELIEVE THAT MY WORK IS JOYFUL,

USEFUL AND CONSTANTLY CHANGING,

flowing through me like a river with no beginning and no end.

I BELIEVE THAT WHAT IT IS I AM CALLED TO DO WILL MAKE ITSELF KNOWN

when I have made myself ready.

I BELIEVE THAT THE TIME I SPEND CREATING MY ART IS AS PRECIOUS

as the time I spend giving to others.

I BELIEVE THAT WHAT TRULY MATTERS IN THE MAKING OF ART

is not what the final piece looks like or sounds like,

not what it is worth or not worth,

but what NEWNESS gets added to the Universe

in the process of the piece itself becoming.

I BELIEVE THAT I AM NOT ALONE IN MY ATTEMPTS TO CREATE,

and that once I begin the work, settle into the strangeness,

the words will take shape, the form find life, and the spirit take flight.

I BELIEVE THAT AS THE MUSE GIVES TO ME,

SO DOES SHE DESERVE FROM ME:

faith, mindfulness, and enduring commitment.

-- 2002, Jan Phillips

COULD any one of us have said it better? I think not ... this piece spoke to me, loud and clear, the first time I saw it -- I was at a workshop at Ellen Speert's amazing CALIFORNIA CENTER FOR CREATIVE RENEWAL right here in Cardiff, California. I just stumbled across it again this morning, clearing out my office. {you see, there really ARE benefits to sifting thru the piles!}

This just SCREAMED at me to pay attention to it. In a very positive, very good, very challenging way. A loving scream, if there is such a thing.

Don't give up on your art, my friends.

Do. Not. Give. Up. On. Your. Art.

-- Princess Magpie
September 27, 2009

Transparent Delights in San Clemente

TRANSPARENCY: Quality or state of being transparent.

TRANSPARENT: Having the property of transmitting rays of light, so that bodies can be seen through; pervious to light; diaphonous; pellucid. Poetic meaning: Luminous; bright.

{definitions courtesy of my mother's 1956 copy of Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary}

Friday afternoon brought the much-anticipated adventure I may have mentioned in a prior post ... an evening workshop at SAN CLEMENTE ART SUPPLY {in a vintage white Spanish-style building, that looks smaller than it is - once inside, it positively sprawled in different directions - being what seems to have been an old house (?), it has ROOMS, and in each one, treasures are to be found}. You can visit them here: http://www.scartsupply.com/

workshop teacher LINDA BLINN wrote this book ...

As a birthday treat for my friend Cynthia, who has been my cohort on several other artistic journeys {Scrappin' at Dusty's, where CY made the most incredibly beautiful cards; a Watercolor Journal workshop with Jane LaFazio back in 2007; an Artist's Retreat held in January of this year at the California Center for Creative Renewal}, I signed us up for Linda Blinn's {third & last in a Series} FRIDAY NIGHT MIXED MEDIA SALON ... the subject for the evening: "TRANSPARENCY. "

I fixed these little bags for our supplies for class ...

We worked with antique optical lenses {the clever lens' that the doc uses to test your eye-sight, asking you "better?" / "worse?" with each change of a lens - you know the ones!} ... we worked with glass tags ... we worked with glass slides ... we worked with clear transparencies, both smooth-sided and rough-on-1-side ... and we played with FOIL. And ALCOHOL INK. And Sparkling H2O's. Bliss.

here's my sea-green glass tag, with old text behind ...

left is MY foray w/ Alcohol Inks; right is one that I rescued from the trash :-) ... look at the accidental "heart" image on it !!!

First we did an image transfer, taking an ink-jet printed IMAGE that was on a 1-side-rough 3M transparency sheet, and we 'moved' that image onto a piece of white cardstock, using Golden's GEL MEDIUM.

Left, the image transfer

Right, side by side with the colored transparency

Next, we 'colored' the back side of the used transparency with Alcohol Ink &/or the Sparkling H2O's - at our discretion. Linda encouraged the class to EXPERIMENT, to try new things, to take risks. Tonight was not so much about a "finished product" as it was about "exploration". So we did.

Linda provided us with some great old pages out of a book of poetry, so we could overlay our transparency images {or other things} on the text ... more fun.

I'm going to use this sepia-toned image of a woman walking down a tree-lined road over "Action", a poem that's quite lovely:

Some re-printed from their transparencies after they'd colored them -- wish I'd thought of that!

We played with Judikin's DIAMOND GLAZE, 'cause that's what one uses to adhere an acetate transparency to a piece of glass -- it dries clear, it's self-leveling, and it's very strong.

We used a product from Creative Imaginations that was designed by Christine Adolph, called "Sticky2" -- one uses the image like a rub-on, then a clear top layer also peels off, leaving behind the image in blue, and that's a STICKY surface. One then applies FOIL to the top, with the color side facing you {yes, it's counter-intuitive to do it like that, but trust me ... that's how it's done!}, you burnish the foil onto the sticky image, and VOILA - a gorgeous foil design. I loved this! A classmate gave me a page of color images he had photo-copied so I could play around ... I created this (below) using one of those images {an old postcard} and the Sticky2 image of a bird in a heart ...

Below, what's left of the foil

If you live in So Cal, or find yourself visiting here, do yourself a favor and stop in to shop at San Clemente Art Supply -- the people are lovely, and the store has cool things for artists of all kinds.

Coming up soon - Linda Blinn will be teaching her "Books within a Book" all-day workshop. Visit the SCAS website for details and to sign up. We saw the inspiration book for the project, and several of Linda's samples ... WOW. So many possibilities!

Have a beautiful day, and remember: Do Something Creative Every Day {the motto of Paper Source}.

-- Princess Magpie

More weblinks to places & products mentioned herein:

www.ScrappinAtDustys.com {scrapbooking retreats in La Quinta, California}

http://www.artretreats.com/ {California Center for Creative Renewal in Cardiff, CA}

http://www.judikins.com/ {Judikin's DIAMOND GLAZE}

http://www.creativeimaginations.us/store/20786.php {Sticky2 by Christine Adolph, from Creative Imaginations}

http://www.rangerink.com/products/prod_alcoholink_adirondack.htm {alcohol inks by Tim Holtz for Ranger}

http://youratcstore.com/ {Your ATC Store - an online resource for many of the products I talk about on my blog ... including this post - Lisa at Your ATC Store is fabulous to work with}

http://www.stampington.com/html/foil_kits.html {The Shoppe at Somerset, a division of Stampington and Company, is where I found the FOIL KITS ... ordered mine today!}

HAPPY EXPERIMENTING and SHOPPING for ART SUPPLIES !!!