My Barn Burned Down

Archive for October, 2009

I am now taking commissions for pet portraits and have updated the page dedicated to this endeavor. I so love painting them and hope to do some cats and birds as well as dogs. I have five in the works right now and should be uploading them this weekend. My sister is a vet in Sierra Vista, AZ and will be giving out my postcards. It’s exciting! I have kept my prices low to begin and so I hope you’ll take advantage of me – the prices won’t change for the rest of 2009.   In my internet marketing course I have also finally learned how to activate certain “plug-ins” on this blog so that the search engines find me AND you get the opportunity to Twitter this, Digg this, whatever means you use to share. Isn’t the internet amazing? Back to the easel now….

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Crescent Moon/Rainbow Sky

I am collecting reference photos of the moon as I would like to make a series of paintings featuring her many manifestations. This painting was started some weeks ago and I got busy finishing the German Shepherd and a few other pet paintings, but last night, driving home from Annapolis, there she was again, bright in the blue sky surrounded by unusual (for suburban DC) red, pink, violet clouds at sunset. It reminded me of how much I loved living in Arizona where the big sky and fiery sunsets were common, but never became mundane. I was moved to get this out and finish it, in order to spend more time with the sky.  My sister was visiting from Arizona and we were having dinner in Annapolis, where she used to live on the Chesapeake Bay. I asked her if living in the desert made her miss the water and she said no, it was space the Bay gave her and the desert does the same. I realized the big sky is what I’m drawn to, whether over desert or water.  Space to breathe! Space to stretch the mind.

20% of proceeds from the sale of this painting will go to the Montgomery County Humane Society.

CLICK TO BID

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Sometimes watching the news is disheartening. This quote came in my email box today and was a good reminder to stay the course of compassion.

Rob Preece is an excellent author and you would probably enjoy his book as well.

1,000 Armed Buddha of Compassion: Chenresig

Dharma Quote of the Week

The story is told that when Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of compassion, was looking at the lives of human beings upon this planet, he saw how much pain and suffering we inflict upon each other, and for a moment his compassion faltered. He almost abandoned his vow to liberate us from suffering. At that instant, his body exploded into a thousand pieces, represented in the image of the thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara. If this can happen to the figure who, in Buddhism, most exemplifies compassion, then perhaps we can be forgiven for not always finding it easy to sustain a compassionate heart in the face of so much suffering in the world.

We may live in times when material, economic, and scientific progress is moving at a rate never before seen, yet our capacity to live peacefully alongside each other seems to remain elusive. When confronted with the constant evidence of so much brutality and corruption present in the world, whether this is seen on the news or experienced closer to home, it is common to feel a sense of anger and outrage, and to feel powerless to do anything to change the ignorance, greed, and hatred that motivate most of the atrocities our fellow humans inflict upon each other. Are we, individually or collectively, able to go beyond the dominance of our instinctual selfishness that reaps so much harm?

…Whatever spiritual tradition we may be part of, if we wish to live our lives with greater openness to others, and with the courage and heart to cope with adverse conditions, we have much to learn from the path of the bodhisattva. The bodhisattva, sometimes translated as “the awakening warrior,” dedicates his or her life to the welfare of others and is willing to face the challenges of life to do so. The bodhisattva’s way of life does not lead to a spiritual escape from the reality of the world. Rather, the bodhisattva cultivates the capacity to live within the raw reality of suffering on the ground and transform life’s adverse circumstances into a path of awakening. A bodhisattva makes a clear decision to remain embodied and in relationship to life even while reaching states of awareness that go far beyond our normal reality. Such a person is said to renounce the peace of nirvana and overcome the fear of samsara. What gives this attitude to life a particular significance is that it recognizes that only through fully awakening our innate wholeness can we achieve the greatest benefit to others.

Central to this approach to life is a quality of intention called bodhichitta, often translated as “the awakening mind.” The awakening mind is most often described as the clear, compassionate intention to attain the state of buddhahood for the welfare of all sentient beings. While “the awakening mind” may seem like a relatively simple phrase, its actual psychological, emotional, and social implications are huge. It is a reorientation of the whole of an individual’s direction and meaning in life, rooted in a deep sense of compassion and responsibility towards the welfare of the world.

–from The Courage to Feel: Buddhist Practices for Opening to Others by Rob Preece, published by Snow Lion Publications

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Acrylic on board, 6x6 inches.

I did it! I wanted to do “a painting a day” as I follow the Daily Painters Blog and can’t believe they can do that! In the middle of being frustrated over the German Shepherd painting, I checked my e-mail and voila! A new challenge from about.com/painting: a butterfly. Since my 6×6 little boards had just come in, I thought, “An excuse to take a break from the dog!” This was fun, quick and I got to play with acrylic glazing. Hard to see in the photo, but all of the small areas are really filled with various tones of color that give it a lot of depth. I love glazing!

CLICK TO BID ON EBAY!

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Donation to www.magsr.org

FINALLY have finished this painting! I kept getting it to a point, then would mess it up and have to redo again. As always there are things I’d like to improve, but alas, the deadline has come to send it off to the fundraiser.

I really hope it brings in some dinero at the silent auction/BBQ for the Mid-Atlantic GermanShepherd Rescue.

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