I am sorry I have been so silent. Life and work are just so madly and insanely busy right now. I am striving to complete the last of the writing and art for Oracle of the Wisdoms. The deadline I have set for myself is January 1st, and with much writing and painting still to do, it's going to be a toughie to meet. However, I would love to greet the new year with nothing else on my desk but the tarot.

For those who are wondering, my book, Dreams of Magic, is now at the printers. It will be available for purchase in first half of the New Year. I'm no longer even going to try and give a specific time frame as I have now learned that with publishing it will be available when I have a copy of it in my hands and not before then ... I will most likely begin to take pre-orders once I know the books have been shipped and are on their way to the warehouse here in Australia.

For now, I ask you to come celebrate the dawning of a new decade with me by taking the opportunity to win one of my original artworks. Come visit at Dreams of Gaia.

I would like to invite you to join in a new and exciting adventure for me. This coming weekend, I will be working for the very first time with two amazing and magickal women - Lucy Cavendish and Serene Conneeley - at the Triple Goddess (B13) stand at Sydney's Mind, Body, Spirit Festival.

Lucy Cavendish, the respected author of White Magic and Lost Lands, creator of enchanted oracles, and workshop facilitator, and Serene Conneeley, the visionary author of Seven Sacred Sites and A Magickal Journey, will be working their magic with me so that we may share some of the beauty and wonder of our creations with you.

There will be a number of original artworks, limited and open edition archival prints, giftwares, as well as Lucy and Serene's books, and copies of Mythic Oracle, Oracle of the Dragonfae and Wild Wisdom of the Faery Oracle available for purchase.

We'd love to meet you, so come by and say hello. Come share in our adventure, while enjoying one of the most amazing festival events to be experienced.

Below is a little more about the festival, taken from the MBS website ...

"It’s a fantastic fun day out, filled with new experiences, entertainment, learning, and expert advice.

At the Mind Body Spirit Festival, you can learn to conquer stress in minutes, discover the latest herbal supplements, or realise your psychic powers. Perhaps you'd like to know how to find your soul mate, enjoy the mysteries of tantric relationships, find that highly prized work-life balance, or balance your chakra.

There is something for everyone searching for a healthier and more fulfilling lifestyle. Your friends will love it!"

Thursday 5 November - Sunday 8 November 2009
Hall 1, Sydney Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour
10am - 7pm Daily

Prices:
Adults $16
Concession/Student $13
Children under 14 free

All Enquiries phone: 03 9276 5555

For those interested in attending, below is a half price ticket offer just for you. Print it out and present it at the ticket booth and get $8 off your adult ticket entry price.

Oh, I missed a week. It would appear that I cannot squeeze more than one journal entry into a week, and last week I wrote ‘Live Your Dream’ instead of my regular update. Forgive me? *wry grin*

Art

It’s been a challenging fortnight on the art front. I am working on a large 20”x40” canvas and it’s only the third time in ten years that I have, one, worked on canvas, and two, worked on anything this big. I am painting the largest fairy I have ever painted, and while I am enjoying the process, it’s a lot more challenging and time consuming than I thought it would be. I’ve been working on her upwards of five hours every day and so far I’ve been working on her for almost two weeks. My muse loves what I am doing, but she’s starting to itch and chafe a little. She wants the painting done, because there’s another she would like me to begin and complete before the first weekend in November.

That’s on top of the artworks I am painting in the evening by lamplight. I continue to work on the card illustrations for Oracle of Little Wisdoms at night. In the last fortnight I have painted three more – Learning, Giving, and Cleansing. I’m feeling a little unsure about Learning, and therefore have decided not to post her yet, but I am very happy with both Cleansing and Giving. They are both exactly as I wanted them to be. If you’ve not seen them yet, please be sure to look below at the end of this journal entry.

Website

After experiencing a great decline in sales from America, and an increase in local Australian sales, I decided that it is time to switch back to selling in Australian currency. So the big chore this week has been to reset all of my prices. I hope to have the store and the gallery completed by the end of the month so I can go live with it just before the Mind Body Spirit Festival in November.

Projects

Oracle of Little Wisdoms – Work continues slowly but steadily. The last few artworks fit so well with the deck. I still have the following cards to complete – Calling, Dreaming, Growth, Abundance, Leadership, Union, Choice, Fear, Natural Law, and Battle. The line works for each have been completed. It’s now just a process of painting one after the other until all are finished.

I have also decided to replace the much-maligned Beauty artwork with a cropped version of the fae in Silver Moss – the canvas I am working on. She is more suited, and more in keeping with my idea of what Beauty should represent.

Mind Body Spirit Festival – November, 2009 - There’s no backing out now. I have now paid for my share in the stall costs and so I am committed. *laughs nervously* I am delighted to be sharing space with the goddesses, Serene and Lucy. We’re going to have such an amazing stand, with art, oracle decks, books and meditation cds available for purchase.

And the next few weeks will see my brain flirt with the idea of exploding as I start the crazy process of making print and card stock. Thankfully, I already have a good half of the prints I am taking stashed under my bed, but I have a just as many still to print. I’ve ordered a fresh supply of clear bags, and this week I will stock up on ink and paper. Next week, I begin printing. Any suggestions as to what artworks I should make available?

Self

I’m feeling good. I had a scary bad reaction after the severe dust storms we experienced here recently – within 24 hours of the storm, my sinuses flared. Lymph nodes in front and behind my ears swelled up, as did my face. It’s taken a few weeks for the toxins to work their way back out of my body after a great deal of flushing with lots of water and antioxidants. It scared me for a while as I had to deal with random dizzy spells, unsettling sharp stabbing pains, popping in my ears, headaches and swelling, but thankfully it has now all subsided and, as mentioned before, I’m now feeling rather good, both physically … and emotionally.

My depression could be in remission again. I’ve been consistently happy now for a couple of weeks. I’m not wanting to jinx myself, but yes, things are looking brighter, and I have many wonderful friends to thank for the love and support they have given me over the last few months.

Future

As mentioned in my last update … I am not thinking of the distant future at the moment. I’m focused on three things – the website, the oracle and the Mind Body Spirit Festival. I have four weeks to have all three completed and prepared for. Nothing else matters right now.

xxx

A few days ago, I was told that I possessed talent. It’s a compliment, and I accept it graciously as one, but over the years I have come to understand that it is quite backhanded in nature as it infers that the one who is ‘talented’ has an ability that requires little work or effort for them to create something others find to be beautiful or skilfully executed.

Now I am not denying that there are many creative souls among us who are indeed naturally gifted. In many circumstances, they seem to come into the world with all fundamental knowledge of their ability carried from their past life and into the next. Beethoven is one such soul I believe came into his life with all of his knowledge intact, ready for him to craft the musical masterpieces that he created.

However, most of us are not born with a natural gift, instead, we are born with a calling, or we are called during our formative years.

We all know people who were drawn to their chosen fields early in life. There are doctors who knew as children that they wanted to be doctors. Children who knew they wanted to save and help animals and grew up to become Veterinarians. Children who instinctively rallied against injustice and wanted to make the world a better and fairer place for all. Yes, children often have big dreams of a bold and bright future, and sadly, many forget those dreams, believing them to be unattainable, or worse, they are discouraged by family and friend to follow what they believe to be a more ‘realistic’ career path.

But some choose to heed the call. I am one such soul. I knew at a very young age that I wanted to be an artist.

I was not born with any special gifts, but with a predisposition toward being creative. I did not start to draw any earlier than most children, and I began with scribble and stick figures just like everyone else.

I often laugh when I read other artist’s biographies and see the words, “I have been drawing since early childhood.”

They make it sound like this is something unusual. It’s not. Most children spend countless hours of their childhood drawing and painting. Childcare facilities, preschools, kindergarten, schools … they all dedicate at least part of their curriculum to drawing and painting and creating. So almost all children who are blessed to be able to attend school, or who have parents who nurture creativity, will have had access to pencils and paper, and those who don’t will often find the means. I know there were many times when I would draw things in the dirt with a stick, or scratch my mark with a stone onto stone. Those of us who are called, will often do whatever is necessary in order to follow the path we have been called to walk, but the truth is that most have had access to the same tools and the same opportunities.

It is our desire that sets us apart.

When I was around four years of age, my mother gave to me a book of Hans Christen Anderson fairy tales that she herself had been given as a child. Although I don’t recall seeing a single fairy among the pages, I did find myself filled with a certainty that one day I too would draw and paint and see my works within the pages of many books. Much to my mother’s dismay, I sealed my fate by drawing a stick figure in red pencil inside the first few pages. Over the years I spent countless hours drawing.

Practice makes perfect.

Again, I will say that I had no more natural ability than the next child. So what was it that set my work apart from other children? My drawing ability for my age was more advanced than other children, and I have always had a love for colour and used it well when I coloured with pencils and crayons. But it was not natural ability that set me apart. My work was better because I spent hours drawing and colouring in.

I spent hours practicing.

And so it was for the majority of my childhood. I possessed a desire to draw and paint that was strong within me. Not only that, I was given praise when I performed well. What child does not want or crave praise from family, teachers, and peers?

I did.

Drawing well became a lonely child’s means to win the praise and affection of others, and somewhere along the way, my motives became less clear, but the desire became even stronger.

When I was sixteen, my family moved from Queensland to Sydney, and I found myself exposed to young people who possessed awe-inspiring natural talent. They possessed an instinctual ability to take a photo and render the scene flawlessly with paint and brush without thought or effort. By comparison, my own abilities were lacking. I struggled with everything. My ‘still life’ works were often more surreal than realistic. I couldn’t draw people without having their faces look skewed and malformed, and let’s not talk about perspective. Perspective was my enemy.

It was heartbreaking and devastating. Here was I, wanting to be an artist when I could not even grasp the fundamentals of drawing, and surrounded by children of the same age who possessed abilities way above and beyond my own. Worse, the children who possessed these abilities, didn’t want to be artists. No, they were destined to become lawyers and doctors. They possessed what I needed, and they didn’t even want it.

It seemed so cruel and unfair.

I was sixteen when I gave up on my dreams. I quit high school without graduating. I stopped painting and creating, because one, I believed that I did not have the necessary ability to fulfil my dreams, and two, I needed to survive. I entered the grey world of nine to five drudgery, and fell deeper into the depression that would consume me for more than a decade.

Twelve years later, when I was reintroduced to art and writing as a form of therapy for my illness, I still did not possess any natural ability. What I did possess was a desire to heal; art and writing became a lifeline to healing, one which I held on to with an unbreakable grip. To me, both represented hope – a hope that one day I could smile and have it shine from within me instead of wearing my smiles as one would wear a mask.

But I also remembered the dreams of the child I had once been, and found myself wanting that dream with every fibre of my being. It was my dream. It was all mine, and for the first time in a very long time, I had something to work toward … a goal.

In many ways, achieving that goal has become my obsession. It is a healthy obsession, but an obsession none the less. I believe that one does not need to possess a natural gift or ability if one is willing to commit to their entire being to a successful outcome.

Over the last decade, I have dedicated over 50 hours a week to learning my craft. I have read countless ‘how to’ books. I have scrimped and saved so I can buy myself the tools and equipment I needed. I have sacrificed friendships. I have gone without luxuries, parties, money … sleep.

I have journeyed from being terrified novice, to struggling acolyte, to a confident adept. Am I yet a master? No. I have become both confident and competent at what I do, but there is still so very much for me to learn.

How much of what I have achieved is due to talent? How much is desire? How much is practice?

I will stand by my words. I possess no more ‘talent’ than the next person. I am an ordinary person, with – for the most part - ordinary skills and abilities. What I do possess that sets me apart from others is an overwhelming need to paint. I love painting. It is my passion. My calling. My obsession. My destiny.

How have I achieved it? Through a combination of desire, sheer hard work and, an almost religious dedication.

Practice makes perfect. Or at the very least, it makes one better and more confident at what they do.

Practice has played a crucial role in what I do, and what I create. Without it I would not be where I am today. I would not be the artist whose work you see before you. Without practice, my abilities would still be rudimentary, and I would not be the artist I have become.

Talent is something that plays only a minor role. If you want achieve, don’t let a misguided belief that you do not possess the ability to accomplish the outcome you desire to hold you back. If you are passionate, and willing to devote both time and effort, then there is nothing that is unattainable, and everything is possible.

Live your dream.

Art

It has been both a frustrating and exciting week on the art front. I found myself taking five days to paint a 5.5”x 8.5” artwork because the colour scheme required for the piece was not one I was comfortable with using. I found myself feeling as if I was painting under wet cement. My muse was uninspired, and therefore so was I.

It was an exercise in colour reactions. It became very clear to me that individual people can and will respond to an artwork on a purely ‘colour’ level.

I love silvery greens, blues, golds and purples, and over the years I have come to love red hues even though I can sometimes struggle when I work with them. But when it comes to pink … in particular, that soft ‘Barbie’ shade of pink … I find myself loathing it. There is something about that colour that my mind rejects out of hand and as I look around my house, I note that there is not a single item or object here, except for three pieces of Rose Quartz crystal, that comes close to that shade of colour.

It gives me insight as to how dominant my masculine side is. Thoughts of ‘ink’ make my lip curl a little in contempt and the words ‘You girly-girl’ whisper through my mind. I think there might be something to work on there. Mayhap I my feminine side needs to assert herself a little more. But then, should I? If I am happy as I am?

On the ‘exciting’ side, I am about to begin work on what is my largest painting to date, and it’s on real canvas. *laughs* I feel both terrified and excited by the prospect. The fairy is human-sized and stares back at me with a mischievous look on her face from the 20”x40” canvas. The size is a little daunting, but I also wonder if I may be able to paint her faster than I would a smaller work because I don't have to fiddle with the details as much.

Regardless, I am going to lose myself in a world of my favourite colours over the next few days and see what this fairy has to teach me.

I will work on her during daylight hours, and at night I will continue to paint my wee Wisdoms for the oracle. I’ve just taped up the Wisdom of Cleansing – watery greens and blues … lilypads, lotuses, frogs, and water. She is my idea of heaven, and just what I need after the last painting.

Website

I’m still working on the website, but I have to be honest and say that progress has slowed to a crawl due to my needing to focus on painting and creating.

Projects

Oracle of Little Wisdoms – It’s rather interesting how last week I was delighting in the opportunity to paint ‘Beauty’, but now I cannot even look at her.

Moving on ...

I have finalised the card design, the font for the card keyword, and the book layout. I’m not going to be finished by the end of the first week of October though. I had hoped to be able to complete one painting every two days, but Beauty took me almost five days. I may be able to make up that time, but I’m not going to force myself to work harder when I already work hard enough. The Oracle will be finished when it is time. I love this deck so very much, so I am choosing to be patient with myself and will work with my usual dedication and passion to create something that is pure and bright; not something marred by flaws because I chose to rush in order to meet a self-imposed deadline.

I have a folder that is dedicated to the artwork for the deck, and I cannot help but feel a flutter of real excitement every time I look at the thumbnails for the ever growing number of completed cards. It is going to be a beautiful oracle.

Mind Body Spirit Festival – November, 2009 - My mind is full of preparations for MBS. This will be my first public appearance in over four years, and I am so very excited … and nervous. I’m trying not to over-think the ‘ublic’ side of it though as there is so very much to do and I cannot let my nerves distract me. I’ve decided that I will paint several canvases which I will offer for sale there. The artworks will serve no other commercial purpose. I have decided that I will not make prints of them and will only have digital record of them for portfolio purposes. They will be both unique and exclusive, and that is something I hope will make them even more desirable.

In some ways, I feel this experience will take my creativity and career to a new level. I am focused on success.

I’ve also found some reasonably priced frames that will suit a couple of my 11”x14” artworks. I’m going to hold off buying them though until after I have had the opportunity to visit a local framer and see if I can find better there or have custom frames created for a similar or lesser price. I hope to have at least two large framed artworks, three unframed canvases, and at least ten framed small originals, and a selection of matted and unmatted originals on hand. I have a lovely folder in which to display them, so I will most likely have a good number of my current originals with me, along with a vast array of prints.

I have lots of older print and card stock that I am going to be offering at sale prices too.

Self

I’ve had a good week, albeit creatively pendulous one. I’ve found myself moving more this week, and that always means that my mind is healthier. If all goes well with the larger artworks, then moving could actually become a habit. The larger works will get me out of my armchair and up on my feet.

Emotionally, I’m in a good place, but the truth is that I could be in a good place because I am busy. Being busy and active means I think less. I live in the moment, instead of pondering the future, and living in the moment both constructively and creatively means the future is usually brighter and more rewarding.

Future

There’s not much happening on the ‘Future’ front that I’ve not already mentioned. I’m so focused on completing my ‘to do list’ in the here and now that thoughts of the future have drifted into the shadows for now.

In many ways, this is good and necessary. It is as it should be. I have goals I wish to fulfil, but now it is time for me to act, not plan and analyse.

New Art