Why Jump , When One Could Fly?

                                  

                                      

My faimily and I had some recent passings, and also the birth of a beautiful baby boy,  so I've been revisiting an earlier piece about flight and places in the imagination, and thinking about energies that are born with all of us,  and live on after....

Fresh Start

Sometimes I really love the start of a piece;  The drawing and wash in phase, so much that I want to leave it alone for awhile.  In the early morning on this lake in Maine, mist rises and moves with the flow of air over the surface;  It reduces everything to the essence of it's form, and is the most incredible way to start the day in contemplation with a cup of something warm.

Wilson!

It's even colder today relative to this area, so I'm going on another balmy journey in my head and out through the brush in a mural.  We like to add elements of humor, and nods to popular culture sometimes, so here is "Castaway" character Wilson, happily found again; Washed up at the foot of the base of a tanning room door.

                                     

                                   ,,  

Happy New Year

Holy Cow 2014 was a fast year!  Fortunately full of interesting and gainful work for me, and I feel most grateful.  I spent my first day of the New Year putting my studio back in order, and unearthed all kinds of projects to finish, and wonderful reference I'd forgotten.  Alas, the rest of the house, and two elderly dogs needing a "fluff and buff" await...

Here is lucky "Holy Cow VII",  based on the first one I ever did, on a custom cigar box made for a friend for Christmas.  On my bucket list are some done life size!

A Happy, Healthy, and inspirational new year to you and yours,  Regards,  Tori


                                                       

Tropical Treat

  

I spent this very cold day here in New England on a visual journey to the tropics,  a design for the door exiting a tanning room.  We'll be happily hunkering in tonight to welcome the New Year.  My best to you and yours for 2015!

  

                                    D. 

A Prince Among Dogs

We lost our wonderful oversized sheltie "Rudy", just this past July at the age of 14.  He was truly a Prince among dogs, we named him after Rudolph Valentino, because he was such a lover boy.  He was the most engaging creature, full of play, handsome, great with other dogs, and devoted to watching over his humans.

He would never get very far away without turning back to check, I loved doing the "lost and found " of the white parts of his fur against the snow, and visually remembering my beautiful boy....

Holy Cow!

I love to give a smile with my work, and I love coming back to do another of this series.  I had my first encounter with cows at a family farm in Maine.  I loved the soft light and earthy smell of the barn, and the gentle solid nature of the cows.  Their anatomy is both very angular, and then rounded in some places, with so many different colors and patterns, and they almost always seem to group together in a social way.

I also have been fascinated with the ornament and content of religious icon paintings...
 So far I have done a small Holy Cow screen, a gemstone and glass mosaic, a three dimensional flying Holy Cow of armature wire, metal mesh, handmade papers, and glass beads,  and two additional paintings of a "Madonna" cow and calf ,  and Holy Calf.   This is "Holy Cow VI" , an 8"x10" mixed media painting on a metallic copper ground, done in water soluable colored pencils, acrylic moulding paste, and acrylic paints.

Holy Cow folks, truth is often stranger than fiction....