Zen in red and gold

This is one I've been working on and finished this morning. I added a dusting of powdered metallic pigment for the glow it needed. Its 1 ft by 2 ft on birch wood.



This is still drying and the blog will be updated for sale availability. Contact me.

Retro paint doodles....

Paint on raw unprimed, unstretched canvas.... an experiment that's working for me.





more to come.... http://crazysuburbanmom.blogspot.com/ The Crazy Suburban Mom

Candy Explosion!

This is a follow up image - an attempt to better show the layers of clear color and iridescent and translucent colors in this painting.

It's better but still much prettier in person. Very girly, I'd call it. It's 1 foot by 1 foot on a birch wood panel. With Gobs of textured acrylic medium to get the layers... and lots of candy colors.

Its really a happy happy thing! In fact its so happy I painted the sides and back pink as well.

putty on red and blue

This was done on a panel that I prepainted with rusts and a bit of blue. In some places you can still see the colors come through - It looked like an old weathered plank before I started painting.

It has a very red white and blue feel but folksier... More rustic.

The full painting is on a one foot by two foot birch wood panel.

Rainforest 1 ft by 2 ft on birch panel

I went out and bought some wood today. I've been wanting to paint on raw canvas and ordered some but it's not here yet and I was itchy to paint something. I made a swing by Home Depot and Voila... I can paint again.

I wanted to take a break from what I've been doing and try something else. This painting was done entirely with a pallet knife. I've never done that before and I'm happy with the result.
The colors are a bit gold-green in the first picture. They are more like the original in the close ups.

This painting is an acrylic painting done on a birch wood panel. It is still a work in progress - In fact I just stepped away from it. It's sopping wet.

I love the colors and the glow....

Visual landscape in grays and blues

This is a 9 x 12 inch acrylic painting on a thick gallery wrapped canvas. Before I painted I added layers of paper for the wrinkles and texture you see on the main image but you can especially see this in the close up.



The sides are painted black and it has a thick gallery edge, It can be framed or hung on the wall with just a nail.

Date of creation - 2008

This is a nice calming image of a a far away landscape. Its minimal enough to be relaxing and calming but the layer of paper adds great texture for interest.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=22141336

Black white and gray on black white and gray

This is a close-up image of a 2 feet by 2 feet work -- acrylic tube paint and acrylic wall paint on birch wood. signed on the back $450
This painting is available at the Arts Unbound Studio, Orange, NJ

Shredded comic books

This is a close up image of a work that is 2 foot by 2 foot on birch wood panel. I used acrylic tube paints, acrylic mediums and acrylic wall paint. There is also a thin layer of paper under the paint.

$500

Sealife trails

One work on two canvas panels. each 16 x 20 total work 20 x 32. Acrylic tube paint and acrylic wall paint.

$300

Cocoon ACEO GIVE A WAY

IF YOU WISH TO BE ENTERED IN THE GIVE A WAY FOR THIS CARD JUST COMMENT ON THIS POST BY WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 5, 2008. I WILL USE AN INTERNET RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR TO PICK THE WINNER BASED ON THE TOTAL NUMBER OF COMMENTS.

If you don't have a blog please sign your comment with an email address so I can email you if you win - anonymous comments provide me with no information!

Please, only one comment per person. I will pay the postage myself, the winner will get the card mailed to them with no strings attached.... and my thanks for appreciating my art!
****If this is something that people seem to enjoy I will try to do this frequently*****
cocoon aceo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

I've worked with this image before because it tugs at me. Calls to me... It's special to me... It's simple and sad and nurturing at the same time. It's about caring for myself. It's about taking care of my mind, my sanity and my body... It's how I survive when all I have left is the shell.

I was drawing like this in the summer of '97, months before I was diagnosed but I was symptomatic. At that time I was more concerned with quickly getting feelings down on paper and I don't think I had started using colored pencils yet; I believe when I did this one I was still only using markers. They were fast to work with, had blazing, sometimes shocking, color and they suited everything I needed at the time.


I've done this card before with the theme of overwhelmed. About when it's all - everything and everyone - it's all just too much. How at some point you can't take a thing more - a good thing, a bad thing...anything.... not one thing more. And you know all that works to make it better is collapsing in on yourself. Curling up. Not hearing or seeing anything else until you are ready...

Every once in a while I redo this card because it has meaning to me and I always get emails from people who tell me it has meaning to them as well. Even people who aren't bidding. Sometimes people just write to say I gave words to their feelings... I think thats an important thing so I try and use this image on different cards. The other thing is when ever I list it people who didn't win the auction ask me to relist a card with the same image. I can't replicate cards because no two are ever the same but I can use a main image again.

When I was doing this card for someone an odd thing happened. It stopped being the card Overwhelmed and became the card Cocoon. With this card I put gauze over the image... Some with the traditional gauze look and some just shreds of gauze. When I stopped to look at it ...the meaning had changed. What was once a figure collapsing in on itself in protection was now a figure spinning a protective cocoon... being proactive. Taking care of herself... Waiting out the storm in warm safe place of her own making.

For me there was something very different about this card. It showed a stronger figure. A person who didn't just have to wait for the storm to pass while curled up and hope for the best...but a person who could self-soothe. A person who could make her own safe place. A person who was on her way to 'better' even as she waited.

When I realized what I had in this card it was an empowering moment that I can't explain.

The card was done on a base of mat board cut into ACEO format. Through the main image you can see the base papers and I think that that gives even more of a feeling of vulnerability... The figure is not only curled into a fetal position but you can almost see through her...or partly...like she's fading away. Even so she is protecting herself against the onslaught of life

I'm in the current issue of CARDADDIX

I'm in the current issue!
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

I'm in the current issue!
The current issue of cardaddix just came out and I have a card featured!

It's the newsletter associated with ACEO MAGAZINE aceomagazine.com/. Subscriptions and individual issues can be purchased at the website.

Buy my art on eBay

Fetal aceo

Fetal aceo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

I've used this image before.

This card is about when it's all - everything and everyone - it's all just too much. How at some point you can't take a thing more - a good thing, a bad thing...anything.... not one thing more. And you know all that works to make it better is collapsing in on yourself. Curling up. Not hearing or seeing anything else until you are ready...

The card was done on a base of mat board cut into ACEO format. Through the main image you can see the base papers and I think that that gives even more of a feeling of vulnerability... The figure is not only curled into a fetal position but you can almost see through her...or partly...like she's fading away. On top of the image are webby papers, gauzy papers and glass beads. There is a haze over her. Its more obvious in person...the scan shows more of the figure than you can see when you look at the card.

for sale

Know what's sick? aceo

Know what's sick? aceo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

On eBay

Know what's sick? aceo
The mentally ill commit crimes on television that diabetics do not. Has an episode of Law and Order ever focused on a defendant's irritable bowel syndrome?Or has a raging sinus infection ever been a mitigating factor?

Nope and nope....

Bipolar Disorder isn't an identity, or an excuse or a reason to feel sorry for me, it's a chronic illness. And I'm a person... not an illness with a person hanging off a label. It hurts that I can pick a random police drama and, with reasonable certainty, see someone with the same diagnosis on trial for a heinous crime because the mentally ill commit crimes on TV that people with carpel tunnel syndrome don't.


The portrayal of mental illness in the media is endless generalizations; generalization upon generalizion until the kernal of truth is lost. We see creepy, scary folks that eat bugs. The homeless. The stalkers. The people who pee in doorways while reciting the Gettysburg address and make you want to take another way home. Those that are news worthy when they run naked at major sporting events. Movies with fun-loving inpatients who your kids would love to hang with...

What's worse? Stigma or sideshow over-fascination? Despite the media's portrayal; we are not all bug-eating door-way peeing naked streakers or hopelessly hip inpatients. There is a middle-ground to live with bipolar disorder and most of us are there; boring as hell.


Stigma is about shame. Stigma can only go on in the dark so I try and answer questions people ask me:

"It's called Bipolar Disorder, rapid cycling with mixed episodes. Uh-huh. That's a mouthful. Yes, I've hallucinated. No, not often. It's been years, I think.... The funniest one? Well--It's hard to classify the psychotic as amusing but I suppose the funniest one was when the linguine with clam sauce was talking. It did too! No, I swear. Well. What it was saying is a hard one. No matter how close I moved my ear to the plate I still couldn't tell what they were saying. I ultimately decided the clams weren't talking to me but amongst themselves."

I am willing to talk openly about my meds:

"There are a lot of drugs. Mood stabilizers like anti-convulsants that epileptics use. (I feel on safe ground here because a drug used for epilepsy doesn't pack the drooling-stigma-punch of Thorazine.) There are drugs for depression. Oh, and the anti-anxiety drugs, the sleeping pills and anti-psychotics are used (The last one can be a bit tricky. While people say they want information, I lose a lot of folks on the anti-psychotics.)"

The drug side effects:

"Some make me tired. Confused... Liver failure.... Acne.... Hair loss, except of course on your chin...where it grows.... Weight gain. No, this one didn't make me gain weight but I gained 80 pounds on a different one. Yes, that was a lot of weight. No, your right. Haven't lost it all."

When people ask if I see and hear things "like TV crazy-people do," maybe they don't want to know. "I'm just like you, silly! No one really has those kinds of thoughts. " Well, no one they know. No one with a son in their kid's school. No one behind them in the 10 items or less grocery aisle...Or shops for shampoo at the same drugstore. Or waits on line behind them at the ATM.

Hopefully, being open and comfortable about myself will lessen stigma over time even if it makes my world a little uncomfortable for a moment or two. Or nine.... Granted, copping to hearing clams speak amongst themselves isn't something most people are ready for but most people aren't ready to change their minds about anything without a little push.

About ten years ago I went to a seminar with a speaker who couldn't make a strong point without swearing. And he made a lot of points. After about an hour a proper-looking woman got up and said she wasn't accustomed to hearing that kind of language. The speaker bolted to within an inch of her face and let loose a string of expletives with a ferocity unequaled to anything since the big bang. The audience held it's collective breath and after a minute the speaker screamed at the now pale woman, "Are you f-ing accustomed to it yet?"

It was a point well taken, with me anyway. People live at their own comfort level until they are challenged. Being that in-your-face does have a place but it isn't usually necessary. Just living visibly in the bipolar middle-ground can be enough. Even if people seem a bit queasy at first about talking shellfish I hope living openly will widen the middle-ground and give me a bigger place to live over time.

bondage aceo

AVAILABLE SOON
bondage aceo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

Most people think that life's got them. That they are stuck... trapped in situations that they can't get out of... Hamsters on one those wheels.... In bondage to their jobs.... partners.... bills... obligations... wants... needs....

I think the truth is closer to what you won't let go of, chains you to it.

I think we spend our lives wishing for something else all the while dragging what we don't want around with us... always looking over our shoulders to make sure what we have and don't want is still there, wanting something else but never getting so far away from our comfortable misery so we can't see it.

I think there are a lot of reason people have for doing this ...probably as many reasons as there are people. Some people fear change and living in known pain is better than an uncertain future. After all we know how heavy the chains are... What will it feel like without them? What will we do with our hands? What will we do with all the time we spent complaining? I think Lily Tomlin was right when she said, "I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain. " People sure so love to complain!


I think some people really don't believe they can get off the hamster wheel and that dooms you from the start. If you think you can, you can and if you think you can't your right too. It's sort of the cosmic version of a pre-nuptual agreement. Sort of like your saying to the universe... Well I think I can sorta do it...probably... most likely.... but if I can't would you mind mitigating my damages? Might as well tattoo FAILURE across your forehead.

Plus there's a lot of letting go and trusting involved in getting what you want - from yourself and others and letting go isn't something most people find easy. I don't, anyway.

I think most of the stuckness in my life is me.


The card looks better than the picture - the card is uneven in height and very glossy so shooting it and scanning it is difficut. This has been an issue with any card Ive done that been a collage pretty much! This one is no different! The card is an aceo blank of mat board and a highly textured black paper (crinkly)... I only used one background paper and it looks like patent leather - its really cool. The chain is a silver plated small linked chain and it all bound there with thick acrylic sealer.

It's all so close to you ACEO

BUY

It's all so close to you ACEO
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

I saw these stones when I looked down.... they were a few inches from my feet on a beach in Cape May, NJ. I almost just squashed them into the sand by walking on them and would never noticed how beautiful they were... How soft looking, how polished.... how worthy of notice.

Maybe it's always like that. Me. Life. Maybe I always assume what I want off in the distance.... and thinking what I need must be over that next hill.... and I know what will make me relax and appreciate what I have is in that newly published self-help book.

But maybe life is always like the experience with these stones. Maybe I already have within my view and reach everything I need. Maybe what's over the next hill doesn't matter because the only thing you really have is the presant... and maybe what's in that next self-help book really is the same thing that was in the last self- help book, with a new cover.

Maybe there is something to be said for living fully in the moment.

This card was done on mat board cut into aceo format. There is a collage done with art papers under the main image and its all sealed with multiple layers of acrylic sealers. I like this card, its pretty and calming.

Memories ac-Emo ACEO

BUY
Memories ac-Emo ACEO
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

You may not like all your memories but they make the whole of you.

In each person you know there are things you might not like but that doesn't take away from the value of the person - and the person is the sum of his parts.

As each person person you know deserves a place in your life each of your memories is worthy.

I've struggled with this.

For many years I'd assumed there were things I'd rather forget. But I can't say I'm sorry who I am, who I've become... who looks out from behind my eyes. How can I pick and choose the memories, than? If I lose this one will someone else be looking out from behind green eyes? Or will it take two memories? Or not those two but two others?

Many years later I can see the value in not fighting the memories. Coming to terms with them...letting them rest.... in peace.

The ghosts of the past ac-Emo ACEO

BUY

The ghosts of the past ac-Emo ACEO
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

How much stuff do we carry forward in to new relationships ? As much as we truly want to end one before we get into another I think most people keep tugging everyone they ever knew along with them...

People call it baggage but I've seen how heavy it looks on some people - I think it's stone.

ac-Emo

ac-Emo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

Somethings been bothering me for a while now. My cards are different... The cards I do are so linked to what I write that they aren't just the artwork but more a sum of several parts.


The images click with me as emotions not just pictures. When I post or list them I always include the emotion as text. When people look at them I think they may be attracted to the image but it's the emotion that chimes for them.


I think people like them but I think it's more the whole experience of the emotion than the card itself. I've had good and bad feelings about this. Does that make me an artist? Or a writer? Or really not enough at either to be good enough to consider myself one without the other?


I think what's happening is that they are just different. They aren't just the cards or just the words but a compliation of the two. Like a movie would be just pictures moving across a screen without the emotion of words. I've decided I'm fine with it and decided to call them something different from now on.

JUST PASSING TIME ACEO

Time has a problem and a bad reputation. People blame a lack of it their failures but don't like an excess of time either.
If they only had the time to spend with their family...exercise... go back to school. If they only hadn't been so pressed for time they would never had chosen that job...that car.... that husband. Having lots extra time is seen as something that will get you into trouble... Too much time to fill is seen as a retired man who gets on every one's nerves... Too much time between where you are and what you want is seen as excruciating...

People talk in time... My biological clock is ticking. No time like the present. Time stands still for no one.... Idle hands are the devil's playground... A watched pot never boils. And on and on... I suppose there are sayings about time where slowing down and enjoying time is shown as a good thing - For example - Take time to smell the daisy's. But to be honest that one always reeks of 1960's Flower Children and doesn't really ring true to most people. I think they can see the value of it but not the practical application.

But the truth is time is a constant... it's your impatience that's the variable. And it's up to you to see the golden value in your time - to capture all your seconds and than file them away as memories. If you sit back and think about time, it's given you a lot. The passing of time gives you all the good things - all your good experience. Your joys. Your quiet moments between the fray.

Perhaps Memory's gift is gratitude but Time's gift is patience. If you take the two in tandem you can truly be a happy person.

Buy the ticket take the ride Aceo

buy

I've been thinking a lot about goals lately. Goals are good things;I find people flounder without them. But something about being goal-oriented has been bothering me a lot...

People to who focus on goals seem to over-focus on goals, there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. Either you let the wind takes you where it will and you'll end up in life where you do... or you map everything out and measure your success by each goal you meet.

To be honest - I'm not sure the first one isn't better. People who measure their lives from goal to goal achieve more in a measurable sense; that's true.... But what of the space between goals? What's there? What fills the space for those people if only the goals are important?

I can hear the goal- set saying , " The middle is important because I'm on my way to the goal..." But I keep thinking... What about enjoying life outside the goal? Your life is really what's happening around, outside, over and under you when your doing all that planning, reaching, or not reaching your goals. Your goals and your life aren't happening on parallel roads... Your life and your goals are on the same road.

I don't think having an idea about what you want next is a bad thing... it's just that I think you miss a lot of opportunities for enjoyment along your road if your always heading for something. If your always looking to a goal. An end. A way to get on the next train... To move on to the next thing.... To finish what your doing now... What are you doing?

It's sort of like buying your ticket but not taking the ride. Like being in an amusement park, paying for a ride and than instead of getting on it; walking around it to the place in the gate that says - EXIT.

It seems so pointless. And sad. And seems like the way so many people live.