Reflection

I had an awesome experience yesterday, witnessing the healing power and potential of art making @ a homeless shelter in oakland california. I was able to see glimpses of this path I'm choosing to take in life, emotionally and heart breaking at times. The experience really opened my eyes and blew me away, I'm so eager for many more of these moments.

In reflection, these words by Dr. Kent M. Keith uplifted me,

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest person with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest person with the smallest mind.
Think big anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack if you help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you might get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

New Year, New Sketchbook!

This sketchbook is dedicated to me just having fun with what I love to do!


spray paint & colored pencils on paper ©2011 ℕO⊻∧

Slideshow of Postcards!

International Postcard Art Exchange Update!

A couple days ago I decided to sit out on my balcony on a sunny day and finished all my postcards! I absolutely love this experience! I sent out all my postcards yesterday & it was such an awesome feeling! I'm excited for everyone to get a postcard from me & I'm excited to see the surprises in my mailbox from other art therapists/students from around the world.







ALL of these postcards are recorded in my facebook album, so make sure to add me & check each one out! I made a total of 26 postcards, two extra for a couple friends from Marywood that went on to graduate school for Art Therapy (Alexandria, VA & Portland, OR) The rest were all assigned to me from ATWB from the following places: Lakewood, OH, Beverly Hills, MI, Seattle, WA, Plainville, CT, Saint Louis MO, Buena Vista, CO, Sarasota, FL, Dallas TX, Newmarket, NH, Carmel, NY, Marietta, GA, Astoria, NY, Annandale, VA, Mayfield Heights, OH, Peabody, MA, Mississauga, ON, Bundoora Australia, Castanheira do Ribatejo Portugal, Tseung Kwan O.N.T Hong Kong, Kingston Jamaica, Lancashire UK, Singapore, Piario Italy.

Sacramento Artwalk!

Opening night for the juried NorCATA member only art exhibit Soul Awareness at the Old Weatherstone in Sacramento!

"I know, I know for sure. That life is beautiful around the world.. "

New Painting: spray paint on fabric ©2010 ℕO⊻∧

This painting is inspired my yoga, art therapy, music therapy, & universality.

NDNU Art Therapy

If your going to the Art Therapy conference, you will get to see two of my paintings now! Yesterday I took some time to make the NDNU Art Therapy banner for our school's tent at the annal Art Therapy Conference! I had a lot of fun making it, & a friend helped me cut out the lettering to glue on! I liked having someone interested in collaborating. I think it would be fun to things like that more with the school but that's just me being artsy me. Art therapists out there: stay true to your roots... don't make up excuses why you can't create art. You can do both!

International Postcard Art Exchange- November 2010-April 2011

I received about 25 national and international addresses of art therapists or art therapy students! We get to exchange handmade art postcards! This exchange is put on by Art Therapy Without Borders
and is a fun and creative way to network with other art therapists! I love getting mail, it's much more personal than emails, etc. I sent my first postcard (the one above) to ATWB and they will be posting the postcards they receive on their facebook. Also, I will be documenting the experience on my blog! I will post my postcards as well as the ones I get in the mail! Keep posted!!

Guess What!

©2010 ℕO⊻∧ "The Echo of Souls", Spray Paint on fabric
I just found out this painting is selected for the NorCATA member only art exhibit Soul Awareness at the Old Weatherstone in Sacramento. during the Annual 2010 American Art Therapy Association Conference, art walk Nov. 5th. Very excited to be apart of it, such a beautiful theme for an art show! Make sure you come to the art walk if your attending the conference!

Description I wrote for the show about my painting and how it relates to the theme of the show:
"It all starts with the optimal experience, also known as "flow", a powerful force inside us that keeps us coming back to our projects. Where we tend to 'zone out' and put our entire selves into whatever we're creating. Through creativity we can clear our minds, we reach into the depths of our Being and find hope, love, truth, and peace. We reach epiphanies, new levels of consciousness, and insights that keep us in touch with our soul. In the moment of creating and looking at this painting, I feel so alive. As artists we have the opportunity to visually manifest the beauty of our souls anytime we choose. This painting for me, is a small discovery of beauty and I hope the painting resonates in you, too."

Furniture Art

When your running low on money and you have an old table no one uses, paint it! You can turn something that is boring and plain into something beautiful! =) At my school in Belmont, they painted old classroom desks, really fun art directive for art therapy! PLUS it's usable!





©2010 ℕO⊻∧

"Artfully Intoxicated"

©2010 ℕO⊻∧

Re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul. -Walt Whitman

Transpersonal World

©2010 ℕO⊻∧"A Transpersonal Flow Experience", 48 inches X 70 inches, spray paint on wood.

I absolutely love spending hours on end in the spray booth creating =) Especially at night when no one else is there and I can blast my music. I feel like anything is possible and the more and more I use spray paint, the more I fall in love with it. It is the most natural medium for me, it just feels so good! Also, the bigger, the better!! I love working big, it feels so much more natural to be standing up and using my whole body for each layer of the paintings. I feel like my "sitting down time" is when I make all my stencils, the drawing and cutting, etc. The way I paint is very transpersonal in feeling. My wholeness can only be whole when limitation is removed.


Sacred Mirrors: Discussing Transpersonal Art with Alex Grey
Transpersonal Art Therapy Education

Finished Artworks Inspired by Mind, Body & Soul

This painting remains at my house in NY, it is really large and heavy, but I love working on wood!
"Root, Sacral, Solar, Heart, Throat, 3rd Eye, & Crown Chakras" Spray Paint on Wood ©2010 ℕO⊻∧


I had so much fun doing this one! I was happy to sell it to a very sweet girl who hung it up in her new apartment! I hope it breaths good energy=)
SOLD. "Mind, Body, Soul." 57 by 67 inches, spray paint on fabric. ©2010 ℕO⊻∧

When I paint I feel this extreme positive force that is telling me "the universe wants my FULL self" the universe needs us. And just as long as we are better people than we were yesterday, each day is meaningful. I have been practicing mindfulness awareness meditation. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche is amazing. He writes about how the Buddha, the awakened one, "woke up and realized he didn't have to try to be something other than what he was." So the complete teaching of Buddhism is to re-discover who we are. In Mindfulness Meditation we are completely absorbed in the fabric of life, the fabric of the moment. We might feel that thinking about the past or future makes our life richer, but by not paying attention to the immediate situation we are actually missing our life. There's nothing we can do about the past, we can only go over it again and again and the future is completely unknown. So the practice the mindfulness is the practice of being a live! -Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

collage: let the pictures do the talking.

My life is full of color!

I hate throwing away all my spray paint cans, so I started decorating them for fun and it started turning into a fun colorful collection!



©2010 ℕO⊻∧
This could be an interesting Art Therapy directive, using acrylic paints!

Positive Art in our Society.

©2010 ℕO⊻∧

The process of art-making creates an optimal experience within the artist and the viewer. In Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book, "Flow, the psychology of Optimal Experience", he describes what he called "optimal experience"- being so involved in an activity that you lose sense of time, place, and self. Others call it "the zone". This flow experience is what keeps us coming back to our projects. However, flow as described in the book is not just "having a nice time", it is a powerful force and can contribute to better mental health, greater individual complexity and growth.

Personally, the optimal experience is one of the best feelings in this world. I can't imagine never feeling it.


Through creativity we can clear our minds of emotional poison, we can reach into the depths of our Being and find hope, love, truth, peace. We can spread this through creative expression. We can acknowledge being a live.

Celebration of boundless artist freedom.

Recycling Art!

©2010 ℕO⊻∧

beautiful left overs.

©2010 ℕO⊻∧
I go through spray paint so fast, so I'm starting a collection of spray paint cans in which I decorate from time to time. It's so much fun, and they all look so pretty as a whole... I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a wall full @ the end of Spring =)

Hope.

©2009 ℕO⊻∧
In reflection to the genocides in Darfar. Making art can be a way of integrating our visions into daily life. Even when history repeats itself, with all the destruction, pain, hatred, and racism in this world, we can point to hope in our artwork, we can in vision change, we can create new ideas and with that we bring forth only positive energy and love.