Rocking Horses at IA

This week at Inspiration Avenue we kicked off with our new venture of having one of our followers co-host the challenge!  Elizabeth of Bluebeard and Elizabeth chose 'Rocking Horses'.

I love rocking horses - it conjures images of victorian nurseries and forlorn children staring out attic windows.   I found some miniature rocking horses on Etsy a while ago and I did not create a victorian nursery!

This little shrine really just took shape all by itself and I called it an Ode to the child within all grown-ups.

Like the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland, who demanded 'Off with her head!', this piece started with the head of a frozen charlotte doll.  When I held that tiny little head in my hand, so many feelings came to the surface.  Everything just flowed from there, as it does in the creative process.  No time to think!

Then followed the ceramic arms and hands of a doll that I brought back from France;  a small plastic doll clothes' hanger and a tiny rocking horse.  

Inside each of us is a child. 

How we honor ourselves by honoring that child will bring us much healing, wholeness, happiness and joy.

The frame of the shrine I created with plaster and white impasto.  The inside is lined with vintage tea-dyed ribbons and lace.  Both inside the frame and on the frame are mounted two Mary's Blessing Seeds

Read here more about Mary's Blessing Seeds.

The full post about this shrine is at http://hergracedevata.blogspot.com/2012/01/shrine-to-lost-child-within.html

Visit Inspiration Avenue and see all the other wonderful entries in the weekly challenge.

blessings

Devata

Soul Songs

Soul Songs at The Path of Divine Love Blogspot

I invite you to join in today and this entire week and every following Sunday in Soul Songs.

Soul Songs is a collaboration between collage cards (loosely based on SoulCollage cards by Seena B Frost) and lyric poetry.

Soul Songs is happening on my other blog http://pathofdivinelove.blogspot.com.

Soul Songs

Songs of the Soul

Collage of feeling,

vision,

intuition.

Open the door,

make the Unseen

Seen

enter the Sacred,

sing the Soul's Song.

Please come and play along.

Hope to see you there!

Inspiration Avenue Challenge : Butterfly

This past week it was my turn to host the weekly challenge at Inspiration Avenue Team.  Inspired by the many pairs of butterflies fluttering in my garden, I chose the theme as butterflies.  And what an amazing response I had.  Please make your way over to Inspiration Avenue tomorrow and see the gallery of entries.  How I am ever going to choose a winner for our Red Carpet I do not know.

My entry is a bit different from my usual.  It is not pretty at all, but it is such a powerful image for me.  I have recently discovered SoulCollage and what a wonderful therapeutic art form of self-discovery and creativity it is!  There are some excellent websites if you are interested.  Merely search Soul Collage and Seena B Frost and you will find your way.

This is a card that I made for the many changes that have been taking place in my own life and also in those around me.  It is also a very visual expression of leaving the old year and going into the new.  SoulCollage is an intuitive process that does not use the rational mind.  I therefore, did not set out to use the butterfly images.  The image comes together from a place deep within oneself;  from that all-seeing eye within which sees and records and stores deep into the sub-conscious self.  One uses images from your collection of old magazines, photographs or any images at hand.  I made this one from magazine clippings.

The elephant (one of my all time favourite animals in the wild and in their natural habitat) represents the dinosaur in myself.  Those outdated ideas and beliefs that no longer serve but which swims against the current.  The butterflies, with their tiny and delicate wings, are lifting this big old elephant up and turning him into a graceful flying being.  With a little bit of Grace anyone can fly!

Please join me at The Path of Divine Love in Soul Songs

Soul Songs

Songs of the Soul

Collage of feeling,

vision,

intuition.

Open the door,

make the Unseen

Seen

enter the Sacred,

sing the Soul's Song.

Please come and play along.

Through the work of Seena Frost's SoulCollage I have discovered a wonderful medium of playing, creating and uncovering!  SoulCollage is a structured technique with certain ground rules.  It is ideal for self-reflection and group work.  I started playing with soul collages, based on her book.  I then entered one for Rebecca's Haiku my Heart and I saw some more possibilities.  Then they started appearing in my dreams and in my art.

And now I invite you to play along with myself in Soul Songs every Sunday here on The Path of Divine Love.

I invite you to create a collage card making the invisible in yourself visible.  You create the card from the soft focus of your right brain and you set the intent that that which is hidden, be unveiled through its coming together.  I use an A5 board card to glue the images onto.  I mainly use magazine clippings and paper images from my folder of collected images. I find many old magazines at local charity stores.  Old magazines, especially the old National Geographics, have wonderful 'new' images. Digital artists probably have a digital folder filled with images - this will work wonderfully! You can continue to add to your image collection over time and allow your intuitive self to lead you.  Do not plan too much.  Maybe at times of change or insight, you may want to create a specific collage card honouring that stage in your life, or facilitating the change or transformation or to support a new resolution.  Decide on the subject only and allow your eye to guide you to the images.  Play around for a while with the images, but do not apply your art rules to the collage - there are no rules - that is the fun of it!  You will be amazed to discover how your Inner Artist puts together a powerful and evocative image;  one that gives you a deeper look into the sacred.  

Once you have collated the card, you want to find the Song of your Soul that is held in the inner chamber of this card.  We are part of the infinite and we have many many songs just waiting to be heard!

For the Soul Song I chose the lyrical style of poetry - it is simple and powerful.  I quote :  The term lyric is now used to mean any short poem expressing a poet's thoughts or feelings. Originally it referred to poems which were sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument, the lyre. A lyric poem has been defined as "the expression by the poet of his own feelings"(John Ruskin). This definition points to the personal quality of lyrical poetry. It is characterised by the presence of emotion. The emotions and moods are directly expressed by a single speaker who wants to share them with the reader. 

A creative week to you

blessings

Hettienne

New Weekly Showcase Winners on the Red Carpet!!

http://alittlecoloreveryday.blogspot.com/2012/01/inspiration-avenue-paper-dolls.html

This past week Maggie over at Inspiration Avenue Team hosted a magical challenge of 'Paperdolls'.  If you have not done so yet, make your way over there and have a look at the wonderful gallery of Paper doll entries.

And Sherrie of A Little Colour Everyday won this week's creative challenge and her work is now parading on the Red Carpet Gallery!  This is a first and new addition for Inspiration Avenue.  From now on we will choose a weekly winner and a monthly winner and the monthly winners will be showcased for the entire year!

So if you have not done so up till now, enter one of our fun challenges at http://inspiration-avenue-team.blogspot.com.

Here are just a few of the many Paper doll entries :

New challenges are announced every Monday and tomorrow I am hosting, so keep an eye on this spot!

A Shrine to the Lost Child Within

An iconic shrine to the Lost Child Within.

I am adding shrines and altars to Her Grace by Devata on Etsy
for sale.

This beautiful and tender shrine is the first one to be added today.

 When I first started putting this shrine together, it called itself the Shrine of Lost Children.  

But as I listened to the creative voice within, and I put the bits and pieces together, I started to understand that this is indeed an Ode to the Lost Children of myself and other 'grown-ups'.

Like the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland, who demanded 'Off with her head!', this piece started with the head of a frozen charlotte doll.  When I held that tiny little head in my hand, so many feelings came to the surface.  Everything just flowed from there, as it does in the creative process.  No time to think!

Then followed the ceramic arms and hands of a doll that I brought back from France;  a small plastic doll clothes' hanger and a tiny rocking horse.  

All against the backdrop of stamped images of the Holy Mother and a beautiful antiqued statue of Our Lady of Lourdes which I brought back from the Lourdes Grotto.  Her divine presence supports and holds this process of realising that a child within has become buried under the responsibilities and identity of adulthood.

As children we learn certain core beliefs and attitudes and these we take with us into our adult life.  At times we are completely unaware of the self-limitation and emotional pain that we inflict upon ourselves by holding on to these childhood beliefs - often based on experience.  

Our attitudes regarding our worthiness, personal value, and 

relationships are some of the values we incorporate into our lives from childhood. 

When we give ourselves permission to play again, be it through art, through dancing, singing or just having fun, do we realise that we are suffering from a  loss of childhood.

Grieving this loss and awakening to the miracle of transformation of personal reparenting can wake us up to a new life, one true to ourselves and not our family patterning. 

Inside each of us is a child. 

How we honor ourselves by honoring that child will bring us much healing, wholeness, happiness and joy.

How we grew up is as variable as each of us. We know the strengths and weaknesses

of our parents and caregivers. We know what was lacking. And we know what we received in 

abundance. We know the positive and the negative. We know what felt safe and what felt 

unsafe in our homes. And we learned how to protect ourselves from that which was unsafe. 

As adults, we can receive the support and encouragement we did not receive as children. We can 

receive this support by asking for it from people who are safe, who love us, who want to 

support us in our growth. We are able to create an environment where we are safe. In this

environment we can learn to explore, play and interact in the spontaneous way that is unique 

to children. 

The frame of the shrine is uniquely crafted with white impasto.  The inside is lined with vintage tea-dyed ribbons and lace (all brought back from my visit to Lourdes).  Both inside the frame and on the frame are mounted two Mary's Blessing Seeds, handcrafted by myself.

Read here more about Mary's Blessing Seeds.

And in the right bottom corner is mounted a white dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit.  Read here 

If you would like to read more about nurturing and healing the Child Within, I can recommend the work of Dr Charles Whitfield.

blessings
Hettienne

DAMASK

This week Shel of Pics by Shel challenged us at Inspiration Avenue Team to create something with Damask.


 Damask is a very particular type of weaving used by the Damasks (those who lived in the city of Damascus) in the Byzantine times and before.

These damask papers that I used are flocked with velvet

and who better to accompany this outrageous beauty, than Marie Antoinette?

I created another Marie Antoinette paper doll with her outrageous hairstyle

and set her amongst two contrasting borders of damask

and here I embossed a single replica of a damask pattern with gold powder!

Just a few words about Marie Antoinette : Marie Antoinette was Queen of France and Archduchess of Austria. She is often quoted for saying 'give them bread to eat'.  These were indeed her words, but they are quoted completely out of context.  She did not say these words about the starving population of France under her husband's rule.  In fact, she said these words three years before she knew and was married to the King of France.

According to history she tried to intervene with her husband for the poor state of the people. The following quotes give a much deeper insight into her psyche.  Maybe she was a victim of her society, her culture and the time that she was born into.

We had a beautiful dream and that was all ... I could not have any pleasure in the world if I abandoned my children.  (This she said when she was given the opportunity to abandon her husband and children and save her own life.  Instead she chose to stay.)

Courage!  The moment when my ills are going to end is not the moment when courage is going to fail me.  (This she said when facing the guillotine the following day)

I have seen it all;  I have heard all;  I have forgotten all.

Marie Antoinette

Wishing you a creative 2012 filled with peace and joy!

Rebecca has offered the most gorgeous tutorial at http://corazon.typepad.com/recuerda_mi_corazon/2012/01/tutorial-for-friendship-and-cinnamon-prayerbeads.html on how to make cinnamon prayer beads

and as though that was not magical enough, she has now followed it up with a tutorial on how to make garlands of dried orange slices :  http://corazon.typepad.com/recuerda_mi_corazon/2012/01/citrus-salutations.html

To kick off a creative new year, meander over to Peggy's spot at  http://wwwpeggysamusement.blogspot.com/2012/01/1-more-for-giveaway.html for a wonderfully whimsical and fun calender give away

and over at Inspiration Avenue Team, you are being challenged to be creative with Damask!  Have a look at 

http://inspiration-avenue-team.blogspot.com/2012/01/domask-this-weeks-challenge.html

Such absolute abundance of magical creativity and splendour!!

Wishing you a creative year filled with peace, happiness and joy and may the sun shine on you always!

blessings

Hettienne