Market greetings

Posted on December 2, 2011 by avatar

Namaste, Sweetie Pops!

How are you? I hope this finds you drenched in the clear, thirst quenching wonderfulness of both rainwater and life – though not necessarily rainwater itself, unless that is your wish! x o

Remember I mentioned the Goodwood Christmas market? It was on this past Saturday and was good fun! The rain just cleared after the first half hour or so (freshly washed market – hooray!) and I even got to use my market umbrella (though initially I forgot it, and my husband drove back home to fetch it!) The umbrella base is made of 80kg of Swedish concrete – I’ll bet you can guess which shop that came from – what a heavy item to import!
Had a lovely time at the market. Made new friends. Hugged old friends. The pictures of my fabulous helper friends and I are on the Facebook Tangerine Meg Visual Artist page. You can see us posing near the calendars and the greeting card stands. The stands are a new thing and are well worth having, it’s much easier to see all the cards!
As you could see, if you looked at those pictures, I had a rainbow headband on. The photographer for the market ‘headhunted’ me and my rainbow headband – along with another stallholder and some face-painted kids – to go in their market photo for the day! I will show you when I get a copy! Fun! [later: It's arrived, click here to see!]

While preparing for this and the previous market I realised that there are 12 new greeting card designs since this time last year. It’s getting to be quite a collection, isn’t it? Here are the new ones:

All available (except one – there’s a treasure hunt for you: which one? – and that one will be up for grabs very very soon) at my Lush Greeting Cards page or in combination packs at my Combo Packs page :D

Remember: support independent artisans to help bring handmade energy, TLC and originality to the holidays!

Let me know if you have a favourite art market in your town, and what you love about it. I’d love to hear your voice in the comments section below.

See you next week here, or in between on Facebook :)
Lots of love,
Meg x o

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How 2 naughty boys made me realise I was being judgemental and inadvertently gave me flowers

Posted on November 22, 2011 by avatar

Hey lovely bold soul!

Hope you are as well as well can be, and skipping in the sunshine – or internal equivalent :)

How a moment can turn around!
I was probably glowering. Looking and wondering what the ‘naughty’ boys were doing. I was stewing, thinking “Don’t they know the old people in the units there like their flowers”, “There aren’t infinity flowers in the world” – like I don’t ever pick flowers and Nature’s not abundant – and generalised *grrr*.
The big boys had broken off a stalk of agapanthus, snapped the strong stem in half, and thrown back the flower head into the garden. I was silently outraged, wondering what the world was coming to! Even in that moment I was aware these sounded like stereotypical judgemental thoughts :P

Guess what though? If I’d left it, the flower head would’ve decomposed back into earth just fine! Being somewhat of an opportunist, however, I crossed the road and retrieved the flower head – yoink! – brought it home and popped it in water. See it in the photo above? It’s beautiful, right? By the way, that vase was one from the dining tables when my husband and I got married :) I still like their ikea simplicity.

What did those 2 ‘naughty’ boys do with their ‘aggy’ stems? Play sword-fighting, that’s all! There aren’t always a lot of opportunities in our culture to get some basic physical boy play in, but they made it happen; in quite a harmless way in retrospect. Now I’m cringing at the over-reaction of my monkey mind!

As I walked home flower in hand, the mix and match department of my brain fashioned a cat picture featuring agapanthus flowers – it might even make a nice tshirt! Not only have I learned about myself from this mornings walk, I’m lucky enough to have gained inspiration, too.

Adelaide bold souls: I’m having a stall, with my art and greeting cards, at the Goodwood Alive Community Christmas Market this Saturday, November 26, from 10am til 2pm! Hope you can come :) If you wear stripey socks I will give you a special Bold Souls Only Bookmark!

Let me know in the comments section of a time when you’ve misjudged a situation initially and came to see it more positively later on. I’d love to hear – it’ll make me less embarrassed!

Love from modified me,
Meg x o

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A Year of Bold Flowers

Posted on November 15, 2011 by avatar

Hi Darlings,

I hope this finds you in good ‘nick’ (healthy), good spirits and good company :)
I wanted to check in with you, but I’ll be brief today, as my body is detoxing some dental analgesic and I need to mostly rest!

Good things have certainly happened today, too. I had a conversation with Dawn, a friend who has known me all my life. She was after one of my calendars, and happened to mention that she would like one with just flowers – ‘specially nasturtiums! Hoorah – she was asking the right person, wasn’t she? I found images to suit and after a little formatting have made a new Just Flowers Calendar! It looks like this:

Click on the image if you’d like to go to the calendars very own page, there you can check out the pictures for each of the months. I admit May and December are a little bit ‘cheaty’: May is only sage leaves, not flowers, and in December the flowers appear as a pattern on the bowl! Hopefully we aren’t being too pedantic!
When you see it who do you think of? I was thinking these would suit a beloved gardening grandmother a favourite aunty!

A couple of shout outs, for the day:
I bought lovely greeting cards from Emily Balivet. Isn’t her painted goddess artwork exquisite?
A joyful friend makes funky jewellery – you can see at her etsy shop: My Soul Can Dance. I have bought some myself – check out the cool names she gives the pieces!

I had *sad face* news today, too. I had an application ‘in’ to get funding for a mural project for next year. Unfortunately, only 5 of the 19 applications were funded, and ours wasn’t one of them. Never mind, we can always apply again next year :)

You are beautiful. Thanks for reading :)
Take care :)
Meg x o

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Reflections on patterns in glass

Posted on November 8, 2011 by avatar

Namaste, Sweetie Pops!
How are you going today?
I hope your actions are reflective and your reflections are active :)

Me? It’s hot here. I wasn’t quite ready for this heat at this time of year. But it’s here. And I’m sweating.

I have decisions waiting to be made.

The garden is waiting, thirsting to be watered.

Buzzy flies are waiting for me to exercise my violent super-power (sorry Buddhist friends) and thwart them.

However it seems that despite all of those things, I am in repose, reflecting and reading Eat Pray Love. I wonder if you’ve read it? I am loving that it’s bringing me to that inquisitive, present state that the writer, Elizabeth Gilbert, is in.

Speaking of reflections, I found another picture to show you from the archives. Do you like the sound of archives, it’s a tiny bit less dusty sounding than vault, do you think?

I love that even a few years ago when I painted this I was already entranced with

  1. nasturtiums
  2. colourful patterned fabric, and
  3. reflections in handmade glass!

These themes are starting to look like, yes – themes! Do you love seemingly simple everyday minutae too? This is one of my latest pictures, quite different in look, but the themes are still embedded right in there.

I have gotten even more intense with the colour and patterns!
I’m starting to pine again now. I want to get another picture on the go. Note to self: Clear space to get going with new artwork on Thursday. And: keep watering nasturtiums, this sudden heat is wilting living things!

I’m using some of the prototypes of my downloadable printable bookmarks in all my concurrent readings :) Let me know if you’ve downloaded your bookmarks and if they’re sticking out of a really great book right now (in the comments section). I’d love to hear what you’re reading that’s ringing true for you.

Take care, dear one.
Much love,
Meg x o

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Compliments, kindness and colour

Posted on November 1, 2011 by avatar

Dearest, most wonderful Bold Soul,

I hope this finds you healthy of mind, body, spirit and heart.
This week I am going to offer quite a few links. I’m realising that it’s the connecting thing that’s important :)

Recently I had 2 reminders of an old-fashioned art: the art of giving a compliment.
In the physical world, two girls in my street were singing and dancing their hearts out on a driveway near me while I was outside weeding the front garden. They shouted out “Are we any good?” and I said they had beautiful voices. They came a bit closer, and complimented my jacket, and my garden (which to my eye was thoroughly interspersed with grasses ‘going to seed’) and proceeded to tell me about singing and school and ‘make friends’ with me. It was just what I needed as a counterpoint to previous events of the day! 8- and 9-year-olds just know how to make friends. It doesn’t have to be a skill left behind in our childhood – let’s do it too!
I love Kyeli’s post about the simple art of the compliment on Kind Over Matter, too, a great reminder story.
By the way, did you know my downloadable bookmarks were in Amanda’s Kind over Matter Friday Lovelies List this week? Check out all the other lovelies, too, we’re in the most extraordinary company.

Speaking of Lovelies, I ordered some cute earrings from Gwynnie B a few weeks ago. They arrived on Friday wrapped like this (how divine!):

From the be-ribboned box I unpacked the earrings.

Aren’t they nice? Metal flowers, and purple, sparkly droppy thingies – I adore them! I converted them over to clip ons as I don’t have holes in my ears so now I can wear them happily.

I have a preview of 3 new paintings I’ve finished if you want to see, the littlest one is the nasturtium one above. On Friday they go to get framed ready for the Goodwood Christmas Market. Check them out at my new First Look page – which will, like some kind of wizarding page, be visible only sometimes (in this case, until Friday morning)!
[Later: That page now disappeared so I've taken off the link!]

What is it about these simple, easily grown flowers that’s so delightful? Me, I love the distinct smell, the range of bright, clear, warm colours and the sheer enthusiastic abundance of their growth.
What’s your favourite flower? What do you love about them? Let us know in the comments section below, or do you think I’m over-thinking it?! Have a chat about what you enjoy about flowers, or about anything else that speaks to you from this post :D

By the way, it seems that writing a post about re-charging your batteries doesn’t immunize you against forgetting to do so yourself! Oh dear, I did it again! In gentleness towards myself, it is a new bike, and a new concept to have to ‘charge your vehicle’. However, I do need to make the recharging more of a regular awareness! Heavy bike with no battery boost is not fun, specially when you’re also beating yourself up about the forgetting all the way back home (note to self: release old habit of telling myself off!)

You and me both need to remember to Take Care of Ourselves! We are precious and unique!
Have a lovely week,
Much love,
Meg x o

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On goodness and colour

Posted on October 25, 2011 by avatar

Dear big-hearted bold souls :)

Hope this finds you happy and well, and that lovely balance of busy when you feel you’re accomplishing things, yet not getting unduly stressed about it and still have energy for yourself!

Right now someone close to me is has had their mental health disrupted. We’re not out of the woods enough to wrap words around it and talk about it here, yet it’s inspired a re-visiting of why I do what I do, both as part of ongoing self-observation and also with this new found landscape that includes mental illness. Suffice to say for now, that I am finding myself more committed than ever to my belief in the goodness and nurturing power of colour, beauty and kindness.

Personally, I find the joy of vibrant colour is one that bypasses the judgment of thoughts and goes straight to my core. You might be of that nature too, bold soul :)

The lady from the lino print Thriving is happily grateful for the abundance she finds both within and surrounding herself :) Incidentally, once the lino print was printed and painted I decided “I like that grateful girl’s clothing” – hence the tshirt design!

That’s me last summer – in the shirt (it’s back to front as it’s a mirror photo) – holding one of the satsuma plums from the tree that inspired the lino print!
I guess what I am getting at with all of this gathering of threads and weaving around is this series of reminders – for myself as much as anyone else!

  1. Be happy
  2. Do what makes you happy
  3. Wear what makes you happy (colourful garments will most likely be involved)
  4. Art (the photograph) imitates life (me in the tshirt) imitates art (the lino print) inspired by life (the abundance and gratitude of summer) … and around it goes, in one big happy colourful circle (ideally)
  5. A bit of gratitude goes a long way
  6. Recognise abundance and beauty in little things!
  7. Your mental health is precious and needs to be taken care of. Nurture it like a garden that needs gentle tending, so it may bloom.
  8. Seeing beautiful colour can be a great centre-er
  9. Surround yourself with people and things that make you happy

This feels like a long post and I’ve wandered a bit. Hopefully it all intertwines! This week several other blog writers tell this too, how their art/work/field has meaning for and has supported them; I also find Prem Rawat’s Words of Peace message to be very grounding.

Let me know in the comments section if you’ve found strength or solace from your art, music or a terrific teacher; and if you’ve blogged about it leave us a link so we can read it too – I’d love to hear from you, dear one :)

Be in your day, take heart, and thrive!
Much love,
Meg x o

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