Topic #17--Synchronicity

This piece is by Kerry Mitchell, entitled "Synchronicity"

Synchronicity is a word coined by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung to describe the "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events."Jung spoke of synchronicity as an "acausal connecting principle" (ie: a pattern of connection that cannot be explained by direct causality). Plainly put, it is the experience of having two (or more) things happen coincidentally in a manner that is meaningful to the person or persons experiencing them, where that meaning suggests an underlying pattern. It differs from coincidence in that synchronicity implies not just a happenstance, but an underlying pattern or dynamic that is being expressed through meaningful relationships or events. It was a principle that Jung felt encompassed his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious, in that it was descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlay the whole of human experience and history-- social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. Jung believed that many experiences perceived as coincidence were due not merely to chance, but instead, suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances reflecting this governing dynamic.

Topic #16--"Appetite" Entry

Thank you Windy Angel for this touching entry.

"the past days my appetite has been "longing for peace", especially since we learnt of the death of my cousin as the 27th Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan while trying to keep peace together with 2,200 other Canadian soldiers.
I did this background as one of nancyB's tutorials .http://www.somethingtwocrowabout.typepad.com/ I quickly put the words on it's scanned image but hope to work more with the actual background.
Mundo Uno ~ "One world, one future, for the children"

Topic #16--"Appetite" Entry

Wow--check out Sue's journal spread--a royal feast!

Topic #16--"Appetite" Entry

Check out Mary Ann's colorful, clever entry!

She says, "i've used stamped images, alpha/word stickers, a few gems, scraps of tissue paper, leftover paper from projects & a "test" scrap of pink polka dots (a newly acquired foam stamp). i don't know about you, but i have an insatiable {appetite} {desire} to create>>>i truly believe that art feeds the soul. & i've a sneaking suspicion that i am not alone on this. bon appetit! "

Topic #16--"Appetite" Entry

Many thanks to Amanda for her entry entitled "Why I Don't Eat Out Anymore."

Topic #16--"Appetite" Entry

Many thanks to Georgia for this important contribution.

She says, "Well, for me the first thought that jumps to my mind when I think appetite is an image of an appetite denied... Having dealt with an eating disorder for most of my life it is difficult to think of anything else when the word is something that is normally associated with food or eating.

The original picture of this woman I found on the internet in an image search on google and changed it up in photoshop. It did not say who originally took the picture or who it is of. I am actually using this as a reference for something else that i am drawing, but since that is not finished yet I will post this one in its place, and then post the finished drawing once it is complete.

For some people this image may be a little disturbing, and it probably should be. I hope that if nothing else it creates an awareness in the people who see it."

Topic #16--"Appetite" Entry

Welcome to Johhynorms--check out this icredibly cool entry!

"I seem to have an endless appetite for art - I mean other artists' not mine.
This is my metaphorical intestine of cultural absorbtion.

Originally drawn on a Camembert box, hence the title.
Below, a related image - perhaps I've been overdoing it!"

Topic #16--"Appetite" Entry

I enjoyed Ian's post for this week. Plus, check out his blog for further commentary and another great interpretation.

He says, "The perspective-doodle is my official entry this week; The Grazer. I'm often astounded by those who wander up and down the supermarket aisles, chomping on packets of biscuits and crisps, and swigging from pop bottles. I suppose it's not really shoplifting - unless you get to the checkout and find you've left your wallet at home. I'm all for trying the complementary samples and I don't mind asking the cheeseladies for a taste-and-try-before-you-buy, but grazing? no."

Topic #16--"Appetite" Entry

Here is AscenderRisesAbove's entry for this week.

Topic #16--"Appetite" Entry

Many thanks to Patrick for his entry!

He says:
okay this one fits well, appetite.

there's this song by bright eyes called "ive been eating (for you)"

id post the lyrics but i don't want to waste space, but it fits well:

the end of the song goes:

"but just don't ask about my appetite
i didn't lose it tonight
it's been gone half my life
it's just i
i've been eating for you."

ive been struggling with mine, im never hungry these days and food tastes like ash.

ill start eating and feel sick or full.

so i just focus on taking one bite at a time.

full lyrics here

Topic #16--Appetite

Topic #15--"Monochrome" Entry

Here is my entry for this week--a mixed media 4x4 piece inspired by the process of making cyanotypes.

Topic #15--"Monochrome" Entry

AscenderRisesAbove contributed this thought-provoking piece!

You would have broken my wings,
but the very fact that you knew
I had wings, set some seal
on my bitter heart, my heart
broke and fluttered and sang.
Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), U.S. poet. "Toward the Piraeus"

Topic #15--"Monochrome" Entry

Mary Ann's contribution--a very chic, "en vogue" piece!

She says, "it all started out with these paisley stamps (hero arts), which i've attempted to swirl around on white cardstock, & i then aged with 'old paper' distress ink (tim holtz)...& the rest is collaged scraps, ephemera & ribbons, all in the cream/sepia/black color scheme"

Topic #15--"Monochrome" Entry

Many thanks to Windyangel for her entry! Please visit her blog for some excellent commentary regarding this piece (click on her link in the "Participants" list) or her entry url in the comments section under the topic post.

Topic #15--"Monochrome" Entry

Welcome Georgia! Thank you for your wonderful self-portrait!

She says, "I took a picture of little old me and doctored it up some in Photoshop... so here I am, feeling a little blue."

Topic #15--"Monochrome" Entry

Welcome to Ian! Thank you so much for your entry--this is just so cool!

He says, "The inspiration comes from a chinese board game I saw being played in the street and, although to my eyes it looked just like simple checkers (or draughts as we call it in the UK), nevertheless, it drew quite a crowd. I can only assume a little gambling was occuring on the side. The only difference I noticed was their board had 12x12 squares.

As per usual, I sketched the doodle during in the lunch hour and later coloured it using paintshop. After I doodled, I felt in the mood to practice a little verse."

"Chequers & Smoke" (ink on paper/digital colouring)

The chequers players

In blue heat biding time, no place to go
I'm wandering down south serangoon road,
Indian quarter, chromium blue on
turmeric walls, cinnabar sparks of white
shirted crowds, making moves, crouching across
buttons on rude chequered boards, criss-crossing
ivory tokens and saffron pawns
on a confinement of squares, the choking
cigarettes concentrated murmers
and stares, cut the intensity with
a keen cleaving blade. one mishap
and victory is around the corner
losing itself in a fog of grey smoke.

Topic #15--"Monochrome" Entry

Thank you Patrick for this moving entry.

He writes:

monochrome, my state of mind.

i sometimes find myself detached and numb, sometimes i wonder what happened to all the color in my life.

i live in a gray city in a gray world.

and if there is any color its blue.

Topic #15--"Monochrome" Entry

Many thanks to Karen for this gorgeous monochrome piece! It is entitled "Ghostly Alley."

Topic #15--"Monochrome" Entry

Here is Amanda's entry--thanks for this wonderful contribution!

She says, "This is one of a series of photos I took of some of my porcelain buildings."

Topic #15--"Monochrome" Entry

Many thanks to Joanna for this gorgeous entry! It is currently up for sale on her Ebay!

Topic #15--"Monochrome" Entry

Many thanks to Christine for this adorable monochrome entry! Love the sepia!

Topic #15--Monochrome

monochrome
n.
-A picture, especially a painting, done in different shades of a single color.
-The art or technique of executing such a picture.
-The state of being in a single color.
-A black-and-white image, as in photography or on television.

Topic #14--"Home" Entry

Welcome to WindyAngel! Thank you for your beautiful contribution for this week's topic!

WindyAngel says, "To me, home is about a place of comfort. It is very much about a place in your heart. Having grown up on a farm on the prairies I grew to love nature. Skies, sunsets, wild flowers and the greens of grass and leaves are much what I think about when I consider home."

Topic #14--"Home" Entry

Many thanks to AscenderRisesAbove for this gorgeous pen and ink drawing. She is available to do a perspective rendering for you--check out her blog entry for more info.

Here is a poem that she included with it:

often pass it - that house we didn't buy:
a five-barred gate, a tar-washed gable end,
a flush of roses swagged nostalgically
over one window. Sometimes a cat
sits bib-faced, smugly proprietorial
in the porch. Sometimes children's toys
are set out on the lawn - a tent, a slide.
Summer weekends a slew of cars, a waft
of barbecue, hot music ...'Open House'.
But not for us. One year the grass grew long,
the curtains stayed undrawn. A trip abroad?
We’ll never know. Driving myself to work
I re-enact how we were shown around -
each room more elegant than the last,
curtains billowing inward from a garden
that promised views of further views beyond -
and think again: why not? Was it luck? Or fate?
We settled somewhere else - a different life
that (who knows?) might have better suited us,
that someone else might covet. At night I pass
its hunkered homeliness, its lighted squares.
I like to catch the dumbshow of their lives
through the kitchen glass, chiaroscuro of TV
dappling the ceiling. Someone puts out the cat.
A woman laughs. And then the lights go out.
The house we didn't buy by Keith Chandler

Topic #14--"Home" Entry

Check out Darcy's cool entry for this week! It is a digital and mixed media piece.

Topic #14--"Home" Entry

Here's my entry for this week, entitled "Home." I first built up the 10"x10" canvas with molding paste and stamped into it while it was wet to give a textured effect. Once dry, I worked the canvas with acrylics, covered over them with oil pastels and dry pastels, scribbled with graphite pencil here and there, and added collage elements. It's kind of a dreamy and fun piece. I wish I could say I was thinking about something meaningful when I made this, but can't. I just played with the topic in mind and voila.

Topic #14--"Home" Entry

This entry from Patrick really moved me.

I decided to post his whole blog entry, as truncating it would not give the whole picture.

He says, ""in my head, we're laying in bed, that night, and she says that i felt so right, so good, so perfect."
"i said, it was like coming home."

this one made me cry.

see, i couldnt for the last few years talk about my past, write about it, draw about it. i had to ignore things that had led to who i have become. even if it was a prt of what made me a better person.

its involved and i dont want to get into it right now.

about four or so years ago i had this relationship, it was with a woman who had been my first real girlfriend in highschool, it was brief but it was full of, passion, emotion, love.

and it ended.

so i wrote a short story that i was going to make into a comic called last weekend, it was about me going back to where i had grown up and the breakup. it was brutal and painful and horrorable.

i just never got around to drawing it. and then, when i was finally ready to, i couldnt. so i forgot about it.

and this brings me to "home"

i wanted to do heat last week but couldnt nail it, ironically all the sketches were very similar to what i came up with for this. ive been racking my brains thinking about "home", what it is, what i think of as home, and i thought id have to sit this one out as well.

then i remembered this one part of the story and it clicked.


that was home."

Topic #14--"Home" Entry

Mary Ann's contribution for "home" is a beauty!

She says, "This is a collage of all sorts of scrap paper, an actual photo of the house we used to live in in maine, some label stickers, alpha text from an old navy ad & stamped sentiment (hero arts)...

when we lived in maine, i used to work part-time in the camden-rockport schools (the remaining time, i was in private practice) & i remember seeing delightful quilt blocks & hand painted tiles created by the students...each hand crafted work depicted "maine" scenes...here's my take>>>a view of pen(obscot) bay & lincolville beach from islesboro (an island 3 miles offshore)...what i like to call, home sweet home."

Topic #14--Home

This piece is a polaroid image transfer by Ann Texter.

Topic #13--"Heat" Entry

Thank you Amanda for your moving entry.

She says, "I live in the subtropics in Australia, so its winter here at the moment and unlike those of you in the US I can't really complain about the heat just now!
Nevertheless my entry is on the Flickr Artwords site - In 2000 there was a terrible fire in a hostel in Childers, Queensland. Fifteen backpackers died that night. I made this painting three years later after having a dream about being trapped in a burning building."