Peek A Boo I see you a lover for the art and all things that support the growth of children? This one is headed to Auction. The Lily B. Clayton Auction is Febuary 24th. If you would like to make a bid send me a post. All bids accepted until 5pm Febuary 24th.
12×16 Framed
As the final chapter of 2011 exposes the conclusion of what I describe an undulating year, the remaining moments ebb and flow in what feels like being in an enormous sling shot as I’m projected into the New Year. But, before I go flying into the next moments of life, (without a net) I breath. A trip to my art studio shows unfinished paintings, commission jobs I’ve committed, finished pieces waiting for the last stroke of detail and blank canvas’ already speaking out the next new series. The room screams out “Where have you been said committed artist?” The feelings of guilt start if invade my peaceful nature as words like lazy, procrastination, uncommitted, weak and irresponsible flash before my mind’s eye. I quickly retreat, from the pained sight of unfinished work, to the car to find my children singing made up lyrics to familiar Christmas song’s blaring from the radio (mom left car volume up) “Fa Lee’s my Dad, Fa Lee’s my Dad, Fa Lee’s my Dad, Po pa a fleece for my dad!”
Happy Holidays 2011
My amused state by made up lyrics gives freedom to my troubled question… have I’ve been cheating on my art with another love affair? Not giving my craft the energy it deserves to grow and expand? or maybe I’ve been planting seeds of creativity for the next great harvest? I choose the latter.
Speaking of holiday tunes December is many things to many people. For me it’s a time we celebrate creation. Creativity flows through our communities and homes as we adorn our lives with beauty and express ourselves by giving dressed up gifts to those we love. I’m in full-blown celebration of creativity, not in my craft with my favorite brushes and paint, but with my family in my home. My neighbors nativity scene sheds light on this artful time to celebrate all the morsels and moments of creativity as we birth new ideas, beliefs and relationships. How fantastic to see those moments of creativity when we breathe life into our ideas with words and then expand those words with action and see our creativity turn into the present! A present to ourselves and those who share our unique life journey. When our dreams become reality and an undulating year gives the present of all the ways we created throughout the year! Celebrate with me living a life of intentional creativity. If your like me creativity will be shown in decorating for the holiday season, fun ways to serve old boring dishes at dinner, juggling all the defined balls of daily life and mostly how to merge my responsibility of the physical world with my desire to lose myself with paint and canvas! Being a creative woman I have faith I’ll find myself in 2012 wearing many beautiful hat’s! I draw upon the story of the Celtic priests who re-ignited the sun by burning evergreens on December 25th and I turn on my Christmas lights and thank all who inspired me and re-ignited my spirit, you who is reading this, courageous souls who came to “Playing with Paint, to all my friends who keep the light of creativity burning as a core value to their life! I look forward to 2012 and all the ways we will weave ourselves in and out of each others lives.
I raise my glass (Of Red Wine created by my best gal pals at The Vineyard in Florence)
Cheers From my abundant creative spirit to yours!!!
Love and Laughter~ Brandi C.
Campfire Gallery Night 2011
The Price of Hospitality Grocery List 2011
Has anyone seen my passion? My inspiration? Tripped over my very essence of creativity and fun? Sometime’s I think it all get’s burdened and weighted down by a big mountain of a rock I call “Being a Grown Up!” Or at least my version of what being a mother, friend, queen (and King) of my household, PTA member, daughter, chauffeur, gourmet chef ( I mean short order cook as my daughter says “burger, fries & chicken please” like those are the staples of her diet), cheerleader, dishwasher and grocery getter! I’m already exhausted! ugh Or am I?
Grocery List 2008
I look up on the walls and see paintings, my very own creative expression, and see my life before me. A critic recently commented “A Four- Foot Banana” like he was saying my artful expression wasn’t serious enough for his complex palette. If it’s good enough for Warhol and the Violent Femmes and frankly friends at the time I painted Mr. Banana I wasn’t thinking of Andy, I was thinking about feeding my family (something other than “Burgers, Fries, Chicken”) and the banana bounced off my grocery list and became the inspiration of my new body of work!
Eve's Apple Grocery List 2011
A four- foot banana, grapes, apple (that looks like a pumpkin) and huge grapefruit. All these simple expressions of my everyday life. Each with it’s own story of how it became a significant symbol of a past memory!
Which brings me to a very important question…What is a mother, spouse or parent (whatever title you give yourself) to be if one get’s lost in the duty of our everyday life? I say climb that mountainous Rock and claim it for what it is…..our life! My life! We can dream about vacations, retirements, and a life that is someplace in the future, or we see what is fruitful about today! Be like Elton, take out those Cherry Red glasses and see, what might have become dull and gray, be painted over with a splash of color!
October brings our last painting class of 2011.
(Private bookings available upon request)
Chad Isham
To celebrate the fun and creativity we’ve shared I’ve invited a new friend. Known around town as a “Artist/Cowboy” Chad ISham. Chad is an accomplished artist, daddy, friend, chauffeur, gourmet cook… we’ll you get the point. Chad’s also logged in time as a scenic artist on PBS shows Barney and Wishbone (ask him about his Emmy). After a five-year hiatus he’s back in studio creating his next body of work (I’ve had a peak and it’s fantastic!) The best part… he also paints fruit!
Isham Pineapple 2002
Just like me I’ve found an artist soul friend who finds inspiration in his everyday life. Chads will be on hand to give a more technical approach to painting on canvas. As usual I’ll flit around and remind you “it’s your painting and I’m not giving you my answer” but I’ll sure help bring your expression to canvas. Come early, take your B Vitamin and paint late. Take this last opportunity to capture what is amazing and inspiring about you and your life. Allow Chad and I to help facilitate an evening of fun, creativity, inspiration and passion! What are we painting? Of course a big bowl of fruit!
Ellen Inspires
Barry wrote the songs that made the whole world sing! In honor of words I launched the challenge to focus on the power of the words we choose to sing in our own individual melody of “my life is my song”. I enlisted my dear friend Ellen, to leave the much cooler state of Indiana, and help me explore the magic of words on canvas. Ellen is an artist using the canvas as a way to express her words. Ellen’s style is more blunt and straightforward while I too have chosen to use words in my expression, however slight and hidden beneath the layers. Which reminds me of this guy who quietly softly mumbled through our first conversation. It felt so hard to hear or make out what he was saying as if he didn’t own his own thoughts or gave any significance to what he spoke. I challenged him then the same way I challenge you and take the challenge myself….stop being careful what you wish for! Start speaking each word as if your mouth is a launch pad of your dreams and your words are the vehicle to which your destination will be arrived!
Wanda
Cari Ray "She Likes It Rough"
I found out recently my sing-song writer friend wrote a song about a story I told. What I realized is that I was speaking about this guy I had a conversation with and then she wrote a song about our life together before I lived it. Wow! I was already telling the tale, no matter how tired and sorry it seemed, and then I lived it, walked right into my words and I painted through it and I created it! Thank goodness for derailment….I woke up one day looked in the mirror and saw a girl who hadn’t taken her own words with significance and had allowed my thoughts to be flimsy and my story to be something a sad song sings. Is it true the only real thing I have that can’t be taken away is my word? If that’s the case I must take better care of these life forms I call my words, especially the four-legged ones!
Sandi
Next destination…..Passion, aliveness and freedom. Try on these words for a couple of days, see how they fit? If you talk to me this month I’ll be singing a different tune one that’s more refined with a clear message…..It’s about passion, aliveness and freedom. I might need a friend to help me flip that switch to reclaim my creativity through passion. I may find myself driving down the back alleys feeling alive as I sing with the Peas…”Tonights The Night”. So friend until we meet again let’s play with our words. Own and honor them be true to your word. I tell my children their mouths are connected to their heart and my ears are connected to my heart and when they speak, their words are the bridge that connects their heart to mine. Get rid of the heavy listless ones that speak about rough times and sing out the ones that give back freedom. I’m heading into studio this week to get it all out on canvas. Symbols and images of mumbling cowboys, red shoes and champagne. Roads to expansion when we courageously claim what has always been inside us and use our words as the key to unlock that which is ready to be exposed. Word up!
I’ve been on an intriguing adventure this month exploring the power of Dreams. It all began that one day in my life when I realized I’d had many sad days and the most sad thing I concluded was that I had stopped dreaming. Piled under my “To Do List”, life’s complications and conflicts my poor little dreams where being suffocated as I carelessly focused all energy on surviving the next sad moment.
So what’s a flawed dreamweaver to do? I started exploring my dreams, your dreams, anyone who was willing to share with me an intimate longing for the next dream yet to be fulfilled. As I searched deep down under the rubble for yet a bigger dream, a deeper dream any dream and all the ones that I buried so long ago I started to see the power. The Power of Dreaming. Dreams are the first moments of a new reality. The very first conscious awareness of an unwritten chapter that can be our next present moment in time. It’s in our dreaming we start to create and open the door to our own creativity as our subconscious minds begin building on the emotion and ideas until we manifest it all into physical life. When I disconnected from my dreams I felt dead and now as I start to allow those dreams to swirl around I’m getting excited about what I’m dreaming, I feel alive. The same ole “To Do List” sit’s on the cornerstone of my everyday life but today I make that trip to school, as I hit the grocery store just after my last pose in yoga with my dreamweaver strongly charged and brilliantly creating. A new chapter starts to be written as the adventure of life takes another turn.
Cheers to you my dreaming buddies I’m excited to come visit you as your dreams start to unfold. I’ll be purchasing some organic produce from the farmer gal down the street, visiting my friends farm in France, seeing families reunited and new business’s get started. I’ll be getting post cards from favorite vacation spots
Susan G.
and phones calls that friends are in good health.
Rosemary R.
Rings will be exchanged, children will behave, vintages will sell out and peace will be felt. Joy will flow again and laughter will be heard as the dreamweavers turn on the magic of how life can transform through the creation of ones dreams. Me and Martin had something in common… I too have a Dream! What’s Your Dream?
Do April Showers Bring May Flowers?
As I reflect the month of April the Words “Whirl Wind” circulate through my thoughts! I found myself “Playing with Paint” from my heart home of Fort Worth, taking my mother along side down to the grape vines of the Florence Vineyard then with my daughter in toe over to meet what I’ve titled 
“The Longview Ladies”. As I loaded up my car and headed out I was unaware that my journey would be more than facilitating a painting class. More than providing an opportunity to access creativity and have some really playful fun! April was the start of a lifetime love affair of my own. I fell head over heels in love and I’m forever a changed woman. This April, the celebration of my 38th year, I had the privilege to share myself and “The Playing with Paint Class” with 30+ women. What I learned is simply this……I LOVE Women! I loved meeting all the new women at the painting class. Seeing those old birds that keep coming back for more, and all the behind the scenes women. Those women who when I stand in front of the room no-one else sees. They are the women who’s shoulders I’m standing on as I speak about passion and creativity. Those Women who played a role(s) which supported me to stand up and share my gifts. Like the one friend who challenged me outside of my really comfortable box and asked me to declare the new show that is now up and hanging at The Vineyard in Florence Texas through June. 
Or my other Grand Friend who got on the phone and personally helped build my Inaugural Art Class at P’s Gallery in Longview. Let me not stop before I mention my Frister, the one who changes her flight and comes home early from vacation to attend my class and brings friends! These are just the icing on my already delicious cake. It has also been the women who courageously come to class ready to intimately expose themselves to a room full of strangers. They shriek and they shrill but they continue to paint and see what the next stroke will be and expose of themselves on canvas. And…they laugh! Women laugh at themselves and it’s beautiful. It has been my honor to have kept the space for so many lovely souls. My heart yearns that we all will cross paths again and play with paint 
another day. Until then I hope that I’ve given away the inspiration I have received this month. I am clear now “The Class” is not mine and it’s not for them…it’s ours. It’s the souls who show up and open up and create together! So we head into May, the month of mothers. I’m reminded As I watched Mother Nature whirl around the country whipping her force and removing all that stood in her way, of feminine energy. I too felt my feminine force starting to build momentum and preparing to remove all obstacles that stand in my journey of expansion. Our country mourned loss of life as our southern neighbors lost loved ones they also lost the concrete structures of their communities. Driving down Main Street looked like loss and devastation. I too had loss in April as I said goodbye to a relationship that has been my “Main Street” that relationship I’ve built by life around even my art around. And then I wonder…Do we ever really have loss? 
The women in my painting class have found out that a canvas holds many paintings, sometimes the best painting get’s covered up and sometimes it takes many disappointing strokes before the beauty is revealed and in the end the world only sees the painting on top and glimpses of the ones that layered the surface. As women we sometimes are standing in front and sometimes were the ones holding up the one standing in front. We have many layers ones that are disappointing and others more beautiful. Sometimes we 
need the force of Mother (Feminine) Nature to encourage us it’s time for a NEW Beginning. Embracing my own feminine energy circular, fierce, whole and complete on it’s own. Inspires me to Build Again. In my heart April Showers do Bring May Flowers and this month I’ll be celebrating my love for women and that will be the Inspiration you’ll find me chatting about at “Our Class”!
Tonight is the 4th Playing with Paint class at Michael’s Cuisine, Fort Worth TX. I’m dedicating this class to my dear friend. She’s that friend that filled my emotional tank full of fuel when my own pump went dry. She gave me the opportunity to access my own courage for a “new beginning”. How often do we believe in “New beginnings” because something seems broken or in need of improvement? Have you ever known anyone to leave a perfectly good marriage? Tonight’s class is about the “New beginnings” we take even when life is perfect. Just like the master wine maker who hand picks the finest grapes from a perfect harvest, and takes those perfect grapes and crushes perfection to create a “Special Edition” vintage. Tonight we’ll paint with inspiration of when we take the perfection of our life and make it into a “Special Edition” for our very own “Private Collection”. “New beginnings” aren’t just needed when the tank goes dry, but when it’s full and we have all our resources in place to create something that reflects our own most authentic beauty! How did my dear friend fill my tank? She put a mirror in front of my soul and reflected back to me that which already resided inside of me. She reminded me that I was my own “Special Edition” and it was time to expose to the world my “Private Collection”!
brandicottingham 