Troy Night Out, Delmar

It's that time again! Troy Night out tomorrow night-- my piece, "Keeper of Secrets," depicting a lynx, will be exhibited in the Fence Select show at the Arts Center. 

Then on Saturday, from 9am to 1pm, I'll be at the Delmar Farmers Market at Bethlehem Central Middle School, selling prints, cards, stickers, and original collages. 

As a reminder, you can purchase my prints and cards online at Etsy.com, or at The Cheese Traveler in Albany or T and J Soaps in Troy. Or just email me.

Upcoming: First Friday in Albany (7/5), I'll have collages exhibited at The Cheese Traveler, at Mingle restaurant, and at the Upstate Artists Guild gallery on Lark Street, in their "Midsummer Night's Dream" show. Don't miss it!

Art on Lark

Don't forget Art on Lark this Saturday! There will be tons of art, music, and food vendors. I'll be there selling prints, cards and stickers! Come on out!

Also, remember 1st Friday this Friday. I've got new work up at Mingle (540 Delaware Ave) for the month. Yes, it is my work, not artwork by Nicolette Sheridan, as the 1st Friday printed maps incorrectly indicate. 

Look forward to seeing you there!

"Seeing Green: Environmentally Conscious Art" - New Exhibit

May's 1st Friday is a big one.

Just last evening I hung a show at the Stage 1 Gallery of the Albany Barn (46-48 N. Swan St., Albany).  "Seeing Green: Environmentally Conscious Art" will feature seven pieces of mine, as well as works by four other artists.  As you may know, all of my artwork is created from very small pieces of paper cut from celebrity gossip and fashion magazines, transforming the magazines into collages focused on the four natural elements and totem animals, that make a larger statement about how we live in our natural world and how we connect with each other.  My art is dually environmentally conscious.

Three of my new pieces are on display; one is a triptych I created when I was away in Austin, TX for three weeks.  The piece is called "The Path" and features five vultures, two hawks and a gryphon.  Really, it's about purification, a movement away from a stage of innocence, through a self-awakening and on toward spiritual enlightenment.  (A picture is below, but unfortunately it came out a bit blurry, so you'll really just have to get on out to the show.)

As I said in my last post, about fifteen of my pieces are currently on display at Mingle (540 Delaware Ave., Albany).  Though I do not have new pieces there, likely there are pieces you have not seen, so I recommend getting out there, having drinks/dinner, and checking out some artwork.  Support local business and local artists at the same time!

"The Path"
8"x10" (triptych)
cut paper
© Nicolette Callaway 2013

To Know Bounds

Though I have not posted for a while, I have not been absent from art.  As many changes have taken place for me in the new year, so too have things been taking shape with collaging.

Below is the piece I completed in February.  The moth is a totem you may remember from one of my posts on reading signs and spirit guides a few months back.  As you may recall, the moth is about relationships, about following your senses, observation and intuition to know whether a relationship, of any type, with a particular person, is right for you.  The rabbit I recently came to discover is one of my totem animals.  I had wondered over the last few years, in creating pieces with totem animals, when I would discover which animals represent me.  Though I know I do not yet have all of them, the rabbit is indeed one.  Rabbit is about boundaries.  It is about knowing which boundaries are appropriate to keep and maintain strong, and which ones to leap beyond, to risk venturing outside of them in order to grow and change.

When these two totems come together, they suggest that we must all be aware of what boundaries are necessary for particular relationships to thrive.  How far to push?  How far to be pushed?  Where do you begin and I end?  We do not have to sacrifice our boundaries to achieve closeness.  We get to protect ourselves and hold ourselves sacred, and still be loved.

To Know Bounds
cut paper on canvas panel, 8"x10"
© 2013 Nicolette Callaway

New Collage - "Let the Spirit Take You"

I began my most recent piece in April.  I finished it last week.  Five months may seem like a long time, but sometimes art requires that an artist let a piece simmer while doing and experiencing other things.  In the last five months, much has happened.  Lessons have been learned.  Time has moved both quickly and slowly, things have been gained and lost, and hearts have been broken and mended.  This piece speaks to all of that.

The animal totems that appear in "Let the Spirit Take You" (2012) are hummingbird, tortoise, and dog (Golden Retriever).  The hummingbird is a symbol for accomplishing the impossible, and finding joy in all things.  The tortoise represents longevity, persistence, patience, slowing down enough to identify what's really important, and finding the abundance in simplicity.  The dog generally represents faithfulness and protection, and the ability to love.  The Golden Retriever in particular holds qualities of confidence, patience, friendliness and domesticity.

In this piece, all of these totems surround a woman.  She is relaxed, yet vulnerable.  And with vulnerability comes fear.  The hummingbirds are flying at her head, sort of kamikaze-style.  Perhaps they are trying to make most apparent that she can accomplish anything, and that she doesn't have to think about the how but rather just feel the joy of wherever the Spirit takes her.  The tortoise provides stability for her to recline, but it is in her face, talking to her, making a point.  Perhaps it is telling her to slow down and, again, not think so much, but rather watch, be patient, make it through.  The retriever is lying on her feet.  It doesn't worry.  It loves.

Recently I had a conversation with someone about the nature of love.  It is immutable, flexible, infinite, expandable, and unoppressive -- and solid.  Love isn't fleeting, contrary to what many may think.  Love allows us to break, and allows us to mend.  It helps us complete the cycles we experience throughout life.  Where would we be without it?  Likewise, Love's friends -- Patience and Persistence, among many -- are also our helpers.  They all work together to help us accomplish what we never thought possible.  And when we let them help us out, things like how and time -- well, how shows up, and time moves without us even realizing.  Perhaps that's part of the key -- don't think so much.  Let the Spirit take you.

"Let the Spirit Take You"
2012
paper and acrylic medium

Market Saturdays

Just a reminder - I'm at the Delmar Farmer's Market every Saturday morning, 9am-1pm, at Bethlehem Central Middle School.  I will be missing the next two weekends, but I will be back on September 22nd.  Please feel free to email me in the meantime about any artwork, prints, cards, sock monsters, or jewelry -- I can always arrange to meet you during the week for an exchange!

This past Saturday, three small butterflies flew in or through my tent -- two white ones, and the third one was brown.  Any hazards at a guess for the meaning on that series of encounters?

Below is an image from market.  Thanks so much to the customer who snapped this photo!

Yesterday's Market

So a few people have asked me how I did at market yesterday... every Saturday/Sunday I get this question. 

My answer for yesterday is:  "I don't even care about the money. I had a butterfly, a bumble bee and two honey bees fly into my tent!"

The bumble bee flew right toward my face, then up into the top of my tent.  I told it it needed to come back down in order to get out, and then I went about selling.  All of a sudden, it dropped itself onto the table with a bang, right in front of a customer, then flew out.  The honey bees came and went and buzzed around me like they always do.  The butterfly was yellow and black, just like the bees.  It flew right on in, and then got stuck between the top of the tent and one of the sidewalls.  It was missing one of its bottom wings, but after I helped it out of my tent, it just kept on going, like it never knew it was wounded.  

Now, that is a good day. 

Additionally, yesterday I had a meeting with my niece, who is collaborating with me to write the story for my children's book that I mentioned in a blog post a few months ago.  Slow moving, some things are... but they shall still get done.

Signs and Flexibility

As an addendum to my last post on reading signs, I want to say that one must be flexible.  This holds true for everything in life; we will all get further if we keep our thinking about things flexible and expandable.  And if one is practicing any form of art (expressive, visual, literary, etc.), this will necessarily occur (except when one is experiencing artist's block, which generally means that one is being too rigid or literal in their thinking -- aka, being overwhelmed or afraid). 

But in any attempt to follow spirit guides, or signs, outside of an artist perspective, one must not have too strict of an idea of what they're a sign of.  An experience with a spirit guide can hit at the core of a feeling and be dead on, but as for what to DO about it, well... that spirit guide may not be giving you any advice.  That's when the other guides show up and lead you further.  So while we may get hit with one encounter, we've got to keep open and listening.  And, of course, we always must be observant about the actuality of the situations we find ourselves in, and do our best, while feeling the feelings that may come up, to think rationally, and act based on rational thought.  Which is, indeed, flexible.

Shifting

Things are shifting.  All signs point in that direction. 

When this seems to be the case for me, I watch the animals around me.  These are the animals that eventually show up in my artwork.  What do they have to say to me?  What is their message?  Sometimes I am distracted and can't hear them.  So I research them -- find out their totem meanings.  Then I single out the one or few meanings that fit for me in that moment the animal and I shared.

Recently I experienced four (five) totem animals all in a row.  While I relate this story, I will admit that I am a bit trepidatious to reveal parts of my personal life.  How can a set of experiences so personal to me mean anything to someone else?  By example.  Hopefully, my story will show others how to examine the encounters they have in their own lives.

So I recently started seeing a man.  And while we were on his back porch, a large moth (we're talking near-bat, here) flew at my head kamikaze-style, and into his house.  It landed on his wall.  It was a mottled grey moth, but when it flew, the underside was a brilliant red, making it look almost like a monarch butterfly when in flight.  After studying the moth for a few moments, we did a trap-and-release maneuver for the moth, letting it back outside, to fly at someone else's head.

Now, I have created pieces with moths in them before, but it has been a little while, and if I am not currently working with a particular totem, I will tend to lose track of its entire meaning.  Moth, I was thinking, is transformation.  And while it does symbolize that, as far as totems go, transformation is more the meaning for a butterfly than a moth.  Turns out, moth is a messenger, and a symbol for relationships. Moth will reveal true feelings that are hidden, and trust you to know whether the person you are with is right for you.  Well, this moth nearly hit me in the head.

The next totem animal in this series is the black ant.  They are crawling, one by one, all throughout the man's house.  Black ant also has appeared in my artwork before.  Industriousness, discipline, patience, persistence.  To show us how we can be the architects of our own lives, and can build all of our dreams in time.

The next day, I sat under a tree.  Not to sound too much like Buddah here, I was on my lunch break, having a sort of crisis of fear.  A squirrel ran over, climbed the tree, sat on a limb, and stared me down.  Distracted by the workday and the fear, I could not hear what it was saying to me.  But squirrel (also having appeared in my artwork), while symbolizing gathering and preparedness, also seeks to show us when to unburden ourselves. When is the point where we have collected too much, and are storing burdens of thought that make us inactive?  I believe that squirrel was telling me to drop those fears and move forward.

As I was trying to listen to the squirrel, I had been noticing that my hand kept getting tickled by something.  Without looking, I tried to brush it away.  It came back.  After the squirrel stopped staring me down, I looked at my hand.  A little yellow bee was buzzing around it, as though my hand had a dusting of pollen on it.  Reminding the bee that I was not a flower, I moved from my spot.  The bee probably would not have stung me, though.  As all of these animals were, the bee too was a messenger.  It has been a few years since I created a piece with a bee in it, and that piece hangs on my wall.  Bee is a symbol of fertility and accomplishment, and the bee reminds me to strive for my dreams, to work with others as well as alone, and to work in such a way that I always have time for myself.

These four totem animals in such rapid succession suggest to me that I am on the right path, and will have what I seek in time, as long as I keep watching and listening, moving with steadfastness and patience, being true to myself.  And these totems will likely show up in a new piece of artwork within the coming few months.

While I am not going to bring this post back full-circle, and discuss how all of these encounters relate to a new relationship, I will say that any reader may feel free to analyze if they so choose.  I will also note that these four totems may show up in the new piece along with rabbit, who jumped out at me a few days later.  Rabbit, the keeper of fertility and new life, also reveals the need for planning, and often suggests that success and movement ahead will come in leaps and bounds.  Leaps and bounds.

 

Prints are up on Etsy

The images you may have seen before, but the items are new.  All prints are on 8.5"x11" archival museum paper, with the image centered at a size slightly smaller than 5"x7".  They're ready to go in a frame, or if you want to get fancy, you could stick them behind an acid-free matte.  Most are limited edition runs, but my signature piece, "When The Time Is Right" (fox and owl), is an open run.  They're really quite a nice addition to any wall, mantle or buffet.  Check 'em out.  www.nicolettecallaway.etsy.com