expressions

Normal is when you feel calm and peaceful. Normal is when you feel that you own a power that comes from your very being. Normal is when you can be without ego. Normal does not mean dull. It is the opposite. Truly whole people are brilliant… giving light, doing what looks to be impossible to other people, exploring the world without fear and not really even noticing what others are doing because they don’t care. It is holding both of your hands up to protect the flame of God’s gift that you were given. We all have it. But some are so afraid of not being normal that they don’t protect it. Some are so afraid of seeming normal they pour gasoline on it and it burns their hands, their heart and is extinguished in its own over fueled fire.

God or the universe or Buddha is about having power, creativity and love.If we move forward with these we are normal.

l.

Listed below are three courses I am teaching for UBC-Okanagan Continuing Studies
.http://web.ubc.ca/okanagan/continuingstudies/welcome.html

Digital Photographic Art – From So-So…to Stunning

July 24 1 -5 pm
Discover, from an artist and photography judge, how to choose an image for the most artistic possibilities when taking pictures. Learn how to select, crop, and enhance digital images. Using simple techniques and basic software, you can give a professional polish to your photos and gain confidence in your work.
Total Cost: $110.88

Travel Writing
Monday- Friday July 26-30 9am-12 pm

Take a trip with a veteran travel writer, and discover what it takes to have your story published. Good travel writing is more than just describing where you’ve been and what you’ve seen. This week-long journey will teach globetrotters what you should know before you go and how to translate what you’ve seen onto paper. The session will look at how to generate story ideas, help participants develop their writing skills, and teach aspiring travel writers how to get their work published by writing pitch letters to editors. Whether your travel story is about far-flung destinations or the multi-faceted beauty of the Okanagan, this is where it all begins.
Bon voyage!
Total Cost: $252.00

Location: FIPKE Building 138

Blogging
Saturday July 31 9 am – 1 pm

What started out as a simple method for keeping an online diary or journal has become arguably the hottest form of communication and expression of the day. Blogs are micro-websites that are typically maintained and updated by an individual. While many still function as personal diaries, a growing number provide commentary or news on a particular subject. This hands-on workshop helps you get started on your own blog, whether it’s merely a place to record your daily thoughts or a venue to share your ideas or opinions on the world today. Learn the basics: deciding what to write about; setting up a blog, step-by-step; using templates; uploading text, photos, video, and audio; and using various blog tools.
Total Cost: $67.20

Location: FIPKE Building 138
I currently have work at Gallery Vertigo, Vernon; Summerland Art Gallery; New Moon Gallery in West Kelowna; Wine Valley Accents Gallery, Summerland and a piece on the way to the Kamloops Art Gallery show.

I have moved my studio home from the Rotary Centre. Contact me to visit my new studio and view art work.
Cherie Hanson

http://www.cheriehanson.com/

http://www.talentdatabase.com/

http://www.facebook.com/cherie.hanson1

Today was a day about getting the trivial out of the way. Just transferring my car from joint to full ownership, getting new insurance, buying food for my home stay, planning the show this weekend, finishing the small tasks in the yard.
Big decision such as what exactly I am doing in my life are awaiting (more…)

Today I worked more on getting the patio area outside my studio ready. I dug up the weeds, moved old wood, picked out the stones and laid out the big jig saw pattern. The handyman is coming next week to put in the last windows, make a plywood wall for behind the counter and then I can lay the entire studio out for work.

Hopefully a former student is coming to visit and look at my art.

Because it is 90 degrees out I am taking a break from working in the sun. Listening to Wayne Dyer under the air conditioning and drinking bubbly water is great. When it grows cooler, I will go out and finish laying the patio. It feels so good to get the back yard in order so that I can have a calmer life.

night sky image

Next I am writing a poetry book from my old journals and making some applications for schools. Opening up to the wonderful possibilties in life. What a journey.

Penticton Art Gallery now has two pieces of mine for their pre-Christmas sale, I will be in a show at the Rotary Centre for the Arts for three days November 12th on, then the next week Gallery Vertigo is letting me have a show at the Kalamalka Campus. Summerland Art Gallery is holding a pre-Christmas sale of art cards and books which has motivated me to get producing again.

photograph of my hand shadow on a scrap book page

Hand made books are a real pleasure to create and I want to have three or four more ready for Gallery Vertigo’s book store.

This thursday I will be in the Rotary Centre for our First Thursday Open house. Last month 30 students from UBC attended and it was lovely to have a chance to meet the up and coming art teachers that will be inspiring students in the high schools and elmentary schools.

texture abounds in this piece for a CD cover

I am a featured artist in Homes for the Holidays and will be putting up the pieces that I created next week in the show home. All of those great photos I took one day last winter after a heavy snow fall should look great in this old fashioned christmas themed open house.

star gazer lily in my neighbours yard

Meanwhile, I am organizing an all candidates meeting to get more interest in the election. Only 22% of citizens turned out at the last election and there seems to be a more prevasive kind of negative inertia in our town. People are quick to complain and critize but don’t go out to the cities open houses or respond to on line surveys. I guess it is human nature to have everything be alright until it seems to be all wrong. What about the place between?

Sutherland park after fresh snow

Cold weather, art, politics. That is my life right now. Happy November.

Up against the wall

elbows out

fighting to feel.

The background glass

allows the light of leaves,

mosaics the yellow

next to my bed.

The pain of being body,

swollen round

arthritic pulse of flow.

I will not curse

the heart at work.

Art Walk and the standing for hours each day have taken their toll. I awoke with stabbing pain in my wrists, knees, ankles and feet. My stomach was burning. Strangely hard to settle on one spot when back, neck, head and all of the rest are screaming at me like an unruly group of children all demanding attention. I moved the bag of lavendar closer to my head and let the aroma flood over me.” Resistance is futile,” I reminded myself. Just let the high notes play like a zylophone first here then there. A tune of physical despair. I listened until I sank back into sleep.

poetry in the folds

Today I had the wonderful gifts of emails from friends sending love and congratulations on my work. Even my taciturn brother said, “You know you are good, now go get buyers.” From him, that is high praise. He speaks little, infrequently and usually laces the comments with sarcasm.

Trying to get the house back in order and return my focus to those things which I have promised that I would do for people was what entertained me in the afternoon.

But the morning was sheer frivolity. We awoke at 7 were at Valu Village at 8:30 where I purchased $300 worth of thrift store clothing for myself, Cameron and my grand daughter Rhane for $150. This grand girl skyped me to inform me that “I have nothing to wear in my closet. I have no dressed for preschool, grandma.” Actually she says gandma. So today I got her dresses, skirts, blouses, sweaters and a pair of shoes. Mostly pink. Mostly very, very pink.

So what of this day? What of any day? Where did I make good decisions? Where did I go wrong?

The body is asking for care. Order and quiet needs to be vigilantly but gently reinstituted. The quest for more galleries to carry my work must be taken up again.

And the breeze that flows past me from the door asks me to come outside.

During would be good if it weren’t truly an adventure. We spent so much time on the move and not hooked into internet during our journey that it was impossible to keep my site properly “fed”. However, now that we are back in Kelowna, I can begin to tell the tale.

overlooking vienna from a viewpoint

The weeks preceding the journey were stressful and busy. With the passing away of my step-father, the journeys to take care of him and his affairs, time was distorted and disjointed. Two art shows right before I left further ate up my time. The actual preparation for the Vienna show seemed to take last place.

the beautiful suburb outside Vienna that we visited.

The plane trip took almost 17 hours and found us arriving at the Vienna airport in another time and space. The trip itself was smooth because Cameron does such a brilliant job of planning and anticipating transitions. We always knew exactly how much time we had to move from place to place. Wrangling the art work rolled in a lawn chair bag and carefully stowed in plumbing pipe that Cameron constructed as a waterproof tube was a feat. We had a backpack each. We each had a computer bag that we used as “hand bags” or in his case a “man bag.” In addition, we brought a suitcase with a suitcase in it.

We have travelled enough to know by now that that extra suitcase is necessary. We tend to pick up paper, books, receipts etc. until we expand and become quite heavy and awkward. From each trip we have returned with an additional, newly purchased suitcase. We decided that this time we would not add to our collection any further.

We were  very pleased to see Matthias’ smiling face at the airport. He took us to his cabin where we spent the first few days and we immediately went to sleep.

Vienna is a town full of parks

Very soon we were in the car to take my art work to the gallery in the suburb of Langenlois which is a charming winegrowing area. The town is typical of historic Austrian and Eastern European villages. The stones that the fields offered up each spring were used to construct the buildings. Covered with a mud-like substance, the walls were painted brightly and when the surface crumbles one can see the history of the area appearing in the walls.

overlooking the city and the river

Setting up the show went very smoothly and the gallery itself was spectacular. The view from the ultra modern structure of the village from the past was a delightful juxtaposition. The gallery owner’s family owns several businesses in Langenlois, including wine-making. They were wonderful hosts and went out of their way to make us feel welcome.

Today I worked a few images that  are processed in the manner that is my practice. I selected photographs, worked the images in the Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 and then layered, highlighted and dropped worked images into worked images. Layering, distortion, filtering leads me to the jpg image. If a customer wishes to order an image from my bank… I print it out on canvas and the fun begins.

another sample at higher resolution

It is at this point in the process where I apply acrylic paint, metallic paint, India ink, metallic foil, various mediums including glass bead and tar.

The original pic of winter trees

Layer upon layer of processes lead me to the spot where I have a piece which has shifting planes and an energy that challenges the eye. It is all a dance of discovering and I joyfully lose myself in it.

So above are today’s images.

the image was sent in as jpg then printed

The Los Angeles public turned out

The show in Los Angeles sent through pictures of the opening at the Los Angeles centre for digital art. I am happy to share them with you. My image is tourquoise and was of a “reconstructed” aluminum paint tray.

Tourquoise aluminim paint tray second from top

All works were printed on paper

My image is high up on the wall

36 x 24 canvas multi-media piece

Since I have had lazer eye surgery I have terrific long distance viewing pleasure. Clouds are floating in clarity above my head. Down the street I can see the one white ear of the neighbours black cat. I can tell is someone is grimcing or smiling as he or she moves down the sidewalk.

But… I can’t see up close. All of my life the world has been a haze, a blurr, a romantic mist beyond the distance of my elbows. Now it is reversed. Stubbornly, I refuse to grab my glasses before I attempt to do work up close. The results should have been enough to instruct me about the necessity of a new pattern.

I have eaten glass in my food, taken the cat’s thyroid pills when I had a migraine and yesterday I experienced what it is like to “be” my husband when I took his pills. Needless to go into details but all of the ailments that go with being a middle-aged man I ameliorated with his perscriptions. I spent most of the day laying down or in the toilet. For a person with very low blood pressure and, perhaps, hypothyroid, it was a less than sterling day.

My ears were ringing, my breath was labored and even while laying down I felt like I was working out. I knew enough not to struggle and just wait for time to flush everything through.

Now, have I learned to put on my glasses before I do something potentially hazardous, like eat or use a knife. One can only hope.

Today I loaded up new images to my face book page and secured the wonderful music of the KSS jazz band kids at our First Thursday Art Crawl at the Rotary Centre for the Arts from 4 until 7 pm November 6th. Art, music, food for those who come down to 421 Cawston Avenue, Kelowna, B.C.

http://www.rotarycentreforthearts.com

Always, the exploration of art leads inward to an exploration of self. The interaction of the exterior field of action, technique and externalizing vision makes the “statement” of perceived reality. The magic of art is that it is not discrete. It contains so many elements that the artist who gets very quiet at the centre, comes to see. Music, dance, kinesthetics and aesthetics do, indeed, become one form.
The process of creating visual art has been a path of self-discovery. One can liken it almost to archeology or the uncovering of the bones of self with brushes. Removing that which one does not identify as part of the central form leaves a true definition.
It is with this “archeological exploration” in mind that I suddenly had an epiphany. My work has always had a movement across the surface and a shifting of planes. Movement transforms the background, mid ground and foreground as they exchange dominance on different areas of the canvas.
I assumed that this was from my history as a dancer and choreographer. However, when someone asked me, “How do you get these vision?” I found myself understanding. “When I was very young, I began to see visions of colored shapes dancing whenever I heard music. Now, as a sixty year old, I have been able to reproduce the synergy of art, music, dance that I saw behind my eyes all of my life.”
Not unlike the process itself, I discovered the answer to what drives my work by turning off the rational mind and simply answering the question.
As in physics, all forms partake of all other forms. The flow of language, the clarity of visual impressions, the dynamics of music are all one. It is only someone who cannot “speak” the language of another manifestation of aesthetic, who places one form above others. They are all the soul’s work.

http://clicks.robertgenn.com/music-painting.php#comments

http://quote.robertgenn.com/auth_search.php?name=cherie+hanson