What happens when you stop trying to live a life you think you want to have and live the one you actually could have?

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

                

~Oscar Wilde

Its been awhile hasn’t it? I have not written in so many months that it feels strange and vulnerable to do so now. That means it’s time to do it, so here it goes.

What happens when you embrace the life you have and really know down to your toes, for maybe the first time in your whole little life. that it’s also the life you really, really wanted all along?

I have been through transitions before, the type that leaves you breathless and shaky, and the kind that leaves you shivering and exhilarated. This one, for me has been a little of both. My divorce from my life mate of 15 years is nearing its final completion. It’s one of the fastest divorces this side of the Mason Dixon Line and well…its good. I am feeling less and less like I failed and more and more like I’ve been set free. I didn’t even know I wanted to be set free, I was so used to my cage. Now that the doors have been blown off my life for me, I am grateful for every moment of agony it took to get here… today.  Change is the only constant in this life, the only constant. I can count on things changing, planning to have my life not change is the ultimate recipe for disaster. I have accepted and grown with the ending… and today just a short hop from when it began, I am free. How can I now, not be grateful for that freedom? I have also rediscovered myself, reimagined myself, relearned to love myself again… and because of that work I found love again with a wonderful human being. 

I am not an artist that can use angst to create with and from. While I suffered through my change and then grew into my new self, I created very little art to record the process. I left this moment in time to the imperfection of my memory. It has not been recorded or preserved. Not the end of what I thought was my last relationship, relationship….nor the beginning of my new, knock my socks off relationship either. Sacred these moments are, and I don’t want them to be documented in my work. They are private and just for me to know. I am selfish in this memory hording. I hold these moments so dear, yet I am compelled to not record them in my work…not currently anyway.

 I have been working, and change always inspires new work, but while I have had incredible highs and lows, I have not created in those moments. I am growing still…again…perpetually. I want my work to reflect that experience, not record the pain and joy of living, but the actual living, in the moments as they happen, to capture forever in a grain of sand. The futures just a pearl clutched in a sweaty palm.

I am in love.

I am love.

Love is what I am and want to be.

I am loved.

I am sure again that I am worthy of being loved, not because some one else loves me, but because, maybe for the first time in my life, I really know who and what I am. I love that, I love who I think I am today…I love that I still do not know for sure what I am capable of. I love that I am more sure of myself and that I took a little time to roll with the punches. I am proud of myself. So, I am in my own way becoming the person I have always needed and in that process, I’ve met someone who thinks I am pretty cool too. Nice how that works, right?

I am.

So, in short life keeps happening.

I keep on keeping on.

I am living right out loud and naked. You want to see what happens next?

Wonder what freedom for real will do to the BAD! Kitty?

Well, then you will have to come back, read, feel, see and experience for yourself my explanations of reality.

Welcome to my world, I hope you like your stay.

Raw & radiant,

Heather

www.badkittyartstudio.com

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New Art- Killer

‘Killer’

Mixed Media

20″ x 16″

Gallery wrapped canvas, needs no frame

This is today’s artwork.

I am. I continue.

So, it must be true.

I still have a job to do here. 

I am.

I continue.

I am.

Just keep going, it has to get better from here, coz it sure can’t get much worse. Molly get the mop.

That is all.

This artwork is available for the low, low price of $100.00 USA bucks. It’s because I love you and you are special. Would you liked that gift wrapped?

 Let me know if it belongs to you.

Have a great day,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

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New Art- Hand that Feeds – oil painting

Hand that Feeds

‘The Hand That Feeds’ – Newest artwork!

oils

18” x 24” x 1”

Finished sides needs no frame and ready to hang

(any shiny spots in the picture are just wet paint reflections, it’s seamless, I promise you. It also looks waaay better in person, because I ain’t a photographer, I’m just a humble painter. )

Here is the quote that inspired the work:

“I think I’ll be a clown when I get grown,” said Dill.  “Yes, sir, a clown…. There ain’t one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I’m gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.”  “You got it backwards, Dill,” said Jem.  “Clowns are sad, it’s folks that laugh at them.”  “Well, I’m gonna be a new kind of clown.  I’m gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.”  ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 22

 This work was such a struggle at times and at others a gift. I am realizing an episode of growth, a growth experience and it feels fine. I know I’m on to something when I dream about the work, when I can’t stop thinking about the work, and yet when I work on the painting, I fall into the hole of “I don’t know what I am doing!” Yeah…I tell ya, that’s the good stuff.

I am letting whatever happens…happen.  I am trusting the flow and going blind. I am forgetting everything I thought I knew and learning all these things I didn’t know – that I didn’t know. Sometimes it feels like my studio is in another slice of time, just like this one, only much, much better.

I think I am telling myself stories. New stories. I just might start believing in them too.

What story are you telling yourself? Do you believe it?

Magic lives in the answer.

I think I’m channeling hippies now. Groovy.

This work will be made available on my web site for purchase first, (where it’ll be less expensive) then off to the gallery. Thanks for being here today!

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

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New Art- Positive Reduction

‘Positive Reduction’

18″ x 24″ x 2″

oils on canvas

Will be available for purchase on my web site in the 2010 gallery.

Here is the quote that helped inspire the work:

The work was like peeling an onion. The outer skin came off with difficulty… but in no time you’d be down to its innards, tears streaming from your eyes as more and more beautiful reductions became possible.
-Edward Blishen

This abstract, mixed media oil painting took a year to complete. You’ll be saying…”no way BAD! Kitty, really?” (maybe not but I like to think about you all reading this and in my head you talk back, sometimes…no I’m not crazy, ok maybe a little bit) The simple answer is yes. I have painted this canvas 5 times. I hated each painting, and it would get thrown in the corner to wait until I had run out of supplies again. Well, I ran out of supplies. I picked up the cursed canvas and plopped it down on the easel. Then I stared reducing the very abstract color riot that was there. It started working! I felt something give inside my head and I finished this work over the last week. I had to wait for the paint to dry each time, because…like I said I’m outta supplies and therefore no drying alkids. OMG! I hate waiting for paint to dry, but nothing but oils give the depth of color and texture, IMHO, of course.

The picture of the wooden dressmakers dummy is one that I have had in my special pile for years, he had to become an enlightened fairy with dusty butterfly wings for this world. Dontcha’ think? Yeah, me too. Prepped and glued and textured him in there and bam! it feels good and done now. The background is a sunny orange/yellow, but very soft. I really liked how free this one made me feel…I think the whimsy may be returning on its own. Isn’t that nice?

Have a great day and thanks for being here.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

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New Art- I know why-Original oil painting

‘I know why’

16″ x 20″

Oils on flat canvas panel. Will need framing or mounting for hanging

Will be available on my web site in the 2010 gallery

Here is (the part of) a poem that inspired the work:

“What dreams we have and how they fly

Like rosy clouds across the sky;

Of wealth, of fame, of sure success,
 
Of love that comes to cheer and bless;
 
And how they whither, how they fade,
 
The waning wealth, the jilting jade —
 
The fame that for a moment gleams,
 
Then flies forever, — dreams, ah — dreams!

~Paul Laurence Dunbar

I worked on this painting for many weeks…a little at a time. It’s self-portrait, a mirror and an explanation of my observations of self awareness. It’s a visual poem.

I hope you enjoy the work.

Pray for Peace,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

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New Art -Set Free- original oil painting, urban art, outsider art

‘Set Free’

18″ x 24″ x 1″

Oils on gallery wrapped canvas, finished sides, needs no frame and is ready to hang

Will be available on my web site in the 2010 gallery

Here is the quote that helped this work along it’s way:

“I have everything, yet have nothing; and although I possess nothing,

still of nothing am I in want. “

Terence (185 BC – 159 BC), Eunuchus

*and*

“I love stuff as much as the next guy, but I’ve come to understand that, regardless of the cost of acquiring it, the price of having it is freedom. “

Colleen Wainwright, Communicatrix

 

Set Free, I want to be, I am set free. This original oil painting, done in an outsider/urban art style is representative of the act of letting go. Letting go of dogma, tyranny, slavery, and the need to be accepted. Letting all of the anger, fear, worry, and pain, go. Letting go of  wanting, letting go of the need to please. I am letting my work do it’s thing. I am letting the world influence my imagery. I am letting go of fear. I am setting free my inner child to play and create a world I want to live in. I am letting go of the need to express myself in acceptable ways. I am letting go of pretty. I am in free fall, I will learn to fly or bloom where I am planted. I forgive myself for not being, right now, in this moment, perfect.

I am loving. I am free. I am. I choose happy. I choose freedom. I choose to allow. I choose to accept choice and self-control. I choose risk. I choose not knowing. I choose life. I am willing. I am willing to fail. I am willing to succeed. I am willing to be brave. I am willing to love. I am willing to risk. I am willing to be imperfect and grateful. I am willing to be wise. I am not sorry. I am not sorry for living the life that I have. I am not sorry for what I do not have. I am not sorry for being true to me even if that sometimes disappoints people I care about. I am not sorry for being honest, alive and awake. I am not sorry that I am here today with all the trials and tribulations and the moments of darkness and uncertainty. I am not sorry that I am a soul that happens to have a body. I am not sorry that I am free. I am. I am. I am. That is always enough, if I let it be.

Can you see? I have been set free.

I hope you enjoy the work, and thanks for being here today.

Pray for peace,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

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New Art- Age of Man

‘Age of Man’

16″ x 20″

oils on flat canvas panel, will need mounting or framing to hang.

Available for purchase on my web site in the 2010 gallery.

Here is the song that made this painful and angry work, Okay again:

One love, one heart
Let’s get together and feel all right
Hear the children crying (One love)
Hear the children crying (One heart)
Sayin’, “Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right.”
Sayin’, “Let’s get together and feel all right.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa

Let them all pass all their dirty remarks (One love)
There is one question I’d really love to ask (One heart)
Is there a place for the hopeless sinner
Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own?
Believe me

One love, one heart
Let’s get together and feel all right
As it was in the beginning (One love)
So shall it be in the end (One heart)
Alright, “Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right.”
“Let’s get together and feel all right.”
One more thing

Let’s get together to fight this Holy Armageddon (One love)
So when the Man comes there will be no, no doom (One song)
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner
There ain’t no hiding place from the Father of Creation

Sayin’, “One love, one heart
Let’s get together and feel all right.”
I’m pleading to mankind (One love)
Oh, Lord (One heart) Whoa.

“Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right.”
Let’s get together and feel all right.
(Repeat)

~Bob Marley

This oil painting was created for the release of the passionate anger I have been feeling about the Oil Spill crisis. Using bold colors, and text from the Bob Marley song, “One Love”, I painted this work at least three times before accepting that sometimes anger does not make pretty art.  With a modern, pop art kind of feeling, this artwork made me work though my anger and get down to the brass tacks.

I feel like we are a nation of complainers. I don’t think we are really apathetic about our state of reality, I do think we sometimes mistake pointing out what is wrong for doing something about it.

I was in Mississippi just a few months after Katrina. I remember feeling so hopeless and scared for all the people in the path of the flooding. I remember feeling amazed at the lack of accountability and help that came in response to the living crisis. I felt small, I felt helpless. Then I got mad. Then I painted four paintings about those feelings. I painted out being a pissed of Southern woman, (that’s a lot of work my friends). I sold those works while I was in Mississippi and I then found 2 real families that were in trouble and fleeing from the disaster. I gave them the money, anonymously. I did what I could do, not for all of them but those that I could reach.

What can I give? What can I do for the people and the earth? Not much, I am only one person. I think that is part of the problem. We can Facebook  and tweet about the horror of all this. We can social network, we can blog. We can donate millions of dollars to huge charities. We can get off our butts and go help clean up. We can rally together and fight the government for change and safety. We can do many things, as one. One Heart. One Love. Let’s get together and feel alright.

I will find a family or two, like I have always done, and I will donate 100% of all profits made from the sale of this work and/or any others works I may do in this vein. I will donate all profits to those families, and know that one person can do some little good in this world. Will you join me? Will you create something and share it with the world?  Will you join with me as one people of earth, and do something for someone else? Will you act with one heart? Can you act with One Love?

I am but one person, and I am mighty.

Pray for peace,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

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New Art- The Goddess #2

‘The Goddess Series #2′

16″ x 20″

oils on flat canvas panel, will need mounting or framing for hanging

Available for sale on my web site in the 2010 gallery

Here is the quote that moved this work along:

“This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.
Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, cliché.”
-David Foster Wallace

As I move through the work I find that I am rediscovering, in  way, my love for imaginative play. I can create anything I can think of. It’s like the very best kind of magic, really. If I want a world where people have the heads of animals and birds, I can make it happen It’s playful and introspective and addictive. As each of the Goddesses are born I feel a little more interested to see what happens next. Sometimes I feel like I am only a tool and the universe uses me as it sees fit, a little nudge here, and a little sufferng there. It keeps me moving right along, and these images keep making their way into my brain pan and I have no choice but to bring them to life. It’s all good, I’m having fun and enjoying the playfulness that my inner world affords me. I hope you enjoy it too.

Have a great day, and thanks so much for being here today.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

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New Art- The Goddess – Happy Friday, this is your art calling

‘The Goddess’

16″ x 20″

oils on flat canvas panel, will need framing for hanging

Available for purchase on my web site in the 2010 gallery.

Here the words that helped shape the work:

Two thousand years ago, we lived in a world of Gods and Goddesses. Today, we live in a world solely of Gods. Women in most cultures have been stripped of their spiritual power.
Dan Brown

AND

After much diligent research, aided by other women, I gradually came to understand that beneath the familiar Goddesses of the patriarchy, there is a much more ancient Goddess.
Carol P. Christ

The Goddess is an exploration for a larger series or body of work that is working its way to the front of my mind. I have been in love with ancient peoples, symbology and birds/animals for several months now. I have a new awakening happening, it’s a revolution I tell you.  This work was a  practice for what I see coming up, and I really love the way it came together. I want to paint sexy, sensuous goddesses with authority and an authentic rawness. I am on my way to discovering what is being born, in my spirit and awareness. I hope you all enjoy the ride too.

Thanks for being here today and let me hear from you, I am a needy, attention starved artist after all. LOL

Pray for peace,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com

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New Art- Dreamscapes

‘Dreamscapes’

24″ x 18″

oils on gallery wrapped canvas

Finished sides, needs no frame, ready to hang

Available for purchase on my web site in the 2010 gallery.

Here is the quote that helped inspire and shape the work:

“I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now? Reality leaves a lot to the imagination. “
-John Lennon

I spent a few weeks on this one, I don’t know that I even really like it, but I needed to paint it and more importantly, finish it. It started with a few dreams that finally came together all at once. I got up and drew this out. As I started painting I figured out that it wasn’t going to make sense, it’s a painting of a dream for goodness sakes. I just went with it. The robin is sitting on my idea of brain neurons, the ideas sparking though the incredible highway of connective tissue. The rest is well…dream stuff. The lion-headed woman is laying down for some Dreamtime of her own, near the incredibly blue lake and amongst the sweetness of the flowers.

I don’t know a lot about the why of this work, only that it just is.

I hope you enjoy it, let me hear from you all, it always makes my day.

Pray for peace,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartsudio.com

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