Joan of Arc as a maiden warrior What does it mean to be a "maiden" nowadays? The focus of my work is with women in the crone years or apprentice crones at least. So how to talk about the Maiden part of the Maiden Mother Crone archetypes of a woman's life? I have been giving this a lot of thought lately, as we are focusing on the Maiden this month in an on-line course I am facilitating. To that end, I have come across some interesting writings on the subject. A maiden is pure in that she is true to herself and her vision One is the writing of Christine Valters Paintner, of the wonderful A ..read more

Seeing Yetis and other monsters... The image of Yetis and dinosaurs came to me in response to a page in the 1950's science textbook that I have been working into. The process is to find new imagery, using the pages of the book as inspiration. At times, I work into the pages first with more abstract “background” imagery and use that for inspiration.  This page had dinosaurs in a prehistoric landscape.    Anyway, when I started to work into these pages I saw these Yeti-like creatures and it occurred to me to wonder, what if Yetis were real and dinosaurs were not? In this image, o ..read more

A bit of a rambling ode to green.... Green is the heart, is F#... is the life force... Recently, I had the luck to visit a friend who is a gifted energy healer. She demonstrated to me how our chakras, (the energy centers that go up and down our body) are related not only to colors but also to musical notes and to corresponding healing sounds. It was fun to play with the tuning forks she had for each chakra, and to make the sounds associated with each.  I remembered that I had been told by another energy healer, Donna Eden, that my "life colors" are salmon and grass green. So it was inte ..read more

Crop Circle from Norton Plantation, North Heytesbury, Wiltshire, England A memorable dream of circles and squares… Recently, I had one of those memorable dreams.  I want to try to share it and I will do my best. But please forgive me, like all dreams, there is so much lost in trying to put something like this into words. The dream felt like a working out of some deep questions that I didn’t really understand. Questions that feel relevant to my life as an artist and a workshop leader. Ways of tapping into the cyclical/circular patterns of life.     The dream In th ..read more

Man in Kukeri costume meant to scare away evil. from Suitcase magazine article, Kukeri: The Forgotten Rituals of Bulgaria ​In a recent conversation with a fellow artist, she mentioned something about using her art to deal with the overwhelm that comes up sometimes, when we are faced with the real evil that is in this world. This set off a whole series of thoughts and conversations that I had with other artists and creatives. How do we hold or contain the evil of the world that is really there? Is this a ridiculous goal? Can we use our art to contain it-even just a little bit?    If ..read more

Page from the calendar of the Très Riches Heures showing the household of John, Duke of Berryexchanging New Year gifts. The Duke is seated at the right, in blue. That sense of timelessness we get while staring up at the clouds... ​You know that deeper sense of time that you can get from nature, if you have ever lain out on the grass and looked up at the clouds in the sky, noticing the ways in which they shift from moment to moment, looking at one moment like a bunny and then shifting into a dinosaur? Or when you have your hands in the ground, digging in the dirt, planting seeds or tendin ..read more

A couple years ago I worked on a series of healing crone dolls. If you are interested, you can see them on my gallery page here. In these dolls, I explored different powers of crones, as well and seeing them as portals to deep emotions. Then, last year, I worked more on this doll, adding a base for her to stand on (my husband helped-I write more about this on my Instagram account.) But she didn't seem finished. I had come to the understanding that this doll was a Ukranian crone, but her clothes didn't look Ukrainian enough. So I decided to fix that. As usual with these types of efforts, the p ..read more

Healing the Elderly, painting in altered book ​Dreaming with Hagitude As you might know, from reading my earlier posts or following me on Instagram, I have been taking a year-long class with Sharon Blackie, called Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life, based on her book of the same name. The course has been powerful and life-changing. Taking the course is part of the reason why I am slowing down a bit this year with my on-line offers. My focus this year is being back in the studio and doing the inner work that goes along with this year-long class. Yet, still making a few on ..read more

Commissioned Doll: A Big Hug Greetings all!  Recently I mentioned this commissioned doll in a blog post. This doll was a joy to make and I wanted to share her story with you. I hinted at some of her story in the above blog post but today I can tell more of her story. I was given permission by her new owner. Her name is now "Heather," very touching to me (because it is the German version of my name. Heather/Erica is a kind of flowering bush.) ​ Heather flower I first receive the commission A friend of mine from college (Bowdoin in Maine) recently asked me if I would make a doll f ..read more

Happy New Year! Hey and welcome to the new year! Earlier this week, I went on a lovely field trip to see the new Matisse exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Museum. So inspiring! Afterwards my friend and I drove through the city looking for a place to eat. We weren’t having any luck with the on-line guides to restaurants. We weren’t finding anything and then just decided to park just because there was a spot. And it turned out we were in front of a delicious Chinese take-out restaurant, with “hand-pulled noodles,” so it turned out perfectly. Sometimes life is like that.    What follows ..read more