I haven’t posted in a long while, primarily because I’ve slowed my art making way down. And I’m happy with that.
As 2022 wound down, I finished the second in my new Portals series. Technically, I finished it on January 1, 2023, but let’s not quibble about dates. 😉
Portals 2: Intuition Hand painted with acrylic paint on commercial fabric, raw edge fused applique, densely machine stitched.
I’m enjoying this new direction I’ve taken with acrylic paint on fabric to create an initial design, then adding my fused applique bits, and finally applying my signature dense machine stitching.
To remind my visitors and viewers, in recent years, I’ve released timelines and deadlines and expectations. I’ve relaxed into my opportunities to create because I’ve let go of the need to be creative all.the.time.
And in the letting go, I find my Light is freed up to better listen to my intuition and follow it where it leads. In this case, it led to this new Portal, a view for you into my intuition. 💖
With joy and ease…
Come back and visit in several months and I’m sure I’ll have a new Portal to share. See you then!
Interested in my art, my writing, my poetry, or learning more about bringing consistent joy and ease into your life? Then let’s talk!
Contact me to schedule: * A virtual coffee * A private (virtual) art show of my art * A commissioning conversation to discuss hiring me to create a textured fiber painting uniquely yours
If you enjoyed this art piece and the essay, and it feels aligned, please share on social media or via email. If you liked it, someone you know will probably like it too!
Portals 1: Cosmos Hand painted with acrylic paint on commercial fabric, raw edge fused applique, densely machine stitched.
This new direction I’m going — painting on fabric, adding my fused applique bits, continuing with my signature dense machine stitching — is really enjoyable. Even if this piece took many months to create.
To be clear, it was the stitching that took a while, not the design. The design piece is always something that comes together in a short period of time for me.
I’m not complaining about how long Cosmos took to finish. I’ve released timelines and deadlines and expectations. I’ve relaxed into my opportunities to create because I’ve let go of the need to be creative all.the.time.
And in the letting go, I find my Light is freed up to better listen to my intuition and follow it where it leads.
With joy and ease…
I’ll continue to create, as it calls me, following this new direction. I think the next Portal will be filled with bright color. I’ll share it as it comes alive.
Interested in my art, my writing, my poetry, or learning more about bringing consistent joy and ease into your life? Then let’s talk!
Contact me to schedule: * A virtual coffee * A private (virtual) art show of my art * A commissioning conversation to discuss hiring me to create a textured fiber painting uniquely yours
If you enjoyed this art piece and the essay, and it feels aligned, please share on social media or via email. If you liked it, someone you know will probably like it too!
2021 was an interesting year. I went back to work in construction management and moved across country from the humid and salty southeast to the dry and joyously hot southwest. This shift impacted my studio schedule in dramatic fashion — I only completed two textured fiber art paintings last year.
Over the course of the last two years – pandemic time – I learned more about myself and what I want out of life. What I want is to live with joy and ease and, for me, that means releasing the pressure to turn any of my creative endeavors into full time work.
Would I like to sell my art? Of course I would. I’d love to see it hanging in someone’s home or in a gallery or in a museum.
Is that necessary for my happiness?
Turns out the answer is no.
And what a blessing it was to discover that truth.
By releasing myself from those expectations, I’ve discovered I’m free to create whatever I want, whenever I want, as frequently or rarely as I want. I create for the joy of it, not the marketing or image or perceived consumer desirability of it. I create for me and if others enjoy what I create, that’s a true delight.
(c) 2022, Hilary Clark, “Abstract 2”, Digital Painting
I always told myself I wasn’t a painter. It was fun to change that story and make it false — all of life, all we perceive, is just stories we tell ourselves about what we think, feel, and experience. We’re free to change the story whenever we want.
So I changed mine.
For 2022, I’m adding paint to my work. Using acrylics, I’m painting abstract designs on commercially printed fabric to create the canvas. To that canvas, I’m fusing additional fabric that enhances or contributes to the painting. From there, I’ll stitch my work in the dense style I’ve adopted. That’s part of my voice, after all, the dense stitching.
I’ve begun my first work in this style. I’m calling it “Cosmos”. As soon as my Bernina is back from its time in the shop for a good cleaning and tune up, I’ll start stitching. I’m thinking a spiral design will be just perfect.
(c) 2022, Hilary Clark, detail view of “Cosmos”, acrylic paint and raw edged fused material on fabric, work in progress
With joy and ease…
I’m loving this new way of creating my art. I’m loving exploring new styles, techniques, and abstractions. I’ve loving this direction I’m going.
My 2022 is starting off with joy. I hope yours is too.
xo
Interested in my art, my writing, my poetry, or learning more about bringing consistent joy and ease into your life? Then let’s talk!
Contact me to schedule: * A virtual coffee * A private (virtual) art show of my art * A commissioning conversation to discuss hiring me to create a textured fiber painting uniquely yours
If you enjoyed this essay, and it feels aligned, please share on social media or via email. If you liked it, someone you know will probably like it too!
Presenting “Tree of Life”, my latest textured fiber painting!
(c) 2021, Hilary Clark, “Tree of Life”, Fiber, 29-1/2″ x 29-1/2″ Photo Credit: Hilary Clark
This piece is a departure from my usual work. When I completed (Feeling) Joy in January of this year, I knew I wanted to take a break from creating feelings out of fiber and try my hand at a different subject.
So I turned to my design ideas file and selected a tree of life. I’ve been drawn to this image for decades. The spiritual connotations and the centuries-long staying power of this philosophical and sacred concept are kinda my jam.
The Tree of Life connects all of creation. To me, it symbolizes knowledge, growth, evolution, and our innate, Spirit-driven link to Divinity. We are rooted to the Earth even as we stretch through Air to the sky. We are fed by Water and reborn through Fire.
On the practical and art-making side, I originally intended to create this tree as I create my feelings – by cutting out abstract fabric shapes and fusing them to the canvas landscape. That didn’t work for this piece. I considered pipe cleaners and ribbon and felted wool. None would do. Finally, I pulled out my acrylic paints and decided to have a go at painting the image I saw in my head.
I’m super pleased with the result.
These detail shots offer a glimpse of both the paint and the stitching. I hope you enjoy.
Detail view: Tree of Life Photo credit: Hilary ClarkDetail view: Tree of Life Photo Credit: Hilary ClarkDetail view: Tree of Life Photo credit: Hilary ClarkDetail view: Tree of Life Photo credit: Hilary Clark
Most of my work is available for purchase. Not this piece.
From the moment I painted it, I knew it would hang in the bedroom I share with my partner, as a reminder that we’re here, living this version of our human existence together to learn and grow and expand in love, peace, and joy.
I hope you have a similar image or item in your home that provides you with the same reminder. If you don’t, what’s stopping you from creating it?
xo
Interested in my art, my writing, my poetry, or learning more about bringing consistent joy and ease into your life? Then let’s talk!
Contact me to schedule: * A virtual coffee * A private (virtual) art show of my art * A commissioning conversation to discuss hiring me to create a textured fiber painting uniquely yours
If you enjoyed this essay, and it feels aligned, please share on social media or via email. If you liked it, someone you know will probably like it too!
I came across a post on Facebook a while ago, about taking your power back, about not allowing others to make you feel small or less than or anything other than the glorious human you are. (Sometimes, Facebook delivers really good stuff.)
This post had gone viral, which is how I found it. I read it. It resonated. Especially this line: “I am a dragon, and I am ancient and experienced.” That line leapt off the screen at me – BAM! – because I’m growing older each day and I’m always learning, which translates into experience and it made me smile to picture myself as a mighty dragon.
And while smiling in my imagined dragon form, my mind turned to judgment.
I work every day to be as non-judgmental as possible. I don’t do this because I follow some religious practice that says judgment is a sin. I don’t do this because I’m trying to be holy. (I’m not. I’m so far from it, it’s laughable).
I do this because it’s what feels right to me, what I believe defines me as an individual and allows me to live a more beautiful life.
I work at non-judgment but every day, I fail. In reality, I fail miserably, often.
I find myself caught up in judgment through gossip, through anger, through attempts to cooperate which go no where, through a lack of knowledge or discernment or patience.
Every time I fail, I learn. I was going to say I’m pleased to fail because that’s how I learn, but that’s a judgment too, so instead, I’ll stress the value of the learning from those moments when I fall into judgment.
I have friends and acquaintances, co-workers and colleagues, across the many tentacles of the political spectrum, the gender spectrum, the color spectrum, and more. All of them are individuals on the HUMAN spectrum.
I am grateful for the opportunity to know these people, to follow them and listen to the messages that come from their hearts, the messages that define them. Because in knowing, following, listening, I am given the gift of spiritual growth.
But this is also the area where I work hardest to release all judgment. I may not always understand an individual or collective position, belief, stance. Each states what is true for that individual and I may cock my head to the side in curiosity or confusion – because it contradicts what I grew up believing or what society has dictated for years or it pokes at something deep inside me to make me uncomfortable (ah, there’s a lesson there!).
This curiosity or confusion or uncomfortableness is why it’s the area where I work the hardest. To borrow from someone far wiser than I, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. And Spirit does not judge. Only humans do.
We are the same as much as we are different. We come from the same place. We return to the same place. There is no Heaven. There is no Hell. The human experience encompasses both; they aren’t places to go when we close our eyes for the final time.
We release our humanness when we die and return to Spirit, which has been with us all along. It’s a Truth that no one gets out alive. So why not use our human time to learn as much as we can? Why not use our human time to be as close to our Spirit selves as possible?
So even if I’m still curious or confused or uncomfortable after following and listening, I always straighten my head back on my neck and nod – in solidarity and respect for what makes you, you. I don’t know what you’ve experienced. I haven’t lived your life. I can only live mine, so I choose to refrain from judgment and instead seek greater understanding.
I am an individual, just as you are. I choose to work on being non-judgmental as my path to learning whatever it is I came into this human experience to learn. There’s joy in non-judgment. There’s ease. And there’s so much incredible light.
With joy and ease…
I may not always understand but I am always willing to listen and learn and grow, so if you need a person who won’t judge you for what makes you, you, I’m here. And if that helps you to take your power back, all the better.
xo
Interested in my art, my writing, my poetry, or learning more about bringing consistent joy and ease into your life? Then let’s talk!
Contact me to schedule: * A virtual coffee * A private (virtual) art show of my art * A commissioning conversation to discuss hiring me to create a textured fiber painting uniquely yours
If you enjoyed this essay, and it feels aligned, please share on social media or via email. If you liked it, someone you know will probably like it too!
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