Part of why I enjoy these annual check-ins is just that, they are a way I can reconnect with myself within my wheelhouse, to explore the Venn diagram of my Self and my creativity, a kind of artist’s check-up, mindfully and meditatively made…
Read moreRoses for Her - Part I & II →
Earth has been a mother force throughout my life, and I personify Her in many ways, in many aspects, frequently in my work - in homage, in gratitude, and in love… Facing the darkness with courage - the heat’s rage - heartily supplemented by that incandescent thing we call hope, is a major theme threading through this work. Rosary will return…
Read moreReviewing the Month of Love - Sketchbook Saturdays 2022 →
I’m sharing a rare look into a month’s worth of my Sketchbook Saturday ongoing email series with this review of our Month of Love theme. We cover Philautia, Ludus, Eros, and Pragma types of love, complete with art work concepts… There is so much more to love than red roses, chocolates, and flowers, couple's dates or heart-shaped notes. These aspects of an imminent holiday might seem shallow, and they are modern remnants of a much wilder, ancient custom, but the intention to collectively pause and make some deliberate notice of the love in our lives, I think, is the true essence of…
Read moreSelf-Portrait As Hathor & Shakti – Sketch Vs Painting I →
“…Hathor is an Egyptian goddess – a personification – of this universal matriarchal presence. She represents the nurturer, the cultivator, and the destroyer, lover, mother, and protector, all in one. Shakti is the Hindu concept of creation, the great mahadevi of the cosmos, representing the dynamic forces of the universe. In some iteration, shakti is play, that child-like, innocent capacity for simple becoming. In this self-portrait duo, it’s a riff off of “mother and child…”
Read moreNew Painting - Intuit - 1st of the Inner Landscapes →
“Intuit” is a watercolor painting, the first of three in a short series - or triptych - entitled "Inner Landscapes", which was born out of the intersection of landscape studies, nature immersion, meditation, visualization, sketching, and philosophy, over the quarantine period…
Read moreSketch & Story Time for Halloween - Bean Nighe - The Washer Woman →
“The Bean Nighe (ben-neeyah) - She is a kind of Ban Sidhe (banshee) of Celtic myth - Les Lavandieres in French - a spirit who comes as a warning. She is always washing clothes, the clothes of the person who is fated to die.
’It was a brisk Autumn day…’ “
New Drawing! - "Cultivate" →
“Cultivate” 8x10” graphite drawing on paper, third of a triptych series entitled “Inner Landscapes” coming soon - 2021, Mairin-Taj Caya
“Cultivate is about this idea of stewards of their own experience, or gardeners working with nature to facilitate beauty, progress, comfort, and vitality. Love is an action, a way in life to maintain and foster self, companionable, or collective benefit. We nurture, sustain, and inspire through love, and we do this willingly, kindly, curiously, out of wonder and respect. What grows and becomes abundant in your inner world, or through your love with another? What is in your garden?”
Read moreNew Drawing - "Fortify" →
“Fortify” - Drawing - Graphite on paper, 8x10”, 2021, copyright Mairin-Taj Caya
This is the second installment of a trilogy series, speaking to memory and healing. These drawings are really only a small part of the whole picture in each instance, because their painted counterparts will…
Read moreSisters Incarnate - The Fates →
This is a dream, a memory, a vision, the Fates reincarnate. They preside over the present, the past, and future, and hold the final word over all human lives. But they do not rule the dawn, or the moon, day or night, the light of hope and faith. These things they wait upon, as well as us. They do not know what will be, only what is likely. There is always possibility, the potential for courage, the great human nobility, to lead in every heart…
Read moreNew Drawing - "Intuit" →
“Intuit” - Drawing - Graphite on paper, 8x10”, 2021, copyright Mairin-Taj Caya
New Drawing Debut! The first in a line up of a small triptych series to be announced is this piece “Intuit”. It speaks to the dream-like realm of intuition and the hidden psyche, from which - lacking the sharp relief of daylight - the inner knowing, the inkling, and the web of vision within, governs. I can’t wait to paint it!
Read moreArt School Killed My Interest In Sketching →
Truth be told, I was never a sketchbook keeper. …Once through school and attending art college - to be a better artist - I was uncomfortable with how many students and professionals touted sketching every day, all day. {Whether or not this was true of their practice remains unclear}. "I don't do that, I must not be a real artist", was my take-away. Art school killed my interest in sketching, because there, it became formal, formulaic, and frail of "me"ness.
For years after graduating with a BFA, I realized what I was doing was rediscovering myself as a creative individual, going back over all the programmed territory in my psyche and unlearning it to cultivate something...more me. Three Things To Consider:
Foxglove Folklore - Full Sketchbook Access! →
I’m sharing our last Sketchbook Saturday VIP email series installment here, the first public access sample of what our ongoing sketchbook series looks like. To learn more about joining our community for Sketchbook Saturday, for free, click here… - Around the world, the fox shows up in mythos as both a trickster and sweet friend, an agent of chaos and a wise guide, an untamed animal, and a female human. Much like women, the fox's power is in it's dark and light duality, it's diversity, it's intuitive link with the wild nature.