Media Blend & Contemporary Retablo

Media Blend at Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art

"If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you", that would suffice." Meister Eckhart



My catalog blurb reads something like this...

Media Blend: Step outside the box and find new ways of seeing. Sticking with the tried and true can also be stiff and stagnant. Discover exciting combinations of materials... express... make handmade prints, stamps, stencils ... experiment with a wide variety of mediums...unsettle and surprise yourself. Each session builds on the last: experiment with ideas in deeper, more personally relevant ways and unleash an invigorating style...of your own.

Here's a sampling...

Your inspiration may be a gift...

It may arrive through a poem...

your impulse may rise up through a deeply personal story...

more...

What's in a Name

Flotilla, Drozda 2001

18x24 inches

mixed on recycled wood

Several days ago Alyson asking me to address my blog name Merci 33.
Here's what has come to share.

Once upon a time 3 miscreants set me up in an entrapment situation, traumatized me severely and left me for dead. You can connect with the storyline where I created a graphic memoir last summer and posted it here on the blog from June through August. A post can be found here. You can imagine how physically, emotionally and psychically bereft the experience left me. One aspect of my recovery involved working diligently for 16 years to move beyond debilitating Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I lived in relative solitude for much of that time and devoted every day to inner repair working in studio and garden. It took time to learn to trust that life wouldn't brutally harm me again. I learned, and continue to enlist, unbroken focus; taking active measures to reclaim and rebirth myself, to walk in balance.

Alyson was curious and interested to know where the name Merci33 comes from and if I had ever explained that to my readers. In a follow-up email she went further and suggested that I tell the story of Donna Iona Drozda.

I'll be brief.

I love how the words we use and the way we communicate sends energy out into the world. Pain/pleasure, gain/loss, praise/blame, fame/disgrace. The list goes on and on. Some words help us feel hopeful and uplifted other words suck our lifeforce away and break our spirit.

Since 1991 the Lifecycle department of my studio outreach has been devoted to assisting us in walking in creative balance. The mantra for Lifecycle is paraphrased from Thoreau and states 'To affect the quality of the day is the highest of arts.' For Lifecycle I enlist a variety of well developed tools. I have a love affair with the work of walking through the world in a state of balance.

Merci 33: of course Merci means thank you. Thank you for every blessed moment. And 33 is an auspicious number that relates to 'All is Well'.
Therefore Merci 33 is a code for my life that reminds me 'Thank you. All is well.'

my plates remind me daily

My given name is Donna Jean Drozda. When I was violently attacked I could have been lost to myself for all time. However very quickly an artist/mentor came into my life and her lifestyle served as an example and helped me to immerse in the study of first Raja yoga and when my mind was able to calm a bit Hatha yoga. I was simultaneoulsy introduced to the Tao Te Ching. I have studied these daily for decades.

As part of the ongoing healing process I opened my studio to monthly 'Creativity Salons'. The monthly Salons were like protected circles, a gathering of artists who also shared like-minded souls. A core group of twelve of us engaged in a kind of 'collective creating' using the phases of the moon to circumnavigate the year. For more than five years we invested in the Salon environment where we were free to creatively invent ourselves anew.

We were a very playful group and one of the first things we did was give ourselves permission to choose a 'name for the day'. Instinctively I knew I needed my true  'Artist Name'...my own soul name. A name that belonged to me. What came is Iona. As in I own a Drozda...I own myself. Iona. No one anywhere, under any circumstance, has the power to take me from me. Not ever. It's been tested. It's been proven.

The Fields of Dewachen, Drozda 2001

30x30 inches

Acrylic on canvas

I feel very fortunate that circumstances came together to form a scar tissue that has made me stronger and more flexible as a result of what I have endured. I am a bona fide member of the 'Scar Clan' as outlined in the magnificent book Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

I am well aware that we are each stronger than we can ever possibly imagine. Often it is not until, or unless, we find ourselves faced with a true test of our inner strengths and resources that we discover just how Merci 33 life truly is.

So there you have it Alyson, in short form.

 Thank you so much for stopping by... may you always in all ways:

~Sing the day

Friday Mixed Media Gang

Last month a group of artist pals got together from 10-2 in the library meeting room to inspire one another and make some art.

It was so much fun that we gave ourselves a name 'The Mixed Media Gang' and decided to get together once a month with each of us taking a turn to introduce a technique or share materials.


Today we learned, from artist Michele Barnes, to work with gel monoprints. She has simplified the process from what you'll find at the link here making it very easy to begin printing as soon as the gel sets up. Shown here are just a few of the images as we were being shown the process and then began our own experiments.

Looks like the possibilities are limitless and it's a lot of fun to get a silk screen effect with such simple materials.

Have you tried this? Do you have any images to share?

Sizzle in the Studio

It's been quite the winter in an area where we rarely see the birdbath freeze.

There was a great collection of snowmen in the paper the other day and I thought I'd share this great image.

On the art front it's been sizzling... many great projects percolating in the studio and openings galore.

There was a wonderfully attended multi-gallery opening last Sunday at the new experimental Art Space in Pembroke Mall. My work is in my friend Debi Stadlin Studio where I have one large canvas tapestry titled 'Talking to Trees', a series of mantras and three painted benches.

Tonight my large canvas titled 'The Wish Fulfilling Tree' is being shown in the inaugural exhibition at the spanking new Art/Culinary Institute here in Virginia Beach. Tonight is also the opening where I am invited guest artist in Ohio at the Tri-C/Ursuline College Art Therapy graduations exhibit and 'Simplicity Symposium'.

The opening for Shooting Star Gallery is this Friday and also the opening in Brooklyn, New York for the Art House Sketchbook #4 Project.

Sunday I'll be presenting a talk and a workshop at Unity Fellowship in Newport News.

It's such fun to simply keep on keeping on...lovin' life.

Art Heart

I was born the day after Valentine's day so needless to say its always been dear to my heart... so when I was invited to exhibit in the 'Red Velvet' show at Shooting Star Gallery I was excited to see what would appear...here are the two 24x20 canvases that I'll deliver today.

'Bodhicitta Heart' and 'Fire in the Lake'.

'bodhichitta heart '/ 'fire in the lake '24x20 mixed media/canvas

Maps as Metaphors

Today I was at the Rawls Museum Arts in Courtland, VA presenting 'Maps as Metaphors: Charting Your Own Identity' using the inspiration of Sun Bear's circular Earth Calendar/Medicine Wheel as our entrance point.

With the wheel plus Angeles Arrien's Signs of Life the eight artists participating went off into the beautiful afternoon to create works inspired by the creative journeys they are currently interested in mapping.

Bravo!! to Sandy Lupton for all of the organizing skills that made the day hum. And thanks so much to the other artists in the circle: Donna, Barbara, Brenda-Gail, Twila, Jill, Ragan and Jenine. The works that came out of our studio time were an inspiration for this entrance point into the 'Underworld' of the feminine that is upon us for the coming six months.

This is a powerful time to consider what you will invest in between Fall Equinox and Spring Equinox. See if you can let yourself 'BE' as often as possible.

My Earth Angel

On my way to the long low poultry houses I pass the large fenced vegetable garden. It feels like a sacred space, far more private than the rest of the surroundings, and so out of respect I have skirted it...until today. Now I unhook the rusted latch on the slatted wooden gate and enter.

Life is burgeoning. Bees and butterflies are at work in profusion. My inner senses dance among the variety of shapes and colors and textures. I realize immediately that in order to be whole again I need a garden in my life.

Something catches my eye and as I squint through the oversized foliage of a summer squash. I see, perhaps two hundred feet up the slope, lying snug against the earth, the main residence, a low single story contemporary designed home. There is a natural pond outside the back door.

I stare.

The sun is reflecting off the surface of the water.. Through the brilliant light I think I see an apparition. I watch as a graceful nude figure emerges, rising up and out of the pond with ease.

There's fluidity to her movement and dignity in her posture as she wraps herself in a flowing white garment. She stands in the sun and idly creates a long single braid in her pure white hair before the shadows absorb her into the house.

I am entranced.


This artist memoir celebrates the 60th year.
This graphic created in SUMO

There will be another dream for me

Click on image to enlarge


Is there ever any particular spot where one can put one's finger and say, "It all began that day, at such a time and such a place, with such an incident? Agatha Christie

Opening the door I knew in my gut that something was amiss. However on this day as most others since my recent ordeal I was not a resident of my body. It had been through quite enough. I'm 18. I'm looking for a holiday. I've come here to visit my group of friends. I don't want to think about all that my body and heart have just been through.

The house is silent. Eerily quiet.

I look to the left. The dining room is empty. The table is scattered with fabrics lying in wait about the sewing machine. The four Bose speakers stand tall in their respective corners. Mute.

I look to the right there is no one at the large welcoming kitchen table, its benches akimbo as though someone recently pushed heels against the floor, turning to leave.

Which is what I do.


This quick retrospective sketch done in Sumo...

How Does Your Garden Grow?

When I was working with Kimon Nicolaides book in the early 70's I learned that finding a live model was no more difficult than looking out of my window. On the block where I lived there was a fascinating elderly Eastern European woman dressed in 'Old Country' clothing. She pulled a small red wagon and carried a hoe that was almost her height. She appeared most every day during the fall wandering silently down the road stopping to pull matted leaves and debris from between parked cars.

She piled her wagon high with this dark and matted mulch taking it back to her garden.

I admit that I would watch for her. I was intriqued and mesmerized as if I were looking through a keyhole into another, distant time. As soon as I would notice her coming down the road I would bolt for my sketch book. All the while she worked I drew. There were times when I went out to walk beside her attempting to catch her other worldly quality on my paper. She did not seem to mind. We never spoke, I don't imagine we knew the same language, yet she inspired me greatly.

Two of the sheets here were done from life on 18x24 inch newsprint. The third is a sheet of four studies using soft pastel and conte crayon.

The Natural Way to Draw

In 1970 I recieved a gift copy of Kimon Nicolaides The Natural Way to Draw. The book sets up fifteen hour a week schedules for drawing. It took me several years to have the confidence to start. Once I began I quickly became dedicated to completing each exercise in this wonderfully rich book.

The idea is to work from life and/or using the live model which often I did. Though living out of the loop, as I did during that time, I also freely used the Domonkas Library art book collection...that's what I did here:

These three memory studies after Diego Rivera were done on freezer wrap paper with woodstove charcoal in 1978.

In 1968 I fell down the rabbit hole and almost disappeared. In the late summer I met Alice Twitchell, the artist angel who saved me. And from that moment on I once again knew my direction. Late in the year while I was working in the Coven Tree boutique/gallery on Coventry Road a hardcover book fell of the shelf into my hands. Titled Introduction to Yoga Principles and Practices by Sachindra Kumar Majumdar it opened me up to a world of extraordinary words and oh so exotic images. I began to read and then study voraciously the Sutras and the poetry of the Vedas and the Upanishads.

I began ever so slowly, ever so tentatively to attempt to quiet my mind. I recall being frightened of what might happen as I practiced learning to meditate. At the same time, and to a greater and far more compelling degree I felt as though I had slipped through a veil. I sensed that here I could find a safe space to heal as I dreamed my artist life into being.

One of the first poems I learned to lean into was:

Save the self by the Self.

Never upset the self.

The Self is the only friend of self.

The self is the only foe of Self.

Yoga helped me to begin to learn that there was another way to move through the world. As an aspiring artist I was yearning to find my voice, a voice that I felt I had lost as a result of deep trauma and violence.

Shown here are two contour drawings from that time period. My living room and my two studio companions, doves Horatio and Sunday.

I Go Among Trees and Sit Still

Prior to my move out of the city I lived across the street from the breathtaking and magnificent landscapes of Lakeview Cemetery. Founded in 1869 the 285 acres of land are modeled after the great garden cemeteries of Victorian England and France.

My morning meanderings would take me into the forests and along streambeds where ancient trees and the sound of water anchored me. I so enjoyed drawing the Standing Ones all around me. My soul yearned for roots and I took great comfort in hours of stillness and solitude.

The days held a rich contrast of nature and culture.

After my morning hikes I would walk around the corner to go to work at a little boutique/antique shop on the famous Coventry Road .

Living and working in this lively cultural zone for five years gave me a chance to become an impassioned student of Hatha yoga and to envision the look and feel of my artist life.

These two works are 10x8 inches. The first a soft pastel and ink on Strathmore. The second a watercolor on Arches paper.

Women Artists Gathering

Do you find that one good thing often leads to another?
Last month during the 'Shared Terrain' exhibit with poet Toni Wynn and printmaker Liz Boyle we were each asked by Selden Gallery to create a commemorative piece for Women's History Month.
My idea was an afternoon of performance art with 12 women...my SWAN Day event posted here March 28.
That led to this evenings fire at my studio/home attended by 9 artists...a marvelous sharing of dreams...

Here's the flyer I sent out...we'll gather again May 11.

INSPIRED BY THE THEME OF THIS YEAR’S WOMEN’S HISTORY PROJECT FOCUS ‘WOMEN TAKING THE LEAD TO SAVE THE PLANET’ I INVITE YOU TO:

JOIN ME ON APRIL 13 FROM 6:30-8:30 TO IGNITE THE CREATIVE FIRE IN YOUR BELLY… COME AND SIT NEAR THE FIRE AND/OR WALK THE EARTH CALENDAR WHEEL.

TAKE THIS TIME TO RESPECT WHAT YOU WANT, TO LOOK AT WHERE YOU’RE GOING AND TO IMAGINE HOW YOU INTEND TO MOVE FORWARD.

CONSIDER THESE TWO HOURS AS YOUR TIME TO WATCH THE FLAMES DANCE, WARM YOUR HEART AND LOVE THE MANY WAYS IN WHICH YOU ARE INSPIRED TO ADD YOUR VOICE TO THE WORLD.

THIS IS NOT A GROUP THAT IS ASKING ANYTHING OF YOU. THIS EVENING, AND THE ONCE A MONTH FIRES THAT WILL FOLLOW, ARE DESIGNED TO BE A BREAK, A REPRIEVE, A TIME OUT, A GENTLE SOOTHING SPACE FOR YOU TO WATCH THE FLAMES DANCE AND TO LISTEN TO THE SHARED DREAMS OF WHAT THE WORLD WE LOVE SO MUCH CAN TRULY BE.

Dance for Peace

There is an awesome dance, called the Thousand-Hand Quan Yin, which is making the rounds across the net. Considering the tight coordination required, their accomplishment is nothing short of amazing. All 21 of the dancers are deaf and mute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgHmSdpjEIk

Quan Yin, as a true Enlightened One, or Bodhisattva, vowed to remain in the earthly realms and not enter the heavenly worlds until all other living things have completed their own enlightenment and thus become liberated from the pain-filled cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
There are numerous legends that recount the miracles which Quan Yin performs to help those who call on Her. Like Artemis, She is a virgin Goddess who protects women, offers them a religious life as an alternative to marriage, and grants children to those who desire them.
from wikipedia

Happy 20,219 Days

I love birthdays. I love the whole idea of being born. I love being in this Earth School for 20,219 days (including Leap Years). I am so grateful to be able to live and work and share life and love as an artist. I love saying YES until the Universe says no. I love saying "Thank you so much for this precious human life".

Share the Love...

An ultra creative pal and fellow Aquarian (her b-day is on the morrow, mine the day after Valentine's day) on the west coast, writer of the Orange Wheel Barrow , has some terrific insights to share and she is so kind as to give my yearly article a pitch in her most recent post...check it out.

New artist friend, gentle soul and Media Blend collaborator of mine over at Blue Water also throws kudos out in my direction...thank you both for taking the time to spread the love around. Aren't we a lucky bunch to be in a creative community where we toot one another's horn and share in our success and joy.

That said...please don't miss the chance to sign up for fabulous opportunity to win grand Valentine Heart'art book made by my soul sister, K.
You'll see the lush red heart when you open her page...just add your comment and you'll be in her hat.

Have you celebrated a friend this week?

A Little Help From Our Friends...

I'm a techno weenie and often my synapses don't fire from one avenue of net space to another with the lightening speed of, say, a 7 year old. Enter my darlin' pal and artist extraordinaire Karin! When she saw this flyer that arrived yesterday she shot off an email and said "You have to blog it!" and my brain flat lined...how to transform a PDF to a jpg to a gadget to a web page. I voiced my conundrum and within minutes my soul sister had started the process and walked me through the steps...thank you!!

So much about this techno world, for me, pertains to taking a deep breath and relaxing...AND allowing help to arrive from whatever direction she chooses to come from. So thank you Karin...ahhhh...looks as though this is a good day for thanks.

Now off I go to hang with those 7 year old artists in the studio at CACV.

The Clearing Creativity Salon

Yesterday I had the complete and tremendous joy of presenting the 'Clearing Creativity Salon' for and with a group of artists and art's educators at a hidden jewel of a center called Alternatives Inc.

On the natural calendar of the Earth Wheel January represents the moon of cleansing and release. Throughout the morning we 'wound the wheel' exploring and considering what it offers each of us in terms of birth gift and birth challenge. After lunch we each went into a three hour period of silent studio time and we closed with a magnificent 'Show n Tell'...each participant bringing us more inspiration to carry home from the day.

Ahhh...a circle of women making deep spiritual art for sheer joy....my favorite kind of day.

Seven Deadly Sins

On the final day of Media Blend, an adult studio, at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia I asked the artists to speak about the process of stepping outside of their own comfort zone as they experimented with new or different materials.

The artist whose diorama is pictured here has taken on a monumental theme in the Seven Deadly Sins contrasting the topic by working in miniature...the completed piece measuring 4 by 8 inches packs a wallop mainly because it took the artist to a place she hadn't visited before.

Make Art not War

Even in the midst of illness and heartache and hurt of whatever kind we can remember to return to that place where the 'still small voice' speaks clearly of what is true and kind and possible.

While down for the count I lost my voice. Like my teachers have often reminded me it's useful to look for the metaphor. What isn't being said that could be useful if communicated? That's a good assignment for now.

The Flu is outa the way for now and the studio calls once again. During the down time it's been fine to simply be. We hardly ever give ourselves permission to simply BE.

Are you being ever so kind to your precious sweet self?