Im Kicking Rob Out!

No, no, no. It isn't like that! I love that guy! I am just kicking him out of Blogville. I gave him 10 months and he didn't post once since the first posting, so Rob, ci vediamo! Vita is all mine now! (Let's see how long it take him to read this post or if he notices I changed the profile!)

Stace and Wallpaper Kids

After the Anahata gang left, I continued to make wallpaper people. but I will back up just a little. Our partner at Apakabar Villas, Wayan, had just finished building a beautiful 4 bedroom rental home down the road from Apakabar, Villa Paradiso. Since Rob and I are co-owners in this venture, Wayan graciously said I could change anything I wanted in the interior decoration (it was pretty much done when I arrived) so I took him at his word and starting taking down all the hideous mass produced Balinese "Motel Art" from the walls and went on a several week odyssey to find "real" art. Well, having just come off of this incredibly creative and inspiring week with Anahata and the group, I was highly motivated to make my own art for Villa Paradiso. I had brought many photocopied faces with me for the Wallpaper People project, including some of my kids, Jesse and Corey. I had been staying down at Villa Paradiso during the Anahata retreat and had my eye on 2 really bad paintings hanging up on the ceiling practically in the living room (Balinese like to hang paintings way up near the ceiling, it is a strange thing.) Well, I kept eyeing these horrible paintings, BUT they were in KILLER handcarved wood Balinese frames and they were canvases...Now I havent ever painted on a canvas, in fact I havent painted much at all. But those stupid Balinese figures in the paintings on the ceiling kept calling to me "Gesso! Matte Medium! Gesso!" So I yanked them down, slathered on the gesso and went to town creating Wallpaper People (with out the wallpaper substrate) on these canvases, using my sons Jesse and Corey's faces as the subjects.

There was something really satisfying about gesso-ing over this really BAD art.You can see the painting over the window in the center. I wish I had taken a closer "Before" photo, but you get the idea.
The bad Bali Motel Painting was given a new life as my older son Jesse.JesseThe matching bad Bali Motel Painting was across the room, it became
my younger son Corey.CoreyWhen my kids arrived in Bali with their Dad 2 weeks later, they saw their paintings hanging in the dining room.
Speechless. NOT the speechless I would have invisioned. They thought they looked like girls. No other comment. Oh well they are teenagers, 13 and 17.
I didn't take it personally. I loved the paintings.
Still do.
At least I got Corey to pose with his.
So here they are in their new home.
The last Wallpaper Painting I did was a picture of Dicky,
Wayans 5-year old nephew. I had a beautiful photo of him when he was 3, so I brought that with me in the group of photos to Anahata's class.
I covered up another bad Balinese Budda Motel painting from the house with loads of gesso and probably had the most fun with this one.
I attribute that to the fact that I did it at the end of the trip, I was under the gun to get it done, with not much time, so there was virtually no THINKING involved, I just had to go with that creative process that comes from that unexplainable source. I also feel it was the best one yet simply because it wasn't coming from the thought part of the brain, it was more intuitive.
Now Dicky is only 5, he has never been outside that little village of Amed. People don't really give gifts like paintings to each other, so he had no preconceived notions about looking like a girl or anything else for that matter. I think he was pretty delighted with this rendition of himself.

Mandalas

After completely immersing ourselves in Wallpaper People for 2 days, we went on to Mandalas, a really cool 1 day project...To be completely honest, I was thinking I would blow this one off, I knew nothing about it of course, I had seen pictures of mandalas before and thought they were a little too East Indian for my taste, and what did I need to do this project for anyway? I was liking those wallpaper people, maybe I'll cut out and go do another wallpaper painting while everyone does those wierdo spiritual mandalas...(great to have such an open mind, isn't it?) Well, something kicked me (a voice from inside or above, I dont know) and thought to ask Anahata just what was this Mandala stuff all about anyway. So she gave me some neat explanation and her interpretation of it, and what we could personally do with it, like you could write private messages, prayers or whatever and hide them under paint or collage and only YOU knew they were there!!! Well, I LOVED that idea! Remember those hidden pictures in Highlights Magazine you would read in the dentist's office
when you were a kid?

Well, I could create my own Hidden Pictures Mandala! WOW! I really liked this idea! So I happily joined the rest of the class and tore, pasted, painted and wrote secret messages in my Mandala the rest of the day.
I actually did two of them, but I wasn't happy with the way they turned out, so a few weeks after the class was long over, I started and finished a third one, and LOVED it!! I will post it later on. Yes, there are lots of little secret messages hidden too!
Here's what some of the others did:
Allis
Andrea
Anahata
JacquelineHeatherLisa
So I keep dreaming in Wallpaper People and Mandalas
cant help it. I have reoccuring visions of laying, smearing that gesso, gel medium,
paint, balinese fabric, sarong lace and papers onto the canvas...heaven, just heaven.

Class Starts

As I had previously mentioned, we began our week with Anahata doing Wallpaper People, we took long panels of wallpaper, collaged, painted and embellished our
photocopied faces we had brought from home. This was seriously one of the most fun
things I have ever done and was inspired to make many more after the workshop ended. We took over the restaurant at Apakabar Villas, covered the floor in sheets of
plastic, and transformed it into a huge, wonderful, fun, inspiring mess for 4 days!

Apakabar Restaurant BEFORE
AFTER!
Anahata's Wallpaper Demo
Jenny
Natalie
Natalie's Madonna
The Apakabar Staff has never seen anything close to the likes of us!
Jena
Belinda
Heather
Class Show
Michelle
Pati

In Bali With Anahata

Ok so here it goes, I have my pictures back and downloaded so I want to backtrack and
get back to that Bali trip. Anahata was a wonderful teacher, inspiring, funny, and I loved having her lead this group of amazing students. I am so glad I got to be a part of it all...

Ceremony on the way to Amlapura Market
Amlapura Market, Bali

I have been at this for 2 hours, I've uploaded what, maybe 10 photos, I have about 300 more of just the first DAY at Amlapura Market, we haven't even got to the class part...
How do I even begin to start narrowing it down? I must have at least 1800 photos from this trip....

Margot's Birthday

My friend Margot turned 14 yesterday. When I was in Bali this March facilitating Anahata's Bali retreat we did a project entitled Wallpaper People. We were instructed to bring enlarged photocopies of faces, either found ones or our own photos , so after many compulsive hours spent searching for the perfect face in magazines, I settled for going through my photos and finding some great faces. For me, I liked using a face that belonged to someone I knew. Anahata also had us bring paints, ephemera and decorative papers. For this class, we took our faces and through a variety of her techniques with paint and collage, we built our wallpaper people around our face photo. I chose Margot, well just because i wanted to.
I loved this project and went on to make more, I can not get enough of making these,
it suits me.

Photo Shoot

I took my friend E. out to do a photo shoot with her in a white dress that we found at Goodwill. She is an actress and she wore this dress to a dance a few months ago
where I saw her twirling around on the dance floor and it took my breath away. So I was inspired to do a photoshoot in the fantastic industrial grungy REAL part of Portland.