Changing Paradigms

Creating art can be so stimulating and engrossing to me that it becomes difficult to stop when I am in the midst of a project. This jacket was one of the most exciting, as well as one of the most challenging art-to-wear garments that I have created. It involved color blocking...piecing together different colored segments of fabric to form the overall fabric from which the item is constructed. Some of the pieces had been painted months prior to the inspiration and some were painted specifically to add to the harmony of the design. This jacket, with its front lapels, buttons and numerous seams, was created in a manner that was a change from the rest of my art-to-wear collection at that time. The majority of them were less complex in their actual construction, requiring only a few seams and pieces to create them.

Painting upon silk fabric was a vehicle that assisted me to be fearless about finding ways to correct mistakes. The completed "corrected" designs were always among the more dynamic ones. I have accepted and adapted to many changes in life, some more easily than others. My life has been a series of several different lifetimes that overlap and merge together to flow into the totality of who I am..a woman passionate about life...an artist, a mother, a Nana, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a seeker of knowledge...a human being that continues to change and be transformed, releasing some things, embracing others and re-affirming involvements that I had left for awhile.

Some segments of life require us to utilize many of our skills to accomplish the opportunities and challenges that are presented to us. Life is a creative process during which we can become so mesmerized by what we are focused upon that we are unable to extract ourselves from the object of our intent. We can then become addicted to the manifestations of our creations, whether they are an expression of an art form, relationships or behaviors.

When we leave something that causes us to feel drained, irritable or unfulfilled it frees up our energy for something better to come into our lives. At other times, change barrels down upon us, leaving us stunned and wounded. It is painful to be forced into leaving something that we felt was perfect for us or that we had worked hard to attain. Even these situations will some day, perhaps some day many years into the future, reveal gifts and/or wisdom that we could only receive by letting go. There are cataclysmic changes, brought on by trauma that changes our lives forever and that causes us to grieve for the past...and even then...we heal when we let go of wishing that the past was stll the present and are able to accept the change of moving into the future.