My Story (the enchanted version)

My Story by Kathy Crabbe

I'm adopted so my origins were a mystery but I didn't ever wonder where I was from, I knew!  In University I had posters of Scotland and France on my walls and later I found out my ancestors did come from there.

I am surrounded by red heads. My best friends, Jen and Tangerine (Jennifer), my husband Mark, and later I found my birth mom and brother Mark were also red heads

The whole story of how I met my husband was a knowing that also deeply involved my birth family whom I didn't know at the time. How I found and happily reunited with my birth family involved another knowing and serendipitous 'coincidence'.

Perhaps because I had no past growing up I had to learn to trust my instincts to guide me into the future and they have yet to steer me wrong.

I live an enchanted life! Oh yes, and my other best friend is an elf. Truth.

Someone once told me, "You'll never make a living from the moons and stars", and it made me cry, but it also made me stronger. "Yes I will. Yes I am. You, dear sir, are wrong."

As my mentor and teacher Francesca De Grandis says 'I am your lucky charm' and I feel the same - I am your lucky charm.

The forests, oaks, lakes, rivers and ocean call to me and I am blessed to play and dance among them with the spirits of the land and water.

Our pets still carry this wild-ness in their veins and I cherish them too.

My work is an enchanted knowing-ness and expression of the wild, untamed dance that is our spirit, divine and free. Please join me in celebration.

Journey into Intimacy: Celebrating 1 Year of Process Painting

It's the one year anniversary of my Process Painting experiment - yahoooo! One year ago today I began a series of paintings to save my life...no joke! Getting started, I literally ran full tilt in search of painting supplies so that I could begin that instant. I HAD TO PAINT. There was no choice. It was either paint or explode and so I chose to express my inner passions through the medium of acrylic painting. This time I wasn't painting small, but instead put my whole body into lifting, painting, making marks and covering paper, then silk, and then masonite sheets that were 4 foot by 4 foot (48" x 48") .

I obviously had a lot to say but words just weren't cutting it. As an artist I had to get it all out there through color and movement expressed in big, broad, splashy, sensual strokes, gouges and scratches painted to loud music: Celtic, Industrial, Acoustic, African, French...a mix, depending on my mood.

As the months went by I continued to paint, explore and express my feelings through art and writing that accompanied the paintings. That combination was new for me; one fed off the other. I combined the two in part because I wanted my blog readers to see what I was going through as I painted.

My friend Ian asked me if these paintings came from a metaphysical, meditative place within my soul and I had to answer 'no,

this series is pure emotion.

For those of you wondering what in the heck Process Painting is, I'll explain. Process Painting is painting without concern for anything but the process itself. This allows one to really focus on being present and in the moment without concern for where the painting will go afterward or if it will ever be sold. It's not easy for many of us to let go of control over outcome, so it felt risky and strange at first, but I grew to love it and crave it as time went on.

What I learned

By experimenting with Process Painting I gave  myself permission to express my emotions out loud and in paint and how to be fully present.

I granted myself time, space and freedom for emotional outbursts and for believing in myself. I spent time just being and I spent time writing, painting, pondering, dancing and absorbing music. I could feel myself coming alive in every pore and I expressed that being-ness, that alive-ness through my creations; my paintings, my photographs of the paintings and my writing that accompanied each painting and finally through my blog posts which brought it all together.

Process Painting has put me back in touch with my emotions; joy and faith and strength and yes, pain.

I painted as if nothing else mattered but this being-ness, this process of painting. It was a reminder of what's really important for my spirit and my soul.

Painting abstractly encouraged me to translate my feelings very directly onto the canvas without worrying about depicting anything recognizable.

As for the future, I'm going to continue what I started one year ago today because frankly,

I am in love with process painting.

I created two slides shows (see below) documenting all the paintings I created between October 30th, 2009 and October 30th, 2010. You can check out the accompanying blog posts at Creative Soul Blog or read my original Art Mystic blog that was eventually abandoned half way through the year so that I could focus on my Creative Soul Blog instead (all posts are now on my Creative Soul Blog).

Let's not forget that this is also a 1 year BLOG PARTY so I encourage you to leave your comments below expressing how this post has inspired your creative soul. I plan to pick one lucky winner at the upcoming Full Moon in Taurus on Nov. 15th, 2010 and gift them with a card or two from this collection.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathycrabbe/sets/72157625176624687/show/

Last Person on Earth

In Process (acrylic & pastel on silk)

100 Words

To be the last person on earth...imagine, talking with trees, stones, clouds, sea. If today was my last day on earth I would paint, meditate, write and cry and dance and love.

Each day closer to death, we struggle for breath, to breathe fully, clearly, wholly. The answers are all around us. How to live fully, completely, devotedly?

If no one else remains, what is the point?

- To give back to the Universe - To be one with the All - To live and love fully in each moment

These things matter.

There is no point, really. Just Be-ing.