Uniquity + the Declaration of YOU!

After a pretty major spin around the world (aka: my trip to Bali), I am now cozied back up in my Portland studio — favorite mug in hand, favorite tunes playing on my ipad and an epic amount of stories and thoughts to share…soon. As I allow my experiences in Bali to sink in a little more deeply, I want to take a minute to share with you a very special book.

The Declaration of You!, is written by two superstar ladies (and lovely friends of mine), Jessica Swift and Michelle Ward. I’m really proud of them for putting together such a beautiful and important book, because it dives right into the heart of a conversation I seem to be having so much lately. It’s that one about…

Blooming flowers + blooming true (E-Course giveaway!)

Hi ya’ll. Thought I’d share a little eye candy with you today. I seriously cannot get enough of the magical blooming flowers in Portland these day. The latest gorgeousness courtesy of POPPIES and IRISES. Thank you nature for all the inspiration!

Vulnerability—the new “keeping it cool”

Hi ya’ll. Look at me…writing a post AFTER the 30-Day Love Affair is over! It’s true. I feel I have officially transformed my relationship with this lovely blog. Dreading my “blog homework” has now been replaced by thoughts like, “Write a blog? Sure. Totally. Why not? No big deal. Sounds fun.” So, that said, I’m officially popping in to say hello and to thank you for your ah-MAZE-ing comments in response to my last post about my name change. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend reading the comments—so moving and inspiring. Reading your comments reminded me why…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #30 Whohoo!

Do you have a cup of tea? You might want one for this post…it’s a bit of journey in and of itself. I promised I would go out with a bang, so here goes. May I present…the never before told story of my most daring and life-changing act to date…

The story of changing my name.

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #29!

Yowza, Day #29, ey? I have to admit that all day I’ve been a little stressed about what I would write today. The “second to last day” of this month-long experiement seems like some kind of big deal that deserves some kind of amazingness. I even considered making a little video for you to really prove how brave I am (ha ha), but after investigating iMovie for about ten minutes, I gave up. My truth tonight is that I’m tired, my hair looks like shit, I’ve been on my computer waaaaay too long already today and I’m definitely not feeling very inspired or inspiring. Huh, I think my shoulders just dropped about two inches after I typed that. The honest truth will do that to you 🙂

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #28!

I realize this might verge on giving away the ending of a book, but I am going to risk it and share with you the list of “friendly reminders” I offer on the final day of my online course. I hope you find these reminders helpful, and if they leave you craving more elaboration, my next online course starts in one month. I would love for you to join me on the adventure!

I also want to share with you a few of my latest paintings in progress…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #27!

For my entire adult life, I have lived communally (yep, like a true hippie) among diverse and wonderfully inspiring groups of creative folks. Over the past four years, I’ve lived with a mandolin player, a photographer/videgrapher, a raw pie maker, a bike shop owner, a massage therapist/gardener and a shaman-in-training. Our house is now famous for it’s house concerts, potlucks, art nights and backyard sauna parties. We have 15 bikes parked under our hand-built bike storage area right next to our front yard food garden. We don’t have chickens anymore, but all our neighbors do, so the air is still filled with the sound of clucking. Basically, we are our own little Portlandia episode around here everyday.

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #26!

It’s ‘Sweet Reminders Friday’ brought to you by two of my favorite wisdom keepers…

All the possibilities of your human destiny are asleep in your soul. You are here to realize and honor these possibilities. When love comes in to your life, unrecognized dimensions of your destiny awaken and blossom and grow. Possibility is the secret heart of time.— John O’Donohue from Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #25!

We have an event here in Portland called the Last Thursday Art Walk. It started fourteen years ago as a sort of the rebel offspring of the First Thursday Art Walk held in the downtown galleries. It is truly a renegade DIY event in every aspect of the word—equal parts carnival, garage sale, art fair, burning man, protest, karaoke, dance party, art experiment, parade, ______.

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #24!

ou asked for crush details, so I’m going to be brave and spill the beans…at least a few beans for now.

If you have been following along in my world at all, you have probably noticed that I never, like ever, talk about my romantic life. In fact, up until this lil’ blog experiment, I’ve talked very little about my personal life off the canvas, AT ALL. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that I have a story about keeping things private online which is really interesting because I’m really quite the open book in real life. The other reason is that I’m totally scared I might jinx a good thing.

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #23!

It’s crazy beautiful today in Portland and my spirits are flying high. I spent the day doing exactly what I love to do: painting and connecting with awesome people. My friend and peer, Rachael Rice (aka the Cosmic American) came over for a painting date. We rolled out a big drop cloth, flung open the studio door, cut up some potato stamps and went to town. Our conversations drifted between blogging, boys, current inspirations and our mutual love for fluorescent pink. Rachael is a new friend but hanging with her is always super effortless and inspiring—exactly what I’m welcoming into my life these days.

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #22!

Today is Day #22 which means I’ve now written 21 blog posts in a row. Wow. What an interesting journey of the soul this has been! I was telling a friend of mine a little bit about the process today and he mentioned that it is supposed to take 21 days to create a new habit. Aha! This totally resonated with me because I can honestly say I feel like writing this daily post has officially become a part of my everyday experience. It is no longer “something I think I should do.” Instead, it is “something I actually do”—everyday. In other words…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #21!

After yesterday’s thoughts on how I find inspiration directly from the creative process and taking risks, I thought I would give a nod to some of my more obvious sources of inspiration today. Although I find plenty of inspiration from things like textiles, graffiti, shamanism, tribal patterns, personal transformation and music (hmm, that sounds like…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #20!

There’s a question that seems to come up in every single interview I do. It’s the “Where do you find inspiration?” question. It’s easy to answer this question with the obvious: nature, color, form, movement, trips to the woods, looking at other people’s art, etc. But, when I really get to the heart of…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day 19!

Hi ya’ll. I thought I would allow myself to do a little *shining* today and share with you my feature in the most recent Where Women Create Magazine. To say I feel honored to be included in this publication would be a serious understatement. A more accurate description of my feelings would be something…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #18!

Woah. This week has been so weird. Everyday has turned out to be so different than I expected. Another way to say that would be: I cannot seem to get anything done! All week, I have been battling my own procrastination monsters, along with what seems like a constant string of interruptions (some created by…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #17!

Yesterday was my sister’s birthday and this is my Ode to her. Erin is three and a half years older than me and lives with her husband, Jeremy (he is an amazing painter…check him out!) in Minneapolis, MN. There are a few words that definitely come to mind when I think of my sis: smart,…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #16!

After the heaviness of yesterday’s news, I’m going to keep today’s post pretty and sweet by sharing a few photos I took today on my annual trip to visit the blooming magnolia trees in Hoyt Arboretum. There is a very special window of time when the entire grove of magnolia trees is exploding with pink…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day 15!

I spent a decent amount of time this morning thinking about happiness, contentment and connection. I was pondering how to cultivate them, how to recognize them and how to maintain them. And, then I heard the news. Another bombing and this time at a freaking MARATHON, a place where people come together to express their…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #14!

I mentioned a couple days ago that one of my words for 2013 was EASE. Since I can never seem to settle on just one “word of the year,” I thought I would share my other word with you today… COLLABORATION Why collaboration? Well, ya see, I’m kinda tired of doing…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #13!

I’ve been thinking a lot about DREAMS lately…not so much the kind I have in my sleep (although that might be a whole different post..woah). I’m talking about the kind of dreams I have in my waking hours. “Daydreams” if you will, but not the kind of daydreams I have while I’m staring off into…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #12!

Spring has definitely SPRUNG here in Portland and it’s all I can do to not drool all over the amazing flowers blooming everywhere. I rode my bike across town today listening to Sigur Ros on my headphones, allowing my intuition to lead the way. I have an exercise on my online course called, “Intuitive Wandering” that is all about wandering (walking, biking, even driving) without a plan.

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #11!

Truth be told, I’m not really in the mood to blog today. There, I said it. So, I’m going to take the road of EASE (one of my words of the year), and simply link right on over to another blog. Shazam! So easy. I’m actually really happy to…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #10!

As I type this, my friend Tara is across the street on a massage table receiving an hour of healing energy work from one of my healer angels, Mandy. I gifted this session to Tara because I believe so much in this work and there is nothing I would rather give…

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #9!

I woke up yesterday to a text message from one of my oldest and dearest friends who lives in Boston. It read, “Can I come visit you…like tomorrow?” I would be lying if I said this was totally out of the blue, as we’ve been hoping to make this visit happen for awhile now, but WOW, it was suddenly happening…like tomorrow, which is now…like today. Of course my answer was a resounding, “YES!” and in about three hours, I’ll be on my way to the airport to pick Tara up.

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #8!

The image above is just a small bit of a painting that I’m working on right now, but I decided to post it on Instagram last night with the caption, “Digging more quiet space in my paintings these days…perhaps a reflection of what’s goin on inside? Probably so.”

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #7!

I’m reading two books right now that are totally rocking my world, and I’d love to share a snippet from each book. Both these passages stopped me in my tracks while I declared something like, “ooooh yeeaaaah…that’s good” to the quiet space around me.

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #6!

Well, well, well…what do you know? Seems the topic of shining and celebrating (ala yesterday’s post) was a topic many of you could relate to. It was awesome to read all your supportive comments and it got me thinking about this SHIFT that appears to be happening.

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #5

Oh my. This has been a seriously exciting day. Two pretty major things happened today, both in the category of “dreams coming true” kinda stuff. Interestingly, I’ve been feeling this low grade stress (beneath all the happiness, that is) regarding how to share all this goodness without sounding “braggy” or “too happy.” Blah. blah. blah. …

30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #4

Today’s post will be short and sweet—just a little peak into the current state of affairs in my studio. There’s a lot going on in here! I’m experiencing one of those rare and precious periods of time when my inspiration is flowing effortlessly and everything that is emerging on my canvas feels new and exciting.

30-Day Blog Love Affair::Day #3!

Wow. Can I just say how much I am seriously falling in love with my blog…it’ true! I’m actually a bit floored by how EASY this is feeling, and not just easy, but exciting and soul-filling…like I’m looking forward to writing everyday. What a turn-around.

30-Day Blog Love Affair::Day #2!

Well hello there and welcome to Day #2 of the Blog Love Affair!! Whahoooo! First of all THANK YOU for all the sweet comments yesterday. I didn’t even consider the ripple effect this little love affair might inspire, but I am so stoked to hear that some of you might join me in re-igniting your blogging relationships.

My 30-Day Blog Love Affair:: Day #1. It’s on!

I was originally going to call this little experiment my, “30-Day Blog Challenge” but after some consideration, I quickly realized that calling this challenge a challenge would only make it feel, well, more challenging. So, I’m doing what any firm believer in the Law of Attraction would do, and calling it what I hope it will become a good ol’ fashioned love affair.

Leaning In

We called it, “Bloom True Moves.” It was an experiment in collaboration. It was new territory. And it was deeply healing. From our opening circle it was obvious that this group of 18 women were ready to step into something new. The feeling in the room was palpable—the feeling was one of readiness.