Category Archives: Blog

Art, Blog, Events, Receptions, Reflections

Holiday Open Studios at Cabot Street Studios

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162c838c5e1011e3b0391231e80ea787_8Thursday I came home from Enfield to attend the Holiday Open Studios at Cabot Street Studios. We had really bad weather so we think that that kept some people at home. We had a bit of a turn out, but there was definitely food left over. I was able to show my studio and do some positives of the paper negatives I had already made. Unfortunately my device stopped working again and my Dad has to work on it. Also the paper negatives did not completely develop so the positives came out grey and not black. Process still not perfected, but soon it will be! But overall, I was glad to have been there and socialize with the artists that were there.

 

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Art, Blog, Excursions, Massachusetts, Mystical Life, New England, Reflections, Travel, ◆◆◆

Haymarket

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  Tonight I drove out to Northampton, Ma and met Kim the owner of The Boxcar Gallery – (yes this gallery is really in an old boxcar) at the Haymarket Cafe! I had their hot chocolate and their Fried Egg and Mozzarella sandwich. The sandwich was a little too much food than I expected but I enjoyed it overall. Kim asked me about my photographic process and I asked her about the arts in western Massachusetts. She had also asked me for a tarot reading and I gave her one at the end. Never been to Northampton (or “Noho”) before and it reminded me of Bethlehem – but holy shit did I feel at home in Northampton! It’s definitely a city I’d like to explore more. The funny thing with meeting Kim is that she had seen my artwork in Pomfret before I submitted my work to her as she grew up in Pomfret. It was a cool moment for me because I was all, “WOAH! MY ART IS GETTING RECOGNIZED!” I seriously hope this job in Enfield continues because I’m falling in love with this area.

Art, Blog, Excursions, Inspiration, Mystical Life, Projects, Spirituality, Travel, ◆◆◆

The Healing Center in Beverly

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Photo (C) The Healing Center in Beverly

Today I visited Joanna at the Healing Center in Beverly and we talked about a future partnership with my Kirlian Process and my studio space at Cabot Street Studios. We talked about potentially getting my research into workshop format and using the Healing Center space as well as Studio 19’s space for workshops and presentations.

We also talked about literally working with the life force energy as well, since Joanna is a Reiki Master and knows how to work with the energy we thought about trying to capture and visually express the differences of a charged object with Reiki energy and a regular object. I also talked about some of the things I had been struggling with and we decided that Reiki should be the next stage in my healing process as well.

Blog, Reflections

One step forward, five steps behind.

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heart-break07

One can’t just move on. When someone says to me, “Just move on”. It’s not that easy and those words just make me angry. It’s hard to forget a moment in your life when you were floating on a cloud in heaven, with someone who is filling a piece of your heart that you’ve been yearning for all your life.

It’s hard to forget a moment in your life when that same person pushed you off that cloud and you landed on the ground and it broke every inch of your body (and heart) into a million pieces. But, yet somehow you are still living.

  • Somehow you wake up everyday and face the pain.
  • Somehow you still seem to live on, in a whole new world without them.
  • Somehow you go about your day and not break down with every thought about them that enters your head.
  • Somehow you have created a new life, a life that excludes them, when just 5 months ago they were your everything.
  • Somehow you are forced to think that they do not believe in true love and happiness and that they don’t see the same in you as you see in them.
  • Somehow you have to live on without contact from them, which makes it even more painful as they convinced you that they’re living a normal life, one without pain.
  • Somehow you just live, knowing you had the feeling of living in ecstasy and then it all came crashing down on you tearing apart your heart and soul.

18 months later, it may be all a memory but the ghost of the pain still exists and haunts you every day. A pang in the heart, a pang of yearning, desire, longing to return to that cloud in heaven – yet you have to look up at that cloud from the ground and pick up the pieces slowly and continue to heal.

Art, Blog, Excursions, Exhibitions, Reflections, Travel, ◆◆◆

Artiste Marketplace and a New Calling

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DSC_0115This weekend I participated in the Artiste Marketplace sponsored by Artiste Art and Craft Studio.  I didn’t sell anything but I gave away a lot of marketing material which is always a good thing. As usual, people were generally interested in my artwork and spent time asking questions and looking through the portfolio. I’m glad I had that experience. I even met someone who wants to do a trade – teaching her photo processing and her teaching me Reiki. In the past week that was the second time my artwork has attracted Reiki practitioners. I met the Owner of  ‘The Healing Center’ in Beverly at my reception last Tuesday who is also a Reiki practitioner. It makes sense that I’m attracting these type of people because Reiki is all about using the life force energy to heal people. The owner of ‘The Healing Center’ wants to do a collaboration with me and my process which I mentioned in my post about the Studio19 reception. I went on their website and I found a class about plants – too perfect for my usage! I’ve been wanting to use the medicinal properties of plants in my artwork some how. And I love that it’s only one Thursday a month. I signed up for the December class since next week is a little to soon for me. I’ll have to leave work early, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I’m excited to see where my artwork is taking my professionally and spiritually. 🙂

Art, Events, Excursions, Exhibitions, Receptions, Studio19, Travel, ◆◆◆

Studio19 – Opening Reception Recap

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DSCN0201On Tuesday evening I drove over 70 miles to attend my reception on the Northshore coming from Enfield, Ct. During work that day I learned that both my photographer and production crew (Estrada Productions) that I had booked for the reception fell through! My parents ended up taking pictures. But the fact that I have never put on an event like this before I thought the reception went very well. Several new people showed up and showed interest in buying my artwork! Some of the artists from Cabot Street showed up as well which I was very thankful for. It started slow, but ended well. There was definitely more people than I expected, which is always nice. I was even publicized in the Wicked Local: Wellesley. And Beverly Main Streets did a social media blast and my landlord posted the reception on the Cabot Street website. I put posters up around town which seemed to be the most effective. I even got interest from a Healing Center located down the street to do a partnership with my process and capturing people’s energy with it because they do Reiki. I’m pretty excited about that. I have to do some more research on that, but that won’t happen until I finish my proposal for my artist residency. I think in the end I’d definitely do it all over again, but I may focus on promotion next time. But it was difficult to work on getting the studio setup and do self promotion and starting a new job all at once. Now I just have to make a whole new body of work and have another one!

Art, Blog, Reflections

Minuteman Press Recap

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1456633_2258532223081_205963381_nSo it’s been my first 7 days at my new job as graphic designer at Minuteman Press New England. It’s been fantastic! The work is cool, my boss is great and my co-workers aren’t too bad either ;-). I kinda enjoy the fact that some of the work I do isn’t always considered design. For example, sometimes its’ editing copy on excel or recreation of previous artwork for a new customer. I’ve also been able to use my psychic abilities too which always makes for a good time. I had made a comment the other day about my monitor not being as big as what I’m used to and my boss asked what size I was used to and I said about the mac that was sitting on the desk to the left. He was like, ‘you know you aren’t getting a mac’. I was like aw shucks, lol. But he bought me a new monitor the same size during lunch and its’ supposed to be of similar size – so we’ll see. I had a really rewarding experience so far where I had a design project to create a new design for a business card for a local frame shop. They wanted ornate scrolling full bleed and a golden frame in the center around the logo. I just went with what I was seeing in my head and she ended up really liking it as it matched her ‘vision’. She just didn’t like the typeface I used, which was OK with me because I had mixed feelings with the typeface anyway. Another design project I did lately was a letterhead for a local Grammar School which I included in this post. It’s still a bit surreal to me that I’m finally working in my field – a position I’ve coveted for so long.

Art, News, Studio19, Updates

Announcement regarding Studio19

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IMG_1289I have an announcement regarding my studio, Studio19. This morning I received an email about a sudden shift in studio management. I can’t go into details, but its’ causing a lot of people to move out of the community that I’m apart of. I will be staying for the year and then spend that time to create a new body of work and to figure out what to do next. Since I am transitioning with my contract position on top of a lot things that are up in the air right now, moving out of Cabot Street Studios is not an option unless I’m forced to and if management tries to pull shit on me then I’ll take legal action but I won’t go that route unless I have to. I am going to let the dust settle and see where things go. But for the most part I’ll be staying and my reception will still be on.

Why am I staying? I am staying to make art. And to express what I love to do. I didn’t join Cabot Street Studios because of a certain individual or to socialize. I joined because my artwork needs space for me to make more and that is why I am staying. To continue with my goal to make more artwork. Sure I’m disappointed that a bunch of people are deciding to pack up and leave – but that’s their decision and this is mine.

Art, Exhibitions, News

Infinite Earth Exhibition Installed and Tour Dates

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image (10) image (5)

Photos by Sonja, Cendak

I am excited to announce that the infinite earth exhibition is finally installed at the Smithsonian Institute Ripely center and will be on tour during the following months at the following places:

March – April 2014

Art Gallery of the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center

Bowling Green, KY

May – June 2014

Access Gallery

Denver, CO

July – August 2014

The Reynolds Homestead and Gallery at Virginia Tech University

Blacksburg, VA

Art, Excursions, Snapshots, Studio19, Travel, Updates, ◆◆◆

Studio Updates

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studiogal

My dad and I went to go work on my studio this past Tuesday. Things are finally coming together in the main room and now we’re shifting our focus on the darkroom. It’s been put on hold because we were painting the main room. I was going to do venetian plaster on the big wall, but since I just recently accepted a contract position at Minuteman Press, its going to be hard for me to find time to work on the walls and I like how it is coming together without the plaster. I just have some more things I’d like to put there, like picture lights to put above the frames and a few decor items like curtains, tapestries and a rug to put down. Otherwise it is almost done.

Art, Blog, News

Minuteman Press

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1-Anngina-Front-300x198 My life was changed today! I just realized, I was getting changed (dressed) this morning when I accepted a job offer for a full time graphic design position at Minuteman Press in Enfield, Ct. I was looking at potential places to live and I think Springfield, is going to be the location. It is only 3 hours from Bethlehem, which may become important in the future again. 2 hours away from New York City and not that far away from Wellesley. But I think it will be at least 3 hours away from Eastham in Cape Cod. There is a 60 day trial period to see if its’ a right fit and then I’ll be there for real. I’m just a bit worried that it’ll effect my opening a bit in November, but apparently the 11th of November is Veteran’s Day so being a large company, my location should get Veteran’s Day off. Which would be perfect, so I can spend the weekend getting ready and preparing for the event, so all I have to do is get there and unload everything. AHH. We’ll see. I’m super super excited to be doing graphic design work again. Its’ definitely time and I do really need a break from psychic readings, so things are coming together!