I entitled this piece ‘Messenger of Luck’ due to the dragonflies occurrence in my life. It has shown up in large quantities twice: once when I was pregnant with my son, but didn’t know it yet and once when I was about to take the leap to being a career artist, but hadn’t found the courage yet.

This piece is printed on maple wood, hand varnished, framed and ready to hang. Save money on framing costs. The frame is also thick enough that the piece can be placed on a dresser, sofa table, or end table.

Finished dimensions are 11x14 inches. Each piece is unique due to the unique grain of the wood it is printed on. Please go to my Etsy shop for prices (in the menu at the top.)

Pen, Ink and Pencil Printed on Birch. Bronze paint sprayed with acid to create a patina.

This piece was inspired by John Muir’s quote, “The mountains are calling and I must go.” I feel these words through and through. As a Boulder resident, I feel like hiking is as vital to my health and well. being as breathing is. However, I don’t just see this as a call to the mountains; I see this as a call to whatever makes your soul sing. In the day and age when life can so easily be filled with meaningless distractions, I think is is very important to have reminders of what CALLS. What calls to your soul?

This piece was inspired by a message that came to me when I was in a transition in life.

Pencil image printed on maple.

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Pen, Ink, and Pencil Printed on Maple

When creating this piece, I was thinking about how we can get sucked into an undercurrent, kind of like the undercurrent in the ocean, and end up in a different place than we intend or desire. Then we don't even realize it until we are out in the middle of the ocean thinking, "How did I get here?" For me that undercurrent can take many forms from societal norms/expectations like: "You have to accomplish this to be successful" to "A beautiful woman looks like x, y, and z." Or, as I witnessed when watching HGTV recently, "This is a total gut job. I don't think I could live with a kitchen with laminate countertops." I laughed at this... thinking maybe I should contact the teachers in my school district and help them update the list of survival necessities: food, shelter, water, clothing, and granite countertops. However, as much as I laughed, I'm as guilty as the next person of being embarrassed by my laminate countertops. I hustle to earn money, and ask my husband to do the same, in order that we can make these 'critical' updates someday. But when it really comes down to it, that's not what I want. I want more quality time with my family. I want to cook with them on our perfectly functional countertops, and listen to music, and dance and sing. I want my husband to have the energy to dance and sing, rather than being exhausted from working so hard.

This got me to thinking that I really want to consciously create my path, steer it into joy, and buck those undercurrents. I want to own my authentic self. I also want to be conscious about what I say to myself about myself past, present and future. While I can't always control my circumstances in life, I can control my response to those circumstances.

The armored nature of the wings is born from the things I've felt a need to protect myself against and am finding the strength to expand in spite of. The heart symbolizes passion, love, and joy. My kneeling posture represents humility because I find humility crucial in learning to fly...kind of like U2's song, Mysterious Ways, with the lyrics, "If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel." I am steering a heart as a symbol of conscious creation and steering into joy. I realized that my heart only has me to direct it in life. I can either abuse it or cherish it. I think I'll choose cherish and only ride those undercurrents if they are going to aid me in getting to my goals.

*These words copyright of Teague Studio.

Rising Momentum

This piece was inspired by Brene Brown’s book Rising Strong and the process I underwent after reading it. I was particularly moved by the following quote of Theodore Roosevelt’s that Brene references:

“It’s not the critic that counts/not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood/ who strives valiantly;…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at lest fails while daring greatly.”

We all have to write and rewrite the story of who we are throughout our lives. For me, and many, it is significant challenge that gets us to question ourselves. I started asking, “How do I want to define myself after this? What can I learn? What do I want my story to be moving forward? Am I striving valiantly or surrendering and letting myself be defined by the challenge? Am I daring greatly or am I altering myself in order to please the critic?” The critic can be someone close to us in our lives, or society at large, but it is so common to change ourselves. I decided I was done with that and would ask myself the last question frequently: “Am I daring greatly or am I altering myself in order to please the critic?"

What I found, once I truly got IN THE ARENA…really in there…was that there was no turning back….no option of returning to my inauthentic self. That self was hollow and occupying her literally made me feel ill…suffocated inside a fake shell. Sure it is terrifying in the arena, and I often ask myself, “What the heck I am thinking,” but there was undoubtedly a building of momentum that happened which made it, not only easier to stay in the arena, but that began to buoy me forward. There is an undeniable power in occupying our authentic selves.

I chose an ocean wave because of the power it represents. Water is soft; it is a fluid, but when it has momentum, it has the power to pulverize rock and transform it to sand. The piece is titled ‘Rising Momentum’ to celebrate the momentum that arises once we occupy our authentic selves and the resultant power. So cheers to the arena dwellers. Let’s cast off the voices of the critics and give ourselves the gift of embodying and empowering our daring, authentic selves.

“Play is the highest form of research.” Albert Einstein

This piece is one of two otter pieces, ‘Offering’ and ‘Catch Me if You Can’, celebrating the POWERFUL GIFT OF PLAY in the lives of children and adults alike. It was born from a time in my life when I was feeling worn down, negative, and fearful. I asked myself what I could do to shift my attitude and was hit with a beautiful stream of memories of creating, experimenting, and playing as a child. I realized that I had stopped engaging in play as an acceptable form of research, and that when I re-embraced it and stopped judging myself for it, I would feel safe and excited navigating life. While I was pondering these memories, I happened to visit an otter and witness her leaping, jumping, twisting, twirling, and catching things. She offered me a very powerful visual of the gift of play by embodying and exploring her capabilities so joyfully. And I feel so very grateful for that visual because I will never forget it. She reminded me of my childhood and how I approached things then and could again if I just dared to be vulnerable.

As a child, when things weren’t going well, I would PLAY with different approaches. If that experiment didn’t produce favorable results, I would go, “Ok, that didn’t work. What else can I try?” And I would HAVE FUN TRYING.

As we get older, there is such a tendency to stay in the ruts and play it safe. I think this is so very, very unfortunate (though understandable for so many reasons.) There is a strong sense of societal norms and expectations, and we don’t dare ‘color outside the lines’ for fear of judgement. But, the great scientists, artists, and adventurers throughout history have been the ones who dared to do exactly that. Vaccines, air travel, and quantum physics were all discovered by people who didn’t accept the lines. Instead, they boldly colored outside of them…despite mumblings that they might be crazy. Sometimes the judgement that we might be crazy is doled out by none other than ourselves.

And then there is just the fact that we often expect adults to be competent at all they do. But what does competency really mean if it involves the death of pushing our capabilities, of growing, and learning. Society celebrates experimentation and tiny successes in infants and children. Think about the celebration that happens when a baby takes his/her first few steps and then falls on his/her behind. We don’t focus on the fall and perceive the experience as a failure. We cheer the effort and encourage the child to push his/her boundaries more. Think of all the discoveries that could be made personally and societally if we maintained that celebration for pushing the boundaries throughout our lives. The science of brain plasticity is discovering how crucial it is for us to try things we are NOT familiar with, otherwise our brains become non-plastic…i.e. rigid. But they don’t have to be rigid, we can have a flexible mind into our senior years if we just try new things and PLAY. That is what neuroscience is confirming. You can rewire your brain and with it your perception of the world.

In the piece entitled ‘Offering’ the otter offers a rose which symbolizes the beauty of play she burned in my consciousness. The piece entitled ‘Catch Me if You Can’ represents the way the otter not only pushed the limits of her capabilities with movement, but also moved with such joy and speed that I could not capture a still image of her (even with action photography.) Remember feeling that way in youth? Like no one could catch you or pull you down in those joyful moments. I say it is time to try that again.

*These words copyright of Teague Studio

Almost done…

This one has been a true journey…explanation to come with the completion of the piece…obviously a bit of the hint in the title.