On a regular basis (weekly/bi-weekly/monthly – when I feel so inclined) I will be showcasing other innovative entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, creatives, artists and the like.  At first I will be interviewing friends in my communities, and soon I will reach out to people I am now discovering.

I chose to make myself the first groovypreneur listed here since I am creating this community of creatives. You can find more info on me in the first blog entry below this one where I state my present, availability, and more background. I describe an eco-fiction series and where I am with that. Over this next month I will share of myself, and of course there will be overlap in my own blog from my POV on these related topics you may want to explore with me.

Creative Process is another key to living the creative life, and oft times we lead a dual life in the midst of individual survivability when all we truly want as creatives is to thrive while contributing. Focusing on others creative process and how it ties in to their entrepreneurial efforts fascinates me, as I hope it will you, too.  I will share much more on creative process and include my own musings and fire soon.

If  this is something that resonates with you, introduce yourself in a post here on this blog.  With the trend toward Creative Economies, this is a key concept to how one is fulfilling her right livelihood by living an authentic life and rising voice.  I truly believe it is through the reinvention of oneself so many fresh ideas are born. Sharing personal journeys go hand in hand with one’s entrepreneurial path.

be groovy!

ShaRose

ShaRose

Artist

Painter

Creative

Wild Soul

Cartoonist

Art Trekker

Craft Artisan

Art Educator

Digital Artistry

Healing Imagery

Environmentalist

Soul Evolutionary

Social/Art Activist

Fine Art Illustrator

Mixed-Media Collagist

Site-Specific Installation

Art & Science Intermedia

Sacred Art Object Creation

Eco-Artist-Writer-Teller-Poet

Visionary Artist-In-Residence

Creativity & Community Trailblazer

TODAY

ShaRose is launching *groovypreneur* with a focus at present in evolving creative culture, eclectic opportunities, frugal abundance and creative economies.  ShaRose’s personal mission of wildest imaginings and wild at art-ness: “Art gives you wings”: Clearing the path to creative frontiers of artful expression, natural wonder, and imagination for the inner artist, curious explorer, and wild soul within everyone to draw out what’s inside and color outside of the lines..

Invited to facilitate assorted creative activities around the Las Vegas and Southern Nevada region during the first two years since her arrival, ShaRose took a step back to rediscover her creative soul and slow down  For the next two years since then, ShaRose has been reinventing herself through her creative projects with a focus on her multi-genre writing, inventive concepts and a return to her handcrafts/object creations, abstract painting, whimsical design, mixed-media collage and digital collage/painting. Presently, she is setting up multiple online formats/art shops/portfolio sites and evolving her recent deep research into establishing an actual web presence. It is this journey into building her own creative economy she will share what she learns with a growing community of groovypreneurs she has already had the pleasure of beginning to encounter within social networks and continued meandering along the digital frontier of blogs, websites, projects, collaborations and more!

She is particularly excited about her work-in-progress arching an original eco-fiction series for juvenile/young adults. ShaRose has extended an open invitation for ecology-minded individuals, groups, school teams, projects, organizations ad infinitum, to join her as an integral, collaborative component that will be woven into the eco-story series. This is a freshly baked genre invention weaving real places, people and planetary concerns to tie-in solution-oriented and visionary processes in a creative thinktank/idealab all its own.

* Feel free to post an introduction of yourself here on this blog expressing any interest and contribution you might have.

** For more info on eco-fiction project, follow ShaRose @ <twitter.com/MakeBelievers>

*** For groovypreneur interests, follow ShaRose @ <twitter.com/groovypreneur>

**** You can DM/direct message  on twitter with your contact info

AVAILABILITY

ShaRose is available for art commissions and booking special events and groups for art and creative processes in a range of settings.

Her areas of expertise include Art in Academics Curriculum Integration, Community Art, Homeschooling Art Credits, Community Recreation, Private Group and Individual Sessions, Creative Consultation, Mixed-Media Art/Craftmaking/Collage & EcoArt-Parties/Events/Playshops, Eco-Art (Public/Private), Special Events Activities, Curriculum Design & Evolvement, Art Commissions, Custom Gift Creations, Community Collaborations and Art Installation – temporary and permanent, public and private, technical, kinetic, artistic, mindful, social, participatory, communal and ecology related artworks.

More offerings soon to be posted on new blog entries.

* Feel free to leave a post to introduce yourself and express any interest in ShaRose’s  creative menu.

** For more info, follow  ShaRose @ <twitter.com/groovypreneur>

*** You can DM/direct message on twitter with your  contact info.

MORE BACKGROUND

ShaRose Niedelman is a native Los Angeles multimedia artist devoted to the creative process. She has facilitated workshops for adults and international artists, and produced special events, media, and exhibits with an avid interest in the intersection of art, science, emerging technology and social participation. Exhibitions of and including her art have been publicly displayed in Southern & Northern California, Canada and Las Vegas, Nevada.

As an Art Educator, Youth Mentor and Creativity Enthusiast, ShaRose has provided support for children and youth with special needs, who are medically/physically challenged, at-risk, and learning disabled. She has enjoyed teaching art in progressive education environments contributing to the whole child and community experience with children and youth from varied walks of life. In her teaching practice of art, technology and cartooning classes to children, youth and adults in Southern & Northern California and Southern Nevada, she has implemented afterschool enrichment programs, summer workshops, school inservices, studio workshops, and creativity seminars.

She shares her pursuit for individual expression and her passionate curiosity for exploration, discovery and learning.  A versatile Visual Artist, Community Artist and Arts Educator integrating traditional and digital arts knowledge with an enthusiasm and resourcefulness for tactile, participatory and sensory experiences, ShaRose designs curriculum and creative activities through holistic practices. She has created successful, experimental, sensory and imagination-building programs and curriculum for children, youth and adults.

Her creative research is always evolving to investigate something fresh and new, and to bring this sensibility for others to absorb. She brings her resourcefulness and indepth Visual Arts Practices whereever she goes. She received her B.A. in Studio Art with a Painting emphasis from Sonoma State University, and has attended various Computer Art, Multimedia and Graphics trainings to continually further her artistic skill level. Digital Collage and Storytelling are areas close to her heart and soul with its strength in narrative voice and image manipulation. Foremost, ShaRose appreciates glue on her fingers as she works a traditional collage or the color of wet paint as she invents a new mixed media and printmaking concept.

She brings an eclectic background in emerging technologies, production, interactive multimedia, assorted media design formats and unique special events.  Simultaneously, over the years, ShaRose has carved a niche as a published Poet, Creative Writer-Researcher, and Technology Journalist with editing and proofreading expertise.  ShaRose has completed works in Children’s Media, Entertainment, Documentary, Curriculum, Publishing, Research, Prototype Design and Fine Art. Her repertoire includes small to large scale projects and special event production. With over two decades of Visual and Digital Media Production experience, she can now merge these areas into an ongoing stream of fluid artmaking technique.

With a solid and eclectic background in communications, information gathering, and presentation abilities – verbal, written, archival, artistic and expressive – she can speedily organize, facilitate and implement production logistics and technical resolution on a small to large scale. On one high-end project, she saved the organization over $100,000 in labor costs for a large-scale Festival and tapped into local resources and communities. Harvesting from the wealth of creativity in those that surround her and unifying communal energy, ShaRose gravitates toward a shared, co-creative community experience for festival installation, participant theater, social experience and a new definition of public art.

She continues to pursue her interests in emerging technologies, creative writing, research, data mining, media arts, installation and illustration.  Her educational programs in the Visual Arts have met with success, working with a broad range of youth.  ShaRose is creating, exhibiting, and collaborating in the evolution of Tradigitals, a combination of Traditional & Digital Collage with Mixed Media, Printmaking and Recycle Art concepts intertwined. Her technical proficiency ranges in diversity in multimedia, animation, Internet research, photography, illustration & media production.

As a Designer – Illustrator – Inter-Media Artist, her visual arts technique and technology skillsets apply attention-to-detail through innovative conceptual, technically inventive and artistic creation for custom and prototype design achieving collaborative, informational, communications, product and creative excellence. ShaRose has produced creative and commercial works for formats on Digital, Video, Film, CD-I, CD-ROM, Web, Print, TV, and for Live event-driven, Performative, Teleconference, Web, and Global Events. Her early training oriented her while in motion to contribute on projects as an art & technology liaison between art interface & programming for interactive prototypes, integrated media, multimedia installation & theatrical performance.

Eco-conscious activism and recycling for art reuse are important matters of concern for ShaRose. She continues to share this message and research ideas as to how a collaborative effort can bring a creative solution for our planet to preserve our resources in the name of art through creative materials exchanges and clearinghouse warehouse depots for artists, youth, individuals, collectives and communities to benefit synergistically.

Conducting travel research, both interior and exterior, is her favorite kind of exploration to anywhere and what she might find in her happy wanderings, something fresh to bring home to her artmaking and unfolding process. It is the journey that matters most, and she looks forward to expanding her travels to journey around the planet to explore and experience remote places of beauty, cultural art hubs and meeting amazing people.

I’m heading off to Copenhagen today – I am excited but also have mixed feelings as I see Copenhagen as only a beginning of serious debate and awareness about Climate Change. I was reading the editorial in the Guardian this morning, who sums it up better than I and the disapointing distraction that has arisen about climate science in the last week. Personally I think the world has left it too late to make the changes it needs to head off climate chaos, and for the many in the world already affected. But I’m going aware also of the excitement growing in the groundswell of global activities from ordinary citizens from all over the world. Over the last year, I’ve been watching the efforts of vast online networks of grassroots activities and the hope that many have.  This huge build up of attention, perhaps a little too late has even made Obama reconsider  his travel plans to take part in the important final days of the Copenhagen summit. It will be a historic summit if only for the fact that warnings from science have engaged so many but so much more is needed.

I’m going to attend the cultural side of Copenhagen summit - the first international symposium focussed on thinking of policy ideas to provide a framework to increase cultural engagement with ecological issues, see www.culturefutures.org (follow on Facebook, twitter if you are interested, the programme is also there). Many have questioned why the cultural sector has been slow to connect with such issues. I know I have been always been very surprised how few in fine art circles until very recently have engaged with these concerns. Is it a major fault in our cultural education institutions or perhaps as leading eco artist Agnes Denes has said, it’s more the the dangerous result that dividing our knowledge into specialist areas has created.  I know for instance that having worked in science has been  important in my art as  it allowed me to engage with ecological issues so much more confidently. However,  I think it can be also too easy to overlook all the online cultural activity that has helped engage thousands in grass roots climate change initiatives. Bill McKibben, initiator of the global climate change 350 movement was always very aware of the role of cultural producers, or as the Danish are calling us ‘cultural agents’, see one of his early 350 articles http://www.grist.org/article/mckibben-imagine/. McKibben’s own writing has been hugely influential; I recently picked up a copy of Walden and McKibben’s introduction was probably the best thing I’ve read in ages. Rob Hopkins, an former artist and founder of the hugely influential TransitionTowns movement, is also very aware that cultural reponses are part of how society will engage and imagine a new future. Actually, I think the Transition movement is a case study in point for the Culture Futures programme – I will be reporting back.

There were a few things that inspired me over the last week, I saw the movie Home at FutureProofKilkenny Green Screen film series programme (Kilkenny, Ireland’s Transition Group), art again. I had seen clips of Home on youtube and I thought it might be just stunning images  (as I had known of Yann Bertrand’s work previously, he has in the past taken amazing still images of the world, all from the air) set to a nice orchestral score but it was breathtaking in its scope and perspective about how our very recent industrial age has in just 150 years created so much devastation leading to climate chaos. Sitting in an audience in Ireland with the worst floods in living memory affecting so many in the last few weeks and more predicted, it was hard not to feel that Ireland is facing up to the fact it is now part of this story too. It is a long film but I haven’t seen a film that encompasses such a world view at one time – note, I like slow films and if you don’t check out the equally excellent, Age of Stupid. Best of all I thought, was that I was sitting next to an Art manager and she instantly bought a copy. Why isn’t this film on TV, all the time??

Here’s a link to home and to some dance . Along with film-making, it’s another thing I do too rarely these days.

PS my Martin is organising the as yet only 350 vigil for climate change in the republic of Ireland on the top of Mt Leinster on Sat 12 Dec. All are welcome but bring that wet weather gear! Click here for more details http://www.350.org/node/12982

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 25, 2009

For more information, contact:
Wayne M. Segal
Public Affairs Director
Phone: (561) 742-6025/e-mail: segalw@bbfl.us

Boynton Beach Green Community Alliance Holds Workshop
Meeting To Feature Green Experts

Jason Bregman, Associate, Environmental Planning and Design for Michael Singer Studio, Mary Jo Aaggerstoun, Independent Art Historian, and Jim Udvardy, Representative of the South Florida Commuter Services, will be the featured speakers at a workshop hosted by the Boynton Beach Green Community Alliance on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2009, 6:00 P.M., at Intracoastal Park Clubhouse, 2240 N. Federal Hwy. Mr. Bregman and Ms. Aaggerstoun will give informative presentations regarding Ecoart and how “green professionals” can integrate green building practices into their projects, increase their “green points” and demonstrate how to develop critical teams to accomplish these goals. Mr. Udvardy will be speaking on the use of alternative modes of transportation by providing assistance to commuters and free services to area employers. The presentations are intended to educate Green Community Alliance members and the public. For more information, call 742-6012

The formation of the Boynton Beach Green Community Alliance is the second phase of the long-term environmental improvement plan for the City of Boynton Beach. In February 2008, the Boynton Beach City Commission approved a resolution establishing a Green Task Force to oversee the process of improving and sustaining the environmental needs of the community. After six months of intensive research, and an inventory of best practices, the eight-member Green Task Force, comprised entirely of City and Community Redevelopment Agency staff, presented their final recommendations to the City Commission.

The next step included incorporating public participation through the creation of the Green Community Alliance. Members include residents, businesses and organizations with links to the City, who are working in concert with City staff to prioritize local efforts and implement the Commission-approved recommendations. The end result will be a Climate Action Plan for the City, to include a carbon emissions reduction target and implementation programs. More information about the Boynton Community Alliance is available at the City’s Web site www.boynton-beach.org.

# # #

Image is 9″x12″ entitled “Storm Approaching”

If you are interested  in this you can reach me via my website: rlistudios.com

www.rlistudios.com

Hard and soft pastels on Wallis

Comments Welcome. This is a “daily painting” and not meant to be a long exercise.

Additional artwork can be viewed on my carousel via HyLit radio.com- Ways to Advertise on this blog-click here

Below is a music montage of my eco art. Click on mini purple marsh painting icon below to view!

Please feel free to share video with your friends. Comments are welcome.

ECO Art of the Carolinas

More landscape images can be found on my website: www.rlistudios.com

ECO ART OF THE CAROLINAS THEME born out of inspiration…..

surfaced with my belief in preserving the beauty and health of the environment- the land. My appreciation of the natural beauty in nature was born in my youth when I admired the mists rising off of the Appalachians and the Blue Ridge and grew from my travels.  I am drawn to paint various landscapes, marshscapes, seascapes often of wild lands and often including water imagery.  My primary subject matter interest began with the ecosystems that represent change between the land and sea, including marsh environments and mangrove forests.  I hope via my website to promote awareness of the dynamics that thrive in these fragile ecosystems.

]]> http://redwillow.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/stanley-park-environmental-art-project-launch/ Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:43:51 +0000 redwillow http://redwillow.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/stanley-park-environmental-art-project-launch/

Entwined, Tania Willard, cedar bark, hemlock, red alder and madder hand dyed wool dimensions variable. 2009

Entwined, explores the interconnectedness of Stanley Park’s ecology, and how the different uses, experiences and perspectives of both indigenous and non-indigenous people, plants and materials are interwoven. Referencing native-plant and material usage in the plaiting of cedar and in the dyes created from hemlock and red alder barks as well as the oyster shell buttons, this work is a meditation on the Cedar as a tree of life and asks this cedar to share it’s story.

Please join us on Sunday, August 9 as we premiere the semi-permanent artworks of the Stanley Park Environmental Art Project.

Walking tours to the works will begin at the Lost Lagoon Nature House.

The artists, Shirley Wiebe, Tania Willard, John Hemsworth, and T’Uy’Tanat Cease Wyss and Davide Pan, will be on-site to talk about their works and their environmental art practice.

Walking tours: 1-3pm, begin at the Lost Lagoon Nature House. Everyone welcome.

Please visit the project website for more information: www.vancouver.ca/spea

Below is a marsh unfinished  and it is a “demo” I did while hosting a Wednesday night pastel class at the Burke Arts Council.

Image is 9″x12″ entitled “Pink Light”

If you are interested  in this you can reach me via my website: rlistudios.com

www.rlistudios.com

Sennelier pastels on Art Spectrum colorfix paper

Additional artwork can be viewed on my carousel via HyLit radio.com- Ways to Advertise on this blog-click here

Pastel Colors used: 

Sky- 2 shades of peach, one light and one medium value blended together; 2 shades of pink blended and close in value; 1 cool lavender and 1 soft sky blue. Rembrandt brand “light sky blue” is a good choice and can be used in tandem with other blues you end up collecting, or it can be used alone as I did here. 

Landmass- Nu Pastel brand “confederate blue” with bits of sky color dropped in at will. Choose paler and cooler shades of blue for the most distant trees. Drop in some of the sky colors in the land as you move into the midground. I have started using dark, cool greens and greeen-blue shades for the brush near the horizon line.  

To attend any Burke Arts Council pastel Summer Art Class held in the Jail House Gallery call 703.433.7282 to sign up or email admin@burkearts.org to join the next scheduled group. Weekly get together pastel sessions are after work from 6-8pm.  All skill levels are welcome. As artists, we share together a evening of fun and creativity. Bring your favorite vacation photograph to work from, pastel paper and a beginner set of chalk pastels. Fees: $30/member/$35 non-member

Below is a music montage of my eco art. Click on mini purple marsh painting icon below to view!

Please feel free to share video with your friends. Comments are welcome.

ECO Art of the Carolinas

More landscape images can be found on my website: www.rlistudios.com

ECO ART OF THE CAROLINAS THEME born out of inspiration…..

surfaced with my belief in preserving the beauty and health of the environment- the land. My appreciation of the natural beauty in nature was born in my youth when I admired the mists rising off of the Appalachians and the Blue Ridge and grew from my travels. I am drawn to paint various landscapes, marshscapes, seascapes often of wild lands and often including water imagery. My primary subject matter interest began with the ecosystems that represent change between the land and sea, including marsh environments and mangrove forests. I hope via my website to promote awareness of the dynamics that thrive in these fragile ecosystems.

RLISTUDIOS dedicated to showcasing ECO ART OF THE CAROLINAS, marshscapes and depictions of coastal estuaries, can be found in North Carolina Community Treasures (a 263 page compilation-resource guide aboutNorth Carolina places, the business people who live there, their products and their passions). This hardbound, coffee table book will guide you to some of the most inviting places across the state, from the warm Atlantic shores to the breathtaking Appalachian Mountains.For your copy click: http://treasuresof.com/BuyBook.aspx

There are so many nifty gadgets and supplies for creative types that I’ve decided to add a weekly feature to my blog: Fabulous Finds Friday. Every Friday I’ll feature some cool tool, inspiring image or … well, a Fabulous Find.

Our first Fab Find is a new stamping surface — EcoArtBoard from Rubber Stamp Concepts.

These nifty tiles (which remind me of Stamp Bord, a smooth white clay-coated stamping surface)  make great embellishments and jewelry. Decorate them with ink, chalk, markers, etc., edge the sides with copper tape or metallic markers, and you have a tiny, perfect embellishment. Make a pin, necklace, magnet, etc., or just plunk them on a card or box for dimension.  

Here are two samples:

Use a water resistant ink such as Staz-On, Ranger Archival, Ancient Page, etc., then color with your choice of medium. These tiles were colored using Yasutomo pearlescent paints. 

EcoArtBoard tiles are eco-friendly and made of recycled material.

Find these tiles at www.rubberstampconcepts.com

Hi all,

Just found out that my film that I made for Biodiversity week 2008 Burning Bright, has been selected for the Carlow 2009 Eigse Film programme. Yay!!! I know some of you watched this film as it was selected earlier this year for the Green Party’s youtube film festival and asked me how it go on there. It didn’t feature much there as I inadvertently sent people to watch it on my youtube channel, not on the official Green Party youtube channel! I’ve learnt a lesson from that – don’t enter competitions if you are suffering from jet lag.

Anyway, it’s nice that is getting a public outing; it will be screened in The Tower (part of the Dinn Ri complex) in Carlow Town on Wednesday 17th June 2009. Time is still to be confirmed but it will most likely be 7 or 8pm. Each participating filmmaker is entitled to free admission for them and a guest. Additional tickets will cost €6.

Here’s a project from this April that shows some variation from my usual working process.  I started this dog sculpture, but wasn’t completely happy with it.  I did cut into the dog’s styrobody to inset the foam pieces that make up part of its legs.  I also started with small fishing bobber eyes, but later changed them to hickory nuts.

Two shots from the river the day I made this sculpture.  The ears are pieces of thick bark.  I posed this work first next to a plastic gasoline container.   I find a lot of these and have a collection of photos of them.  I also plan to later post  a series of “Collections” that I have made of other river debris. The second shot was in an area where fishermen would see it.  I come across real dogs at the Falls on occassion.  People do walk their animals here.  I do remember being surprised once by three pit bulls running down the beach all unleashed!!  They had run ahead of their masters and found me.  Fortunately, they were all sweethearts, but I have had encounters with feral dogs running in packs in other woods.  Oh, there was one other highlight on this day.  I saw and poorly photographed an American Turkey walking along the tree line.  It was the first one I had ever seen at the Falls and is a bird strangely not on the park’s checklist.

Last shot is of the revamped “Styro-Hound” at my home.  I saved this piece, because I knew I could improve it and make it seem more dog-like.  I switched out the ears.  One is the sole of a shoe and the other is a plastic, wing from a dove hunting decoy.  I also changed a few of the sticks forming its limbs.  All the materials were found at the Falls.  I can keep my project “pure” because so much washes up here.  “Styro-Hound” variation II, was unveiled at the park’s Earth Day observance.

 Ways to Advertise on this blog-click here

RoseLynn Imbleau marshscapes/APS group pastels on display at Kevin Becks Upstairs Art Gallery – Blowing Rock, NC Mar 9, 2009 to Mar 22, 2009

I want to make this post about a book I am reading called “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle and it is listed on www.oprah.com.

 http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahandfriends/20080310_oaf_ane

My post is short and you can read it below as well as on the site where we are asked to comment if we like. 

If you are ever wondering who you are or perhaps are awakening to- that thought-  or maybe you have already felt you are a “spiritual being leading a human existence” ( a thought I have held in my consciousness since I first came across it last year after reading it somewhere and I can’t place where I read that at the moment) you might want to join the online community of readers for the book.

www.roselynnrlistudios.wordpress.com (Name of my blog on the Oprah site)

by 1roselynn

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle Posted on Feb 25, 2009 (TITLE of my blog posted there)

I felt he was speaking my language in chapter one, with the first sentence, ...”one morning, just after sunrise”....how this simple shift of light coming into the world can create such a movement and shift in our own consciousness. Times are a changing.

roselynn

www.rlistudios.com

A New Earth Webcast Series
Register on Oprah.com for Oprah’s exclusive online class about Eckhart Tolle’s best-selling book A New Earth. Connect with others reading the book and use the official companion guide.

And, now art to keep things movin’ along….. below…

 ”Water of  the Lotus” represents the forward energy needed in all of us in order to make progress. 

  Much of what I create has water in it. This is an older pastel I felt needed being on this blog post.

 Feel free to comment on this post. I, for one, cannot imagine anyone else having the username “roselynn” but someone did so my username for the book will have to be 1roselynn. Afterall, there can be only one me. 

A girlfriend of mine has often said, “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got”- (source unknown); believable and unbelievable, isn’t it? 

Additional art can be found on my site www.rlistudios.com and on this wordpress site: roselynnrlistudios.wordpress.com

The book cover is below- 

Here is something else that will move you……

Below is a music montage of my eco art. Click on mini purple marsh painting icon below to view!

Please feel free to share video with your friends. Comments are welcome. 

ECO Art of the Carolinas

More landscape images can be found on my website: www.rlistudios.com

 ECO ART OF THE CAROLINAS THEME born out of inspiration…..

surfaced with my belief in preserving the beauty and health of the environment- the land. My appreciation of the natural beauty in nature was born in my youth when I admired the mists rising off of the Appalachians and the Blue Ridge and grew from my travels.  I am drawn to paint various landscapes, marshscapes, seascapes often of wild lands and often including water imagery.  My primary subject matter interest began with the ecosystems that represent change between the land and sea, including marsh environments and mangrove forests.  I hope via my website to promote awareness of the dynamics that thrive in these fragile ecosystems.

This video is also posted on You Tube under “ECO Art of the Carolinas” 

AHhhhh…..that whisper to keep going…keep movin’ even if logic tells you otherwise. So, last weekend I joined some pastel enthusiasts near Asheville. Posted is the result. I will post it again at the final stage when I finish the sky.

 More on my website www.rlistudios.com

 soft pastels on Wallis paper

 Inspiration: an old B/W photo

 Size: 12″ x 17″

I recently completed my ephemeral work for Stanley Park’s Environmental Art Project  titled, Birth, the piece looks at Indigenous concepts of land, environment, culture and community as an interconnected system are reflected in the root structure of a tree felled in the windstorms of 2006. Root systems are explored as an echo of other branching structures and organs, like rivers, and arteries and the umbilicus and placenta in the womb. The concepts of interconnectedness are expressed in highlighting the root by scraping away the outer layer of bark. I dedicated this piece to my newborn son, Skyelar Hawk Isaac Adam. (Big ups to my partner Kevin Adam for all his help with the piece).

Check out some great comic works of the Stanley Park Project artist talks here

happy christmas

I’ve re-cycled my e-card from last year (how green is that – hope you like it.  I made it just before I started blogging last year, so now it has a home. Its the view from my studio office – no tree was harmed in the production of this card!

I’ve just finished all my reports for work at last, just put up the Christmas tree selected from our wood here (our trees are getting so big, so it takes up a quarter of the living room) and I’m so looking forward to doing some creative work OF MY OWN over the break. There’s going to be a lot of activity in our wee forest soon as we thin the spruce  to start to create a sustainable, mixed species woodland, which I hope to both document and make some creative short films about. So look out for a few more lo fi yoututbe offerings soon.

Cathy

Brandon seeking frogs live and in person.

More than many environmental artists, the work of Brandon Ballengée bridges the gap between research biology and art. He combines a fascination with fish and amphibians with the techniques of commercial art photography.

In 1996 Ballengée began collaborating with scientists to create hybrid environmental art/ ecological research projects. Since then he has had numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally in which he presents photographs and biological samples of the creatures he collects. He is involved directly with field research and uses the visual impact of science to engage the public in a discussion of broader environmental issues.

Co. Leitrim Local Forest & Timber Directory

I’m delighted to write that a new local forest directory has been created.  It follows on from the 2006 ‘local project’ film & exhibition, a project where I documented an innovative 15 year old community foresty project in south Leitrim. The film and exhibtion were supported by the Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon and Crann.

Some of the people involved in the ‘local project’, saw that the exhibtion & film highlighted a new resource of local woodland knowledge, skills, and timber, that had been growing silently since the 15 years when the Forest Service had substantially supported the initial plantings (16 sites on over 300 acres), in the Crann-led project.  Terry McGrogan, Niall Miller and Jan Alexander, got together and approached Leitrim Partnership for funding, and the Leitrim Organic Farmers Co-op for producing a small directory of all the original ‘local project’ woodland owners and anyone else in the Leitrim area involved with woodlands, forestry, their management and timber users. (I hope to organise a website directory from this too, if time allows).

Since writing this post, I understand that afforestation grants for broadleaves remain as they were but all the other grants that I have listed below have been suspended. I couldn’t find this information on the Forest Service website, but a forester has assured me that the afforestation grants remain.

Sadly, the timing of the Local Forest and Timber Directory has coincided with the Irish government announcing it is suspending most of its funding schemes to encourage landowners to plant native (broadleaf) woodlands. Gone are funding schemes for roading (needed to extract trees), reconstitution of woodland (no compensation now for frost or fire damage), high pruning, shaping of broadleaves (so important to improve the sale quality of timber), the native woodland scheme, the woodland improvement scheme and the neighbourwood schemes. All these were incentives to bring back a forest culture. Its ironic really, Ireland has has some of best growing conditions in Europe for producing timber (the trees have loved this wet summer by the way, mine have shot up another few feet), and I know many EU foresters scratch their heads to understand why Ireland can’t see that forestry offers such a valuable & sustainable resource, and a proven means to invigorate local economies.

How is it that we know that forests are hugely important in regulating climate change, sustaining biodiversity etc, that we know Ireland is increasingly dependent on importing wood as an energy source (not to mention that it is still one of the worst offenders for importing tropical wood), that news of the forest grants cuts are not making headlines?; I saw news of it in the Crann magazine, of course, and a small letter to the Editor in the Irish Times. Sadly, in county Carlow where I live, one million oak plants destined for the Native Woodland scheme growing in a Coilte nursery will also not have a home.

Personally, I think there will be more interest in forestry in the coming years, the increasing price of other finite fuel sources will see to that! Some of our EU neighbours have long known the value of sustainable, continuous-cover forestry but unfortunately forests are a ’slow fuel’, their quiet growing almost completely overlooked by the media of this mad, fast world. Forest management isn’t rocket science, all it requires is some long-term, consistent planning and investment – clearly, sadly lacking in current day Ireland. The return on investment to a community in the ‘local project’ is something to remember, perhaps?

Another item from the Irish Green Gathering. I met US born Rita Higgins and her Irish partner Paul Quirke, who have a sustainable landscape design business in Cork – Anu Green Designs. I was captivated by their ‘vertical garden’ systems which you can plant up or buy ready grown. I had known about greenroof gardens but Rita and Paul also establish vertical ‘living walls’. I was fascinated as the modular tray system for growing the plants seemed so easy and it follows how plants can easily live on vertical systems in nature. Imagine having your own herb garden growing happily on your kitchen wall or living, breathing patio walls around a deck.

Quite often I have observed artists dragging greenery into sterile galleries as installations (myself included) but the living walls seem more inspiring. French botanist Patrick Blanc has worked with leading architects all around the world with this idea, both in interiors and exteriors. He’s covered buildings, museums, even a McDonald’s!

living wall by Patrick Blanc

Meant to have these images posted but summer holidays got in the way but now that I have broadband, my blogging will be more regular I hope.

Lots of creativity evident at the 2nd Irish Green Gathering held in Killane, Co. Wexford; creativity was evident in the woods, in the films selected and in the excellent talks by FutureProofKilkenny and Feasta-the Irish Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability. In fact, the crisis we face with environmental issues I believe is a great motivator for society at large to get creative.

Here are some of the things I liked – things discovered by accident in the woodland walk and a couple of films which I thought were successful because unlike a lot of heavy doom and gloom eco films, they were great fun to watch. Particularly inspiring were the yesmen.org, about 2 art students who successfully inpersonated the WTO all over the world and even announced to the world media, that because of the ill effects of WTO policy, the WTO was going to disband as an organisation (they have a film, books and more projects on the go!! And a great Irish comic short, the EcoPreacher, which I believe is a small part of the Irish Cultivate Powerdown series of films. There was a great response to both of these comic/satire approaches, the unexpected humour admidst all the doom and gloom of peak oil.

scenarios is a very valid strategy to engage audiences and is not used enough (see my previous post on the 10 RULES of effective/engaging

environmental communitication . It was also great to take part in the 1st Irish Transition Towns (described as ‘a social-ecological experiment on a massive scale’) network event, the first meeting of groups from around the country- so very inspiring to hear about all the creative projects happening across Ireland. I’ve now subscribed to Rob Hopkins blog, a leading figure in this area.

First up some images of artworkds from Gile’s Fitzherbert’s woodland, site of the annual Irish Green Gathering Festival-many were simple, temporary interventions and naturally, sensitivity in using natural materials was evident. Artists often don’t consider the materials they use enough. Can’t wait to see more next year!

 ”Green Going Upward!” I had set aside since June 13, 2007 because I didn’t know where to take it to finish it. The results are below and it is hanging in the ” Art for Art’s Sake” judged exhibit by David Segal at CAL, which runs thru August 29, 2008.

Before:

After:

ART FOR ART SAKE EXHIBIT AT CAL

Mixed Media on canvas

24 x 30; Price: TBD; see website wwwrlistudios.com for contact info. 

“Green Going Upward!”

Close-up

The progression is about what happens when the energy of nature intervenes with man or man intervenes with the energy of nature?

I did not ”consciously” paint 2 people or an angel.  I experimented with pouring a new thick shellac-like paint mixture onto the already altered canvas from a previous day. 

What I see now is the result of “growth of  2 images that seem to be people that stand out” from among the crowd in the initial painting, and are guided by a third image-perhaps another person ( a spirit, energy or a teacher) because “wings” seem to be evident? What do you see?

It also appears the “angel” is transforming and “becoming grounded.” If you look closely you can almost see a body forming from the lower right side.

I’m here to say I haven’t participated in any mind altering to get the creative juices flowing.

In fact, just the opposite, I have turned my thoughts “inward” all along to fuel my creativity.

I haven’t taken a back seat while creating but have chosen “to look into the mirror” and so far I have come across many inspiring books “to keep my brain from going to goop” (to actively ward off this idea my mother has).  She feels, and I know this because I am finding notes to this effect around her house which she expects me to find while I organize- “that because of all the information overload, we as a people no longer read “introspectively,” to tease out meaning or discern out truth. To test out her idea, there are many old books that sit as “evidence” for me to ponder, (or not)?  Some are even signed and include a newspaper write-up about the author, one example being “Fugitive Lines” by Professor Henry Jerome Stockard.

I TRY to look him up and I find you have to be a “subscriber” to find out more, or the information is buried deep within the links; (maybe she’s right, our brains really, maybe- ARE turning to mush?) 

475	February 1903 Poem Mollusks By Henry Jerome Stockard SEE ALSO: Mollusks PDFIMAGES

I guess I will have to delve into this more- so if anyone knows the significance of Henry Jerome Stockard-please comment in this post.

As for ART- “See below- a good book to help u make sure ur not avoiding making art; HA!” (Guess Mom is right?)

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Day Many In The Mountains

Let’s see now, we have:

Canoodled…let’s see now…for a better word choice…(which I will chalk up to too many Dean Martin videos)…I spent time with old friends, listened to the Grandfather Mountain Highlands BagPipers at a house-lawn party, participated in song at karaoke to the tune of BJThomas’ “Hey, Won’t You Play Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song,” experimented with photoshop (see Butterscotch “The CAT” below who attended the party and didn’t want to identify who she was sharing computer tricks with), and we have done a bit of sorting, simplifying, research and exploring. My mother kept many Time magazine covers of events that she liked and one is below of John Lennon. 

Butterscotch belongs to my friends Rhonda, Rebekkah, Edward and Sam.

The magazine cover below belongs to my Mom. 

And the song that follows you might like as “inspiration” for your creative pursuits? I grew up on this music in my family’s music store.

For more creative life links go to my website at www.rlistudios.com.

Be sure to listen to the INSPIRING VIDEO LINK by John Denver “It’s About Time” listed in the side bar to this blog as a widget most easily accessible by going directly to roselynnrlistudios.wordpress.com.  

Or, you may access the Denver link in the sidebar easily on my website: www.rlistudios.com (and be sure to take a look at my ECO ART: American Landscape Art while you are there). 

Comments are welcome. Feel free to step on out here and sign your name!

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I’m heading to Woodbrook to check out the Gathering, my sister Joan has been a volunteer and crowds beginning to build as we speak, click on image for more info

Grafitti draws attention to exotic timber use by local authority

Well, the man in this photo is not really an artist, usually, but I had to admire Tom’s recent graffiti work in Tullamore.

Tom has worked tirelessly for years trying, along with others, to effect change in Ireland’s policy of still allowing the unsustainable importation of exotic wood into Ireland, often from extremely poor and fragile communities.

Tom is best known for his Tree of Life exhibition that he tours to schools but his website is also an excellent resource for all things related to Ireland and global forestry. His pages from the WWF on Ireland’s total lack of committment to timber importation are truly shocking, see how Ireland has the poorest record in the EU in respect to illegal logging and timber use. Remember, the next time you buy anything made from

wood, to ask for its FSC (forest stewardship council) logo .

“If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change.”