Stephanie's Studio

Oh, the places I've been this month. Never in my life, have I visited so many different blogs and left so many comments nor have I received so many. I have also signed up for the Pagan Blog Challenge, a little late in the alphabet, as we are on "I" there but thankfully, our posts are once a month, not every day of the week, like the A to Z challenge. So stay tuned for that. I love blogging but am a rebel and free thinker so I was not altogether happy about having to stick with a particular letter of the alphabet as my topic or concept. To be honest, I thought I would have given up on this A to Z challenge long ago--actually I first thought about quitting after "B" and then I thought for sure the end had come after "W" but here I am, still blogging, making it to this day's Z post. I picked zilch for Z. I thought I had zilch left for you, and would take off Z day, enjoying taking some zzzz's of my own but I have a bit more left to say. This c...

I resonate with this image of a butterfly in an ambiguous field of color depicted on this art card because I am on a journey of transformation and changes as well.  I'm excited about so many things.  One of them is that I have started a novel.  It is about 1/3 of the way to being finished, so I have a lot of work to go.  It centers around a 14 year old African American girl who has many trials and tribulations many of which are in the spirit realm.  You might call the book paranormal fiction or alternative spiritual fiction; though the main character if young the book is not a young adult reader, it is meant for adults.  Set in two locations, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, my original home, and the outback of Australia.  Not just a backdrop, the landscape plays an important role, it is lush, mysterious and interactive with the story.  In some ways it reminds me of "the Color Purple" and in others, "Girl Interrupted." I have definitely be...

I love sculptural containers such as amphora, urns and even boxes. I’m especially fond of the mixed media boxes of Joseph Cornell and Greek amphorae. The ancient Egyptians also made a fascinating assortment of containers for things such as unguents and ointments.   In my series about shields and modes of shielding I created this drawing with Prismacolor pencils on colored pastel paper with the idea of containment and safety in mind. The shapes are contained and shielded from a menacing spear.  I wanted to have an overriding sense of transparency on the frontal plane and more of a notion of opacity on the secondary plane. Delicacy plays its role here as well and so does the sense of movement.  The rounded shapes are quite fragile and are reminiscent of balloons. They are juxtaposed against the angular spear shape that twists and moves through the composition. The balloon shapes are being shielded yet they are still threatened by the presence of the arrow-like spea...

A couple of years ago, I wrote a book devoted to the healing energy of trees called, “A Healing Grove.” Way before I wrote that book, I created this drawing in situ at the Oak Park Conservatory.  I remember it was to be a gathering of local artists to paint and draw, using the conservatory as an open studio.  It was a cold night outside and it was quite damp, dark and cool inside since we were there after regular hours.  I was a little disorientated at first because of all of the different tree energies and plant life pulsating in the ecosystem themed rooms.  I settled in on the tropical room because it seemed to speak the clearest language. I’ve always loved palms and banana trees as well as other fruit trees.  They give us so much in terms of sustenance, shelter, art and craft materials, spiritual resources for healing, ceremony and ritual. I enjoy using banana papers in my studio, as well as palm waste paper and fig bark pressed into paper.  I have u...