This being 2017, a lot has gone past which may never get recorded, but a lot of cool things have happened, such as moving to Belize, building and moving into my earthbag house, painting murals of ancient Mayan art and a life-size jaguar on its walls, and dipping deeply into the lives of my Belizean neighbors here in western Belize, a few miles from the Guatemalan border and ten miles on a rocky, rocky road south of Benque Viejo del Carmen in an intentional neighborhood called Better In Belize.
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| my house in Oregon, now sold to other artists |
I also did a lot of sketch/journaling not only the amazing natural habitat around my house in a douglas fir/madrone/ponderosa pine forest, but for several years I also traveled to a different tropical place to experience the wonders of nature there, too. Then I scanned in my sketches and notes to create downloadable how-to sketchbooks for people wanting to create their own.
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| Casa de la Tierra -- my house |
Actually, you can find out about a lot of that stuff by reading the older posts. Enjoy! I myself can really get lost in them -- they're so old, it's almost like reading about someone else.
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| That's me, sitting on my veranda |
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| Mayan ball player |
I have been trying to make myself a part of the Belizean community by learning Spanish well enough to talk to neighbors who don't have English, then by becoming a go-to resource by creating a Wi-fi hot spot for neighborhood folks who have cellphones but no signal, and for kids needing a place to study with access to the internet and also occasional printouts of items from the web. It's been a real change for me, this hermit who used to live in the woods and see another human maybe once a week.....and I'm loving it.
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| Jaguar painting on my house wall |
But I am not surrounded by a...well, a support group of people who enjoy investigating nature through art and writing, desire to be artists, or even have any particular interest in what I am doing.
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| Giant Red-winged Grasshopper |
Why should you come back to visit this blog?
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| Micasa, my Belizean-style hideaway in the woods |
- a step-by-step tutorial on how I painted the murals on my house walls
- an overview of details of building and furnishing an earthbag house
- to share my sketch/journaling
- to show how my Belizean hideaway in the jungle was built
- to share the joy as I bring solar lights to my neighbors' houses and
- to answer any questions you might have about the flying leap I took to transport myself from 20 wooded acres and a lovely little house in Oregon, USA to .9 acres and an off-the-grid earthbag house in an ecovillage in Belize.
renie
7 comments:
Very glad to see you posting again, I would love to see any new work of yours! I have a little bit of a similar situation in that I've had to return to working after a few years of working on my art career, and since the new job I've gradually drawn less and less to the point I barely sketch anymore. Some of the reason is time constraints, but also the lack of interest/enthusiasm from my co-workers or the people that I'm around now. It has caused a kind of weltschmerz in me.
I hope you can get back into the groove and start making art regularly!
So glad you are back. I have missed your uplifting and creative posts. Glad you are well and continuing your adventure. My time for adventure is limited by money and ability, but following you gives me the chance to have an adventure with you.
Dear Carol and Frankye,
Thank you, and I mean this deeply, thank you SO much for your comments. As you will have read in the next post, I think I may be back on track for sketch/journaling. The first sketch has me hopeful, as it's a decent effort, that I can continue on as I used to, with interest and joy, with what was once the consuming interest in my life. Thanks again for being the wind beneath my wings.
Cousin! So glad to see you are winding your way back to your art. Creativity has many ways of expressing itself and as far as I can see from my roost you have taken your creative spirit in another direction for the past few years. No reason you can’t make a u-turn and move back to your old path. I for one and so thrilled to see you at it again and will share this widely, with your permission of course😘
Yes. Yes. Yes welcoming your wit and wisdom on a regular basis...horray kalu kalay!
Yo Shelly, YES! Share with one and all. The more people who gather round, the more I shall be inspired to share! Thanks for the inspiration!
And yet another frabjous day, Diana! I'm working on the wall mural tutorial, too. What fun!
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