Approaching 2010

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This holiday season has been a good for Tab and I and our little group here in Portland. I had a few last minute projects to work on (a beautiful wedding scene I turned into a numberism portrait) and a few I'm still working on now, and hope to continue working on into the coming year (including the Zombie Comic and a numberism scene that I'm dying to draw for a friend of mine).

I came back from Seattle inspired. We stayed up there with some of Tab's family and I had the opportunity to get a closer look at some of Christen Shaw's work (who is my brother-in-law's fiance - nice ring, by the way). The online images just didn't do the detail and lighting justice. I unfortunately can't show you my favorite piece, but she'll hopefully have pictures of it online soon. I can, however show you the beautiful piece she gave Tab and I. I don't think anyone has ever given me a painting before.

Again, this picture doesn't do it justice, but that's just reflective of my ability with a camera... which is way below par.

Below is something else of hers.



A month ago, my mother sent me oil paints from my late grandfather and I've been meaning to put them to use. After seeing all her work (and my favorite with the luminescent ocean scene- hint hint- put it up), I've come back wanting to paint. While taking a break from the comic book, I started my first piece. I will put up pictures when it's finished.

I have a few ideas for incorporating more vivid color with my numberism work as well. We shall see.

I love being inspired. It's something I revel in.

The Saturday Market is closed for 2 months. We'll be back in March, and until then, we artist people need to keep our hands busy. More than anything, I'm working on finishing the Comic Book "Teenagers Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse". We might also jump around the coast a bit to do some artwalks in Seattle and Northern California. Not to mention, Villain, which we plan on shooting either January or February.

Ah, I should note, that the gallery will be open again, come January 1st.

On that note, The Portland Examiner interviewed me about Saturday market's last days in their "Festival of the Last Minute" article. Which you can see Here and Here. (I am in Part 2).

More than anything, this break gives me some time to play. We've all worked pretty hard this past year, and I'm looking forward to seeing where some free time and creativity will bring me.

Happy New year to all of you, and thank you again for your continued support.

Last Minute Shopping at Saturday Market

Saturday Market will be open for this entire week up until Christmas Eve for all of us notorious last minute shoppers. We will be at our regular booth on the Skidmore side (at Ankeny and 2nd)- right off the MAX stop) with a few special large prints that we rarely print. We also have new work from Tabulanis!

The usual sales apply at the booth, and buying the Tree set is 15 % off when you buy the whole set at once. If you're trying to load up on gifts, we'll give you 15% off when you buy 4 or more. :)


We are pretty well stocked, but if you're coming into town to pick something up, send me an email and I'll make sure to print it and have it with us at the market to make sure your trip is successful.

Also, there are tons of great booths all around us at the market to fill the rest of your shopping needs with purses, jewelry, art, prints, T Shirts, a few electronics, great hats, Portland Paraphernalia and the like. I'm personally going to grab one of those cool Owl Purses I keep eying that are up the aisle from me.

So while we're at market, our gallery in NW Portland will be closed and will not be open until after the Holidays, so if you're trying to find us, look at the market. We'll be there! Also, after this week, Saturday and Sunday Market will be closed until MARCH! So come down while you still can!

Happy Holidays!



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Notes That Warm The Heart

I've received a few wonderful thank you notes lately, and wanted to share them with you. These are a few that really touched me.

As an artist, there's really two parts to my work. The first half, is expressing the world around me as a way to understand and deal with our life. The other half is the hope that it will connect with someone else in the world, and that through my art, we can communicate and relate.

I live for this, and it makes my day.

"My wife & I just bought a print of your sketch "The Butterfly Effect" at the Saturday Market today. I guess I just wanted to let you know that we can't quit staring at it (already up on the wall and, come to find out, easily visible from passers-by on Hawthorne). Thanks for capturing our attention and helping us Portland newcomers dream again."

"I just wanted to send my appreciation for your message given on the back of the piece that we purchased. It amazes me...the profound significance that message has to my life's path. It validates an underlying question I've had in believing in this journey. THANK YOU and the perfection of the the universe."

These are two poems someone we met at Saturday Market wrote about Tabulanis' work and my own. How touching that he was compelled to write a poem about it!

" The Woman Who Draws With Time

the favorite pastime
of humankind
is trying to grasp time
to seize the moment
failure is inevitable
unless
you use time to
de-line-ate
the fleetingness
of a first kiss
the caress
of breeze on leaves
a child's wonder
at the alien magical beauty
of a butterfly
or the joyous synthesis
of harmonic co-operation
illustrating
the eternalness
of now."


The Grottoes Of My Mind
then there's an artist
who paints the grottoes
of my mind.
complete with the skeletons
of love I've killed
and impenetrable shadows
hiding horrors
which I'll never admit
into sunlight.
but the tranquil beauty of nature
the calm azure
of a peaceful pool
and the flowing lines
of ochre stone
ameliorate the nightmare
of the prison of ego."

Perpetual Motion Calendar

I just created my first Perpetual Motion RedBubble calendar, which has each piece from the series.

There are three calendars to choose from,

Original Series

The first calendar shows the series in it's Original Form, with the earlier graphite drawings, transitioning into pen and finally the full color tree drawing. They are ordered, month to month, as I originally drew them (to the best of my memory).

Sepia Series
The second calendar shows the series in sepia and original pen coloring

Color Series

The final calendar shows the series in sepia, special color pieces and pen coloring.

I also just saw a redubble notice on Shipping. If you are looking to purchase prints, calendars or TShirts from RedBubble for Christmas, here are your deadlines to get them to you in time:

• United States

  T-Shirts: 17 December
  Prints & Cards: 13 December

• Calendars: 13 December

Also, I noticed that if you buy 3 calendars (and possibly, 3 of anything), you get free shipping! These calendars are $32.50

New Work

I already posted this on my RogueSketches blog, but I thought I'd give the update here too.

I have two new Numberism trading cards available on my Etsy site.

Touching

Last Saturday, a group of female students from PCC came by our booth at Skidmore market looking for something special to get for their math teacher. Apparently his 75th birthday is coming up and they wanted to thank him for making math more accessible to them. They said they all had trouble with it and that he had a definite impact on each of them. I was touched that they chose my numberism prints as their gift. Thank you, and I hope he likes it!

In the end, they chose an 11 x 14 of this leaf

I just had to share that. I'm always touched when people choose my work for gifts, and this one even more so than usual.

On a side note, we have a bit of an update about our NW gallery. It has been closed this past week, and we hope to have it open again by Tuesday (tomorrow). From here on out, it will be open Tuesday through Friday fro 2pm - 11pm or by appointment. When you come in, feel free to holler, as we are probably upstairs working on more art (sometimes loudly).

We are at 1216 NW 21st Ave,
Portland, Or 97209


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Also, if you are in the Portland area, and are looking to purchase some of my or Tabulanis's work, I suggest going to the FrogFaith gallery at www.FrogFaith.com/gallery where you can purchase anything from our series, and you have the option to pick up instead of paying for shipping and handling.

Thank you and I hope the Holiday season is treating you all well!

We're Mad As Hell

We're unhappy, and unfulfilled, malnourished and ignored. We are Americans, we are the humans of this earth, and we're all feeling this pervading sense of discontent. We watch as our leaders, our corporations, our public servants act dishonorably and against human interest, and we feel weak and helpless.

We know that our neighbors feel the same outrage when a company, yet again, stands on the side of profit instead of health and welfare... and get away with it. We feel the same shame when our countries act against our wishes and lay thousands of human lives to rest. We feel the same depression when we see millions needlessly dying of starvation or illness when any one of the 1% could reach out a hand and stop it: when any one of these companies could spend a fraction of what they spend on PR on actually doing good instead of just convincing us that they always have been. We all feel the dread as we see fewer and fewer regulations to guide the people and companies in power to do what's right and not just what is profitable.

We are justifiably angry.

We feel separate and alone, and none of us know the first damn thing to do. We're killing our planet, and starving our people, poisoning our food and water and dumbing down the next generation. I try not to look at it, because our future looks bleak. It looks bleak because somewhere down the line, we stopped holding people accountable. We stopped standing up for ourselves and we began to be ruled by fear. And in doing so, we do nothing. And each day it gets worse.

It is now crazy to expect a big company to act in the favor of people. It is nuts to think that human life would ever outweigh the value of the dollar. It is bad business. Why? Is this right?? How does that make any logical sense? Companies grow and die, governments rise and fall, but in the end, the only consistent thing we have is ourselves and each other. It is what we fight for, what we live for. It is never in debate. Our lives are always the most important, but we've let ourselves believe differently. The bottom line has a dollar sign on it. That's bullshit, and at some point, we need to start acting like we are seeing this travesty, that we notice and we feel the shame when our people act against us. It's reprehensible, and it's only sane to stand against it. It's our lives, and the only one we have, and we devalue it by allowing it to loose value for others. We are letting our world die in every way.

My people are sick, but cannot get medical help. We are hungry for knowledge, but have a failing education system. Our quality of life has gone down, and it feels as though every day, there is more taken away from us. We are dependent on this structure to be as comfortable as we are, despite the fact that this same system is tearing it apart. We are being lied to, and we are expected to buy into it, and we too often, do.

When did we forget to stand up for ourselves? When did government and corporations become more important than us? We are not hurting anyone by holding these people accountable, but we are damning ourselves by continuing the pattern to let it go unchecked.

I'm mad as hell, and I don't know what to do about it. I'm tired of being mad, and I've seen enough of my people scream and yell and share their anguish about the state of things, but I feel that the screaming has stopped being beneficial. Now that we know we all agree, that we're all angry and that we can't stand for it anymore, what are we going to do about it? How do we get our voice to have power again? How do we get meaningful regulations in place? How do we set standards that value human life beyond all else?

What do we do now?

26

This week, I am turning 26. Not a mile marker in life, not a turning point, historically speaking, but my birthday nonetheless. I'm personally quite happy with this year so far and am looking forward to the next one. Let's see a recap:

I finished my Perpetual Motion series (yay!), my husband, best friend and I opened up our first gallery, which happens to be next to an awesome coffee shop (Anna Bannanas), I've met a group of wonderfully artistic friends up here and am absolutley loving Portland life, and I'm now working on a comic book about zombies, which is something I've always wanted to do.



Last and not least, my amazing husband and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary just last month, and we continue to be a contradiction to the normal idea of a married couple.



I don't know what more I could ask for, really.So instead of a gift for me, I'm offering a gift to you.

This week (starting at Saturday Market), I will knock off 15% off everything when you buy two or more prints. Moreover, for just this week, I will bring all my online prices down to my special booth prices. :) These are found at www.SiennaMorris.Etsy.com and www.FrogFaith.com/gallery At the FrogFaith Gallery, you can order to pick up at our gallery while avoiding shipping and handling.

You get the 15% off at our gallery as well at 1216 NW 21st ave. We open at 2pm and stay open all night. We work upstairs, so feel free to holler if we don't come down.

Have an awesome week and happy Friday the 13th!

12

A year ago, I started a series that became the most challenging and rewarding artwork I've ever had the pleasure of working on. Yesterday, I celebrated the completion of this series at the soft opening of our gallery in NW Portland.

"Perpetual Motion" came out of necessity. I needed the reminder to live in the present. Knowing that my life is a collection of "now", I had to motivate myself not to waste a single moment of it. It was the worry and anxiety that was ruining it for me, and I needed to replace that with gratitude and wonder.

So first came the concept, and then out of that came the technique. How could I draw a moment? How could I illustrate just how fleeting it is? I wanted to show the singular point in which the moment exists and how the procession of time is constantly taking effect and moving that moment to the next, always reinventing the "now".

So, I decided to capture the fleetingness of time in a moment by drawing the piece entirely with the numbers of the clock, 1 - 12, so that my pieces could depict all 4 dimensions in how we experience life. That is how Numberism came to be.

It all started with anxiety. I imagined that my first piece would be wrought with it. Instead, something beautiful happened. The first drawing was Falling To Pieces, and instead of an anxious, panicky piece, it was wonderful, showing the beauty and potential of a moment. I look at them and see a couple who are truly alive, living for the moment and taking everything from it that they can. It's clear that the moment is temporary, that it's already going away, but instead of worry, I feel calm looking at that piece. It's okay that it's passing; in fact, it's wonderful.



Each successive piece that followed brought me closer to being at peace with now. To have hope and determination for the future, but to be actively a part of what's going on around me now. It seemed the most honest thing to do.



If I found a way to actually be present for each moment in my life, in the end, despite what happens in my life; if I fail or succeed at each venture, in the end, it would be MY life. I could not ask for more.




We are here for such a short time, and I'd hate to waste this one great opportunity with meaningless things as worry, doubt and busy daily life.


For the past month, I have been working on the 12th and final piece to "Perpetual Motion". Last night, I showed it for the first time. It is a 19" x 24" full color numberism illustration. This piece breaks away from the rest of the series as it is the first to completely come from my mind. No photos were used for this piece. In a way, that makes this piece more intimate for me.

This final piece, which is still unnamed, seems the perfect end to the series. Showing the changing colors of fall, it depicts the passing of time in a way we all know well. The leaves turn yellow, red and brown, allowing the tree to survive the coming winter by falling off it's branches. This gives it new life, new opportunity. Rebirth, if you will. The passing of the leaves allow the tree to go on.

I think this is an important part of the piece to focus on. If those fleeting moments hadn't passed, and if we were not able to let them go, then we could never reach the opportunity of the next moment. It's with each passing moment that we get a new one.




So when I look at this piece, I am grateful for the chaos of our lives, for the constant stream of opportunities laid before us with the death and birth of each new day. Each person you meet, each project you begin or disband. Each success and failure. Each time a moment passes. I'm here for the next.




That frame, by the way, is a window frame I painted. When you think of fall, don't you think of watching the leaves fall outside your window?

Thanks to Hassy, we have good scans of this image and are working on making prints now. (Small prints will not be available for this, because the numbers are too small to begin with).

We hope to have prints of this tomorrow at Saturday market.




Click on the close ups for a better view.

FrogFaith Gallery Opening!

It's been a long time coming.

The humble FrogFaith gallery is opening it's doors for the first time this First Thursday, November 5th, and you are all invited! I'm very excited about this. Not only are we opening our gallery for the first time, but I've decided this is the perfect opportunity to show my new piece.

It is the 12th piece in "Perpetual Motion", and as you know that is the end of the road. I can't believe I'm finished already...

It's bittersweet. I feel a sense of accomplishment, but at the same time, I've grown quite attached to this series and don't feel ready to put it down. I have a few ideas for my next series, but that can wait. First, let's give the series a good show!

My new piece, which I have not named yet, will be on display in our gallery along with the first ever prints of it. There are also some little-known pieces that never seem to make it with me to art walks that will be shown, as well as some new work from Tabulanis.

So come see us on
Thursday, November 5th

at

1216 NW 21st ave @ Northrup.

We open our doors at 5pm and will be open all evening.

*Click to view larger, printable version*

Enjoy a cup of coffee next door at Anna Bannanas Coffee House. I recommend the Joel and the Do Do Do.

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