I’ve been completely inside my head lately with little words coming out. Sometimes it just needs to be that way. I need to collect myself and focus.

HOWEVER, I was able to get back into making more cards for The Bird People Tarot deck this past week. I got out my colored dyes (finally) and experimented with some new card backgrounds for new cards. Did a little paper surgery creating new bird people and tiny words.

The ones I’m posting today, however, are not new. They were created in 2016, and that’s what I’m posting for this Freaky Friday because I'm currently in extreme introvert mode. I hope to have more words next week. Although I can’t guarantee that. Please keep safe and well this weekend.

Upright Meanings:
Greatness of soul
Sincere
Economic freedom
Confident
Bold
Reversed Meanings:
Treachery
Bad Health
Doubt
Mistrust
Timidity

Upright Meanings:
Fear of loss
Offering
Gift
Generosity
Kindness
Reversed Meanings:
Obstruction
Financial loss
Monopolizing
Delays in payment
Cloistered

Upright Meanings:
Change
End
Transformation
Failure
Mortality
Reversed Meanings:
Stagnation
Sleepwalking
Discouragement
Pessimism
Depression

Welcome to today's Studio Closeup #28! This one is part of The Museum Series. I've been in the mood to revisit the Milwaukee County Zoo's bird aviary lately so since that's on hold presently due to the pandemic, I thought I'd bury myself inside a made-up bird aviary instead. Please enjoy!

Title: The Museum Series: Red-Legged Honeycreeper
Year: 2021
Media: Acrylic Paint, Paper Diorama and Collage on Wood Panel
Total Dimension: 10" x 10" (1.5" Cradle)

Welcome to today’s Carolaoke Song #26. Today I chose to cover vintage Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita”. I know I’m no Madonna, not even close, but I love this song and I love to sing this song. ESPECIALLY in the car. IN FACT, I still have the original 45 and its original paper jacket it came in as you will see below. I remember I had my learner’s permit and drove downtown to “Mainstream Music” in our 1984 stick-shift Pontiac Phoenix on a beautiful spring day and bought this 45. When I got home, I opened my bedroom windows and proceeded to play this song over and over all day pretending I was Spanish Madonna. The Latin-esque music was what really caught my attention when I heard this song on the radio and I just couldn’t get enough of it. I also kept this record jacket in mind when I needed inspiration for my senior pictures in 1990 which I've also included. So, I guess I always was nuts, living out loud with my heart on my sleeve, trying to find the good in everything weirdo. Although, finding the good in everything in modern times is more of a “Well, hm, let’s try to find some (any) positive aspect of this current shitstorm we’re experiencing” approach. I’m also trying to rebuild that wide-eyed ambitious living out loud with my heart on my sleeve girl who got lost in Life’s fray. I know she’s still in there, it’s just a matter of coaxing her out, little by little by slowly.

Thanks for stopping by today! Please enjoy this homemade scratch track cover of Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita”.

Last Friday I posted some cards from the Bird People Tarot deck that I've been working on in no particular order because that’s the way I do things. It occured to me that we could all learn Tarot together as I go. For example, the first 22 cards of a Tarot deck (The Major Arcana) are the most powerful cards that are in the deck and “are based on the Hebrew system of numbers and the alphabetical sequence of its 22 letters. In fact, the name Tarot [pronounced “ta-roh”] is closely related to the Hebrew word Torah.”

I also was mistaken last week when I said I need to make 72 cards. I actually have to make 78 pieces of art, but I'm cool with that because it’ll help me learn and remember the meanings of the cards rather than using books during a reading. I’ve decided to break each card down to five words that describe the card in its upright position and five words that describe its reversed position in a reading. After the Major Arcana there comes the Minor Arcana (which are all the suit cards) that have elements attached to them just like in Astrology. For example:

Wands: Fire
Cups: Water
Swords: Air
Pentacles: Earth

For today’s Freaky Friday installment, I decided to reveal three more cards from The Bird People Tarot Deck. Two cards are from the Minor Arcana and one card is from the Major Arcana. I’m hoping by posting this weird shit, it will motivate me to continue working on the deck and learn more about Tarot. And really, what else are we going to do right now.

Enjoy and please keep safe and well.

Upright Meanings:
An active man
Obliging
Kind
Helpful
Important
Reversed Meanings:
Apathy
Peace
Tranquility
Discouragement
Carelessness

Upright Meanings:
Choices
Sincerity
Friendship
Love
Empathy
Reversed Meanings:
Hindrances
Obstacles
Separation
Covetousness
Dissatisfaction

Upright Meanings:
Innocent
Foolery
Intoxication
Irrational
Extravagance
Reversed Meanings:
Bad Decision
Distraction
Mistakes
Hesitation
Absence

My energy and concentration has been all over the place (again) these days so today’s studio closeup is a piece I did in the 1997-1998 range and lives forever on an old school slide. Yes, I could show you things that I’m currently working on , but most of them need a LOT more work to be even remotely presentable but I am in fact creating and that’s the important part. I need to be happy about that. I believe I sold this piece to a friend and I am happy to report was NOT a casualty of the flood. These are the little canvas board panels I was starting to experiment with at the time. Shortly before this piece, I remember I found out the hard way that you cannot straight up varnish paper collage without preserving it first somehow. That was definitely was an idiot moment for me. Think of newspaper soaking up grease from French fries and that’s what my vintage collage piece had turned into.

These days I know to use a medium first and THEN varnish over it with an acrylic based varnish. Duh. Big duh. But this is how you learn (I keep telling myself). You learn way more from your failures than you do your successes. The important part is not to get discouraged by all your failed experiments and keep making more experiments regardless of the outcome. My inner self and I argue about this on a daily, hourly, minute by minute basis but I think some of it is finally sinking in. Now back to my experiments with no preconceived expectations. That’s the goal at least. Thank you for stopping by today. I hope the rest of your week is a good one!

Title: The Beauty We Can't Seem to Find
Year: 1997
Media: Acrylic & Collage on Canvas Board
Total Dimension: 5.5" x 23.5" (Triptych)