Why "Making Art & Raising Chickens?" Well, here's why...

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? 
Or the art?

Greetings from Dragonfly Cottage, the land of pugs and parrots, a Magic Ship, and a bi polar writer-artist gone loopier than normal and happier than ever. I have found my niche, or my niche found me, or a chick found my niche. Yep, art and chickens, that's my life now...

If you've read back a few posts you know that it all started with Grandma Moses. You all know her, eminent folk artist who didn't start to paint until she was 70ish and painted until she was over 100. She said, "If I hadn't started painting I would have raised chickens." Well, I was just on the cusp of plunging into art with glee and gusto because at nearly 59 I decided it was time to follow a long held dream and just draw and  paint me bloomers off. (Don't worry, the bloomers are staying on.) At the same time I was going through my yearly, "And THIS year I'm FINALLY going to raise chickens." My best friend had offered, as he has before, to help put up a grand chicken coop and we talk about all of the organic eggs we will have. And then one or the other of us remarks about the terrible intense heat here in the south. And the other heaves a heavy sigh, shakes their head, and mentions the clouds of mosquitoes that frighten giant cockroaches. And about then I remember that I can barely stand to go in and out numerous times a day with the dogs when the heat is so bad and the humidity worse so that as soon as you walk outside your glasses fog up and you could run into a tree. Keeping up with the garden and dashing about watering when I absolutely have to is work enough. So it's another year that we will be buying our eggs and talking about the chicken coop we will surely put up NEXT year. But I was stuck on that name, "Making Art and Raising Chickens." Bought the url. Dreamed a lot.

The making art part now is more than obvious. I am working on a non fiction book about living with bi polar disorder and doing art to go in it, and I am designing an oddball cast of characters that will go on products as well as be part of a book of cartoonish philosophy with these crazy ladies of mine. In short, I am having fun. More fun than I've had in a long time.

I'm getting to the chickens.

Andy Warholesque Chicks

By now I loved the name and it didn't seem to matter that I wasn't actually going to raise real chickens because they had begun to represent something much bigger and more important to me. Look at the chick and the egg. The egg, not yet hatched, is full of what I always call "potent possibility abundant," and the chick, newly hatched, has her whole life ahead of her, fresh and new. She represents new beginnings to me as I create a whole new life at nearly 60. And when you think about the coop full of hens I might have had you think of all of the eggs you gather every morning. To me, they represent the never-ending flow of ideas that are not just coming now but are always possible if we are open to them.

New chick = Beginner's Mind

Making art = Following Your Dreams

Eggs = Fertility and the delight and surprise related to what you might find inside

So I am making art and raising chickens, and I have created a business called MAKING ART & RAISING CHICKENS and I am doing both in one fashion or another, and I'm happier than a pig in mud. (That's a future business!)

Vintage Chicks

And I continue to draw and then take the art and use it in photo manipulation programs and I am just having more fun than a coop of Bantam hens and the possibilities are endless. I remember Bach saying to a student who asked him how he came up with so many ideas that he tripped over them when he got up in the morning. Well I'll tell you, with 5 parrots and 4 pugs already in the house and now chicks popping up everywhere, it's getting mighty crowded in here. If I don't have real feathered chickens they are arriving in every other form imaginable. I expect a rubber chicken to arrive at the door any day.

Grunge Chick (You gotta love the grunge chick!)

So there you have it. I start Marie Forleo's amazing B-School on Monday and I'm rarin' to go. I can't stop drawing and clucking and what with the din of 4 pugs snoring we are quite a roudy bunch here these days. I can't believe it took 59 years for me to start learning to have fun. Let this be a lesson to you...

It's never too late to have start having fun.

It's never too late to start doing anything.

It's certainly never too late to follow your dreams. 

So, what are you waiting for?

Cluck, cluck, cluck... time to go draw another crazy lady.

Big Love & Happy Dreaming To One & All...