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Tag: art

It’s Complicated

Published November 2, 2023

Skull with vines and rose

I have mixed emotions about Halloween. On the one hand, I have fond memories of being a child and dressing up as all kinds of things, getting scared at haunted houses and savoring candy for longer than most kids did. (I still take my time with whatever sweets I get!) When my kids were little, we did the same thing, taking them trick or treating, having fun with costumes, and being careful not to eat too much candy at once.

I’m not sure at what point certain aspects of the holiday began to bug me. I grew in my spiritual journey, and I began to experience some supernatural things, plenty of great things like being given images for artworks and learning about miraculous healings. But then I also bumped up against real evil and found myself contending for someone else against demonic oppression. It’s not my story to tell but I learned that seriously evil stuff exists, and some of the aspects of Halloween hit a bit too close to reality to make me entirely comfortable with images of witches and evil spirits now.

You might wonder what in the world am I talking about when I myself create imagery relating to death, using skulls and dead creatures to produce my artworks. Isn’t that a lot like the pot calling the kettle black? It’s true that I do not shy away from death in my artworks. But you might notice that there is also always something more in my works and that often the image is more about life and transformation than death. It’s funny to me that people have found some of my own artwork “creepy,” because I never think of it that way myself. So, I’m sure that I see other folks things through my own filtered views. At some point I might get past my discomfort with Halloween, or maybe I will just sit with the discomfort and be careful not to jump to any conclusions.

I know that most people are just having fun with Halloween, and I do sometimes, too. I certainly don’t judge anyone else for having fun with Halloween; it’s not really a big deal and I’ll just keep muddling through it each year. It’s just one of those complicated things, maybe you’ve got something like that in your life, too.

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Seasons Change

Published July 6, 2023
Mixed media artwork with cicada and orange flowers inside textured framework.

Probably one of the most interesting things about this piece is that it was originally part of another artwork. “Seasons Change” is 12″ wide and 16″ high but it came from a much larger piece that was 40″ x 40″. I have said goodbye to some of my older larger pieces (that are too big for traveling in my current car!) and I had them cut down to more manageable sizes. If you look at the background image in this artwork, you can see the ghost of a large dragonfly in the background. That dragonfly, the palm frond texture and some butterflies were all in that larger original artwork. This reminds me that in art as in life, sometimes we have to build on what came before.

Learn more about “Seasons Change.”

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Love Notes from Nature

Published January 26, 2022
These are my newest little artworks, perfect for showing your love of nature.

Whenever I step outside, there’s always some small piece of nature that catches my eye. Stepping out my front door, I have planted lots of succulents that just give me a warm fuzzy every time I see them. There are so many little things that we can find in nature that can provide that little thrill, and I’ve come to think of them as nature’s little love notes to us.

So how perfect that I’ve been able to capture some of those little natural gems in photographs and then pair them with a small heart shaped piece of wood? It started with wanting to send a few special little Valentines, and then if I’m going to make a couple, I might as well make more, right?

I’ve only made two dozen of these little hearts, some are already gone – and I’ll be sending a few as gifts myself – so there aren’t too many left, but if you message me I can email what is currently available so that you can give a little love note to someone special, or make it a gift for yourself! At only $25 each (plus tax & shipping as appropriate) they are sure to be gone fast.

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Behind the Art – The Marriage Bed

Published February 23, 2016

The Marriage Bed, mixed media artwork by Judith Monroe

This work started as one of the pieces that I paint live during a church service, it was first painted over the course of two services on one Sunday morning, and was inspired by the subject of marriage, which was the sermon topic. I approached the subject by looking to my own set of natural symbols, here a nest represents a home. This nest holds broken eggs and dead baby birds that stand in for the difficulties that any marriage is bound to face, but is also accompanied by a pair of butterflies, a pair of lives that are transformed by the bond of marriage. The nest image consists of nine separate iPhone photographs, creating a photo mosaic that was first posted to Instagram – I often create photo mosaics there that are later used in artworks. Like most of my work, The Marriage Bed depicts nature and consists of many layers of media, but unlike most, I came back to it after maybe a year from when I first thought I had finished it and realized that it needed a little something more, so I came back to it and added more layers of paint and texture around the outer edges of the piece. I have used actual dried pressed flower stalks as collage elements, as well as my own photographs and collected papers. People often enjoy finding all the little things hidden in my work.

The Marriage Bed – photo transfers, color pencil, acrylic, ephemera, wax pastel & dried pressed flowers on cradled panel (40×40″) Contact for availability.

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Making Art – Tree of Life

Published January 28, 2016

I recently finished a big piece I was working on, called Tree of Life. While I was working on part of it, I actually thought to take some time-lapse video of it, then I figured out how to edit things together and make a whole video. I think it’s pretty cool to learn how to do new stuff.

In this video you get to see me cutting a stencil from my own design, then using that stencil to add texture to the piece with modeling paste. After the paste dries, I paint the extra textured part and then add paint to the background. After that, I added more little details by collaging on more of my photos printed pretty small. These are the kind of things that you don’t really see at a distance but that add interest up close and make living with the piece more fun, as you can be discovering new little things in it for some time to come.

 

Tree of Life is 42×42″ and currently available in my studio…

 

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