Dogs without a Leash

I viewed something nice the other day coming from Wholefoods: an unleashed dog walking next to its master with its tail up and exhuberant confident energy. How nice! I would not want to be leashed if I was a dog, would you?... It is totally unfair to the dog.

I read that dogs on a leash tend to experience high levels of frustration because "the leash unable them to express normal canine body language and interact with other dogs normally". By nature dogs are "motivated to greet one another", but on a leash they can' t do that (https://www.sfspca.org/sites/default/files/dog_behavior_dog-dog_aggression_on_leash.pdf)

I get it, in the city, with buzzing cars on every direction, the dog's owner will get highly anxious on letting their dogs walking unleashed on the side walk. But occasionally... it might happen.

When I was in Guanajuato, Mexico, last year, during the Cervantino Festival, one of their busier seasons of the year, I saw several unleashed dogs walking next to their owners, jumping to greet everyone that came their way, but always maintaining its course. People responded to the dog with tender words, a smile, and sometimes with a caress. Uhm... would that friendly response happen in USA?... 

Art Brut Exhibit in Chicago New Logan Square Gallery

Outsider art ( or its English synonym as art brut) is usually use for artists that have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. The term art brut was first used by French artist Jean Dubuffet to indicate artwork done outside the main stream culture.

In Chicago, it is a total enjoyment for me to visit Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art (http://www.art.org) or Chicago Urban Retreat Art Center (http://www.urbanartretreat.com), galleries where you can find exciting, refreshing, highly creative work by outsider artists.

This past Friday I attended the opening of Patrick Humphreys who is showing at Oliva Gallery (http://www.olivagallery.com) in Logan Square. The gallery's walls are covered with painting of different sizes and a coffee table holds a pile of prints and smalls drawings. My eyes and spirit were dancing as I immersed myself in his world. For me the work outside the main stream art culture maintains a raw and direct connection with creative energy; it is honest, direct, and it does not try to impress anyone but simply express itself from deep down its unconscious source.

The exhibit will be up till September, 2017. If having the time and interest, stop by.

Memory

"In Thinking about Decisions". Oil on Wood.
B.Ledesma (c). $650

I found myself responding to people's images of trips or happy moments because I believe they are moments of the present. This past week one of my FB friends posted a nice selfie in a cruise. I was very happy for her.

I responded: "Enjoy!". 

She immediately led me know this was a photo from "some years ago we went on a cruise of the Inland Passage to Alaska"... (it was five years ago)

"Just out of curiosity", I asked, " what motivated you to post a photo of something that happened years ago?...

She responded: "Facebook automatically posts memory photos for you. Sometimes these make me so happy I want to share them again..."

I literally do not understand that behavior- not only seems to bring a nostalgia or longing for something past but also creates confusion. Yeah yeah, at  the top of the image there is an indication of how many years ago the photos is from but... but ... my question reminds: why?....

It may be me but I am noticing more and more people talking of times long gone- on the news, on magazines, and in social media. Is that a sign that life in the present is so uncomfortable/unhappy/boring/uneventful that we need to constantly be reminded of how things were in the past?... what did we enjoy doing?...

I like to think of memory as a feather

from Pezibear's on Pixabay

 a fleeing moment of joy, sorrow, pain, whatever. A moment that makes us what we are in the present. Constant looking at the past can places us at the doors of depression or cyclic melancholia or "having the blues".

Don't get me wrong- memory is a terrific tool of the mind for retaining facts, events, impressions, feelings. How to use it is a choice from my perspective. 

To give in to what FB thinks we have to remember or when we have to remember, seems to be a weakening of our capacity to choose, if you ask me. 

But some people may need that ... uhh... .............................................really?...

TODAY IS ABOUT SHOES ...

Shoes fascinate me. I am known for purchasing a pair of shoes just because there is a sensual feeling when looking at them although I may never wear them ... a pure sensual pleasure you may say.

Shoes as a symbol seem to carry a contradictory meaning: it could represent authority and power or humility and servitude; they are about movement with ease.
Shoes keep our feet warm and protected.

In some religions you are required to put off your shoes to enter the temple so showing humbleness and respect for the divine. In older times, and in our current times, not everybody can buy shoes so shoes become associated with freedom, comfort, and also wealth when they also can be associated with vanity and arrogance.

There are so many connotations related to shoes! High heels have erotic and/or sexual connotations; for some stiletto heels appears as a phallic symbol; worn, old shoes may be symbol of hardships and struggles; some sandals may symbolize the moon, and the list can go on and on. But ... old, worn shoes could represent warships and struggles.

Oil Pastels on Paper. BL (c) 2017

I think about shoes very often these days when listening or watching the news and learn about masses of people being displaced from their land to the unknown. I look at their feet. Many of them with a simple flat sandal, or worn ones, others without any shoes at all... Their facial expressions, their body language- the tiring walk of displacement- seem all to be represented in their shoes or no shoes. No safety... no comfort ... no protection of any kind... Their emotional life marked by unwanted dislocation... I wonder...would these masses of people be able to emotionally and psychologically repair themselves?... being able to trust the earth they are walking on?... trust each other?... continue having a sense of inner safety in the face of displacement?...

These and many more questions about the inner life of those that are forced to live their homeland fuels my current series of studies and paintings on shoes...

And talking about "daring greatly"....

Back in 2006 I did a series of oil pastel drawings on paper around the topic of vulnerability

Vulnerability, BL. 2006 (c)
$200

and lately the images of those drawings began to fill my mind...

What means to be vulnerable in times of external and internal stress?... I look up the meaning of the word "vulnerability is the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally""open to moral attack, criticism" "capable of or susceptible to being wounded or hurt" "a frame within which defensive measures are diminished, compromised or lacking" and quoting Dr. Brene Brown vulnerability "is basically uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure" (https://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/04/21/brene-brown-how-vulnerability-can-make-our-lives-better/#16953a1c36c7)

Vulnerability is a space that all of us have experience with -some more than others.

Dr. Brene Brown has researched the topic of vulnerability and actually wrote a book about it

"Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transform the Way We Live,Love, Parent, and Lead", and has giving TED talks about it(https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability)

which is worth to listen to, in my opinion.

The question for me is how do I maintain myself vulnerable in times of chaos like the times we are currently living in the US and the world at large?... can we have the courage to show up and being seen?... do we have the courage to say "I need help" "I need you"...?

Capitalism imprint in us the importance of individualism "me for me and me against you" type of attitude toward the other. The problem with this stand is that leaves us half empty, isolated, fostering grandiosity and experiencing "narcissistic wounds" when finding out that others do not think we are so great. In my opinion, this is what has been happening in USA since 2001...

So, in a way out of chaos healing can take place as it provides us with the soil to have the courage of ask for help... or ...not?...

Park Sculptures 2017

On Wednesday 21st 2017 I participated in a tour organized by the Chicago Sculpture International. It took us as far as Garfield Park in the Southside of Chicago and up to Edgewater neighborhood in the Northside. It was a $20 tour that lasted two hours. We met at the Chicago Cultural Center and a trolley bus droves us. It was a sold out tour and among the riders there were the artists whom sculptures were going to see. One of them was Vivian Visser (www.vivianvisser.com)

Her work intrigued me- the three sculptures in view at Portage Park is a series of elongated vases created with woven branches and standing on an already existing cemented platform. As soon as I saw them, I felt moved by them. There are pleasing to the physical eye as well as to the spiritual realm and they have an air of Remedios Varo's work. They stand as an invitation to contemplate and meditate on nature and the meaning of safety in our lives.

In her art statement she states "... I see the shelter form as embodying the souls desire to retreat into a comforting and protective environment. The human experience is explored through natural materials..."

Flame Dancers

Frustration

Summer is Here!! Time for planting ...

Nothing more enjoyable for me that to spend time adorning my back porch with plants. The process of going to the nursery, viewing and choosing the colorful plants to dress my porch with brings a level of spiritual satisfaction and joy of life.

This is probably a trait I got from my parents who loved plants and flowers of any kind.
As a child, I accompanied my mother during her daily early Spring and Summer afternoon walks through the garden to prune her greenery.

There was always a vase with flowers in the house - cuts from my mother's garden or flowers my father brought her. And like my father I also wanted to bring flowers to my mom so I used to go to the lot crossed the street from my house and picked small white daisies that I arranged in a bundle and happily gave it to her in spite of getting a skin rush from those flowers.

This weekend Jon and I did just that- went to the nursery, got a bunch of flowered plants & grass, and I spent the afternoon arranging them in planters and ceramic pots. After the work is done, sitting among them zipping a glass of wine makes the world a perfect place!.

The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902

Yes! Rats!

Back in 1982, just arriving to Chicago, a Mexican mystic man told me that Chicago was going to be dominated by rats "you will see... rats are developing an underground city underneath of the streets..."
The thought of it was disgusting to me. I think of his words often when here in the Lakeview neighborhood where I live, the rats are immune to any poison offer to them and they keep multiplying.

Back in the late 90s, in a long article written in The Chicago Reader by Ted Kleine (1998) I read
"... in 1991 a rat burst out of a bank president's private toilet in Lincoln Park..."

That was all I needed to increase my disgust toward those creatures and to develop a fear that one of them would appear on my toilet when I'm using it.

In spite of my fear I also have a fascination toward those rodents that seem to be casted under an evil spell. So any article(s) on rats gets my attention.

I found one of those articles few weeks ago on the Atlas Obscura newsletter titled: The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902. Fascinating story of battles against the rats, money, and the final success of rats. Click on the link to take you to the story: the great Hanoi rat massacre of1902

And to finish on a more positive note about these disgusting rodents, I searched for the spiritual-symbolic meaning of rats and I found very positive qualities attributed to them such as:
success, sharing, helpful, opportunistic, resourcefulness, astute, intelligent, kindness, ambition, expansion and creativity. No bad, wouldn't you say?...

FLYING VEIL

Flying Veil. Oil on Canvas, 11" x 14". (c)2016
$650

This painting is part of "Memories on Canvas", an on going series that it could read as a visual book. It compiles some memories from my personal story  that have been filed away in one of my imagination's drawers.
In this painting we see a woman looking at something outside the visual field of the viewer or she simply might be in an act of silent meditation. This state seems to prevent her from noticing that her veil, that wrapped her head and face, is flying away.

This happened to my mother while at church one spring Sunday late morning. I was few row behind my parents listening to a very boring preacher, one of those highly conservative evangelical preachers that had arrived to Buenos Aires with the intention to "teach" the Mennonites, how to behave and to be in the world. A kind of "666 pig" as I think of him.... My mind was in disgust and following a reverie of social thoughts when unexpectedly my mother's veil was caught by the breeze coming from an open door few feet in front of her.

Immediately my attention was pulled toward it. It was a nice view from where I was sitting. The silk veil contorted by the soft touch of a spring breeze; moving through patches of bright sunlight toward the ceiling. My mother did not notice. She was totally self-absorbed.

"From the Center" - one of my latest book- has been updated

UPDATED         

 

     From the Center    

 

         

 

     By Beatriz E. Ledesm...    

 

 

     Book Preview  

 

"NOT QUITE THERE YET" & "PERSONAL BELONGINGS" SERIES ON VIEW

"Contemplation"-oil on canvas (detail)

YOU ARE INVITED TO A SOFT ART OPENING 

SATURDAY APRIL 16TH, 2016

6:00PM-9:00PM

IN VIEW TWO OF MY PAINTING SERIES:

 "NOT QUITE THERE YET"

"PERSONAL BELONGINGS"

-also ...there will be "The Secret Life of Hodge, the Bookstore Cat"

book by Suzanne Eurfurth & illustrated by me, for view

and/or purchase- 

THE WISHBONE RESTAURANT GALLERY

3300 N LINCOLN AVE

CHICAGO IL 60657

773.549.2663

Darryll Schiff and Descending From Heaven

Darryll Schiff and Descending From Heaven

Devil Fish

Devil Fish. Color Pencil on Paper.
From the series Devil Incarnate
(c) 2016

"ART & THE SENTIENT BEING" EXHIBIT

The opening of the group exhibit was last Friday 15th at the Life Force Arts Center (LFAC) and it runs till the end of April 2016.
You can learn more about LFAC and their events here:   http://www.lifeforcearts.org/site/

The opening was great! A constant stream of people coming and staying for the duration of the opening. It was really an invigorating event!
One of the two paintings chosen for the exhibit was from the series: "Memories of a Long Past Gone"

"Mystical Triangle". Oil on Canvas. (c)

The series is an unfolding exploration of rituals and designs of the Diaguita Indians who lived on the American soil of Northern Argentina. Their culture developed between the 8th & 16th centuries in what are now the provinces of Salta, Catamarca, La Rioja, and Tucuman.

The Diaguitas were one of the most advanced Pre-Columbian cultures in Argentina. They were advanced in architecture and agricultural techniques. Their designs depict a commitment to finding an expression and manifestation of a spiritual life within the powerful simplicity of Mother Nature. They worshipped the Sun, the thunder and lighting. They were very good farmers and had many rituals related to earth fertility and life cycles. They also worshipped some animals such as the serpents, felines, ostriches, and related them to their agricultural success. 

In this series I used some of their designs and placed them in the midst of an overworked background symbolizing the struggles of our 21st century to find spiritual, emotional, and physical peace among all of us humans while traversing across this planet.

Fertilization of the Earth (c)

Awaiting the Rain (c)

Thunderbolt (c)

Ostrich Dancing Before the Storm (c)

(http://www.condorvalley.org/explore-condor-valley/diaguita-history/

BRIGHT SIDE

I became aware of BRIGHT SIDE through a Facebook friend that posted a highly creative video from their page. So ... I needed to explore and I ended up on their website http://brightside.me
Then I learned that this site is a group of people who has as a mission "to make the world a little bit better" by focusing on three principals: inspiration, creativity, and wonder.
The site is full of very intelligent, interesting, inspiring, creative, and funny videos that truly bring a smile to your face, heart, and soul.

I want to share with you their "ten simple ways to make drawing with kids fun and easy". I'm sure you will love it and the kids you share this with, will love it too!
Here is a pic:

A cow

To see more click here:

http://brightside.me/article/circles-to-the-rescue-ten-simple-ways-to-make-drawing-with-kids-fun-and-easy-84755/#image195505