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Maureen Ward!

Congrats and Happy New Year to you all!

This is a 3″x4″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ and are painted red.
This painting is available HERE.

maria@mariapacewynters.com

SOLD

It is the time of year when we can not help but look to the sky a little more than usual. Whether we are looking for the Northern lights, Santa’s sleigh, the star of David, snow falling from the sky or , as we did earlier this week, a moon cast in the shadow of the earth, we are looking up more frequently.

Looking up feels good. Looking up is good.

When we look toward the sky, it is so limitless and huge it makes us feel small and enormous all at once. It is so empowering to look out into that and know that we are all apart of it. All of us together share that sky. We can all look to the sky whether it be for solace, reassurance, grounding, answers or for peace. It is personal, but looking up to the sky in wonder and amazement is something that we all do, I am certain.

“Why does the moon always follow us, Mama?” my children ask me as they look out the window of the moving car.
“Maybe the moon loves to look at us as much as we love to look at it” I think to myself but am speechless in it’s hypnotic glow.

Just look up, it feels good to look up.

This is a 9″x12″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ and are painted turquoise.
This painting is $90 and is available HERE.

In the spirit of the weather. Happy winter everyone.
SHE HAS ARRIVED a few days early but …
…Oh boy!
SHE HAS ARRIVED!
SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!
ENOUGH ALREADY!
maria@mariapacewynters.com

This is a 6″x8″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ and are paint turquoise.
This painting is $65 and is available HERE.

Another Mug shot from the New Orleans’ archives. I think that I found her youthful self which seems to look a lot more hopeful than the actual mug shot. This is just the way it came out but maybe it can be reminder to us all that all is not lost if we have hope.

maria@mariapacewynters.com

Recently I started writing my gratitude journal again. I found an app for my iphone.
Love it!
It is very grounding and so important to be grateful on a daily basis.
I am grateful for all of you. What are you grateful for?
All you have to do is write a comment on this blog post about what you are most grateful for and you could win this 4″x6″ OOAK fine art reproduction (Unseen Beauty) at the end of the month.

This is a 12″x16″ mixed media painting on paper covered canvas. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted red.
This painting is SOLD
“What makes the desert beautiful,” says the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Even though it may feel like that the well has dried up, you must keep digging.

I have been feeling a little parched lately. (In the inspiration department). Coming off the tail of a show of 13 paintings, rather large ones, can do that, I guess. I should give myself a break.

Easier said than done.

The thing is, I am always worried about taking a break. Absence does not always make the heart grow fonder. Sometimes the longer we stay away, the harder it is to get back. I know this from experience and it frightens me.

I read a quote today from Erma Bombeck about how at the end of her life she wanted to be able to say that she had no talent left because she had used up every last bit she’d been given.
I like that.
I don’t want to waste my talent. I also don’t want to waste my life worrying about wasting my talent. I wish I could find a balance and I wish that I had the confidence to know that I will never stop painting again. Taking a break and stopping are very different. Picasso said, ‘Inspiration finds me when I am working’ but does that mean ‘painting’? Can I be filling that well and finding inspiration while I am cleaning the house or baking with the girls. I think that I can.
There are no rules.
(Except the ones I keep making up.)
( I can be very frustrating at times.)

Another thing that was on my mind was the death of Elizabeth Edwards.
As a mother I was reminded of how special each minute I spend with my children is. To look around and know that the home you made for your family, each little thing that you have picked out, each special touch, the way you fold a towel or stock a shelf could soon be absent of YOU, is sobering to say the least.

And I have been thinking of John Lennon too. I was a young girl when he was killed Dec 8, 1980, but now I am older than he was when he died. I’ve made it longer than he did in this world, that just seems crazy and so unfair.
No doubt, that man died talentless.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to write this post about three dead people (five, I guess if we count Picasso and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry).

On a more positive and less morbid note, here is another quote from ‘The Little Prince’:

“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

This is a 11″x14″ mixed media painting on paper covered canvas. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted red.
This painting is SOLD

It is magic you know,
My postage stamp hat.
When I put it on, I can go anywhere…
But please remember,
Handle with care.

maria@mariapacewynters.com