the ARt project- what is it?

For the past 18 months I have been given the great, great opportunity to work on a student project of my own vision, while pursuing my post-Bacc degree at the local university! The project is a result of recognizing that mobile app technology contains so much possibility to make the beauty and wonder in this world so much more accessible for so many more people. With this basic recognition and a lifetime of experiences in the arts, I hit on a combination of thoughts and discoveries that combined to light up my mind and inner vision to see the holistic possibilites of a new tool. Without going into too many other details, at this stage the project has enjoyed a proof-of-concept public launch at a local science and arts festival_ as of last year. As student-project director, I have also presented the prototype project to academic peer review at a regional digital technology in education conference, also last year. Now, as initial and generous university support funding to realize this stage of the project, and much more- winds down, I am building my first public funding campaign in support of the project. the ARt project has currently entered second-stage refinements in the university Engineering capstone group for the next 12 months. This means it is very important to fund what comes next! To do this, I will be learning by doing, how to apply for grants, search for private funders and play with crowd funding! To mark the launch of this brand new funding campaign project- I share the essential portion of an email that arrived in my inbox just yesterday, with this message:

When life just opens up, and we find ourselves spending time with people whose work we admire

I had a very lovely 15 minutes today. It was a lovely little window of timelessness in the quality of this day because I plunged in, giving myself permission to make contact with someone whose work I have been savoring and appreciating about a subject in art that we both share in our very individual ways.
I am not going to go into details about who this person is, as I do not have their permission to be detailed about them. I am not going to go into detail about the work we have in common because I don't want to brag.
I do very simply want to create witness to the quality of this small accomplishment that means so much to me today.
It all came about as I had written a letter to them over last week-end asking essentially if they would mentor a precious corner of my own academic work right now, knowing how in-demand their life and time is. Yet before sending that letter today, it just seemed appropriate to give a call to their place of business first, to ask if there might be a protocol for making this kind of inquiring contact out of the blue.
Rather than any stuffiness on their end, and I went through two administrative check points, what I received was a seamlessly saturated 15 minutes of on-the-spot mentoring and so much more, with someone who seemed was also having a good day. Someone who could receive my call at a moment on their end when everything just fell into place between us to share this passionate commonality_ and for a few unfettered moments, enjoy it in an extended conversation that touched on so many other details in very friendly repartee. It was 15 minutes that really has made my whole day, for at least the next 6 months!

Please Excuse the New Image-Slider Construction!

While there are two images popping up in the once beautiful image-slider that seems a distant memory now! I am smack in the middle of getting a new and much improved image-slider in place, at the top of my art blog!

It uses jquery, css and javascript so, I am feeling quite accomplished having followed the insert instructions well enough, to get the device smoothly onto my art blog here. Just not smooth enough to migrate my own images into it yet! So, it's important to keep in mind, I am the traditional visual artist with some technical ability_ not the programmer. Programming is its own art form and an area that I respect and would love to have the talent working with me on the ARt project in fact! But this is another post.

Meanwhile, this state of improvements-in-progress for my new image-slider, is temporary! So please excuse the mess, and I appreciate your patience as I learn and grow in all skills needed to accomplish the task(s) at hand!

* No, the two photographs up there popping up near the header are not my art works.

*The artwork just above here in this post, is project-driven. Exercises to open my thinking up about map design inside the ARt project. So they are not particularly strong examples of my visual style in art making. Yet as I say, this is material for another post!

Keep checking back!

Glimpses on the Path: Self-esteem & Self-efficacy

Gifts of self-esteem, including: self-value, self-worth, self-respect and then very importantly, self-efficacy_ all came to reveal their messages for my birthday this year. September 1st was a day of sitting quietly and reading about this newfound orientation to greater inner well-being, all day long. September 2nd was a day of actual celebration.                                                                
Combined with reading a certain poem on self-empowering, female identity confirmation-building, beginning within, for the past few months_ as increasing bouts of insecure collaboration, transformed into months of inner anxiety, popping out in periodic struggle on the ARt project... I awoke today noticing that my own lifelong responses to women artists, their work and online professional presentations, were all glowing in my field of attention! 

What this symbolizes for me is all about being true to self on every level. The reality of which cannot be emphasized or proactively focused on enough, as I reacquaint my attention and understanding on these new coordinates for living and navigating the challenges of life, with greater fluidity even softness at my own edges.

For the past week and 3 days I have been at home & around town on a two-week stay/ vacation. I am enjoying having no schedule, sleeping, and slowly putting my house back in order after 7 months of intense achievement to reach one of the big goals of my post bacc studies. I have yet to internally celebrate what I have, with the expertise of talented others, recently & wildly successfully launched: a prototype project that combines ar technology with a portion of the Percent for Art Collection on the local university campus, at this time. Celebrating myself as competent and capable, gifted, intelligent & talented, is a must do for my own well-being that is not quite waiting in stasis anymore, as I more consciously redefine historical attachments, toward more positive internally fed acknowledgments, because I now understanding better why they never came earlier in life in ways that were apporopriately nourishing then. More than just the celebratory hoorah, I am truly on a journey of learning to become my own mentor in my life and professional development moments such as this.

Anticipating the new academic year beginning in a few short weeks, I know that I do want finish my 2nd bachelors degree in French this coming new school year; I also want to master writing skills well enough to have the choice to publish my research on E. Vigée Le Brun; I want the opportunity the ARt project affords as a custom internship at the end of the school year, summer 2013. 

I am saying this all out loud because to consciously develop my inner guidance, grounded in the above renewing encounters with authentic self-worth, impressions & vision description of solid self-esteem/self-efficacy_ is where I need to feel lots of (inner focus) support to be consistent, clear & on track. 

If I didn't say this enough, let me repeat myself:

I want all the intrinsic qualities of self-esteem & self-efficacy needed within to navigate very well; to be grounded in inner strength and clarity of conviction; to assert myself where needed in academia this coming year to reach these goals successfully indeed. All without making anyone else a target of historical insecurity habits. 

In fact, working in a much more supportive academic environment is appropriate to reinforcing taking care of needs, as I do become successful in reaching goals this coming year.

*I have finally posted an accompanying image. Enjoy!

the ARt project! ARtechnology?! What is all this?

Find the original article here!

For Mother's Day, Everyday, for ALL Women

Imagine a Woman
by Patricia Lynn Reilly, M. Div.

Imagine a woman
who believes it is right and good she is woman.
A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman
who believes she is good.
A woman who trusts and respects herself.
Who listens to her needs and desires and meets them with tenderness and grace.

Imagine a woman
who has acknowledged the past's influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman
who authors her own life.
A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf.
Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and to her wisest voice.

Imagine a woman
who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.
Who designs her own spirituality and allows it to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman
in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates her body and its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman
who honors the face of the Goddess in her changing face.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use her precious life energy disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman
who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine yourself as this woman.

© 1995 

The poem that inspired the book Imagine a Woman in Love with Herself.
www.imagineawoman.com

My Apologies

Until Google & Apple both decide to play more inclusively, I must apologize for the compromised appearance of my once beautiful-looking blog.

Not being able to feature my artwork in the beautiful horizontal 620 x 360 pixel configuration, is just pathetic really.
If anyone has a lead on free/creative commons plugins that can help me restore the quality visual portfolio presentation I used to have, (re-imagine a 3" x 2"- horizontal, continually scrolling slidebar just under the blog title!)_ please let me know!

Meanwhile, as a Mac owner_ the evolution of Java is at a complete standstill; also NOT cool.

All constructive feedback on this front also welcomed.