Category: Made at Home

A Study in Brokenness

In writing and in life, I harbor a growing appreciation for folks who can wrap one white-knuckled fist around hope and let life’s broken ugly drip from the other open palm. I think we need both- the truth of a kingdom coming, the reality of new life, unfettered hope and the acknowledgment of the hard, broken, the dim glass we see through.

My own small faith came nearly unraveled when I could not make sense of my sister’s unexpected death. Over time, my heart was stitched back together, with ample doses of listening friends, unafraid to sit with someone in grief. Now I can’t sing the melody of redemption and grace without the weight of this broken world lending it’s low, dark harmony. And now, the tension is leaking off the brush, too.

The more I paint, the fewer words I scratch. Somehow, wishy-washy watercolor seems to hold more than letters and punctuation, and these days, I prefer it. So last week, I slipped two new prints into my etsy shop.  These ones – the nest and the cup. These are the beginning of a series: A Study in Brokenness.

These images are my grasping to capture the hard places of a kingdom come and not yet come.

These are for the mama bird holding their breath, letting her hatchlings take fumbling flight.

These are for the dreamers burying well-laid plans, unclenching fists to the One who births dreams.

These are for messy middle where redemption is veiled, and hope is deferred.

These are for the beautiful ones pressing on, waiting for restoration.

These are for the brave ones taking flight, and remembering the place from which they came.

These are for me, and for you, friend.

I would love to hear, how you hold on to hope in the midst of brokenness, what Scripture or words or images quiet your heart in the hard times?

{And if you’d like, hop over to Be Small Studios for more on these prints, or follow Be Small Studios on twitter and facebook. And check back in here tomorrow – I’ll share a guest post about how the words of a friend precipitated the art.}

From the Studio: Thoughts on Vulnerability

Today I’m sharing about art and vulnerability over at Be Small Studios. Care to join me?

This little acorn makes me quiver.

I can speak in front of an audience, write my soul bare, or host intimate gatherings of friends and strangers. True, my heart may beat a bit faster as I take the microphone or crack wide the front door, but always experience and hope remind me that I can.

It is these small paintings – the offering of my art, that leave me feeling exposed, a bit vulnerable. (Read the rest of this post over at Be Small Studios)

On the Making & the Being Made

When I was sixteen I took a sculpting class in school. I have two remnants, and this one, the armless woman on the dusty white doily in the hall, she speaks to me.  Her imperfect shape rests perfectly in my palm, because it was my hands that shaped her; the crook of her neck is the round of my thumb.  At sixteen she whispered hope about curves I hated, and the mystery of being fearfully, wonderfully made. I’ve doubled in age, and still she sings of the being made, and I am remembering her making.

I spent my whole childhood sketching and making, all my school years pursuing art. But a dormant decade slipped in the back door, and I didn’t even notice I had stopped painting, because I was busy creating other things.

Aren’t we all, always making something? Imago Dei; we bear God’s image.

I’m not sure when I started believing it, but somewhere along the line, years ago, I stitched together the notion that art – specifically the painting and sculpting variety – was more risky, less redeemable than writing or teaching or missionary service. I didn’t apply to art school because I was dearly afraid I’d loose my faith.

And I don’t regret these years, not one little bit, but those threads of fear are coming loose and I am learning to worship with my whole broken life: with my loving and my listening, my watercolors and my sock-pairing, my going and my staying. All these years later, it is the art that’s schooling me in the ways of joy and small, unchangeable graces and Imago Dei.

I began writing here, I think, to hunt the art down – to track it’s scent in the word-weaving and the homemaking and the well-lit photographs. I write to make art because I am an artist, not the other way around.

In the two years we’ve lived here, our house has slowly filled up with paintings: words and pictures that center my heart.

Pigment bleeding onto parchment: this is how I always say it because this is how it feels. It was loneliness and grief that stirred up the painting again, after the dormant decade.

Here, inside this old house, sitting on hundred-year-old mantels and radiators, in hallways and murals painted smack dab on the wall, this art is personal revelation, quiet meditation. I play with light and color, wild water spreading wide and thin lines pulling tight. I paint the words I need to grasp. This art has been a shaft of light through dark valleys, shade and shadow on sweet, sun-kissed days.

Something new is being made here: I am being made new, and I am making again. 

And, friends, [this is where I don't know how to write it proper, because I'm so full of awe and trepidation all mixed together...] I am making space for this art.

My husband, the strong, tender man I’m building this small life with, he’s poured so much hope into me, and he’s helping me shape and launch a new space to create and think about art. Soon, I’ll be able to share these labors of love with you on my own little Etsy shop: to share the birds and the nests, the small acorns and the watercolor words of Let Love, and (I hope) many more.

I’m calling this new space Be Small Studios, because it has been in the small things I’m reminded of daily grace, and in the remembering of a small, childlike faith that I’ve rediscovered a sure hope.

Will you join me? I’ll still be blogging my heart out here, but you can follow this artistic journey at BeSmallStudios.com, or on twitter here.

{Tomorrow I travel to a conference called Allume. The sweet friends who gather there will find something lovely in their gift bags, a small offering from Be Small Studios. I cannot wait. If you’ll be there, I’d love to meet you!}

So many words here, would you tell me, what are you making these days? I’d love to hear…

All Those Years of Doodling

Yesterday Lisa-Jo Baker released her free ebook, The Cheerleader for Tired Moms. It was my pleasure to do the illustration and design (with a little help from my super web-savvy husband).  When I was a kid I dreamed of being an animator (don’t mock me) and just a few years ago I took a class on illustrating children’s books. My heads always been full of dreams, and this is one of many, and I’m not sure where it fits into the scheme of things.

While I don’t know for sure where this narrow road will lead me, vocationally or otherwise, it was pure joy to dabble in design and illustration, and to hash out all the details with the lovely Lisa-Jo.

Her words are pure grace for new moms (and not just new moms, I suspect). I’ve been struck with her honesty, her wit, her integrity, her kick-bum (come on, it’s for mothers of young ‘uns) proofreading skills, and mostly just her heart. So head on over and subscribe to her blog,  so you can have a copy sent right to your inbox, post-it notes and all.

From One Tired Mom to Another

Oh, friends. I’m so excited to share one of the projects I’ve been busily working away on here! Here’s a little sneak peak:

And if that Mama in the sketch looks like she has bags under her eyes, well, you can imagine she was up half the night. And sometimes my bones ache with tired, and we have our share of crazy days around here (and even though I wrote about recovering from the crazy, there are days we don’t even come close). People, I know what it’s like to have your two year old lick a tile wall in a public restroom.

So when Lisa-Jo, the Gypsy Mama, said she was collecting her favorite posts on mothering, wrapping them up into an e-book to plumb give away, I was pretty excited. Because her words are real and raw, and they give hope and permission to embrace the beauty without pretending to have it all together. And she tells me that good chocolate late at night is the secret to creativity.  So, yeah, she’s pretty great.
I was so excited, actually, that I agreed to illustrate it, lure my super savvy web-designing husband into helping me design it. The whole process has been a blast: developing the concept, working to create a visual representation of so much passion and purpose (She looks a bit too twiggy, needs the kind of arms that can lug an infant car-seat…), and then the actual design process, the drawing a sketching and finalizing and digital coloring.

And today (today!) she’s releasing a free printable, an illustrated “Cheerleader for Tired Moms”, to introduce her e-book. So skip on over there to see how these sketches turned out and get your own personal cheerleader print.  And that e-book rolls out just in time for Mother’s Day, but you can sign up for your today, righ here.

And if you’re interested in all the art unfolding around here, illustrations and new paintings (even an etsy shop in the works!) you can learn more here:
:: {anniecreative.com} :: coming soon!

(Oh, and if you notice bags under my eyes today, please don’t tell me how tired I look. Just pass the chocolate!)

Brave :: {Five Minute Friday}

I didn’t even notice that the bagel shop had closed, but when I see construction going on, a new coat of paint, piano keys painted onto steps, I realize the music shop bought the space, and they’re turning it into a cafe. Something compels me to pop in to see if they’d be interested in hanging local art, and before I know it, I’m doing the design and decor. I’m honest that I have no experience, and we’re in it together, and it is a blast.

A few weeks later I see a beautifully bold writer asking about e-book design, and I ask a question, that leads to an email. And now I’m illustrating, come alongside to add artistic intentionality to honest, hope-filled words. And all of it is lined with grace, and I begin to dream a little.

And a local roaster had an artist cancel, and would I be interested in doing a show for the month of April, hanging art at their coffee shop, replete with a little reception? My husband smiles, and I say yes before I have time to convince myself out of it.

All these things, so unexpected, reveal something so much a part of me and totally foreign at the same time. And I finally fill in that daunting bio box on twitter, and the first word: artist. Because I am made in the image of The Creator, and I am beginning to see that this is all a beautiful act of reflecting beauty.
So, yes, if nervous and inadequate and wildly excited are descriptors of the brave, than I assure, you, friends, I am stepping out with great bravery into this artistic arena.

This post is inspired by Lisa-Jo and the community over at the Gypsy Mama, who invites me & you to write for five unedited minutes: “For fun, for love of the sound of words, for play, for delight, for joy and celebration at the art of communication. For only five short, bold, beautiful minutes. Unscripted and unedited. We just write without worrying if it’s just right or not.” -Lisa-Jo ***This week’s word: BRAVE.***

On Coffee & Creativity Percolating

Oh, hello there, friends. It’s been a little quiet around here.

I’ve been busy: creativity oozing out of my brain kind of busy. (Warning: adverse effects may include lack of sleep and mountains of unwashed laundry.)I’ve been working away – painting, decoupaging, tracking down burlap coffee sacks, and chopping up century old sheet music, replete with little lesson notes: “Curve fingers. Don’t rely on no. 3. Memorize by June 18, 1918.”
I’m doing some decor for a little coffee shop that just opened up. I’ve never done anything like this, and it’s been a ball. Here’s a few shots of my work in progress.
That last one’s my favorite. I spent hours working on the others; I painted those in less than three minutes.  I’m thinking about starting a little Etsy shop to sell some prints. What do you think? I might just do it . . . that is, just as soon as I can unearth my dining room table.

On Vivid Colors Bleeding & Love Painted Here

Sometimes life bleeds vivid, and there are no words to write: just tears and quiet and being held. And some grief we walk through out loud, and sometimes heartache requires cocoons of silence, and let me tell you, sister, that is just fine too.
And life is a mess – all this beauty and pain running together. And the water, all alive, it makes this paint so unpredictable.  Sometimes I downright prefer the rigidity of pencils and ink – something that won’t bleed and run wild in all the places I’ve meticulously sketched out. There are days I long to abandon color altogether, and just cling white knuckled to neat lines and even control.
But even when I give up and walk away from the brushes strewn across the dining room table and the color seeping right through my best attempts to just hold it together, I find I cannot escape: this flaming red, her deep blues, that kissable pink.
The fresh fallen white light out here burns my dim-glassed eyes, and these colors etch deep into my heart. Life is teeming, even in loss, and all pain is anchored by joy, and these gifts keep this beating heart anchored in the love.
So I scrawl it out, and I let color seep off the brush and onto blank pages, pigment filling in empty. Late in the day, sun streams in, unexpected, lighting up color and casting glints of hope across my page. And when dark falls and vivid colors fall silent, I close my eyes, and exhale the ache, making space to just breath in the grace of it all.

Counting gifts today… Join us here?
- a weekend with extra hours of sleep
- the gift of paint, therapy for my soul
- first big snow and wide-eyed wonder
- getting to know new friends & the sweetness of old ones
- cookie dough in the fridge
- old hymns and quiet sanctuaries
- oatmeal
- good friends who are neighbors
- a new book
- out of the blue phone calls

Cowboy Caviar :: Summer Living

Cowboy Caviar.  I know there are a million recipes like this out there, but this is the one my sister Betty makes, the one we’re all addicted to.  I make it all summer long.  I do not think I have ever served it for guests without being asked for the recipe.  So here it is!

BETTY’S COWBOY CAVIAR
1 green pepper, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 orange pepper, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced
1 red onion, diced
1 can of black-eyed peas
1 can of black beans
1 can of pinto beans
1 can of shoepeg corn
* I almost always toss in fresh cilantro and if I have it, diced mango or finely chopped pineapple.

Drain and rinse all ingredients.  Toss in LARGE bowl.

DRESSING: Bring 1/2 c. apple cider vinegar and 1 c. oil to a boil. (I’ve used plain vinegar in a pinch, and while the original recipe calls for vegetable, I often use olive. Take your pick!)  Remove from heat immediately and dissolve 1/2 c. sugar into mixture. Cool. Pour dressing over chopped ingredients & chill.  Serve with dipping chips (the scoops variety work best).

This recipe makes a huge batch, but I can attest that we have never had to throw out left overs. Enjoy!

Chocolate Covered Cranberries

My sweet sister-in-law Jennifer introduced me to these sweet & tart (Seriously, they are very tart!) treats a few weeks ago and the girls and I whipped some up for some of our pre-Thanksgiving festivities last weekend. It’s a great activity to do with kids – because, after all, if you’re going to make a mess in the kitchen, it’s best to do so with ingredients like melted chocolate & fresh fruit!

Start with fresh cranberries – washed and dry to the touch.

Dip, dunk, and roll in melted chocolate.
Dark chocolate chips are decadent – regular chips work well too.

Use a small spoon to scoop the cranberry out, letting excess chocolate drip off
(I rolled mine up the side of the bowl to remove extra chocolate).
Place on parchment or wax paper and refrigerate until the chocolate sets.