Ann Bonny

I did a really fast layout that had it's focus on pirates and it's the result of my "Letter in a Bottle" exercise. I have always been fascinated with Ann Bonny.

I did a two page spread on pirates...focused on Ann Bonny, the female pirate out of Charleston, SC. The locals rumors is that she was a debutant from South of Broad - the richest part of town. She fell for the wrong kind of man and took to a life of crime. Her father tried to send her to the plantation he had outside of the city, but she escaped with her lover (possibly Calico Jack Rackham) and went onto a life of crime. Rumor also has it that after she 'escaped' her death sentence for piracy, she returned to 'high society" and to a life of being a wife to her originally intended betrothed. Hmmm...fascinating. I had a past life in Charleston/Bermuda just after the heyday of piracy and it's always fascinated me. Nope, I wasn't Bonny. My last name was Tucker in that lifetime - one of the only ones I've discovered via an indepth past life regression. Irony...I had my youngest son in this life in the hospital founded by my son in that life!

Initiation Extreme Journaling Workshop

An amazing thing happened on the way to the day after...Jule Coles gave me the chance of a lifetime. I signed up for her Quickdraw workshop and she wrote to me and said she was giving me the opportunity to join her in Initiation. Amazing woman. It wasn't the cost difference. The fact that there was $150 there between the said and unsaid was and is huge, but that's the sign that she's an amazing soul...a warm soul. The thing is I've bought stuff from her before - as many of her booklets as I could afford so that I could learn the process, never imagining that I could actually take a workshop with her responding and helping me along the way.

That being said, I found a book months ago...and set it aside for some future altered art book. A book with purpose that hadn't found it yet. I chose to go so far as to even thin it to prep it for future use. One of the first assignments is to start finding pics to collage of your perfect studio. What's amazing about this book was that it's title "Style for Living: how to make where you live you" says it all. It has awesome line drawings of incredibly artful spaces all through it. It was published in the mid 70's so it has yellowing pages yet the brownish ink makes it all the creamier.

I did a face. She turned out to be the green-haired Goddess of the book. On the page opposite, last night, I found some K&Company sea-themed cutouts and found this amazing palm tree. I'd looked through a Rolling Stone that was headed for the garbage and found this crescent moon necklace that was stamped and I tossed it in with a gear ring picture. The palm went alongside this. (Not realizing I was making the SC Flag...). Ghost Adventures was focused on the Charleston City Jail and it's art school in the background and I opened the only travel mag I could find (I bagged up my mags and hid them from myself) and pow! There was a two page article with a map of downtown Charleston. I found other pics that related and before I knew it, I had a collage with 'my' studio. My world.

Using intuition, I started blind and the God/dess said something very important - you are here now. You. Are. Here. Now. Oh...and Begin. I did a prayer page to help me get everything done I need doing and to protect my loved ones. I had already done a page on pain and that's hidden below my beautiful (if far from 'perfect') Goddess.

My art will start popping up here along with some photographs of my world. I need to be mindful and I'll use the camera's eye to find a way to do that. I need to blog. I need to start making this count. I have a wonderful, free opportunity here and it's time.