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. : About me : .
 Name::Sapphire Dakini From::Santa Fe, NM, United States "The secret of life is in art." - Oscar Wilde View My Profile . : Artist Statement : .
My art is an exploration of the importance of change and releasing the past, especially the people and situations
that hinder personal growth, empowerment and transformation. The utilization of mythic figures, archetypes, motifs
and themes allows me to explore letting go of the familiar, safe and secure in order to travel to the dark, often
frightening, places of the soul. In this way, I've learned to trust my inner voice and honor my soul's need for
expression and challenge. . : Recent Posts : .
Words of Wisdom from the Daily Om . : Archives : .
May 2005 . :Blog Rings : .
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. : Social Media : . . : Daily Om : .
. : Portfolio : .
www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from Sapphire_Dakini. Make your own badge here.
. : Printmaking : .
. : Masks : .
. : Memberships : .
Artists Foundation . : Yahoo Groups : .
Art Dollz . : Blogrolls : .
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Wednesday, December 31, 2008Wishing You a Transformational 2009! Picture yourself in a boat on a river,With tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, A girl with kaleidoscope eyes. Cellophane flowers of yellow and green, Towering over your head. Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes, And she's gone. Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain, Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies. Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers, That grow so incredibly high. Newspaper taxis appear on the shore, Waiting to take you away. Climb in the back with your head in the clouds, And you're gone. Picture yourself on a train in a station, With plasticine porters with looking glass ties. Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile, The girl with kaleidoscope eyes. -- Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, The Beatles Labels: Beatles, life, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds 
Tuesday, December 30, 2008The Good, The Bad & The UglyA round-up of this year's work... The mask collages are definitely something that I want to continue exploring in 2009. Oddly enough, my favorite in the group below (top row, far right) was created using colors that I don't usually work in. I tend to work in "jewel tones" instead of "earth tones". Maybe a sign that I need to expand my palette.  The next 2 mosaics are prints that were created during the 2 printmaking classes I took at the SMFA. Some of these will be torn up & used in collages, others will be over-printed or used as chine colle at some point. I've learned not to throw my "rejects" in the trash since they can be incorporated in collages, etc.
 I've started to build my library of carborundum printing plates.
Labels: carborundum, collage, collagraph, masks, monoprint, monotype, printmaking
Monday, December 29, 2008What I'm Reading "A dazzling portrait of the artist as an old, super-connected woman, John Updike's 20th novel is a remarkably compressed yet sprawling study that bursts with the detail of an intricately crafted miniature. The deliberately discursive narrative is framed by an intense, daylong interview between Kathryn, a writer for an unnamed online art journal, & 79-year-old grande dame Hope Chafetz, a successful painter & the former wife of 2 legendary artists. The tightly focused structure of Seek My Face relies on 2 sources of dramatic tension: the edgy, constantly shifting relationship between interviewer & subject & the stories Hope tells about her life, her marriages & her intimate participation in 2 of the dominant artistic movements of the 20th century. Hope's turbulent 1st marriage to doomed genius Zack McCoy -- a lightly fictionalized rendering of Jackson Pollock -- provides the basis for an authoritative account of the rise & fall of Abstract Impressionism. Her subsequent marriage to Guy Holloway -- an obvious surrogate for Andy Warhol -- describes the evolution of the Pop Art movement, a radically different attempt to find a new way of seeing & interpreting the world. Hope's story is a personal, idiosyncratic account of love, sex, marriage, memory, & the inevitable effects of growing old -- of losing all that once mattered. It also offers a unique perspective on the restless experimentation that fueled some of the most original paintings of the modern era. Seek My Face is a novel about artistic & spiritual striving, about art as a means of apprehending the sacred, about imperishable creations "ripped…from the perishing world."Labels: books
Sunday, December 28, 2008It's All About the Social Networking...One of my goals for 2009 is to more effectively utilize some of the social networking sites available. So with that in mind, I've been updating profiles & doing a general clean-up of my online presence today. I still need to update my profile photo but that would require getting out of my nice warm bed, taking a shower & painting on a face so I think that can wait until tomorrow. Connection requests are always welcome. You can find me at... Flickr! gather MyArtSpace Twitter (I'm still not sure how useful Twitter is going to be to me.) artCloud Tomorrow's project is cleaning up the blog a bit. I have lots of new blogs to add to my blogroll if Blogrolling ever comes back online. Labels: social networking
Saturday, December 27, 2008There's No Place Like Home...After 14 hours sitting on Amtrak trains & 3 hours sitting in Union Station, I'm finally home. Amtrak during the holidays... not so much fun. I'm not sure which is worse, trains or planes. Either way, they need to ban children from both. The big upside to Amtrak is not having to go through security... no having to take my shoes off, no having to explain "yes, there's wire in my bra & yes, I have a piece of jewelry in my navel, no having to take my laptop out of my bag... no having to segregate my makeup, etc. Plus the train station is a 10 minute walk from my loft. Can't really beat that.  Meet Midnight. He spent the week stalking my feet when I was at my mom's for the holidays. As you can see, he's the king of the house & just a bit of a brat. He's the only cat I know who will lie flat on his back to sleep. He's really cute until he wakes up & gives me that look that says "What, you're still here? Well, make yourself useful & get me a treat." While I was there, my mom & I went to look at the condo she wants to buy when she sells her house. I hope things work out. The house she has now is just way more space than she needs so the condo would be perfect for her.Since I don't go back to the office until the 5th I have all next week to get work done in the studio, catch up on my reading (the books have really piled up this year), create my vision board, & finish my "master plan" & goals for 2009. I decided to take 2 classes -- Monoprinting, Photo & Digital Applications in Printmaking -- this semester which means I'll be in the studio at school on Monday & Tuesday nights from 6:30 until 10:00. That's going to make for 2 very long days but I'm really excited about everything I'm learning in the printmaking classes so I decided to just go for it. Even though I really like my day job as director of marketing for a software company, the corporate environment doesn't really feed my soul. So school gives me a chance to be around other artists with similar interests. There are 2 shows that I want to submit work to in late January so I have to be ready to start printing as soon as I'm back in the studio in mid-January. No more procrastinating about entering shows & waiting for the "right" moment. 2009 is going to be all about moving forward with my life & my art.
Saturday, December 20, 2008I Believe in Travelling LightYes, I'm 1 of those people who travels with only a backpack. These will be my travelling companions on the train on Monday. I'll also have my laptop & my iPod which is loaded with music & novels from Audible so I'll have more than enough things to entertain me.  "Dreaming is easy. Making it happen is hard. With a fresh perspective, Carol Lloyd motivates the person searching for 2 things: the creative life & a life of sanity, happiness & financial solvency. Creating a Life Worth Living is for the hundreds of thousands of people who bought Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, but who are looking for more down-to-earth solutions & concrete tasks for achieving their goals. Creating a Life Worth Living helps the reader search memory for inspiration, understand his or her individual artistic profile, explore possible futures, design a daily process & build a structure of support. Each of the 12 chapters, such as "The Drudge We Do For Dollars" & "Excavating the Future," contains specific exercises & daily tasks that help readers to clarify their desires & create a tangible plan of action for realizing dreams. The book also provides inspiring anecdotes & interviews with people who have succeeded in their chosen fields, such as performance artist Anna Devere Smith, writer Sally Tisdale & filmmaker R. J. Cutler. The pursuit of one's dreams is 1 of the great joys in life but also 1 of the most terrifying. Creating a Life Worth Living is an invaluable road map for this journey, guiding readers as they take the first tentative steps that are necessary before they can fly."  I'll have 15 hours to work on my goals for 2009 & put together the plan of what I want to accomplish next semester. In addition to "Monoprinting", I decided to also take "Photo & Digital Applications in Printmaking" next semester so I really need to get organized before classes start mid-January. One of the areas I need to put together a plan for is my online presence... which sites am I going maintain profiles on & how can I best utilize those sites.
Friday, December 19, 2008Organizing the PortfolioHere are a few more prints that were completed last semester. I'll continue to explore the possibilities of the 2nd & 5th carborundum plates next semester. I'm also trying to decide if I want to make the switch to oil-based printing inks in my studio at home. I've been using Akua water-based inks but I'm still not sure that I like them as well as the oil-based inks. I've had some issues with the Akua prints drying.      Labels: carborundum, chine colle, monoprint, printmaking
Thursday, December 18, 2008Like A Demented ElfI'm 1 of those people who view the holidays as something that I just have to get through. I'm not sure when this happened because once upon a time I enjoyed the holidays. But now the hustle & bustle & smarmy songs basically just make me want to hurt someone... usually the person standing in front of me in line at Barnes & Noble asking stupid questions when all I want to do is pay for my art magazines. I'm officially on vacation until January 5th so I'm spending the weekend taking care of odds & ends before I catch a train on Monday morning to spend the week with my mom in Virginia. This will be the 1st time I've taken the train down for the holidays but I just couldn't face flying this year. The airlines have managed to make it such a miserable experience... crowded planes, security hassles, fewer direct flights... screaming brats... Amtrak has to be better. Then when I get back next Saturday, I'll have an entire week to myself to spend in my studio working. Here are some new collages that I created as gifts for my mom.  
Wednesday, December 17, 2008Addition to My Art Library "Intaglio is the general name used to describe all printmaking processes where the artist incises or engraves the surface of a plate either directly with tools or indirectly with chemicals in order to pull a print from it. Although the techniques that come under this category are labelled traditional, they are also among the most popular & widely used techniques in contemporary printmaking. The direct methods include techniques such as drypoint, engraving & mezzotint & the indirect methods include etching & aquatint."Labels: art books
 "In this book, Nigel Oxley describes the techniques of etching & aquatint employed by the artists who worked with him at Kelpra Studio, where he established a reputation for using intaglio processes to create full color images. The author introduced the use of carborundum & polymer plates to the studio & this book includes step-by-step descriptions of these techniques, including the use of multi-plates."Labels: art books
 "Inks have remained a fundamental aspect of the printing process for thousands of years. In this comprehensive & accessible guide, Steve Hoskins traces the development of inks from ancient China, through the Middle Ages & the industrial revolution, to the digital age. This book offers detailed guidance to the inks used for various processes from etching & relief-printing to lithography & screenprinting & also includes a comprehensive list of suppliers & full bibliography.By exploring the technical make-up & manufacturing processes of many different types of ink, this book offers practical information to all levels of printmakers, from the specialist to the amateur." Labels: art books
 "There have been dramatic & exciting changes in screenprinting over the past 10 years. These changes have been encouraged by the demand for safer working practices & materials. This new method of printmaking is radically different to the old, solvent-based process. It allows delicacy & range of mark-making that was previously unobtainable. The use of water-based screenprinting has become more popular as artists realize the endless possibilities it offers."Labels: art books
Tuesday, December 16, 2008Addition to My Art Library "Encompassing a variety of processes & techniques, printmaking offers the amateur & professional alike a unique flexibility to visualize ideas in many different ways.Clear step-by-step instructions take you through every stage of the processes of relief printing, intaglio printing, lithography, screenprinting & photocomposition." Labels: art books
Monday, December 15, 2008What I'm Reading "The fairy tale may be 1 of the most important cultural & social influences on children's lives. But until the publication of the 1st edition of Fairy Tales & the Art of Subversion little attention had been paid to the ways in which the writers & collectors of tales used traditional forms & genres in order to shape children's behavior, values & relationship to society.As Jack Zipes convincingly shows, fairy tales have always been a powerful discourse, capable of being used to shape or destabilize attitudes & behavior within culture. He asks questions that link the fairy tale to society & to our political unconscious. How & why did certain authors try to influence children or social images of our children? How did they react to the prescribed fairy-tale discourse?" Labels: books
Monday, December 01, 2008Made in Fort Point Made in Fort Point, the Fort Point Arts Community (FPAC) store is opening this weekend in conjunction with the annual Fort Point Arts Community Holiday Sale.I decided to put some of my beaded jewelry into the store to test the market. Unfortunately due to my incredibly sub-standard photography skills, I don't have any photos of the jewelry to post but I do have some incredible photos of blurs & light spots. Please stop by to see the art & fine crafts produced by the artists of Fort Point this weekend. Details, hours & directions can be found by clicking on the graphic. Labels: Fort Point Arts Community
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