Happy New Year!!

Much to reflect, celebrate, envision, step out of, step into…

Wishing each of you courage, love, faith, good health, adventure, compassion and community in the NEW year.

Year of the Rabbit

Christmas kisses...

Smitten in mittens. Overflowing with love as we blow warm kisses from our crystal cold mountaintop to you. Let’s spin, dance, roll, and share abundant blessings with each other and all creatures great and small…

One of my passions...

Endlessly sculptural…ICE…!!!!

Excited for the season upon us but mostly I’m delighted to share adventures on ice with Raymond. I never imagined my rodeo bullfighting husband would discover his own love for the stuff. Raymond’s spiritual appreciation of and communion with Momma Nature (and the made-with-love gourmet sandwiches he creates for our adventures) are just a few sprinkles of the stardust goodness. He’s my favorite partner @raymondansotegui took this photo of me a few weeks ago…

"Freedom Found"

Inspired to create a painting for the Heroes and Horses fundraiser gala; “Windhorse” found a loving home and raised $5500 for a cause near and dear to my heart. HH has an immeasurable depth of spirit, courage and vision which they bring to help “broken” souls rediscover their inner strength and purpose.

Tiny painting

Fundraiser projects have dominated my studio time the past few weeks. The Bozeman Art Museum asked me to create and donate a business card size piece of art for their fundraiser. Little paintings can actually take as long as big paintings but I embraced the tiny format (if you happen to be looking at this image on your cell phone then it is likely close to the real life size). My desire was to create an itty bitty painting with a big presence - intriguing and mystical…

Sweet Sleep

Light is a guide and friend to me. Even the tiniest sliver of light - though elusive - exists and can be found during the darkest times if I surrender and open myself to the painful scary places.

A lifetime of severe insomnia; chronic drenched darkness invited demons to dance. I was tough. But tough wasn’t enough. Tough actually got in the way of progress with something as allusive and temperamental as sleep. I’ve traveled dozens of healing paths, spent thousands and thousands of dollars, made progress and lost footing. Finally I came to grips with and accepted my fate as a non-sleeper. I resolved to “make do” with less sleep than most, sincerely thankful the worst chronic cycles of insomnia were behind me (several times in my life I averaged a total of 6-8 hours of sleep every 2-3 days for months at a time).

Last spring my dear friend Alan, a medical scientist and visionary told me in no definitive terms that what I considered acceptable progress and “normal for me” (4-6 hours of fitful sleep waking 6 -12 times a night) was actually not acceptable. New resolve; more journeys and breakthroughs. Sweet sleep.

Raymond took this photo last week while I balanced on a rock on top of a local summit. Full of gratitude for the sleep fullness gained during the last year. I no longer label myself as an insomniac. I am embracing a new chapter where I get to fine-tune sweet sleep.

I am dreaming again.

Parts of myself I hadn’t realized I’d lost are showing up. I sip and slurp light - not for survival but in celebration.

Full of gratitude.

"Windhorse"

Created especially for the annual fundraiser gala, the painting “Windhorse” raised $5500 for Heros and Horses. The painting was inspired by my reliquary tree sculpture, “Freedom Found.”

Heros and Horses

Heroes and Horses is a ground breaking, soul healing, spirit soaring program near and dear to my heart. My hand carved reliquary tree sculpture “Freedom Found” spun good energy for their highly successful fundraising gala. Good peeps. Good cause. Good times.

Cowboy hats abound…

Beartooth Mountains

Impromptu retreat into nature, nurture and connection

Four months after being attacked by a pack of 3 pit bulls, severe PTSD clutched my guts and sabotaged my studio life.

The multi-weapon antibiotic assault on the threatening blood infection had thrown my body out of kilter. The pit of insomnia which accompanied decades of my life (and pock-marked my childhood) deepened and widened.

My studio, usually a healing and spiritual place, felt hollow, cavernous and frightening. Sharp chisels and power tools scared me. A “harmless” piece of charcoal resulted in a dark grotesque fang-filled demonic drawing scratched furiously onto big paper. Scary stuff. The process of creation may at times require glistening sweat and even drops of bright blood but PTSD tarnished sweat and blood into sickly blackened sticky goo. Scary stuff.

Uprooted and flailing after a summer lost to the attack, I grasped onto the “INKtober” challenge proposed in social media. The drawings were done outside my studio, mostly at home ‘tho I remember one evening self-consciously drawing at a tall two-top table in a crowded restaurant before a rodeo event in Billings.

Thirty-one drawings - tiny white tendrils - wispy roots that helped me navigate a steep deep pit.

Six more months crawled by before I inched my way back into the studio enticed by Cliff’s boot prints in the snow. The fire he’d built early one spring morning sent smoke signals from the studio chimney - love notes of encouragement.

Inspired by an unforgettable Great Horned Owl who visited me on a full moon night when 2015 rolled into 2016, I began a small palm-size sculpture of an owl. Cliff was excited about my return to work but more than that, he was excited about the beginnings of that little owl sculpture. Ah Cliff. The owl who perched on top of that big dead o’l tree and the little lump of clay which began to turn into an owl in my hands is a potent, ominous and mystical entwined story (for another time).

I’ve been missing Cliff something fierce. Autumn was his favorite time of year.

Tears. Walks and talks with his spirit on this mountain. Life and loss and love.

Earlier this week Raymond’s mother Linda spotted a Great Horned Owl perched on top a giant tree while she and I sat together on the studio deck at dusk. Then today, seven years after I scribbled this owl on a piece of scrap paper found in a tiny drawer of the small antique desk which belonged to my mother, Facebook reposted “INKober Drawing #2.”

I marvel at the gift of one tough and tender nutrient-gathering, stability-seeking tendril after another in a long healing journey mapped by gnarled roots and lotsa love.

Catching the light...

✨ Momma Nature’s abundant kisses are far more potent than any superfood, booster shot, pill or powder…

The Secret Keepers (new series in the works)

A whispered invitation to witness a life lived…

Momma Nature Provides...

Spring and summer have been a mix of exploration and appreciation of Momma Nature both outside and inside my studio along with summer’s healthy dose of friends and family who visit this special place we get to call home. I’m finding new ways to squeeze in more mini adventures on studio days. Mountain biking “helmet hair”or the grit from rock and chalk beneath my nails or the satisfaction of happy sleepy dogs after a quickie six mile dawn hike accompany the grin on my face when I step into the studio. Raymond took this photo early one morning this week while I led a nearby “new-to-me” climb before studio time. Feeling fit. Inspired. Playfully and intentionally creative. Blessed.

Dancing with Bulls - insight into the world of protecting bull riders in the rodeo arena

My husband Raymond shared thoughtful insight with passion and humility on the TED stage. Everyone who takes a few moments to watch his talk feels changed, inspired and enlightened…

Raising Funds for Flood Relief

Raymond took the “Jake Bank” to a coffee shop to help raise funds for our local animal shelter. The staff had to act fast when the shelter was overtaken by water in minutes. Some dogs were stuff into kennels and placed on the upper floor of the barn, then rescued in canoes later by Swift Water Rescue. The shelter is a total loss but all the animals (including the little goldfish) were rescued. The “Jake Bank” has raised a few thousand dollars for the shelter during the last decade but managed to raise over $5000 the first week it was in town after the flood.

Jake gets a loving polish at the coffee shop

Precious Moments; celebrate the little blessings...

Raymond and his mother work together to care for his father during the challenging final stages of Alzheimers. Dubbed “the overeducated cowboy” by the students he taught for 35 years at MSU, Ray is admired and beloved by all those who have the privilege of knowing him. Some of the intimate moments and feelings were shared on my blog during the years I cared for my mother while Alzheimer’s ravaged her being. Ray was diagnosed about a year after my mother passed away. This photo of these two makes me happy.

Unprecedented Montana Springtime Floods

Momma Nature expressed her potent power this week. The usual springtime high mountain snow melt which swells creeks, streams and rivers was amped by excessive rain destabilizing the snow which unleashed a fury of flooding and mudslides throughout Montana. Raymond took this photo from our place. Normal spring conditions would show the Yellowstone River like a fattened snake winding it way on the edge of town rather than the isle, island and wetland scene shown. My friend Storrs took the following photo as volunteers filled and carted sandbags deep into the Strawberry Full Moon night. Ten thousand tourists were safely evacuated from Yellowstone Park. No lives lost. Counting the blessings while appreciating the beauty of nature and humanity alike - not taking anything for granted.

Shared stories - looking within

The tree and me.

We have stories.

Intermingled. Layered like wood grain. Cracked and a scarred yet adorned with crystal.

Tears. Hope. Joy. Pain.

Just like you…

“Secret Miracles at Work”

From desert warmth to mountain spring snow

Of course snow - and rain and thunder and hail and wind and calm and birds singing and little furry critters scampering and brave tender grass reaching for those tantalizing blasts of sunshine.

Moon shadows. Painterly sunsets. Moody sunrises.

Springtime in the Rockies.

Home-sweet-home.