February 2015
I love my tiny brush. Delicately bathing bound hog bristle and laying down lines for the body of a bug, a vein, or the wing tip of a flying creature is the utmost bliss. I value detail and melt at impeccable lines. Scrumptious is a flawless combination of brush pressure, paint and focus.
Today, a big brush was my companion. I held my tiny one with streamlined focus on molecular spaces of canvas. Too wrapped in detail I grabbed for large, pigment soaked fibers and began filling in the details with outstretched sable. To attain a galactic, starry feel, I filled in space around pin sized speckles of paint, and the large brush was the element that made it truly delicious.
We’ve got to use the big brush. It’s easy to narrow in on details that distract us from our 16 square feet of canvas... from our 90 years, our 32,850 days, our 788,400 hours, our 47,304,000 minutes, our 2,838,240,000 seconds. Yes, details matter. Although big strokes, the go for it moves, can often lead us to understanding something we may not have, if we stayed in one corner, for hours, thinking out tiny moves.
My favorite astrologer, Eric Francis, says that our greatest resource is the awareness of how much time we have left on the earth.
I love that.
I hope this finds you open and vulnerable, and being a human. I hope this finds you going through challenges, tribulations and growth. I hope this finds you feeling intense and alive on this planet. Details are important, but break out the big brush and surrender to the rest of your existence.
Sincerely,
alexis s. mclean
JANUARY 2015
2015 is the year of the Wooden Sheep in Chinese astrology. The wood of tree is connected to the color green, so we are in the year of the Green Wooden Sheep. This is the year to reap what you sow and to harvest the fruit of your labor from the past two years. As 2013 was the year of the snake and 2014 was the year of the horse, 2015 is basically the maintaining heat resulting from Snake (sun heat reaching the sky) and Horse (sun heat reaching the earth).
It is irrelevant if you have been prosperous in the past years or not, 2015 is the turning point. The heat contained in the earth, in your roots, will serve you, this is the year to follow your passions, believe, find a way to succeed. “Sheep contains Female Earth which helps to create something from nothing” (Chinese Fortune Calendar, 1999). 2015 is the year of the Green Wooden Sheep which contains wood energy, heat, and the feminine. These elements are connected to grass, leaves, vine, sprout, bushes and shrubs which all need sunshine, earth and water to grow leaves from their tough branches.
So be your own sunshine, water, and earth that nourishes the shrubbery of your existence. For what else is this life than the moments of which we spend our time.
It is precious, so treat it that way.
Happy 2015.
Best wishes and many blessings to you for the next 365 and beyond.
NOVEMBER 2014
It takes a long time to really understand something. One of my repeating realizations in painting is that something can always be more refined.
This is refinement in both understanding and technically painted qualities.
I can look at something endlessly and think about angle lines, lengths, and perspectives. This is a necessary step in understanding, but then a transition happens only as the result of time and dedication.
I have looked at my subject’s details so extensively, tried to understand their form so relentlessly, that a moment falls into place where I am literally painting from my heart. I am barely looking at the being I am drawing and just letting my heart create. Lines come as though I am actually painting on a three-dimensional structure.
This is the beauty of refined drawing with the element of truly letting go and trusting that you understand this body you are transferring to paper. Without this final element, I do not believe what you are FEELING is transposed into your final product.
For me, this is a necessity in creation. In an instant it can be gone, but waiting above me, ready to be brought down again...
this little buddy reminded me of the delicate process of creation...
It takes a long time to really understand something. One of my repeating realizations in painting is that something can always be more refined.
This is refinement in both understanding and technically painted qualities.
I can look at something endlessly and think about angle lines, lengths, and perspectives. This is a necessary step in understanding, but then a transition happens only as the result of time and dedication.
I have looked at my subject’s details so extensively, tried to understand their form so relentlessly, that a moment falls into place where I am literally painting from my heart. I am barely looking at the being I am drawing and just letting my heart create. Lines come as though I am actually painting on a three-dimensional structure.
This is the beauty of refined drawing with the element of truly letting go and trusting that you understand this body you are transferring to paper. Without this final element, I do not believe what you are FEELING is transposed into your final product.
For me, this is a necessity in creation. In an instant it can be gone, but waiting above me, ready to be brought down again...
this little buddy reminded me of the delicate process of creation...
OCTOBER 2014
What I know thus far...
If I tire of my creations, I know I am going down the wrong path, so I run to the wilds, immediately.
I can never fully know anyone, so I have to know myself and go from there, everyday, every moment.
No matter how tired I am, I must paint, write, think, and be me. We can spend our whole lives trying to please others but all we really have is who we are. Our authentic selves.
I can never fully prepare for what is coming, so why waste time?
I need to pay attention to the moments that make me laugh and feel inspired ... I need humor wherever and whenever.
A dear one recently described the process of letting go, of laying down a burden. She used the visual of a hot air balloon lifting off and cutting the bands of rope that hold you ...woven ropes hold the vessel to the ground.
I love this.
Another dear one described my art as queer. I love that too. Thank you dear. It gets me through the tired evenings of picking up my paintbrush
and trusting the queer wilds.
Favorite quote of late:
“Art is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”
Latest painting:
“the love dragon”
collaborative project with my grandmother
watercolor on paper
15” x 22 1/2”
What I love:
The season of fall
August 2014
After a brief visit, I left the San Juan Mountains last week with tears in my eyes and blue in my heart. My long time lover... this range of ineffable experience and passion, the vast San Juan will affect me for eternity. In longing and sorrow I walked a knife ridge balancing with air beneath, and future unknown.
I returned to the city, expecting to question myself and this place I call home, but was surprised by joy.
That day I left to venture into the Teton Range for two days. My first time there, I felt the comfort of a long awaited connection. The soulmate kind that allows the psyche to reconcile the past. The kind that makes you understand the big picture. My departure of the San Juan came clear and my tears shown gold in the river. These new mountains lifted a veil and I could see how big the world is. The many places, people, ridges, and rivers yet to be explored.
The connection to my dear San Juan, who’s ridges are my roots, who taught me bravery, kindness, and trust. In loving, in walking, in reaching the top, we need not be restricted by longing for that relief of rock and the past, but instead compelled to love more, trust more, let our hands touch more of what we believe... Thank you San Juan, for you draw me to the next ridge.
The Teton. Magic and excitement, weirdness, intensity and uplifting newness brought relief and awareness of how big existence is. This was not connected to my smallness, but the opposite.. We are all big. We all matter greatly. Our actions, connections, decisions... matter.
Put your energy into what is big, what is big in your heart, what is clear and for what you feel passion. Go be big. Trust your bigness.
On the plane ride home I watched river bends, mountains vanish from my rising plane, and eventually the blue sky...
Blue as far as the eye could see, blue as mountain lakes, blue as love, blue as the blue in your heart when you feel something real. This blue is always there, this vast, big, blue.
-alexis suzanne mclean
After a brief visit, I left the San Juan Mountains last week with tears in my eyes and blue in my heart. My long time lover... this range of ineffable experience and passion, the vast San Juan will affect me for eternity. In longing and sorrow I walked a knife ridge balancing with air beneath, and future unknown.
I returned to the city, expecting to question myself and this place I call home, but was surprised by joy.
That day I left to venture into the Teton Range for two days. My first time there, I felt the comfort of a long awaited connection. The soulmate kind that allows the psyche to reconcile the past. The kind that makes you understand the big picture. My departure of the San Juan came clear and my tears shown gold in the river. These new mountains lifted a veil and I could see how big the world is. The many places, people, ridges, and rivers yet to be explored.
The connection to my dear San Juan, who’s ridges are my roots, who taught me bravery, kindness, and trust. In loving, in walking, in reaching the top, we need not be restricted by longing for that relief of rock and the past, but instead compelled to love more, trust more, let our hands touch more of what we believe... Thank you San Juan, for you draw me to the next ridge.
The Teton. Magic and excitement, weirdness, intensity and uplifting newness brought relief and awareness of how big existence is. This was not connected to my smallness, but the opposite.. We are all big. We all matter greatly. Our actions, connections, decisions... matter.
Put your energy into what is big, what is big in your heart, what is clear and for what you feel passion. Go be big. Trust your bigness.
On the plane ride home I watched river bends, mountains vanish from my rising plane, and eventually the blue sky...
Blue as far as the eye could see, blue as mountain lakes, blue as love, blue as the blue in your heart when you feel something real. This blue is always there, this vast, big, blue.
-alexis suzanne mclean
june 2014
I love the feeling when the first bit of darkness falls.
people catching up with loved ones, eating dinner, reading, winding down.
there is a certain minute when the air turns quiet...
for me, this is the moment of creation.
when planes open up to the incomprehensible,
and darkness allows magic to emerge.
there is something about this silence during the darkness, I think it’s space.
space to feel and think in space, rather than amidst the noise and haste.
like the desert.
the silence that heals.
For me this month is about believing. This is the month my sister was born. When I was ten, I made a wish on a flickering cupcake candle and it came true... my sister came into this world, several months later.
Believe in dreams and wishes. They are needed. Your dreams are needed.
Paint is a magic medium, it will teach you as you go, you need not worry "how to." This is like the flow of life... all the mediums, color mixes, gravitational forces and canvasses we try so hard to write the perfect story on, paint the perfect picture. We need not worry. Be joyous, dream, and believe.
“Cottonwood shakin’ in the breeze,
surrounded by a starry sky,
easy to forget the things we need,
easy to stumble around mostly blind...”
-martha scanlan
all rights reserved . the artwork of alexis s. mclean
EXCEPT FOR THE MARTHA QUOTE OF COURSE
I love the feeling when the first bit of darkness falls.
people catching up with loved ones, eating dinner, reading, winding down.
there is a certain minute when the air turns quiet...
for me, this is the moment of creation.
when planes open up to the incomprehensible,
and darkness allows magic to emerge.
there is something about this silence during the darkness, I think it’s space.
space to feel and think in space, rather than amidst the noise and haste.
like the desert.
the silence that heals.
For me this month is about believing. This is the month my sister was born. When I was ten, I made a wish on a flickering cupcake candle and it came true... my sister came into this world, several months later.
Believe in dreams and wishes. They are needed. Your dreams are needed.
Paint is a magic medium, it will teach you as you go, you need not worry "how to." This is like the flow of life... all the mediums, color mixes, gravitational forces and canvasses we try so hard to write the perfect story on, paint the perfect picture. We need not worry. Be joyous, dream, and believe.
“Cottonwood shakin’ in the breeze,
surrounded by a starry sky,
easy to forget the things we need,
easy to stumble around mostly blind...”
-martha scanlan
all rights reserved . the artwork of alexis s. mclean
EXCEPT FOR THE MARTHA QUOTE OF COURSE
MAY 2014
I love reading a book. Actually holding a book. Feeling that mass of mystery in my right hand as time and effort transfer the unfolding story to my left, all the while anticipation of the ending knocking persistently. This obscure visitor I have to let in, amid promises and expectations of hopes and joys, satisfaction and dread, sorrow. The unknown, inescapable, ending.
I love the smell and weight of a book. The feeling of new, untouched pages. I love the love held within the pages of a used and appreciated book.
I love holding a letter, there is something about the truth held within thoughtful ink on the page. The hand sealed envelope, heartstrings hanging in the metal letter drop. The package feels delicate, real and honest. I am nourished simply by holding it, for inside is truth. I place it on the table to let it sit, while I wait, for the knock of anticipation.
I think the visitor is hard to grasp. Love is hard to grasp. Emotion is hard to grasp. The unseen, the floating heartstrings, that paper enclosure, containing so much. That mass in my right hand...
The important stuff is hard to grasp; I often want to talk to the visitor through the door, make sure of safety, clean lines and clear views, before I open the door, before I let in the end. Before I let it sit down, get comfy, push my buttons, make me feel. Before I go deep and dig, learn and grow from what is hard to grasp, and in the end, what is really really important.
Whether a person, a tree, a letter, a book, soil, rock, wind, light, sound. Storm. We must touch... and be touched. I am not talking about intimacy with one person. I am talking about intimacy with the world, with ourselves, with all of life. Actually letting our souls be touched by the visitor, and touching back. Holding books and letters and letting our... selves, be held. And in that we find the freedom within our cells, the freedom in which we are meant to live.
I am scared shitless of the visitor. That full of wonder, heart wrenching, opening of the doors and trusting, in the midst of the end, the knocking visitor, suspended between belief and trust. Open the door and feel without abandon, trust more, dig deeper.
Feel each page, read each word and even though we get closer to the end with each, we are that much closer to the whole of each life we touch and are touched by... another book, another letter, another visitor.
-alexis s. mclean
april 2014
It’s easy to lose something. a lover. a friend. artistic passion. motivation. keys.
I have felt this lately. Clarity of what I am missing.
Although what stops me from looking? What are the walls made of through which I feel I cannot walk?
I must run, listen to music, stay up all night, go to my workspace over and over again, no matter what. No matter what fear I feel. No matter what walls are in the way. I must use the things I need to pull myself up out of the depths of despair in which I can so easily fall. Let myself fall.
Find what it is that makes you tick. What makes your soul sing. What makes the limbs of your being feel stretched beyond the ends of perceived limits into the space where whether to laugh or cry, is unknown.
I recently heard Last of the Mohicans theme song: Promontory. I was inspired to dance wildly, write letters telling loved ones how much I care, tell people gone from my life what I wished I would have said. I ran mountain ridges naked as the day I was born, and I danced again...
I need to do these more. Especially the one about letting loved ones know, I love them.
The clichés I find to be true:
Life is short
Everything happens for a reason
When you have a dream, follow it. What else would you do?
To take a risk, ends up being not a risk at all. Everything we go through may not be exactly how we want, but it is right. All is in it’s right place, and ultimately, we have lost nothing.
“Worry will not strip tomorrow of it’s burdens, it will strip today of its joy.”
With sincerity and love,
alexis s. mclean
MARCH 2014
Gold is my 2014 color.
A dear friend recently sent me a description of heartbreak. “My heart breaks daily and then gets better, then I walk for miles into the deep forest and listen to the geese flying overhead ... Love can be so big that I just crumble.”
I love that description of love, being so big that it makes us crumble. Our fibrous hearts, feeling the weight of the world, the beauty, mostly beauty I believe, 91 percent I think.
I love that word. Fibrous. It reminds me of a heart, a raw open heart, the emotional part. Delicate and incredibly strong.
My paintings have been messy, random and necessary, with everything coming together at the end. To me that sounds like life. I am working on a large painting. It feels good to put anything down, not judge, not think. Just lay down color for that sake alone. I love building on messy layers. Watching how imperfections, slip-ups, intuitive "mistakes" can turn into perfection, beauty and trust. I love how painting does not have to be anything. But it turns into something more profound than I can fathom.
Like geese flying overhead.
Visit my website for current sales on cards and paintings, or email me with inquiries – I am making space for a new era, a golden age of sorts. Queen Elizabeth had a marriage ceremony to England before her Golden Age...
Cheers,
Alexis S. McLean
