catch my TEDx performance LIVE stream this friday

I'm EXCITED...!  After weeks and weeks of practice, editing and preparation - I am nearly ready to stand on the TED stage and squeeze ALL I can out of the moment.

Inspired to inspire - I plan to connect and share the "art juice."  Tickets are sold out but the event will be streamed LIVE this Friday.  My talk titled "The Spirit Within" will take place at approximately 2:53 pm (give or take a bit).  Click on this LIVE STREAM link to watch (and let me know what you think).  The event begins at 1:00 pm with an incredibly impressive line-up of speakers and performers - so tune in earlier to watch the rest of the TED talks (if you are unfamiliar with TED - then see the post below).

Wish me luck...!

patience

One translucent layer after another. Mix and build color upon color upon color - allowing some places to be quieter than others.  Wood grain speak here, whisper there.

Finding my way through the lost places...

let the color begin...!

Ahhhh…. the beauty of the wood, the tree within the tree, the energy of the wood grain, the simple texture and design and the grandeur of seeing the piece STANDING can be… inspiring.  And - well – more than a bit intimidating!!

I have a vision beyond the blonde beauty of the wood, which means I have to muster my gumption and add color.  In other words, with the first stroke of my brush the blonde beauty will be destroyed.  I could fail.  Months of work may become firewood.

Scary.  BUT exciting too.  I have an idea.  A direction.  I also have plenty of “unknowns” as I begin the process of layering stains.  Let this chapter of the journey begin…

 

magical mountain lion moments

My buddy Vern treated my dear girlfriend Wynn to the rare opportunity view a mountain lion up close. Wynn has a special spirit connection to the elusive creatures. Her visits are always too short but she is charmed.  Vern’s competent hound dog Elroy was just the ticket to fulfill her desire to see a lion. Although I have been blessed with a number of lion encounters both in the wild and near my home, I had never seen one treed by a dog (and honestly wasn’t sure what I felt about the whole concept).

Snow was blowing sideways just after sunup when we jumped in my truck with mugs of tea.  I heard Elroy bellow before I saw him in the back of Vern’s truck and got excited.  Something about the passionate persistent hound dog howl put me in the mood for this adventure.  A filmmaker, a photographer, two young men and another fella with a young dog-in-training joined us.  We saw several lion tracks in the fresh snow but Vern pointed to one he called “hot.”  The hound dogs were let loose and the chase lasted about seven minutes across a creek and up a steep slope.

The lion was impressive.  The hound dogs were too.  Wynn was enchanted.  We didn’t harass the beautiful creature for long.  At one point the lion jumped hissing out of the tree and landed near Vern before she disappeared and found a better tree.  We hung out for a bit in her presence, then let the lion get on with her day.  Wynn and I went on up the valley to enjoy a soak in the Boiling River.  My “backyard” is full of beauty, characters and….yes…lions. 

Talking at TEDx Bozeman

I set a goal for myself to be selected someday to speak at TED - just after I viewed my first TED talk online years ago. Next month I have the opportunity to dip my toes in the TED world since I was selected to speak at TEDx Bozeman. I am honored, excited and - yes - scared!!! But I want to spin the most of the opportunity and squeeze all I can out of my 8 minutes.

TEDxBozeman will be held at The Commons on Friday, March 22, 2013, with live-streaming online around the globe. Tickets to the inaugural 2012 event sold out in 6 days and this year’s expanded event promises to be even more popular. This exciting independently-organized TEDx conference is a day to showcase innovative local presenters and engage in stimulating and inspiring dialogues.

painting for charity

I blew the sawdust off some paintbrushes and headed down the mountain to the Livingston Depot for an evening of collaborative painting.  The annual Rotary Event fundraiser for underprivileged children needed some new energy, spunk and spirit.  Tyler Erickson, event coordinator wanted an evening of collaboration – thus we came up with this concept: three artists, three canvases and three hours – but we would each paint on each canvas during the course of the evening.  Each artist started a painting.  The painting then went to the next artist for a round, rotated again to the other artist before ending up for a final round of painting with the original artist.  Four jolly rounds of flinging paint in quick succession creating collaborative works of art.

I haven’t painted for a zillion years and have only painted on 1-2 canvases in my life but I had a BLAST painting along with Ed Enders and Brian White.

The crowd loved it.  I loved it.  I do believe I should put paint to canvas more often!

View a FULL ALBUM of the collaborative painting event (click here)

a girls gotta breath (and avoid combustion)

I am a mess-maker.  Sawdust happens. But some days the dust hangs thick as a wool army blanket in the air.  Scary stuff.  I worry about little Zaydee who insists on being near my side while I work.  Combustion is a possibility.

The solution isn't as simple as the hood-systems on stationary tools in cabinet-making shops.  I move around too much during the sculpting process.  My heat would blow out with the sawdust with an exhaust fan.  An air-cleaning filter system would be good.  I imagine the solution would be a hybrid of systems.  But right now the new sculpture series is taking all of my financial resources (and then some).  I will either have to be successful enough as a moola-making artist to implement a system or successful enough as a public figure in the art world to have a sponsor put a system in.  While making moola is part of my plan (someday - somehow) I like the idea of a sponsor stepping in to figure out the puzzle.  How cool would that be?

Meanwhile.  I would say, "I grin and bear it" but actually I try to keep my mouth shut.  :)

 

museum moving day

Someday…ah…yes….someday…there will be a crew of professionals to move my sculptures.  I won’t have to give up a studio day to schlep sculptures.  Maybe I will enjoy a relaxing day at the spa or take a day off to climb ice while the crew moves my pieces safely for me.  No worries.  No fuss.  No “me” in the move.

Not yet. 

Yesterday went pretty well despite the overwhelming desire to pull the covers over my head and ignore the world – but that had more to do with an unplanned dip into despair (moods happen) than with the planned moving day.   I had good help.  Jeffery is unflappable, patient and comfortable moving the big stuff.  Troy is a dear friend; a talented creator of his own “big stuff” Troy is used to moving days.  The museum staff was ready to lend a hand and we “got er done.”

Well – almost….

The clock was safely returned to the owners.   The sculpture made it over the pass before things got too icy but it was dicey getting the trailer up the mountain.  Two four-wheel-drive trucks chained together got the sculpture nearly to the studio but the slick conditions and a lapse in communication between trucks created a post-dark rodeo with a jack-knifed trailer and tires spinning on ice beneath snow.  I threw a frozen berry pie into the oven to bake while we wrestled with equipment and elements in deep snow before giving up.  We ate pie and left the rodeo ‘til morning.

The sun is shining.  Icicles hang off sheets of snow that curl off my roof in front of the windows.  The CAT’s batteries are charging, the sculpture in my studio awaits more carving.  My dark mood has not totally lifted but an epic sledding run could lighten my mood and there is still some pie to eat after the snow rodeo sculpture wrangling.

slow dance

January was a month laid low. I slow-danced with the flu and insomnia. But they weren't my only dance partners. Short rounds of focused time in the studio added up as the carving stage of one log ended and another began. More focused time was spent in the studio office and at home - catching up, cleaning and clearing. I got to a few projects that were long neglected - wall flowers that had waited too long for their turn to slow dance. Simple sweet meditative hikes and a hot spring soak or two were the extent of the outdoor adventures - even Zaydee had some healing to do. Slow dancing, swaying to the music and listening to my body.

I am not complaining. Quite a bit of grace happened during the space and place created by simply slowing down. Things shifted. Patience with myself, my body and a world so much bigger than me came unexpectedly simply because the rhythm selected for the first month of 2012 was uncharacteristically mellow but refreshing.

Yet both Zaydee and I are ready for the music to pick up a notch. The ice has gotten FAT. Today I pack my gear, load up my dog, meet a friend to head out and UP!

featured in Rural Montana Magazine

The people behind my electrical power send out a monthly complimentary magazine that connects 120,000 homes throughout Montana in the same good-natured way the local winter fair brings people together. The publication publishes recipes and photos from readers, spins a yarn or two about real rural folk and educates us on power resources and usage. I have enjoyed the publication all the years I have had power (yes there were a few years in the beginning of my life on the mountain where I was power-less). A few years after a wonderful stroke of fate landed me on this mountaintop, I used my credit card to bring power on up here to the end of the road and have enjoyed the publication (and power) ever since!

So I was honored in a sweet humble way when a writer for the magazine contacted me out of the blue for an interview. He had decided to launch a year-long series on Montana artists and and began the series by featuring me in the January issue.

Ryan arrived with a big camera and a yellow-lined legal pad.  He was kind, asked good questions and mentioned that his wife was expecting their first child. Since our interview Ryan has become a father and I have had the bandwidth on my website increased due to a huge influx of traffic.

Who would have thought this little publication to 60,000 rural Montana homes would pack so much punch? The fan mail has been over-the-top sweet...just like the cinnamon rolls my mother would win the local winter fair with.

Fix a cup of tea, grab something sweet to eat and follow this link to read the article. 

beauty below zero

Woke this morning at 4 am, which is “normal” for me when “normal” allows for a night of sleep.  I felt refreshed for the first time in over a month.  Phew!  Insomnia has preyed upon my sleep world since I was a child.  Sometimes a pounding wave of insomnia crashes my nights for weeks at a time.  The recent tidal wave lasted more than a month.  One to two hours a night totaled about 7-8 hours of sleep every 4-5 days.  Kind of whooped my butt.

But after four nights in a row of at least five hours of sleep I feel like a brand new extra alive being!  Yesterday the woodchips piled up as I began to carve the newest sculpture.  I experience almost silly good satisfaction each time I scrunch up a “post-it” note from my desktop - a “to do” that is DONE.

So many grand things are stirring in this bright New Year.  I am Snoopy Dancing…!

 

scary log dance

You would roll your eyeballs if you saw how nervous and squeaky I get when scooting the big logs around.  The part that freaks me out is when they are standing without safety protection, without being hinged to each other and they have to bump and scoot around to come together for pinning.  The tops sway.  The whole logs shudders and my bones try to crawl out of my skin as if my skeleton could run away without me.  Luckily Jeffery and Dustin are both super comfortable with the physics of a tall log and how much dancing around it can do before crashing like King Kong onto my studio floor.  I do not want to see one fall.  In fact I have to close my eyes part of the time - yelping “YIKES!!!!” while hopping and ducking like a dork.

I will get better.  The more I create and move the big buggers around the more comfortable I will be.  Deep breath…

 

great grandfather clock with two easy-to-care-for-wolves needs a home

  A rare opportunity!!!  The owners of “Yesterday’s Tomorrow” the Great Grandfather clock currently on exhibit at the Museum of the Rockies are interested in selling the sculpture!  They move – a lot – and the clock is not an easy thing to move (understandably).  But it is a super sweet piece created twelve years ago while I was in a different creative chapter than I currently am.  Of course I could never re-create this piece but more than that – I have not created functional sculptural furniture for many years.  The piece is a personal favorite and this is honestly a rare opportunity. I would LOVE to see it go to a more public place and of course adoption into a caring home would give me the warm fuzzies too.  If you are interested or if you have ideas/connections with someone who would be interested just contact me amber@amberjean.com.  The clock is on view at the Museum of the Rockies until January 28th.  A link to my short-recorded audio tour in which I talk about this sculpture is here: 

Let's help the owners find a new good home...

sweet sleep!

Livingston lights twinkle in the valley below - a festive pre-dawn backdrop just beyond the soft flame of the candle lit here on the wee desk in my cabin.  My soul is  "Snoopy Dancing" with glee after a breakthrough night of rest.  The past few weeks have been morphed by an epic round of insomnia - nothing new for this chronic insomniac but having been granted a full scrumptious six hours of sleep last night feels like being tapped by a magic wand.  Blessed.  Sprinkled by fairy dust, the world is a shinier place when sleep anoints me.

One hour of sleep - sometimes two - were the "norm" each night the past few weeks.   Naps were elusive.  But the place and pace brought on by sleep deprivation was good for me in that I actually slowed down.  I don't usually allow an epic round of insomnia to slow me down but a combination of the holidays and Jeffery's company (which is hard wired to a slow sane southern pace) allowed me to take some deep breaths, accept and allow.  Well at least a little bit.  I hunkered down in the spiritual retreat offered by my cozy cabin at the end of the road near the top of this Montana mountain.  I took time off from studio life.  Christmas at my cabin was sweet and cozy, full of laughter and yummy food - I actually cooked!  I indulged in a good book.  Hiked a bit.  Thought a lot.  Oh my goodness I could continue the list but the sun is nudging night into day with electrified pink clouds.  My addiction to sky must be indulged, the keyboard abandoned.

More later...