sweet sunny spring easter sunday

Ah!  Sweeeeeet lazy sunny Sunday…! I took the WHOLE day off (which is rare these past few months).  I slept in.  I poured Bailey’s in my tea.  I lounged with magazines.  I made brownie sundaes for breakfast…!

I found little goodies hidden by the Easter Bunny.  Then I took the Easter Bunny out for his very first ski.  Jeffery purchased some skinny skis at the local end-of-the-season sale so we ended winter season by shushing in short sleeve t-shirts while Zaydee danced and pranced in the snow.

LOVELY!  Joyous afternoon soaked in sunshine and lavished with views.  We ate a picnic lunch complete with Easter goodies by the creek.  We took homemade stew to mom’s and spent the holiday evening lounging with her.  I have been more rested this past week than during the previous months.

Feels good.

 

basking in the glow of TEDxBozeman

Ah.....TED.....!

Sooooooooo much pressure and preparation for ten minutes on the famed red TED carpet circle.

But it was TOTALLY worth it.  Every bit of it!  So I pulled a few all-nighters, shed some tears, wrung my hands, sweated, blushed and botched but all before those surreal ten minutes of actually being a TED speaker.  A zillion hours went into writing, rewriting and practicing.  A NEW sculpture (the second in the “Never Promised You a Rose Garden” series) was completed two days before TED, packed, hauled and wrestled onto the stage.  We set the sculpture up in between speaker practice sessions the day before the event.  Immediately after the event the sculpture was repacked along with the sculpture placed in the TEDxBozeman event lobby.  Jeffery and I caught the tail end of the after party – thrilled to spend more time with the other amazing speakers and the TED staff.

Phew!

Now a few days into my post-TED life I can sit for a bit and reflect.  Weeks before I got on that stage I knew the experience was worthwhile just from its "stretch and grow" factor.  People think of me as a natural speaker - I can certainly ramble but TED is anything but rambling.  The super tight time restrictions imposed by the TEDxBozeman team made me chisel away the ramble parts along with plenty of powerful points but the process of editing (and editing and editing) was a true learning experience for me.  I do it ALL the time in my sculptures - but never to this degree for a speaking event.  I pack a LOT of life into every day living and could easily entertain 10 minutes of Ideas Worth Sharing (the TED motto) from each day of my life – let alone my whole lifetime…!  So I gave a glimpse…a wee tiny glimpse into my life, passion and work.

I walked off the stage wondering if I had actually “done TED right.”  A whole day or two had to pass before the TED blanket settled comfortably around my shoulders.  Just a bit of distance from my self imposed criticism and I can finally bask in the "TED glow."  The TEDxBozeman team pulled off a seamless classy inspiring event.  I am proud.  Humbled.  Inspired.

Waiting to share with you…

I will let you know when the TED folks have edited the talks and posted them online.  Meanwhile I have a studio to sweep, another sculpture to finish and HUGE piles of neglected desk life to catch up on.

I did say it was ALL worthwhile… and I believe it is just the beginning...

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...