I’ve entered an art contest and I need lots and lots of votes to get noticed.  Please click on the link and click on the “Vote” button. A pop-up window will appear and from there click the “Like” button.  It’s easy and I would greatly appreciate your love and support. Thank you, Robyn

A piece of a painting.  All is going well over here in Nomadical land. I’m just about finished with my first skateboard of the year and then I’m moving on to a large piece. I’m considering trying to film the next painting process using stop/ motion animation, but I’m not very sure how to do that. That is all for now.

This week I took a walk in the woods with Steven M. who is a photographer that first caught my interest by his wonderful bird portraits. He chose to interview and photograph me for his blog, Citizen Pork which is as quoted, ” citizen pork is dedicated to shining a modest light on the people who make cincinnati, ohio a better place to live:  artists, organizers, small business owners, visionaries, and altruists.”

I did not know what to expect from this meeting, and was incredibly touched when I read what he had to say about what I do in the art world. Please take a moment to read it. Enjoy!

I’ve linked it on the right side of the screen as well at, Citizen Pork on Robyn R

http://citizenpork.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=1

I drew the Yanomami girl with pencil and the collage images are from National Geographic.

A book I read called, A Language Older Than Words by Derrick Jensen had quite a few parts that stuck with me.  I’ll type out what I copied into the booklet so many years ago.

The Point Of Life

What if the point of life has nothing to do with the creation of an ever expanding region of control? What if the point is not to keep at bay all those people, beings, and emotions that we so needlessly fear? What if the point instead is to let go of that control? What if the point of life, the primary reason for existence is to lie naked with your lover in a shady grove of trees? What if the point of life is to taste each others sweat and feel the delicate pressure of fingers on chest, thigh on thigh, lip on cheek? What if the point is to stop then in your slow movements together and listen to bird song, to watch dragonflies hover, to look at your lover’s face then up at the undersides of leaves moving together in the breeze. What if the point is to invite these others into your movement, to bring trees, wind, grass, dragonflies into your family and in so doing abandon any attempt to control them? What if the point is to get along, to relate, and experience things on their own terms? What if the point is to feel joy when joyous, love when loving, anger when angry, thoughtful when full of thought? What if the point of life is simply to be?

Another sketch I made on tracing paper which is starting to fall victim to the glue from the tape I used to seal it into the book.  This is my own writing and to read it you have to turn the book in different directions. It’s a bit of a rant about the lack of connection that industrialized people have with nature.  The end line is pleading that there is no “1″.  As in no one right way to live.

I am striving for a human connection with plant, mud, insects and other animals.  I’m wasn’t making a campaign book about saving the planet I was only trying to escape from an old idea embedded in my culture where it is said that I the human being am separate from everything and made to rule over everything.

There’s something more, and I had to re-write this because someone wrote me and asked if I was suicidal.  No, of course not and it upsets me that my vision took that person there, but I guess I can appreciate their concern. My original ending paragraph was about death and expressing that I see a lot of my work focusing on dying.  In saying that please understand  I am not obsessed with it in a way that would make me want to end my own life.  In fact I have great respect for life and that is precisely why I paint what I paint.

When I first realized what death was I was 10 years old and it terrified me. Since then it made me question everything I was taught and steered me on a quest that isn’t even over yet. Am I still afraid of it? No, I’m inspired by it and it has helped me make some interesting things. Everything returns.

Tattoos are going great as well.  Please visit the tattoo link to see new work or go to Facebook by clicking on the links on the right side of this page.

Happy Holidays and see you next year with a new fixed computer I hope!