Today's art Vlog
Can’t wait for Photo Diva, Peggy Dyer, to return to our studio. She’s been in Israel for the last 2 weeks.
Laurie Maves, Live Painting & the Denver Art Scene |
A Blogsite for Laurie Maves, the LolliPoppist, a Visual Artist and Live Painter based in Denver, Colorado, USA. |
Can’t wait for Photo Diva, Peggy Dyer, to return to our studio. She’s been in Israel for the last 2 weeks.
Put your paint on the canvas, love. Bring all your colors to life.
Another brilliant collaboration of art, music, and animation with my paintings, Melissa Ivey & Chris Guillot's voice and words, and James Dare with all the fancy smoke and mirrors.
enjoy. live. love. create.
photo by Tom Cooper
To this day, I haven’t been able to write about my mentor, Noel Cunningham. Noel left this planet on December 1st, 27 days ago. I find that some days I am angry with him, some days I am sad and some days just plain lost. Noel and his wife, Tammy, (one of my dearest friends on the face of this earth) were the 2 individuals who introduced me to Ethiopia and the love the people in that country tend to share so freely. Here in the United States, we have so much. So much. And yet, so many of us find parts of our lives that are just empty. How can that be? Because I was asked to be the team art therapist for the Cunningham Foundation’s 2008 and 2010 humanitarian trips to Ethiopia, my heart was opened on a grand scale. I witnessed the sharing of hugs and love and open arms from people who didn’t know me from a hole in the wall. The children’s smiles which I shared at places like Project Mercy in Yetebon and the Mother Theresa orphanage in Addis Ababa, brightened my heart with a great joy. Painting murals with children in newly established libraries funded by the Foundation with the help of D.E.C.A. high school students from around the Denver Metro area as well as adorning the sleeping quarters of orphans’ rooms allowed me to share my gift with those who don’t have more than one set of clothes to wear. Sharing my gifts of creativity and artistic processes with students who are lucky to have one pencil to their name, meant so much to me over the past few years. All because Noel and Tammy were willing to take an artist with them to Ethiopia, my eyes have been opened to a whole new way to give and to live with purpose.
As this year comes to a close, I sincerely hope that you are able to find those things that bring your heart true joy. That they might not always be that new flat screen tv or that new car or even that new ipad. Know that it is possible to change your life and find a most fulfilling personal joy in the smiles and eyes of others. And if you are not feeling that joy, may you have the strength to find a path that may lead you to that.
A HUGE thank you to all who voted for my Brandi Carlile poster this past week through the Talenthouse.com contest. I did win the People's Choice award and got the most votes on this project. I couldn't get over all the love and support that unfolded throughout the 5 day event. For this I am forever grateful to you all.
I however did not win the final prize, that went to another lucky contestant, but my work will be promoted on Brandi's Facebook page to something like 155 K peeps:
https://www.facebook.com/brandicarlile
and for that, i'm very excited.
One last look, and one last thank you.
Happy Holidays :)
Hey my artsy creative peeps.
(You can vote for my poster entry here via Facebook or Twitter: http://tlnt.at/tAVZkg)
Just less than two weeks before Christmas. And this year, all i would like is to win this poster contest. I made a painting of Brandi Carlile "When the Stars Fall for Brandi"
and entered my artwork into a competition that is running now through December 15th on the Talenhouse.com website. Selected posters will be signed by Brandi and auctioned to raise money for her charity and you all know how i love to raise $ for people who need it. Thank you. and FREE hugs for those of you that vote!
You can vote for my poster entry here via Facebook or Twitter: http://tlnt.at/tAVZkg
xoxo
I just got back to Denver from a week in the Netherlands. I went to see the Van Gogh museum. I’m at an age where I couldn’t go one minute longer without seeing many of his pieces up close and personal-like. So I went. I went to the Rijksmuseum and saw Vermeers and Rembrandts and Frans Hals, just to name a few. I went to the van Gogh museum and saw self portraits and lines and color and amazing purples and violets and turquoises that brought tears to my eyes. And THEN I went on a guided bike tour lead by Ruben of AllTourNative http://www.alltournative-amsterdam.com . THIS TOUR COMES MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I saw amazing street art and even 2 pieces by the famed Space Invader. What an amazing way to see the city in 5 hours. The tour ended with a trip on a ferry to the north side of the city in an old shipyard located a few hundred yards from MTV International’s new offices. There you can see my latest painting of Spray Paint Poppies. But go and look soon because the piece is sure to be painted over in a day or two. Or maybe it will hang around for a year. Who knows.
I had an amazing trip.
Hope you enjoy these 2 little videos I put together of the tour and the artmaking.
Remember this:
Make art wherever you go.
It’s your duty to leave your mark.
I don’t usually make paintings like this. But thank you to Ralph Gugleilmi who got this commission going. I love this painting. It was based on a photo Ralph took in Venice. He wanted a painting to commemorate his time there. So I’ve worked on this painting for a couple of weeks and now it is finished. The icing on the cake for me with this piece was when I realized it needed a favorite quote that Ralph provided to me from the film, “Benjamin Button.” The “Letter to Caroline,” which is posted below, didn’t make much sense to me when I first heard it, and I even have seen this movie and remembered loving it. But when I was able to take these words of what a father wishes for his daughter in her lifetime, I had to include it. It is what I wish for you, for me, for all of us.
Seriously, folks, whenever I get together with my soul sister, Erica Jane Huntzinger the universe just doesn’t quite know what to do. I think we manifested many things this past weekend in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where we spent the weekend live painting at the annual event, Open Canvas, a benefit for Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design Student Scholarships. Fire Trucks, Magnetic Wishing Well Vortexes, Trains with amazing graffiti and Secret SpeakEasies were just some of the many truly truly mind blowing events we experienced. It just goes to show you that the more you are open to designing your most brilliant life, the more things just happen. The more you open your heart to love, the more breakfast establishments will just show up at your feet at 1 in the afternoon, when you’re really craving some scrambled eggs and hashbrowns. So what’s on your Open Canvas this Monday morning? What kind of life are you willing to paint?
Mine is shaking my foundation...in a lovely way. “Pink for Lucy” is the painting I created throughout the day at Open Canvas. I chose the name Lucy as one of the patrons stopped by my painting and commented so much of how it reminded her of her daughter, Lucy. That became the perfect name for my goddess. I hope she shakes you with joy and amazement.
Keep showing up my peeps. Even if your head is swimming in what you may be manifesting.
What are you doing this next Full Moon?
Maybe making plans for your most amazing LIFE?
And how does one go about doing that you may ask?
You go and make a VisionBoard and then strap on your life’s seatbelt and get ready for the ride of your life.
Peggy Dyer and I are co-leading a workshop on the next full moon, 11/9/11 at a most special community space in Golden, Colorado, called Art on the Brix http://www.ArtOnTheBrix.com . We’ll show you how to make a board, how to attend to your board, and how stuff just starts happening. Call it magic. Call it intention. Call it wooo wooo...Whatever you want. But Peggy and I have real hard evidence of manifesting things we have on our boards. We want to share the magic with the world.
So get going. Come to our workshop. You’ll be all ready for the most auspicious day on 11/11/11 .
Here’s where you can sign up for our Workshop: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2299130762
And here’s a short video we made this week on this very subject:
Details:
Art on the Brix
Golden, CO
6:30-9 pm
All Materials Provided
Refreshments too :)
Sign up today!!!
It’s great to have a painting studio right beneath a yoga studio. All I do during the day is paint, yoga, photo, edit, stream, lather, rinse & repeat. Once in awhile, my studio mate, Peggy Dyer, pulls out her camera and provides these Turbo Yoga Photo Sessions for teachers and anyone else crazy enough to get bendy in front of the camera. There’s something about capturing these amazing poses that seems to solidify the practice of yoga for myself.
You’ll see in these photos with my Anusara teacher, soon mama to be, Jen Lamboy and Peruvian Diva, Charo Montoya.
Yoga helps to clean the slate of my racing arsty farsty mind on a daily basis. You really don’t want to take a walk though my brain when I haven’t had my daily yoga practice. There’s way too many spiders, cobwebs and other things in there to get lost in. But the yoga helps clear all that out. And helps keep my body able to live paint on demand.
I personally invite you to Studio Shakta http://www.studioshakta.com to entertain your notions of getting bendy, strong and at peace with your bad ass self. And you just may want to hire Peggy to document the process. She is a queen. http://www.peggydyer.com
Om shanti shanti.
Laurie Maves is a Denver-based Visual Artist and Live Performance Painter.
She firmly believes she is here on this planet to make your painting.
She paints Poppies, Lollipop Heads, Energy, and Commissioned Portraits.
Laurie LOVES a lot of things! In addition to her painting, she loves the people she surrounds herself with, the ever challenging practice of yoga, and the fanciful world of collaborations. She feels that she shines her brightest when she finds other creative souls to conspire with. Laurie has collaborated with musicians, animators, story tellers, photographers and poets. Her studio mate, photographer Diva extraordinare, Peggy Dyer, has opened her eyes and her heart to limitless ideas, creations, manifestations and how to let the ego go and just step into the flow of the stream...and to just allow the art to unfold.
Laurie Maves is also an artist who wants to promote the concept of living one's life with purpose. As an creative being, she is constantly finding ways to bring her works to the world, to inspire, to motivate, to facilitate creativity and promote love throughout the universe. She knows in her soul that this is a GARGANTUAN task but what else is there to do if she wants to live her life with purpose?
