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Plum Mad About You | 6"x6" | oil on wood panel

Plum Mad About You | 6"x6" | oil on wood panel

Elevating Small Things

September 23, 2015

I started reading about mindfulness and honoring the power of the present this past year (thank you His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Eckhart Tolle and Anthony De Mello). Painting still life offers me a valuable lesson in the power of presence--it's a rigorous practice in staying focused on the thing immediately before me. Painting also makes me mindful of the significance of small things.

This summer, I decided to partake in life coaching sessions with Marisa Weppner, owner of Sage Yoga & Wellness (learn about her integrative life style therapy here), to solidify my goals as a painter and business owner. I wanted to write a mantra for my business that captured my intentions as an artist. After a deep discussion about why I paint, why I paint what I paint and what I hope to share,  I honed my art business mantra to "elevating small things."

Small objects act like anthropomorphic symbols of our lives. Look around your office, your kitchen, your bedroom, your bathroom--what do you see? Some of my most treasured items are physically little--my grandmother's handkerchief, sewing shears of my mother's, a baseball, a Lego figurine, a Euro coin from travels abroad, handmade Mala beads. They feel like treasures because they represent a meaningful piece of my identity or conjure a happy memory.

I often find this kind of joy in small food items. My neighbor grows the lovely plums depicted in the painting in this post. She takes the time to cut a large bowl of plums for my family every year around early September and allows me to pick more whenever I wish. These plums have a beautiful frosty blue coating that reveals a vivid deep blue-purple beneath when rubbed. The golden marbled blue cheese came from the Boise Co-op, one of my favorite places to buy socially-conscious food for still life paintings.

In In the Studio, Still Life, Small Things, Chiaroscuro Tags still life, oil painting, plums, blue cheese, sustainably grown, Eckhart Tolle, Anthony De Mello, mindfulness, power of now, chiaroscuro
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My painting found its home in a beautiful cabin in New Meadows, Idaho. Delivering it didn't suck.
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#oilpainting #painting #art #horses #wildhorses #horsesofinstagram #snow #freshpowder #cabin #cabinlife #mountainlife This little Valentine owns my heart ❤. Olive is on week 2 of staying home sick with me. She overcame the respiratory virus only to return to school for 1 day and pick up the puking 🤮 virus!
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Photo 1: Olive spoiled by the Trader Joe's cashiers.
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Photo 2: Olive rocking pj's at the Co-op.
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Photo 3: Happy Galentine's Day from Ryan!
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Photo 4: For adult eyes only! Special thanks to my fabulous baker friend.
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#valentine #valentinesday2019 #galentinesday #olivemarie #naughtycookies First Thursday 💗 Valentine's edition 💗 is about to kick off at Idaho Made (open until 9PM!!). Pick something up for your sweetie -- maybe one of my naughty fruit cards and new stickers? Yep, new stickers, ya'll. I'm getting hip these days.
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#shoplocal #shopsmallboise #boisearts Name TBD / oil on panel / 24x36 inches.
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Still working on a name for this commissioned painting. The patron asked for a cherry blossom tree to celebrate the nature of impermanence and the power of living in the present moment, despite the Japanese tree not "belonging" at Little Redfish Lake in the Sawtooth mountains. I also snuck in some hidden symbols.
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#oilpainting #painting #art #landscape #sawtooths #cherryblossom #impermanence #littleredfishlake #idaho #idahoarts #thepowerofnow #beherenow #betsierichardson I celebrated my 36th birthday last Thursday, a day that brought an onslaught of dark thoughts. I went down a rabbit hole and had to scrape my way back to the surface. The next day, Rob and I went to a live performance by East Forest, where the musician filled the arching walls of a Presbyterian church with his ethereal music set to the teachings of Ram Dass. One verse says to "love your dark thoughts...love every thing." Not the airy fairy ungrounded kind of love. The kind of love that allows you to love every part of this life, of nature, of yourself, every atom that comprises every thing -- dark and light.
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For any of you who grapple with dark thoughts, you are not alone; you are human and perfect in all of your complexity. Loving my dark thoughts, witnessing them with detachment, allows me to bounce back to joy, to feel my true essence and know I am not my thoughts.
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Thank you, sweet Rob, for helping me love myself when I forget to.
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#loveyourdarkthoughts #ramdass #love #eastforest #higherconsciousness #beherenow #thepowerofnow #courage A few shots of my work in the group show at Capitol Contemporary Gallery before it got too packed to take any! The show hangs through January. Stop by after a happy hour, lunch or coffee date for a quick art fix.
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Thank you friends and patrons who went to the opening. You gave all of us artists a big dose of warm fuzzies.
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#capitolcontemporarygallery #boisearts #idahoarts #buyboise #shoplocal #localart #betsierichardson #oilpainting #painting #artforsale #poppies #stilllife #cherner #horseart It's coming...Capitol Contemporary Gallery opens with a group show on First Thursday, January 3, from 5-9pm. Look for our giant glass windows on the west side of Capitol blvd while you're stuck in traffic between Myrtle and Broad. Let's revive the art walk on First Thursday, Boise! Hey, you last-minute shoppers, Idaho Made has your back. We're open today until 9PM and on Christmas Eve from 10AM to 2PM. You're welcome.
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#handmadeholiday #shoplocal #idahomade #idahoarts #thisisboise #thinkboisefirst #boise #boiseshopping A trio of altar paintings to bring you color and peace (oil on canvas / 3x3 inches / available). Do you know the symbolism of the red poppy? It represents remembrance of fallen soldiers. Lieutenant Colonel John McRae discovered poppies growing over WWI battlefields and was moved to write the poem In Flanders Fields.
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I've been painting them as a symbol of peace and faith that we will find a better way to resolve our differences. I believe we are all fractals of the same divine source, and we have more in common than that which separates us.
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#merrychristmas #peace #oilpainting #painting #artforsale #poppy #poppies #red #capitolcontemporarygallery #loveandlight #higherconsciousness #betsierichardson

Fresh Tweets

  • Betsie Richardson
    What happens under hop mistletoe? - https://t.co/F5mRccJcDy
    about 3 months ago

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