languish1a

‘Languish'

20″ x 24″

Gallery wrapped canvas, painted sides, ready to hang

Available for purchase on my web site

The quote that goes with this work:

For here the religion that languishes in crowded cities or steals shame-faced to hide itself in dim churches, flourishes greatly, filling the soul with a solemn joy. Face to face with Nature on the vast hills at eventide, who does not feel himself near to the Unseen?

 W. H. Hudson

Blue is a very hard color to get correct pictures of, so bear in mind...this is a deep, velvet study of the color blue. My favorite color when thinking it seems.

Betty #2 from the Pin-Up series

Oils

18″ x 24″

Back stapled gallery canvas with finished sides, needs no frame

Comes ready to hang

Available on my web site for purchase (in the 2009 gallery)

Betty was fun to work with. She's a high flying, adrenaline junkie. I mean she would have to be right? Those kicks on a rope ladder? Well she's a might more brave than I am at the very least.

This series is turning out to be a lot of fun to do and I am once again enjoying myself and painting what ever pleases me. The economy can do what it likes and the bone crushing wheels of capitalism can keep turning, and I'll be here painting what ever I like and loving my life. Waiting for the fickle light of this economy to shed its light on me once again. I am enjoying this respite from the shows and constant marketing and loving the fact that I am a artist...in good times and in bad...I am an artist. That's enough for me right now. Sales like I am used to (over the past 11 years of being a full-time artist) will return to better levels...someday. I can wait. This has been good for me, I am self directing my artwork in a way that has not been entirely possible for many years. I am not painting what is selling, I am for now, painting what feels good and re-discovering my work in a new way. It's really great. As you can see I've not quit marketing all together, but the traveling shows were just not an option this year and that's ok!

Hey, oh yeah...todays my birthday. I am 40. Can you belive that? I mean really...me 40?! WTF? Well...Okay, it's not so bad...I'm having a relaxing day at home with the family. My Mate Man has just acquired a new job, one much more befitting of his abilities I might add, and after waiting for 18 months to get this job, we are all very happy for him. My kids are both on the honor roll for the first term, now continuing a 3 year run of both of them being on the honor roll every grading period. It's cool that they are into school and getting as much out of it as they can. We are now in middle school and they still want to do their best...no complaints from this corner. We now have insurance again too...I mean three years with no health coverage was a living hell and expensive too. I'm all for reform and a public option, but I am also relived that we are no longer in that boat for the time being. Whew! I can get my cancer panels done and my sore tooth fixed. Life is good I tell you.

So, in short my,  life is getting pretty groovy after three years of crapola. And thats great and all, but I guess the nicest thing is that all of the getting better stuff really has not changed me/us. I was happy even when we were poor and struggling every day (that was three days ago, btw) because I choose to be happy. So now that it's easier to be happy,( and it is easier to be happy with money and health insurance, Oh yeah it is) I'm still just happy that my family is whole and well and this is just a chapter in the story. Nothing last forever, so we will just enjoy the good times as well as we did the bad. 40 years of living hard as taught me well...I choose happy. No matter what is going on. I choose happy and love first...the rest is all logistics. Every day above ground is good. Keep it simple and choose happy where you can. Train your mind for the situation at hand, what ever that may be.

Be well and have a great day!

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

Lola1

18″ x 24″

oils

Gallery wrapped canvas with finished sides and back staples.

Comes ready to hang, no frame needed

Available for purchase at my web site.

Here's the quote that goes along with her:

She didn't mean to be sexy that moment, but even a winter nightgown couldn't hide that lovely outline. When will I outgrow my simple-minded fascination with the form she had happened to choose for her body?  Never, I thought ~Richard Bach

 Lola is the first of a new little series I want to explore right now...yes another thing I am checking out. I know, I just can't seem to stop myself. This is all about fun for me right now, if it makes me smile or laugh I want to express it in paint. So, for now a little side jaunt to the garages and barber shops of my youth where pin-up girls where all the rage and tolerated by the women folk well enough, as long as it wasn't in your face.  When just about everybody has jobs, homes and a car or two. People where happy to have survived the wars and were ready for a little peace and prosperity.  You know the late 70's and early 80's! Yup, I had you going there, didn't I? *wink, wink*

I loved those pin-up girls back then and thought they looked like they were having a good time in life, happy and free; drawn and colored into perfection. They would never look like Kate Moss, and it was cool, and they were sexy and beautiful. At least in calendars, it was all possible. 

Well, they say what goes around, comes back around at sometime...and besides I like to leave you all wondering what the heck will that BAD! Kitty do next? You just never know. 

Take care and I'll see you all in the funny pages.

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

 Support living artists, buy some art today

‘Sign on the road less traveled'

24″ x 18″

oils

finished sides, ready to hang, needs no frame

Here is the quote that goes with the work:

"Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters." -M. Scott Peck

Of late I find that I am struggling a little bit, to make the connections in my mind that used to come so easy. The economy is basically making me focus on making money, not marketing, making and selling art. Let's be honest, no one is buying art right now and that may not change for awhile looking at the reports. So, I have choices to make, do I hang it up? Do I just throw myself into my day job as a intuitive life coach in order to keep the bills paid? Do I give up making art so I can save money on the costs of making art? Well after much thought and some tears too, I have come to a conclusion. I don't give up anything. I can't give up art making, it would be like cutting off my own arm to lose weight. That's just dumb. I work hard at my day job in order to feed and take of my family, sure that's a no-brain-er. I may sleep a little less, I may eat a little less, I may make do with supplies and find a challenge in that, and all that is okay to do. What I must not do is let my circumstances dictate my actions. I have never had a year that sales were so bad, but that is not because my artwork is failing, it because no one has any money to spend. That is something I can not control. I wait it out, I keep calm,
I carry on.

I painted this simple little painting to remind myself and others that the end is not near. This is temporary,  it may last longer than I would like, but it is still temporary in the scheme of things. I've been full time as an artist for 11 years now, I can't stop or walk away from my true calling or my passion, it would be easier to just stop breathing. This is my life, suffering allows a soul to grow and offers challenges for the spirit to overcome. This isn't a problem, this is a challenge to grow, to explore, to innovate, and to learn a new form of endurance and faith in self.

I hope you like the painting, that would be nice. But you see, I have never painted for the now, or the people outside my studio. I paint for me and if you find resonance or something that fits your style and decor that's the bonus of living out loud for me. That super, that's great and I live for those connections I am privileged to make with my patrons; patrons that I can talk too, get to know and be inspired by. If I sold my work through the traditional gallery system I would lose that one to one connection and that would make me sad. I love knowing my patrons, I love the friendships and connections I get to make. You inspire me, yes, you. So, everyone far and wide, stay calm and carry on. This too shall pass.

A little background on the message. These words are taken from a WWII poster that I found. It was plastered all over Great Britain as the bombs fell everyday on the populace of London. The words were bold on a pink background. I thought it was perfect for the conditions we all face right now, around the globe.

So my friends, Keep Calm and Carry On, we will make it through this crisis and hopefully be better for it. Love, live,  laugh, and most of all stay true to yourselves.

Raw & Radiant,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

Support living artists, there is no unemployment or bailouts for the starving artists, & we like eating too.

littlebluetree1

‘Rebellion'

18″ x 24″

oils

painted sides, needs no frame, comes ready to hang

Here is the quote that was so ugly, I had to instantly defy it:

Anybody who paints and sees a sky green and pastures blue ought to be sterilized. ~Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

So, I of course needed to paint a blue tree, I've never painted an all blue tree before so it's a good thing. I never in a million years would have thought that a quote from the Evil Adolph, would inspire me to create, but here it is. Just goes to show that you don't know, what you don't know.

Then I read this quote:

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)

Source: Letter to James Madison, 1787

and I knew I was on the right path. Being in the studio and working like I do is an active act of rebellion! I will work my day job and do my very best to be my personal best at it, but art is my life. It is my talisman, my touchstone. It is my life line in a dark world. So...take that (BAM!) social standards, I am the BAD! Kitty and I have a mighty rebel yell, oh yeah, and I'm not afraid to use it.

I think a blue tree is just what I needed to take the edge off this sepia tinted reality. The lighter shades you see on the tree is really silver not white, it's sparkly but only a little bit, not too much. My ability to take pictures of my work is not as good as my skills at creating the art itself.  Such is life, and that means that all my patrons say the same thing when they get their new art..."It's so much BETTER in person!" yes, that's because I suck at picture taking. Sheesh.

 I only paint trees when I am thinking about something internally, really hard. I don't know why this is true, it just is. This tree is representational of my inner conversations with my soul.  The world I was born into, well it wasn't that into me, you know....so, being that I am who and what I am....

I just created my own world, instead. Put that in your little red wagon. My work is not about solving problems or answering big questions or being the smartest or the most perfect....it's about the moment, it IS the big questions, it is also my revelations and rebellions. Maybe that will mean something to you too, and if so, that's just wonderful. Hello kindred soul, nice to meet you. If it means nothing to you, that's no skin off my back. I refuse to continue to treat my art business as just a money- making enterprise. It is my life's work, if it resonates with you (or maybe just matches your decor) take out your wallet and buy it. I am letting go of making money, I am embracing my real self, and that person may not sell a lot of art, maybe she will, who knows? I don't care any more; my intellectual freedom and talents are not up for sale, just the artworks that will come from that magical place. If I make money, great, if I don't, it does not mean I am not a successful artist, it means my kids will make a ton of cash when I am dead.

I feel so much better, letting this years sales and numbers go...I feel free again, I feel like me again. I paint because I have too. it's just that simple. If you like it, I have made it super easy to own original art, so... I guess if you like what you see...just do it.

I hope that everyone is having a great week. We just had our first salad greens harvest from our modest garden, and that was wonderful!  Keep on keeping on, and I'll see you all in the funny pages.

Raw & Radiant,

Heather

Live your Life Out Loud, buy some art from a living artists today

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

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Tangled Hope Original oil painting copyright HMBT 2009

Close up

even closer up

and one arty farty angle shot just for fun

 ‘Tangled Hope'

24″ x 18″

Oils

Finished sides, ready to hang, needs no frame

Not yet on the site, because it's still drying, but will be there soon.

Here's the quote for the work:

"There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer; no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not throw down; no sin that enough love will not redeem . . . It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble; how hopeless the outlook; how muddled the tangle; how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world . . ."

~Emmet Fox

Hello world, it's me BAD! Kitty, I am back with new work to share. This ones a personal work of heart and soul for me. It is the first time I figured out something important, and forgave myself for not being able to do anything about it now. Lesson learned, live regret free, it's all the freedom we may really have in this free will wholesale life. That's good stuff, I know it's just a painting, just some time spent thinking with paint out loud. It's done to honor the passing of my Father, Michael Brown. I could not share many years with this Man, which I think we were both a little less, inside, for. He was my Father, and I didn't get to say goodbye, I am sorry, it's all okay. And the fact will remain for the rest of my life that I will not be able to do that act.

What I can do is live, better. Simple.

Make it right when you can, and if you can't then still be able to, love, as a verb. I spent my whole life loving my Father, I never stopped. I always sent that energy into the world, as I still do for my Mother who is (19 years now) M.I. A. I can love them, by living my life and being what they made me to be...more, better, smarter than they were. That I now know what not to do, and I also know HOW freaking hard it is to raise kids now to adulthood...shit fire.

I know there is no way I can turn back time and fix stuff. And if I live with that on my heart and soul, it will eat me alive. Forgiveness is the only gift I have to offer myself for that fact. And to become wiser. Become more. Become. Continue.

When we meet again, these earthly issues will not matter, so why should I continue to hurt, will it help? Will it make time travel possible? Nope. Crap. I know he is not suffering any longer and that makes my heart heal a little bit more. Okay, then I still have to live with myself and all I can think to do is to say it, be it, do it.

This ones for you Dad. With my thanks and my honor in my open hand. This ones for you Dad, may you always be at rest in peace.  I'll see ya later. Thanks for everything, really,  I mean it.

Whew, I tell you it feels uber good to get through and to the other side of perspective on this one.  My reality is shaped by my ability to maintain a hold on my perspective. Now I can move back  into my life again. It's very uncomfortable to be an alien in my own mind. Wandering around...not getting much done and well...wasting air space. I feel reunited with myself through this...processes. It's all good, I'm an imperfect human working hard to be the best me in each moment...always, forever reaching, learning and growing. True that.

Back to life...I need to make a sale Universe...you see, this is the low down,  there is no canvas in my humble studio, and I need some canvas man...I mean I need some canvas real bad. So...if you are listening Universe, I'm doing my part I am showing up. Every day.  Your turn. Thanks, I appreciate it.

Have a great weekend everyone. We are expecting wonderful weather and plan to all spend every single minute outside turning over the garden and getting some cold frames up for planting. I will have seeds in the ground by Sunday. Food! For Free, almost.  And so yummy too? What's not to like about that? Good times!

Raw and Radiant,

Heather

http://www.badkittyartstudio.com/

Support living artists, we don't get unemployment, bailed out, or tax braked, so... buy some art today.

Thanks for being here today.