MyMindScape
Sketches & Digital Art
An artist is a valuable contributor to society. Art is critical to life and living. Sharing art is a type of vulnerability. It is an intimate way to draw closer to others.
Art involves thought processing and conceptual exploration. To me, creating feels like fluid cognition. This process is less like direct cognition during wakefulness and more similar to brain functions during REM sleep. In REM sleep, we combine mental concepts, resolve conflicts, and integrate memories. In this sense, art is not only expression but also a way the artist comes to understand herself or himself better.
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When I sketch or do graphics work, I sometimes contemplate concepts I learned from my work in psychology or incorporate ideas I taught my clients. Other sketches are simply a depiction of an idea or imagined image.
HAIR, WIND, & RAIN
In the downpour, she felt most exquisite.
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TIME RETURN
… “You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here,
I believe that much unseen is also here…
… To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however long but it stretches and waits for you…
To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls…” — Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road
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“Some day, if you are lucky,
you'll return from a thunderous journey
trailing snake scales, wing fragments
and the musk of Earth and moon…
… Do not be surprised by prickly questions
from those who barely inhabit
their own fleeting lives, who barely taste
their own possibility, who barely dream.
— Geneen Marie Haugen, The Return
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UNTIED
Undressed.
Untethered.
Untied.
THE CLIMB
"When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast…
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it…
When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid.
The new dawn balloons as we free it.
For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it."
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- Amanda Gorman
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MOON OVER NEW YORK CITY
As the moon falls onto New York,
the city comes alive.
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LAZY JANE
The human form is magnificent. The female body is a work of art. Sexuality and physical attraction celebrate this aesthetic, as do I.
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THE TROPICS
Color is the gift
to those who can see.
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THE DOORWAY OF ALTERNATIVES
“How concrete everything becomes in the world of the spirit when an object, a mere door, can give images of hesitation, temptation, desire, security, welcome and respect. If one were to give an account of all the doors one has closed and opened, of all the doors one would like to re-open, one would have to tell the story of one's entire life.”
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― Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
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BECOMING
Radiance takes time
and the exposure of vulnerabilities.
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Inside Musée d'Orsay
Inside the clock tower,
light is found.
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THE COLOR OF REBELLION
Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to protect the rights of man, I am a rebel. Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to give man liberty, to clothe him in all his just rights, I am on the side of that rebellion.
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THE HATCHLING
In the summer of 2020, I had the joy of watching some baby Robins hatch, nest, and feed in our yard and then leave the nest and try to survive. As I watched, I contemplated about concepts I learned in college about socio-biology, animal behavior, animal emotion. I also thought of parent-child relationships. It seems all sentient beings are quite dependent on one another for survival at one point or another. Here, I aspired to draw a figurative parent-child relationship.
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BEAST
She looks at you
with cat eyes
about to devour
your misconceptions
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INTIMACY
A place of comfort
a feeling of closeness
All where she is validated.
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MYSTIC OF LIGHT
Real mystics don't hide mysteries, they reveal them. They set a thing up in broad daylight, and when you've seen it it's still a mystery.
― G. K. Chesterton
WHAT IS WOMAN
Challenge your perspective.
A woman comes in all kinds.
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DAUGHTER
How you want your daughter to be seen?
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REFLECTION
Because we are often our best when not adjusting to our own image in the mirror, I drew this image from the feeling or essence of how I think of myself rather than looking at myself in the mirror. Though this does not look like me, this drawing depicts how I perceive myself.
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IN DEPTH SHE'S FOUND
A person's depth is often found when we know what lies beneath the surface. Take a closer look. You might find more.
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SPINNING
There is reverence
found
by dancing in the rain.
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SYNESTHESIA - THE SCENT OF COLOR
Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which information meant to stimulate one of your senses stimulates several of your senses. I relate. Like others with synesthesia, I, too, often smell color, feel smells, smell emotions, and hear visual information. Synesthesia is the gift of empaths. This literary passage captures the essence of synesthesia:“She said that everything had colour in her thought; the months of the year ran through all the tints of the spectrum, the days of the week were arrayed as Solomon in his glory, morning was golden, noon orange, evening crystal blue, and night violet. Every idea came to her mind robed in its own especial hue. Perhaps that was why her voice and words had such a charm, conveying to the listeners' perception such fine shadings of meaning and tint and music.”
- L.M. Montgomery, The Golden Road
MYTH
A woman, a myth.
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LUNCH ON CARSON STREET
When we were dating, my husband, Paul, and I frequently had lunch at a restaurant named Paparazzi in Pittsburgh, PA. Stories grew of a mobster who owned the place. The drama and mystery of this restaurant appealed to us. Paparazzi was most popular for its nighttime activities of live music and dancing, and we frequented the restaurant/bar to enjoy the fun. There were nights of martinis, times of fun, intimate dancing to good jazz or other music, and glorious moments celebrating the vibrant collection of unique guests. During workdays, Paul and I had lunch together there. In the afternoon, we had the restaurant to ourselves. We sat across the table from each other and shared stories, talked of the future, celebrated life, and helped each other through trials and tribulations. During those times, my then-to-be husband expressed his dedicated love for me and reminded me that all things are possible in life, especially if we'd journey through life together. Paparazzi has since closed, but the memory of those afternoons remains quite alive in my mind as the initial stages of what came to be a miraculous and wonderful marriage.
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FUN OR FALLEN?
Expressed sexuality is not an inferior trait. Too often, our society considers a woman as less when she embraces sexuality or acts on her desires. Embracing pleasure and desire, whether in a committed relationship or otherwise, allows a person to live fully and passionately. I challenge others to ignore the negative constructs of sexuality. In her humanness, a woman can be a wonderfully sexual being.
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LIFE
The dreamlike contemplations of life.
ADORNMENT
Often, the most intimate or meaningful moments come during simple moments. The drawing is simple with intent. It shows a loving, delicate moment when a man is placing a necklace on his lover.
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FIRE BOY
Skateboarding is a sport of abandon. This skateboarder throws flames, making fire as he cuts through the air. His fire spews the color of his spirit -- a spirit that comes alive through his choice for exhilaration and risk.
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FRUIT OF THE BARREN
Even the barren bear fruit.
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SANDSTORM
“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine." ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
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THE VERDICT
When in Graduate School, my work merged psychology and movement studies. I studied the topic of how women are portrayed in media and how it affects our own perception of ourselves and our relationship with our bodies. Much of my choreography and many of my drawings, such as this one, challenge how society defines female beauty.
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NUDE WOMAN
She rests in her own beauty.
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GROWTH
Have your roots in the ground.
Have a foundation.
Understand your direction.
From there, comes growth.
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THEORY OF MIND
Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states such as beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge, etc. to oneself and others. This cognitive ability is crucial for everyday human social interactions and is used when analyzing, judging, and inferring others' behaviors. I find that art and design can be a matter of personal interpretation and/or a way of trying to understand the artist's perspective. While working in the field of psychology and neuropsychology, I worked with individuals living with a number of mental health conditions and/or developmental disabilities. Individuals living with an autism spectrum disorder, genetic-based eating disorder, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cocaine addiction, brain damage suffered from alcohol's neurotoxicity or a number of other conditions can be impaired in Theory of Mind skills such as perspective taking and empathy. My personal art is an attempt to connect with others, think about and comment on human behavior or tendencies, and share my own perspective. In this way, art is a form of using our Theory of Mind skills and celebrating human connection.
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UNREAL
A landscape of the surreal.
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THE MYSTIC
In the woods,
one finds herself.
In the woods,
one finds the transcendental.
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BEYOND EARTH
The future
is stark
from us raping
today's world.
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STIGMATIZATION
To stigmatize
is to have fear
of that which
you don't understand.
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BLEACHED
The sun,
which bleaches the sand and sky white,
can too,
expose that which is real.
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BOW OF THE WORDSMITH
He words spoke
history,
truth, and
experience.
All told in 16 bars,
with the rhyming of great poets,
and with greater artistry
than most can truly appreciate.
He was
a wordsmith beyond his time.
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BELLA LUNA
The poster of Luna Kombucha rests in a theatre named The Garden, otherwise known as The Short North Stage. In this theatre, found in Columbus, Ohio, I helped individuals living with autism perform a play before a large audience. Before the performances, the actors and I ate lunch in the theatre bar where this poster rest. The drawing commemorates my memories of this enchanted time.
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BRING ON THE NIGHT
Don't we all, at times, love to dance with darkness?
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PREPARING FOR THE CALL
Sometimes the most difficult calls
happen when it rains.
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MYSTIC OF THE DARK
Deep diving into mystery is why mystics roam the earth. It is why we bear the brunt of longing and desire.
― Sasha Graham
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FORCE FEMME
The king may rule the kingdom, but it’s the queen who moves the board.
– D.M. Timney
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NAKED IN A SEA OF CONFETTI
Celebrating women, color, and
women of color.
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THE EMBANKMENT FOR HER REPOSE
On this embankment for repose, she can reveal her authenticity,
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HE WHO STOPPED TIME
I had a contemporary dance teacher who taught me much about life through the art of movement. He was a wise sage, an old soul, and a philosopher. For him, the world was fascinating. It was something to behold and then reflect back to the world through movement/dance. When I watched him dance, everything around me faded into an insignificant background. His moving body, his use of breath, and his manipulation of time and space captivated me.
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WOMAN ON A DIAGNONAL
For most of my life, nothing was straightforward.
I live on the diagonal.
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LAYERS
Shedding layers.
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MISUNDERSTOOD, THUS DIVIDED
While working in psychology, I came across clients who felt misunderstood, thus divided. Here is a woman divided between her personal and societal personas.
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THE FROG AND HIS LOLLIPOP
A silly frog with his lollipop as he sits in the rain.
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THE CROWD
In a mass of people,
surrounded by lights and sounds
a concert heals
a dulled spirit.
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STEAMPUNK OWL
I am fascinated with the steampunk aesthetic. Steampunk art developed from science fiction fantasy and incorporates retro-futuristic and anachronistic technologies depicted in aesthetic machinery and imagined inventions. Often, steampunk works show real living or inanimate objects with analog or mechanical features such as clocks, automatons, airships, and so forth. Here is a doodle of an animatronic clock owl.
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THE ARTHOR
THE ARTIST
THE ADVOCATE
Here is a young woman, a student, heading out on a cold and brisk day. Walking on the campus where she studies, I imagine her adventuring out to weave words of her wisdom, sketch representations of the world, and contemplate musings of her imagination.
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SHE MOVES
As a previous dancer of contemporary, modern dance, I am drawn to watching men and women play the cello or violin. These exquisite instruments beckon and cry in sound and, in order to play the instrument well, the musician must move with her or his instrument. To add to the appeal, both the cello and violin are shaped beautifully, much like a woman's body. I find the shape and structure of a violin or cello uniquely aesthetic. The combined elements of sound, movement, and image produce a unique aesthetic appeal.
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THE ODD
& MYSTERIOUS MAN
One hot afternoon during summer break of graduate school, I watched the Terry Gilliam film "Brazil" with my boyfriend. I found the film surrealistic and complex. Gilliam once explained that the film "doesn't fit into neat categories." I sat down to doodle an image of a person who fit no categories and was so complicated that he was an enigma. I drew a circus-like man whose words and life philosophies contrasted with his personal, outer image. I envisioned him as a colorful man who, despite his wild and odd exterior, possessed the depth and beauty of a Lotus flower that could only be known by those who knew him well.
