12 Artists for 2012

....and this incredibly exciting thing today!! Check the link out... awed to be here, among these fantastic artists. Good omen for the new(ish) year!! :)

http://www.facebook.com/notes/james-hackett/12-artists-for-2012-part-1-of-3/10150563305172904

You are a poem...

...a sudden song shuddering

among flowers."

‘Half-Broken Things’: the illustrations of Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné

Dr. Lea Haynes looks at my illustrations, and the result is this lovely, memorable piece. I am awed. I am excited. I feel like a five year old. 

Give it a read! :) Link's below:

http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2012/01/half-broken-things%E2%80%99-the-illustrations-of-danielle-boodoo-fortune/


And randomly here is a magical photo of the new back garden in the evening light. Josh's hand-made (literally) stone walkway seems to be winding into some forgotten world...

Blessings
~D

The Dress

Pastel, pen and ink, and collage. The skirt is made of tissue paper. 

I think these photographs don't really do it justice. But here it is nonetheless.

Cardboard Fairies

I made these small pretties last night. The shapes are made from cardboard, cut from old appliance boxes. The butterflies are attached, and they do flutter just a bit :). I detailed the silhouettes, and tagged with a little line of my poetry. I think they're lovely to hang from doorknobs, or just whimsically around the room, like visiting fairies. 

This year, I'm going to go, artistically, wherever my feeling leads me... to grasp each little glimmer, and to run with it.    This is a good start, I think. 

If anyone feels these are particularly special, email or message me... I'm thinking of mailing them out into the world:)

Until,

Dani <3

Postal Art

Have you checked the Postal Art project out?

http://postal-art.tumblr.com/
http://www.postalarttrinidad.com/

Here are my submissions: two little bird ladies.

Floweriness

Can't hate on flowers, right? :)

The Year the Tree Stopped Bearing

...then the trees

you thought so

innocent

shed all their leaves

in mourning

blew in

skeletal

beneath my bed

that sixteenth year

a warning.

too many hands

I'm craving simplicity. Clean, bold lines. I love this drawing for that same reason, and also because of the strong, simple idea. Too many hands round your neck, round your decisions. Pretty hands, hands that love and mean well, but suffocate nonetheless. It's a reminder of the need to be free, and to be creatively true to myself, in art and in life.

I am not finished with my bird ladies yet, but taking a necessary break to work on some paying projects. (yay for those!) I'm still learning the importance of giving ideas room to breathe and grow, and not strangling them with fear or enthusiasm. I'm prone to that, yup. 

Growth is good, and it's just the right season for it. So here's this drawing, and a bit of poem I've been working on. 

Be well.

I am trying to write a new poem

one that will not read

like a drawn out sigh

one that needn’t be worn

on my chest like a handprint, slow-

blooming bruise, long, feral cry

a new poem,

one that will not chase me

further from my home

...

a january day...

Today I wandered about my yard with the camera. The house was eerily quiet in the aftermath of the Christmas/ New Year chaos. My mother was puttering about in the garden, and we joined her. I snapped these throughout the day, for no specific reason that I can think of, except that I wanted to.

My Kev on the roof against the wide open sky. The sun is blazing overhead.

My odd blue toes, and the remains of missiles that flew into the yard on Old Years' night. There were at least four or five of them. We even found one of our dogs with half a rocket in his mouth. Sigh.

All kindsa life forms in mommy's plant pot.

A lovely dead thing, a few hours before it was uprooted.

An exceptionally beautiful cluster on the Crown of Thorns.

A spot on the wall that was just plain pretty:)

One of my brother Joshua's interesting twist-tie warriors hanging from the candelabra.

An afternoon of small flowers <3

There are sharp things in the ground

and her hands are soft

yet she never wears gloves.

Kev and the dead tree. I realize now that there is a sense of mourning about this.

The light is starting to fade by now.

His hands, when he does not realize I am looking <3

The fir tree illuminated in the last flare of evening's light

Rain beneath the streetlight. It comes suddenly and fiercely.

and the last of the light is gone.

To many more days like this.

Have a lovely January.

Blessings,

~D

gratitude and small blessings :)

Happy 2012!!
I've declared this the year of gratitude and small blessings. :)

This pair of wee, dreamy collages I made for my mumsy for Christmas. They are custom made for her bright green and turquoise walls. They are meant to bring plain joy and contentment on days when she may need it. I have two others in the works for my mother-in-law, in warm orangey and yellow shades.

More soon,
Dani
xoxo