Today we had 101 degree heat. I melt at such high temps.
My mind disappears into the deepest crack in the sea, and try as I might to sit up and work, my body refuses to function.
Just about all I can do is turn on the AC and get horizontal until the house has cooled enough for me to be human again.
When I was a kid, I loved running out in the spring rain, jumping in puddles and splashing until I was soaking wet drenched, head to foot.
Now, of course, I’m staid and demure, like a proper old lady should be. Hahahahahahahaha! Go on – believe that if ya want!!!!
I just posted this purple version in my Redbubble shop – I’m including the links below if you want to get some fun socks, tote bags, shower curtains, pillows, blankies – all with this design!
I also put the same design with a red background, and a gold background there, too! Continue reading
Penguins are the silliest looking critters, aren’t they?
But I love how sweet their mannerisms are, and how amazing they are underwater.
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© Angela Treat Lyon 2024
Do you like hot, spicy foods?
I do, but my body? Not so much! Instant reactions!
So here we are, eating our favorite east Indian dinner – and then – Ooooooh!!! Hotttt!!!! Yeowie! Yikes! Whew! Hand me the napkins!
Wouldn’t a silk scarf of this be funny? You could wear it out to dinner with your friends when you go to India Cuisine and get Garam Masala, or when you go to the Thai Noodles restaurant!
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Hot! Hot! Hot!
© Angela Treat Lyon 2024
I have this Thing for Hummingbirds.
I think they are some of the most miraculous beings on the planet. Imagine having to suck multiple times your body weight in liquid food through a long skinny pipe every day!
And being able to look in the mirror to see all those flashy bright colors on your head and chest!
My mother’s mother was the first to photograph them flying backwards – or, that’s the Family Story, anyway. She had hundreds of photos of them. All in black and white, of course.
In a kind of odd moment as I sat glomping my lunch a couple days ago, I looked out my window to see my neighbor’s cats sunning themselves on the window sill, and they just looked so happy.
Have you ever wished you had your own safe windowsill where you could relax and be totally unbothered, and you were able to just lie there peacefully in the sun? I sure have.
Here is the same image, painted in different colors. I’m planning to make stickers of the cats, and silk scarves of the entire image. Stay tuned – I’m in the process of opening a store so it’ll be easy to get what you want, lickety-split!
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Cats x 3
© Angela Treat Lyon 2024
Supposedly . . .
As you know, I’ve been taking a highly intense, galactically-comprehensive course on the business of being an artist. Comprehensive is the biggest understatement ever!
They may do something similar, but what you do has your breath within it, has your dreams behind it, and has your signature energy inside it.I’ve had this phrase running in my mind all day long – driving me crazy!
I finally realized it wanted me to draw it. So I did!
I can be pretty slow sometimes . . . but eventually I get the hint.
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Early Birds
© Angela Treat Lyon 2024
My newest scarf! It’s 26″ square, rich colors on a lovely pure silk charmeuse – I love it!
A friend told me about how he’d gone fishing, and actually watched as the fish gathered around his hook and bait and, laughing all the way to town, didn’t bite all day! He never could figure out why they did that, because the next day they took the bait like crazy. How weird is that! So this is to celebrate the no-bite day!
Let me know if you’d like one of these!
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Fish Bait
© Angela Treat Lyon 2024
It’s printed on a 1/8″ board, has a satin mat finish, wonderful rich color – and a twiney thing to hang it with! I’m thinking this would make a cool Christmas gift, yes? Want one? Contact me (see contact page HERE)!Very smoky here today – hard to see or breathe. Not fun at all.
This image is how I feel about you. I’m so fortunate to have your loving support. It’s been such an emotional rolly-coasty this week!
Huge gratitude for all of you who are envisioning me safe – I really appreciate that – it’s very precious, indeed. I have felt vulnerable before, but never like I have this past week.
This last week has been such hell. 119 degree heat, the threat of the big California Park Fire being within 3 miles of my house, the smoky air burning our eyes – I don’t remember any August here in Chico being so damned hot, every single day.
And not having a car! When I gave up driving 5 years ago I never dreamed I’d regret it! What with friends being out of town or not reachable, I have felt so vulnerable.
If I’d had to evacuate, I’d have to walk! Can’t you just see a 78-year old woman stumbling out of town leaning on her walker, back-pack on, slippers on her feet? That would be me! LOL!
Isn’t this how it oughta be? Friends getting together, hanging out, playing, singing, dancing, celebrating life, in all its beauty? I say yes!
I’m completely overwhelmed and exhausted by all the upset, violence, anger and fear coating every aspect of our lives.
How did we get here?
Somehow, we gave ourselves permission to spew gouts of hatred everywhere. Not to mention the raping, killing, maiming, and destroying – not just of humans or material property, but the world itself. It’s disgusting.
I got a wild hair and started working on next year’s calendar!
(Like I don’t already have plenty to do!!!)! Here’s the December page – waddya think? I love it! I left it crude this time (no image trace). I like the rawness.
I’ll let you know when the calendar is ready for a pre-sale.
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© Angela Treat Lyon 2024
With this ring, and yellow flower, and bunny dance, and birdies, and meeces, and ferrets, and sun, and pink and red flowers, and the sun, I thee wed!
Sometimes ya just gotta shed the got-to list and do the fun list. This wasn’t on any list! But I’m feeling low energy today, and it was the perfect pickmeup to do this design.
(Check out everybody’s nail polish – put on exclusively for the wedding celebration!)
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© Angela Treat Lyon 2024
I don’t care if you love someone of the opposite sex, the same sex, no sex, weird sex, pronoun sex, or any sex I forgot to mention.
I don’t care what rules any outside agency sets up.
I don’t care what your mother, father, sister, brother, aunty, uncly or other family member believes about love. Or your teacher, doctor, lawyer, or Indian chief.
Love is love is love.
Here’s a little inspiration for you if you are worried, anxious, scared, or having a desperately hard time. Or maybe it’s for someone you know.
I’ve heard you say, “I failed.”
I’ve heard you say, “I’m so tired.”
And “I’m so afraid.”
I know it’s hard when you’re exhausted and it feels like you have failed somehow.
And you’re so afraid of ‘what might happen if . . . .’
You have to remember: you have done your best, this whole time. What do you think you ‘should’ have been doing? Or ‘should’ be doing even better?
Do you ever start something and end up doing something completely and utterly radically different? I fought it, but that’s what happened today.
FISHIES GALORE
I started out tonight intending to write a story about a disastrous sailing adventure I had when I was 15.
Then I started thinking about how, in the past three or four weeks, people who have said they would meet me at an agreed-upon time either never showed, or were an hour or more late (pet peeve!!!).
If you are not an artist, stick around, because I’m going to show you how you can help your artist friends. If you ARE an artist – well! See what you can do!
Drawing through the night
A couple months ago, I enrolled in a comprehensive 8-week art business course called Leverage Your Art, taught by 7-figure artist, Stacie Bloomfield.
To say the course has had a significant impact on my life is just a bit of an understatement! EVerything in my business has changed as a result – I couldn’t be more thrilled.
A fellow artist asked me: You’ve sent a company your images to see if they’d like to carry your line on their products. How do you know they won’t steal your artwork and put it on their products and sell them without your knowledge?
Energy thrills through my hands as I make art
My first thought was, in that case, either the company will go out of business after getting a rotten reputation for being design thieves, or they are so big it will take Godzilla to get them to stop.
There have been many cases that I’m aware of where artists did, in fact, get art/design stealers to stop. If you feel confident that you can get them to stop, go for it, confront them. I know of one person who has gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars in recompense. (You do have to be set up and prepared – more on that below.)
I want you to be out front, SEEN, and appreciated. Here are seven tips you can employ right now that will help you be more brilliant than you already are.
Podcasting to the Millions
Are you writing, podcasting, or delivering webinars?
Amongst a million others, how are your presentations so brilliant that people remember you and your ideas for years?
What if they were so bright people couldn’t help but want to read and listen to them, wondering what golden nuggets they will find?
Source energies curl and furl in my palms. They remain there until I start working on something. Sometimes they churn and make my hands tingle. As soon as I begin to focus, the energy passes through to my fingers.
Way back in the 60s when I was a potter living in Hawaii, my logo was a hand with a spiral in the palm. It symbolized my intention to bring forth Divine energy through my art. I made it into a stamp I’d press into the bottom of my pots.
Yesterday, I was wondering how I could continue the art-inspiration series I’ve been writing. The image of that hand popped into my mind.
It was perfect, since the last 2 designs I’d made used hands and spirals. But this one had a different feel to it. It made me think of all the healing training I’ve gone through.
You have to know the value of what you create. To me, whether it’s my visual art or my writing, it is the Divine Voice speaking with my voice and hands. Its value is incalculable.
Never let anyone dissuade you from regarding your art as valuable.
When my kids were little, they’d join me in my studio. They drove me nuts. They’d wander around, squeezing the clay, opening and slamming shut cabinet doors, sticking little fingers in the powdered glaze materials, dragging out my tools and doofing around with them, and opening and closing the top of my smaller kiln.
Finally, I sat them down at the big middle table and showed them coil and slab building, and later, how to glaze, decorate, and fire their creations. They got to it and proved themselves damn good little artists.
I was taught that “great artists wait for inspiration to come to them, and then they create.” So obviously, if I wanted to become a great artist, I needed to wait for inspiration to come. Well that’s just total BS.
Bringing Light to the World
Smart me! I didn’t believe it. Life moves faster than that. And I don’t wait well.
I have a hard time with old adages. I question EVERYthing. Old, in these times, means either venerated and sure as can be; or outdated, worn out and no longer applicable, even destructive.
My buddies love it when I read to them!
Reading Time
We gather together and sit on my bed with piles of snacks, and they help me choose which books to read. We love the Mysterious Island, and all of Nathan Lowell’s sci-fi stories.
I have to be careful of Kitty, though — she likes to lean over my shoulder and ruffle the pages so I lose my place. Naughty Kitty!
I discovered that practice meant giving up trying to achieve perfection. What it really gave me was a calm, quiet belly.
Practicing with my buddies . . .
Many long years ago, I practiced Tai Chi Sword, and Naginata, a women’s sword-fighting art, where the sword is bound to a six-foot bamboo pole that extends the reach of the sword.
There was a famous battle in Japan in an earlier century — I can’t remember which — where all the men in a village had gone to war, and the women saved their village by fighting off marauders on horseback by binding their husbands’ extra swords to long bamboo poles.
They could now not only reach the marauders and still not get hurt themselves, but they could cut the horses’ legs out from under them. Thus began the traditional martial art of Naginata.
I used to love to fish. Down at the dock, I’d dangle my feet off the end, feeling the outright peace being saturated with sun and calm and things-are-just-right brings.
Jumping, hissing, and spouting, frothy mini-geysers covered the harbor shore to shore.
Sometimes I’d row a skiff out, and float around in the shadows under the piers, throwing in my line to see what I could catch.
There, I was free from older-brother teasing, and “would you watch your little brother for a sec . . “ babysitting. Whether on the dock or out in a boat, I spent as much time every summer as I could with my catch bucket and lunch by my side, line in the water.
One lovely summer noon when we were 15, my friend Sally and I sat on my favorite dock, glumly watching our bait bobbers flop uselessly on the surface of the water — we’d caught plenty of fish earlier, but there had been no bites for some time.
David came up behind me, grabbed my pail of fish, and before I could stop him, dumped it right on top of my head. He and his buddies squealed with laughter and ran off down the dock.
The Fish Laugh at My Worm Down at the Dock on this Glorious Sunny Day
The fishes slid down my back, into my shirt, down onto my lap. I was soaked, head to foot. Good thing I wasn’t squeamish.
