Free Interview Series - The Presence of Art
Here's what I've got for February 2020:
Interview Series - Listen to my interview
The Presence of Art: Energy, Healing and Powerful Transformation
Blown away again - the presence of art in Baldwin Hills
Does art impact your life? Do you understand the value it brings to your home, your health and your community?
Do you realize how art changes the brain, and what an art therapist can do for trauma? Have you experienced the joy and magic of owning a piece of art, or creating a painting?
The Presence of Art: Energy, Healing and Powerful Transformation is a 21 speaker video summit that explores art and how it impacts our lives. How art is magic, healing and creates powerful transformation with lasting results.
So go ahead and sign up for this free interview series and you'll get to see my interview with Julianna where I talked about art as magic, a favorite topic of mine. I went into detail about my Alchemy series and some of the techniques and ideas that have influenced me throughout my career.
Read about my latest epiphany below!!
Ocean Flow, Paper on Canvas, 18"x36", $1,500
The last time I felt this way was when I went to the Red Sea. I did the kid from Detroit version of snorkeling. I had no clue what I was doing but I paddled out sideways on a surfboard and peaked down through the little mask I rented from a tiny store in the tiniest village on the Sinai peninsula of Egypt.
I was so damn blown away by the coral reef in the Red Sea I nearly had a heart attack from the awesome beauty of what I saw beneath the surface. I had trouble breathing because I just couldn’t believe it. Hiding under the water with no marker, not even any other people around, the reef held more colors and textures and pure alien life than my little Midwest-mind could handle. When I paddled the half mile back to land, I was a changed person.
Sounds like I’m overdoing it – I am not! I couldn’t stop talking about it or thinking about it. I went home and read books about it and made paintings about it and convinced a restaurant to allow me to paint all of their table tops with sea creature images. I then put my sea creature art on the wall and had a show called “The Undersea World of Maureen Maki.”
Truly life changing. Where is this leading?
Doodling my way out of the Arboretum
I finally realized that the same damn thing, though less aquatic, is going on all over this city. I went to the LA Arboretum yesterday and had my mind blown open again. Just like the coral reef, the plants and colors teaming with life are truly alien and awesome and magical. I think my paintings are pale attempts to plug into that energy and life, and creation and everything.
To that end, I will continue to paint and draw and collage and create, to attempt to connect myself to that magic. I will continue on with my Natural Alchemy and recreate the energy I feel so strongly when in the presence of true natural beauty. Let’s remember the good stuff. There is a lot of bad stuff all around us; we put up with a lot of shit (I could go on), but let’s remember the good stuff. Keep on going.
OK, so next time I get in a deep funk, can someone remind me to go to the Arboretum.
Maureen Maki
www.maureenmaki.com