Sojourner Truth’s Legacy Gets Personal

When I lived in rural Connecticut, I dreamed one night of Sojourner Truth and a magical garden that, in the dream, she was cultivating with people of all races coming together to grow miraculously abundant food. I painted in honor of that dream, and the painting recently sold to Chaz Ebert, who is in the process of creating a major project to honor Sojourner’s life and legacy. I painted a second portrait of Sojourner (she gave the other as a gift) especially for Chaz and her Sojourner project. And now, as if Sojourner herself (and Chaz’s husband Roger Ebert, from his place in heaven?) the project is “gaining a life of its own” as Chaz so well put it. Now Chaz has commissioned me to paint 3 more, two for direct descendants of Sojourner Truth (!) and a third for another iconic trailblazer, Gloria Steinem. The spiritual momentum has me giddy with joy.

(My portrait of Sojourner for Chaz Ebert/ 2019). 

Stream Drawings in Water Color Offer Up Surprises

Water Color Stream Drawing/ August 2019

I’ve been doing stream drawings (stream drawing is a drawing meditation technique I developed and you can see more at MAKING MARKS: Discover the Art of Intuitive Drawing/Simon and Schuster) with studio visitors and it is enlivening, relaxing and at times profound.  Playful, creative (our natural state of being, in essence!) presence at times springs forth wisdom, conscious awareness in the form of surprise and delight, and gives us the chance to see things in new, unexpected ways.  Book your stream drawing session time with me and let’s see where it takes us.

Let Me Paint You Into a Garden

Doesn’t the world feel very extreme and polarized? In my series Earth Changes/Pole Shift, I’ve painted with the intention to bring a visual/emotional harmony in the negative emotions despite the conflict. And now I’m offering to put you in a garden or enchanted forest. All is not lost and we are not only wandering in a wasteland of sorrow, there is also beauty, unending. Souls can’t be degraded, let’s focus on our souls instead of all the fighting and misery. If enough of us remain centered (loving, forgiving) maybe what is ugly out there will begin to transform through our good gestures and essence of positivity. The price range for these commissions are the same as for Spirit Paintings–see Spirit Paintings here on my site for more info or contact me directly through the site. (These are healing-painting- meditation artworks.)

With Thunder in the Dwelling/8th grade  Acrylic on canvas 36″x36″

 

In Her Enchanted Forest Acrylic on canvas 8″x10″

Spirit Painting Meditations

This is a recent Spirit Painting I was commissioned to create. These are very different from my other work (abstract and other figurative work) because I meditate while creating it for the person who commissioned it (or for their loved one). I paint what comes. It is a very surprising process for me as the painter but for the recipient, too. These are done for a mitzvah (read that as a “good deed”) and I charge next to nothing for them, but I feel strongly that I should make them available for anyone who might want one, which means the commission fee is very low. Check out others here on my site, under the Spirit Painting heading at the banner. And of course contact me via this site if you’d like one!

Earth Changes Painting Series: Pole Shift/Amplitude

From the Earth Changes painting series, Pole Shift/Amplitude  acrylic on canvas 36″x36″

This painting recently sold at Art/Place Gallery in Fairfield, CT. The series of work is based on our changing and turbulent times, as foretold by Native Americans (long before “white man” came to shore) and more recently, Edgar Cayce, known as “The Sleeping Prophet” in the early to mid-20th century. My intention with creating these paintings is to envision our polarized society closer to harmony, even while extreme weather and events in nature suggest the magnetic pole shift is heavily underway. Can humans harmonize, demonstrate compassion and conscious action, even when nature is extreme and dangerous? Do we effect nature just as much as it may impact us? To learn more about pole shift, which Cayce predicted long before the idea of it was taken seriously, go to NASA.

Synergy

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Detail of a recent painting/ Elaine Clayton 2016

When we come together, something happens. Have you felt that synergy–the feeling of joining with others and a momentum begins? This happens especially when we connect with the intention to create out of a sense of love and goodness for the world.

CHILDREN IN SUMMER

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A recent Spirit Painting
commissioned by a client 2016 copyright Elaine Clayton

Yesterday I painted a childhood scene, above. I was born and lived on the flat plains of the Texas Panhandle until I was about 10 years old. The land may be flat out there (oh yes, it defines “flat”), but the sky is multi-dimensional and ever changing. Clouds build in fathoms moving upward, their color and shape spectacularly mounting and powerful. Shadows from the clouds move like vast omens across the land at times. And when rain came, I remember running from it with other children in summer time, until at last, the cloud full of rain caught up with us, and giant round drops of warm water made dark circles on dry dirt, or on paved roads. The sky gave what the land did not–a particular elevated and hopeful, colorful, mysterious bounty. Where the land was austere, silent and seemingly ungiving for the most part, the sky was overly generous, entertaining and voluptuous. The wind was it’s agent, whirling up dust devils and making the songs of ghosts, the way it could howl an eerie song on some days. It brought jagged looking and well-beat tumbleweeds passing by. They seemed like roaming story tellers who happened along, and somewhat like victims of circumstance. The sky knew where they had been before. I grew up expecting the sky to tell me something. I learned to look at the clouds for information and guidance. The intuitive kind of knowing that comes from feeling inspired by the brilliance in nature is what I”m talking about here, the way sky communicates that which we ought to have recognized anyway, but need prompts and reminders. Gentle and sometimes dramatic. I believe the sky is “the veil” between us and heaven, and it symbolizes our ability to know intuitively and to quietly observe things which we need unveiled. It is like doing a tea reading, but instead of looking down into a tea cup, you just look up instead.

NEW YORK AT WESTPORT WOMEN’S CLUB

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The Creation of the Hebrew Letter Shin copyright 2016 Elaine Clayton
I’m thrilled to show new work at the Westport Women’s Club this weekend. You are welcome and encouraged to join us April 30th from 5-8pm at the Westport Women’s Club in Westport, CT. There is a selection of fabulous artists showing their work. A percentage of sales goes to a worthy charity.

About Shin, this important and mystical letter is known as the “Eternal Flame”. To learn more about Shin, see this video.