Why Mosaic's?

Good question. My friends think I have found the perfect media because I am a mosaic person.

I am a painter, who for the past few years, have started painting with little pieces of glass, tiles, etc. I was an accident really. Now it's become an obsession. If something sits still long enough, I'll mosaic it. I still paint and occasionally will paint a mosaic I have in my head while I'm gathering the materials to create the piece. Below is an example. Click here to see the mosaic.

I want to create for the joy of it, for the gift of waking up and knowing that my day will be about newness. I want to let go, to see how things flow, and remember the feeling of the tale telling me. This is the magic I want in my life.

Jan Phillips

When I was six years old my Dad built me an easel. It was a surprise Christmas present that came complete with a ream of newsprint and large jars of tempra paint. I can remember the way the paint would run down the paper and the way the colors mixed together. I would paint for hours and hours playing with the colors until I either created a large hole in the paper or made a complete mud colored mess. I would take the paper down and put up a new piece and start anew, joyfully playing with the colors. Then I ran out of paper. My mother, not realizing the effect it would have on me, simply stated, " Carol Anne, I will get you more paper, if you stop wasting it and start painting something." Thus began my journey of painting "something". Worrying if others would think it pretty. Painting for the"sofa" instead of from my soul. I'm fifty years old now. It took me many many years to not fear the first touch of brush to easel. I was so caught up in "wasting the canvas." Now I paint for me again and if I ever catch myself midway through a painting thinking to myself that "this color would be perfect over so and so's sofa, I get out the tempra paints, watch the colors run, smell the pigments, and play again.

Several Christmas' ago, my father surprised me with another handcrafted easel. It is the most amazing and beautifully made easel ever.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

C.G. Jung

Why the Backyard Junkie?

If I'm not in the studio, I am in the backyard. I must grow crack out there, cause I'm addicted.