Tag: joy

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Grand Wash Cliffs

Storms of afternoon color
Paint across your face.
Desert beauty
Time study
Love in the likeness
of grace.
CKS

L642

Grand Wash Cliffs
Meadview, Arizona
Family
Back side of the Grand Canyon

The Grand Wash Cliffs exit the Grand Canyon, where the Colorado River enters Lake Mead. They are the southwestern perimeter, of the Colorado Plateau (source, Wikipedia).  And, I love them!  The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is particular beautiful and less traveled.  The South Rim of the Grand Canyon is what I would call the traditional access; with far more population and tourists visiting.

According to the National Park Website this land has been continually inhabited for at least 12,000 years. 

Afternoons are particularly romantic.  The sun casts dazzling light across the cliffs and inch by inch, brilliant colors illuminate before you.  Moments filled with energetic stillness of awe and desire.

Here I catch a storm rolling in with light splash-dazing the rock-cliff.  This tiny painting is hardly larger than a postage stamp.  Holding it in your hand, it radiates the grace and peace of place.  Dirt beneath your feet, Joshua Trees to your left and to your right; wide sky blanketing above.

paint much love, always,
Connie Karleta Sales
a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower

*Grand Wash Cliffs, Meadview, Arizona, 3/4″ x 1″, ink, pigment, charcoal, graphite, paper, ©CKS

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Aspen Love

Memento of two;
lovers’ whispers;
gentle delighting.
CKS

L145

Aspen grove
Intimate moment
Spring Morning

I believe this tiny painting is the foreshadow of great love.

Aspens grow in colonies from a single seed.  Often they are seen as evidence of ancient woodlands, because their root systems can live for thousands of years.  Another beautiful fact; Aspen colonies are able to survive forest fires, because their root systems are below the heat of the fires.

Caught in awe one day walking among Aspens in Idaho, I felt the weight of the many as the morning light danced across these two trees; catching their kiss in conversation, they allowed me in, and so I danced too.

Here I was feeling family; generational love; grounded through life’s heat in the good and the difficult.

paint much love, always,
Connie Karleta Sales
a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower

*Aspen Love, 2″ x 1 1/4″, ink, acrylic, pastel, graphite, charcoal, cotton, ©CKS

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Purple, the poetic landscape

musical color
smelling the cold
a secret-wise in repose
CKS

L776

smell of rain
purple mountains
big sky

I love the big sky.  I love the open road.  I love sinking into the smell of rain.

When the rain comes, I am careful not to tread.  Trails are a gift, and if we walk on them in the mud we damage the terrain.

The trails widen and erode; leaving our scars behind.  Here I remain with faraway eyes and sweet eternity’s scent.

paint much love, always,
Connie Karleta Sales
a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower

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*Purple, The Poetic Landscape – mixed media on paper, 2″ x 1.75″, CKS – available in CLFStudio Shop

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The Human Road

Light smiled.
With herself, 
She laughed.

She stood still;
And danced
The journey
Come true.
CKS

L752

Kathryn Albertson Park
Boise Sesquicentennial
in search of the iconic
dancing with friends.

What a weekend this was!  Boise was celebrating 150 years!  The city decided to have a Plein-air Art Competition.  I am a pretty solitary soul, however this weekend I accepted invitation to traipse  Boise in search of the iconic with art friends.

What fun!  This particular day as the rest of my crew went further into the large park, I was taken back by the entrance.

It was as if I was seeing it for the first time.  How the light danced across the panoramic scene.  Here in this tiny painting, I played and bathed in  a smile.  Knowing just how human this park was that day.

paint much love, always,
Connie Karleta Sales
a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower

*Kathryn Albertson Park, Boise, Idaho, 1 1/4″ x 4 1/4″, graphite, ink, charcoal, paper, ©CKS

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Monumental Intimacy

Paradise could be
My deliberate seeker
Tiny spirit bright
CKS

L673

Tiny, tiny painting
Western sky
moment caught seeking

We do what we can.  We do our part.  We are willing.  We are enough.

Parker Palmer writes, in his book, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, about burnout.  I gave to little he would say; Why? because I simply did not have it to give in the first place.

When I read this for the first time, I immediately felt the connected, “Yes!  I know this!” You said what I have not the words.  I drink of this.  Now what?  Just because I drank that Kool-Aide does not mean anything, truly. It is more of a question than an answer?  A connection rather than a confirmation.

Where do I turn but into that deliberate seeker; tiny spirit; bright.  I seek it where I meet sky; where I meet mountain; where I meet you.

I am still.  Seeking simply is; a journey onward walking.  No trying; no attempts; I am as you are.  and We; we, are enough.  We are tiny spirits bright!  Shining with such brilliance; need no polishing.  We dull ourselves in the trying.

Up there, in that tiny moment, life; a gift of exquisite beauty.

paint much love, always,
Connie Karleta Sales
a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower

*Monumental Intimacy, 1/2″ x 1″, charcoal, graphite, ink, paper, ©CKS, 2013

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Succor Creek

Desert Cliffs
with Sun-drenched festivals
of light cascading.
CKS

L352

Spring View
Cliffs at Succor Creek
Oregon

My husband introduced me to Succor Creek and Leslie’s Gulch, Oregon.  It is the High Desert landscape located not far from the Idaho border.

If you time it just right, you will see the desert flowers blooming in the spring before the sandy dry colors of yellow overwhelm the landscape.

Here, the flowers are not yet in bloom.  The desert she is preparing.  It was a lovely brisk day with green sprinkled within the dance of sun and cliffs.

paint much love, always,
Connie Karleta Sales
a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower

*Succor Creek, Oregon, 1 1/4″ x 3 1/8″, ink, pastel, graphite, paper, ©CKS