ZOËLAB: THE LIFE AS ART BLOG
How To Paint A Mural
My third mural project, and my first solo mural in the park in Pescadero. Plus the 16 lessons I learned.
Why I Love Art Journaling & Self Love
Self Love is about loving your wholeness. Loving all the parts. Including the ego, and its “petty” attachments and desires that allow it to keep going. It’s about loving the wounded parts, with their drive to heal, to become whole again.
La Guardia Airport Power Point Presentation
In honor of the holiday traveling that I am not doing, that many other people are doing, I wanted to share my first power point art series I made when I lived in New York, two months after Lucas and I started dating.
Dia De Muertos, A Magical Day of Creativity & Community in Todos Santos
A very special day filled with art & community in Todos Santos in photos.
My first podcast and the question I most want to be asked
I am an avid listener of Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and have always secretly dreamed of being interviewed myself. My wish came true last week, when I shared my story with Meg Kissack for her podcast, The Couragemakers.
A Letter from ZOELAB Headquarters
We have reached the first quarter of the year, and every day I feel more and more inspired. I feel like I climbing slowly into the creative flow that I always dreamed of, but never had the discipline to make happen.
what I learned from posting words and images (almost) every day for a year
I am sharing here, in honor of completing the 31 Day Art Journaling/Blogging Challenge, my second to last post from my first blog, ZOELAB 365, where I blogged every day for a year. This is the learning and meaning I made from that intense year, which catapulted me out of post-partem depression and into a highly-charged creative inner life that has informed me, and my professional work, ever since.
Lower East Side Photo Essay
A photo essay. In search of a cultural experience and evidence of the gritty, arty, old NY, I discover public art on the lower east side.
Latest Family Drawing
Usually Emilio makes the first quick marks--setting up the overall composition and then I will spend hours, sometimes spread over a few days, filling in all the spaces.
Working with the voices inside
Let's face it. It’s hard being an artist. There’s no one out there encouraging you. Telling you the importance of your work. There’s no one there to validate your soul urge that just won’t go away no matter how hard you to try to talk yourself out of it. The Self Police (one of my trio of inner critics) says things like: “You don’t need to put yourself out there.” “Your poetry is far too personal or abstract to mean anything to anyone else.” “It is so narcissistic to write about yourself.”
Jardin de Niño Diaries, Part Four
And then one day Vanessa asks me—maybe we can use the money to buy paint for the school? Of course. Why did I not think of that? I buy paint for the background, for the mural and for the classroom.
The spirit of Anaïs Nin lives through me
"I too started with all the handicaps, incapabilities, and helplessness. I was not trying to earn my living, I was afraid of the world, I didn’t talk when I was twenty. I taught myself (I know you won’t believe that): I taught myself to talk by the actual act of writing. I learned to communicate with others, and it was the fact of the diaries coming out which made me able to communicate with you."
Learning to make art is about tuning ourselves to the divine
We just need to hone and sharpen the instrument through lots and lots of practice, and then get the fuck out of the way. Let the creative spirit pass through. Work in service of the spirit. Have faith that you will be rewarded with its gifts in time, but not according to a pre-designed plan.
A List of Inspiring Documentaries
Each of these films was very inspiring to me in a specific way. They opened my eyes to fresh ideas, awakened my own artistic voice, or showed me a fresh spiritual perspective.
How to Sing or Do Anything
Way back when I was in college in the 1990's, I wrote a poem called "How to Masturbate." It was a racy title for a spiritual type of experience in nature. That started a new form of poetry for me, that I like to call "Instructive Poetry." Since then I have written a few more. I hope to someday publish a book of instructive poems.
Impressions of Mariposa Night & Guerrilla Gallery, March 27th
When you open up to spirit, creativity is limitless. In order to manifest it, we must ignite our passion for truth, which illuminates our underground excavations.
Come Forward with Your Art
Come forward with your art,
come share the truth of your decay,
your ultimate humility.
Why we need the arts
This is why I do what I do: to help people wake up to the full truth of who they are. I use the arts—filmmaking, dance, photography, drawing, painting, writing, storytelling, drama, improvisation—as a tool for self-awakening, for compassion, for discovering one's passions, for reaching one’s potential, for truthful emotional expression, for aliveness.