Jan Avellana | Hazelnut Cottage

farewell hazelnut cottage | hand stamped jewelry...hello hazelnut cottage | art and words

{ it is safe to try | mixed-media original, © 2010 jan avellana, hazelnut cottage }

“all changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” ~anatole france

yes, it’s true. i am saying farewell to hazelnut cottage | hand stamped jewelry on etsy. it has been a great run—5 years since i opened up my online shop and started this blog—5 years since i began making the slow journey back to my true calling as an artist.

during these past 5 years i have learned so much about myself and what it is really, that makes my heart sing and makes me light up inside. so it is towards this light and towards this joy that i am setting my course! i am not going anywhere, God willing! i will still be here, still busy in the studio, but instead of making jewelry i am going to make lots of art. oodles and oodles of it, if i have my way. and hazelnut cottage | art and words will be just that—a space full of love and life and art and words and this, my beloved blog. i do hope you will continue to travel along the road with me as i go bravely onward, following my art dreams one step at a time.

please wish me well, and bear with me in grace as i grow—ungracefully at times—towards the calling i feel in my heart!

and to get me from here to there, there will be a job of some kind (i am building the boat as i set sail!) i’m sure, and also a clearing out of the hazelnut cottage shop on etsy to make space for the art that is to come. join me won’t you? take advantage of the new clearance section (up to 40% off!) i’ve set up in the shop. more items will be added as the summer rolls along until i’ve cleared out all of my remaining inventory. (please note: there is no customization or personalization on these items; they are being sold as is.)

and even if you don’t find anything you need or want from the shop, i’d be so grateful and humbled if you’d help spread the word and tell others about the sale (and my journey). i need you—my tribe—more now, than ever to help me get to the other side of the shore, safe and sound! :) it’s been a long time coming, and i’m ready.

dear fellow journeyer-dreamer, what new roads are you trailblazing today?

you are absolutely loved.

{ you are absolutely loved :: original mixed media, © jan avellana }

our family has a tradition. we ask our kids, “when does mama and daddy love you?” and they answer, “all the time.” hugs ensue. if they want tickles, they’ll squeal “sometimes” and scurry away, knowing the truth full well.

and when are we as adults lovable? all the time. yes, all the time. even when we are a mess, even when we have nothing to give anyone, even when we are needy and weak and not the best version of ourselves—especially, then. except, it’s hard for other broken human beings to love us through and through even when we’re at our best, and it’s certainly harder for others to love us when we are at our worst. i know, because i am often on the other end of the loving; i get tired, impatient and my love doesn’t look unconditional to those around me.

in these times especially, i look for the love of my Heavenly Father. i know i can rest in Him.

lately, i’ve been really struggling and not gracefully, i might add. no, i’ve just been a puddle. the depression that invades my life—at times more than others—has become increasingly difficult to cope with and it has forced me to finally get some help. it has taken years for me to come to terms with my inner anguish and even people closest to me don’t always get a clear sense of the painful inner life i sometimes inhabit...but it’s there. if you suffer from depression, you know what i’m talking about.

the good news is, i’ve taken my very first steps at dealing with this head-on for the first time in my life. it’s a long road ahead, but i’ve begun. it’s scary to admit to yourself and even to your loved ones that you need help, but the truth is that all of us need help sometimes. it’s okay not to be able to do it alone—it’s totally okay to ask for help. i am learning to surround myself with people who love me just as i am, people i don't have to defend myself to, people i don’t have to perform for.

you don’t have do be perfect, you don’t need to do anything more to be loveable. you can just be you. with all of your flaws and warts. really. truly. lay the rest down.

i know at my core that i am loveable, even now, especially now. as are you. you are absolutely loved.

where we shall find the stars.

“disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little,
when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.

disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the waters of life, 
having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity, 
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.

disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas, 
where storms will show your mastery, 
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. 
we ask you to push back the horizon of our hopes, 
and to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love. 
this we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ. ” ~francis drake

what i’m doing on pinterest.

with the current pinterest obsession by everyone online (not me of course, heh!) and the timely and thoughtful discussions over artist’s rights being violated due to lack of consistent crediting (liv lane has written a lovely post here), i realized two things:

1. artists should be credited and asked permission to use their images at any time for any and all reasons and

2. i often don’t have time to ferret out the source of such wonderful images and inspiration.

this being said, i chose to delete the few lovely boards i curated and have happily set up my current pinterest boards to organize my own online art-life, so pin, pin away! and oh, i know pinterest purists will also point out the ideal that folks shouldn’t use pinterest for self-promotion either, so my choice isn’t a perfect solution, but one with which i can live.

here’s an example of one of the boards i have on pinterest. i pulled all of the photos from this hazelnut cottage blog:

and here is another board, featuring my hand stamped jewelry:

...more themes to come and more pinning to do! :) what are your thoughts and feelings regarding the use of pinterest and how are you using this awesome tool?

the creative process (aka: torture)

julia cameron explains it best when she likens the creative process to the birthing process. i don’t know about you, but there really are startling similarities and if your labor was anything like mine were, you understand a little bit about how wonderful and painful it all is, embarassingly vulnerable and naked emotion all mushed up together.

i generally start with a seed of an idea, an impulse, a yearning. for me, this usually leads to a quick thumbnail sketch or two and then onto collage. i simply love vintage ephemera. bits of old inked script on ledger paper is one of my all time favorites, along with numbered receipts, remnants of adhesive tape and postmarked envelopes, typewritten pages on onion skin or yellowed, crackling pages and aging maps of all sorts (the more colorful, the better)--these are the things i am pulled towards. i can’t quite explain the fascination, but it has something to do with the fact that they have lived a full life before arriving into my hands. i can almost hear their stories, these old papers. the way these simple, fragile bits of paper have survived and have lived to see another day--this speaks to the deeps of me, somehow.

acrylic paint, ink, graphite, charcoal, conte crayon...these are my current media of choice. they get layered on, wiped off, layered back on, scraped off, pasted and collaged over and drawn on, until it somehow feels right. i can sometimes give a logical explanation of what i like about a piece or why, techinically speaking, it works, but more often than not, i just like it. i feels right in my gut. the texture, the balance, the proportions, the scale, the mood...mostly i find i’m attempting to capture a feeling, a hint of poetry. at least, i try.

there is a dance that happens, between my chaotic inner life--i am a jumble of unknowing, a knot of fear and despair oftentimes--and the outer work of my hands. always, whether i am creating or not, i carry around my creative ideas like a secret pregnancy, my mind and heart always full of dreams, possibilities, potential. before i even ever sit down to make a piece of art, i go through a torturous mental process. (this is the part when i need to be medicated!!!) for me, this is the most difficult part of the entire creative process. if i (and my seedling of an idea) can survive this first stage of the game, the rest is just execution--difficult too, at times, but less painful (usually!)

every single piece i’ve created goes through a similar process. there are usually feelings of joy and elation, mixed-up right alongside doubts and fears, worry that i’ve forgotten how to birth this thing, realizing there is no turning back now, and then a time when i enter a zone and what feels like pure worship, a connection with God when my entire being seems imbibed with His Spirit and i cease striving, cease thinking, and the work just flows out of me. and then the piece crashes at some point thereafter! too much paint, too heavy a hand with the ink, spilled gesso, impatience that costs me beautiful layers--times when it seems that the work is unsalvageable and my worth reduced to a puddle beside the mess i’ve made. feelings of despair and hopelessness sometimes follow.

and then, a small hope arises. “i can fix it”, i say to myself. “even if i have to start all the heck over again and re-paper the entire thing, it can be redeemed”, i reason. usually, this is where the piece begins to turn and at the right moment, i stop and look at the life that has been born from all that labor.

{ the beginner :: WIP :: © jan avellana, hazelnut cottage }

i have to be mindful not to jump straight to judgement and critical analysis. i am learning to take a step back, a couple of days to let it all sink in before i hurl any kind of criticisms at them...i am learning to love learning, realizing that each and every piece doesn’t have to be a masterpiece--they can exist simply as they are, and be enjoyed as a next step towards a deeper fulfillment of expression. i am learning so, so much from each attempt and letting myself be open and vulnerable to the process.

what is your creative process like? do tell!

little bliss list #2

:) every friday i’ll be playing along with liv and the gang over at liv lane’s blog, where each week she lists things that bliss her out. here’s my little bliss list for this week:

{ true love womb locket hand stamped necklace :: © jan avellana, hazelnut cottage }

1. so grateful for the opportunity to re-invent my hand stamped jewelry over at hazelnut cottage. to make a long story short, i’m finding my voice again and learning to slowly merge my love for words with my mixed-media art. :) stay tuned!!!

2. so thankful for my health. we are truly fragile creatures, we are.

{ glittery mixed-media art mess }

3. blissed out to have found my way back to art. it was a long, long, (did i say long?) road back. (here’s an old video anthony vallejo-sanderson did for me, for jenny doh’s art saves site that talks a bit about it all.)

Art Saves from Anthony Vallejo-Sanderson on Vimeo.

 

4. happy for fluffy beds, cool, rainy nights, and that right-before-you-fall-asleep feeling.

5. blissed about new opportunities and for doors that open if you lean on them hard enough. :D

thank you God, for everything.

a recent painting of one of my girls took many, many months to evolve—this girl being me, as well as this painting. the background began as a beautiful collage...

i completed this sometime last year. and at first it spoke to me but then, it  didn't anymore, so i put it away in a box, not sure what i should do with it.

that’s when this girl came along and decided she wanted to be painted. she blended in so efforlessly...it was meant to be. but then, it took me a few days to figure out what it is she wanted to say. so i listened. and i listened some more. at first, i thought she was telling me that it was safe to dream, safe to try...but then one night in the studio, this is what she whispered to me:

{ thank you God, for everything. :: inspirational mixed-media, © jan avellana, hazelnut cottage }

and my spirit said, “yes!” and i realized i was, and that i am, thankful for everything. the struggle, the uncertainty, the failures, the triumphs, my children, my husband, for friends near and far and for this amazing life. thank you God, for everything.

work in progress.

{ untitled :: work in progress :: © jan avellana, hazelnut cottage }

the real work in progress is my life. over the course of the last year and a half or so, i’ve been exploring mixed-media, painting, drawing, encaustic, digital art and more things than you might care to imagine. all this time i’ve been stumbling onto new loves, new techniques, always learning—especially from my mistakes. and there is always a sense that since i am only beginning, there will be a point where i will finally find “IT” and then my style will solidify forever and THEN and only THEN can i/should i/will i be able to send my art into the real world and allow myself to take more steps into the mixed-media world. until then, the plan is to fiddle around perfecting everything i make, but don’t really move forward too far because first i have to wait. for IT. for my style to unfurl itself and stop evolving.

tonight, i was reading sarah ahearn’s blog, an old post about one of the first paintings she ever sold, and it began to dawn on me that i will never reach a point of “arriving”. i am never going to get to that mystical place where my artistic style develops and then stops and allows me to go on my merry way—the same forever (the thing that i seem to be waiting for)—it is just not going to happen. i have to start moving forward now, as awkward as it feels.

cue in feelings of denial and momentary panic, and then, knowingness, yes, yes, a slow grasping of this truth. epiphany:

   i am already “there”. this is “IT”.

seriously? yes, seriously. all of the fixing and perfecting, the self doubt and falling and getting up again, the learning and growing, and experimenting...this will continue on forever. my style will never reach a place of complete static. i—and my artistic voice and style—will continue to evolve over time...and it’s okay. better than okay even.

and i am sitting here with the understanding that i don’t have to wait anymore. this is “IT”. this is what “IT” is. these are the marks i make and the things i think, today, so we best be getting a move on. people, this is huge, HUGE, i tell you!

what epiphanies have you experienced lately?

learning to listen.

{ listen to the whispers of your heart | © hazelnut cottage, jan avellana }

there are new works coming out of the studio lately...a new series is beginning to grow.

my favorite part of the whole process so far is adding all of the little bits of paper and finishing touches on these pieces. it feels fun and safe and playful!

i really am learning to listen. to make choices. to move forward and through, even when it’s difficult. i have grown so, so much already this new year. stay tuned...much more to show you soon!

 

the truth about perfection.



{© hazelnut cottage, jan avellana}

“the perfect is the enemy of the good.” ~voltaire

there comes a point for this perfectionist, when saying “it’s good enough” is an act of spiritual surrender. when tweaking that thing just one more time isn’t an option any more, when exhaustion sets in from banging my head against the wall for the umpteenth time so that i get it “right”. it’s the point of realizing (newsflash) that God is really God and i am not.

perfection doesn’t matter. getting it right doesn’t matter. (unless you are doing delicate brain surgery or calculating sufficient oxygen levels for astronauts or something of that magnitude.)

i am learning to let myself wander towards joy. yes, joy. i am learning and skinning my knees in the process—that the pursuit of perfection is my insecurity trying to gain acceptance and love from everybody.  because if i do things perfectly, THEN i’ll be accepted and loved. and this, we all know, is the beginning of insanity. it is impossible to please everyone all of the time. it is futile to gain a sense of well being based largely on what others think about you (by this i mean, me).

no, no. there is a better way. i am learning all these lessons all over again. that Jesus loves me. that my Heavenly Father delights in me. that He belly laughs over me with joy. that when i enter into that joy, it is right and good and i can trust myself to let me love what i love and be secure in myself and in my God. and that i can choose to create art from this place of joy, instead of from a place of fear and worry and lack. and so can you. and so can we all.