I am wired to connect with people. Although I measure about as strong on the introvert scale as possible, I am an introvert who loves people. I need to connect with others in order to thrive. For many years of my life, I felt torn between these two seemingly contradictory compulsions. I crave hours of…Read more Why I Make Art
Life in Colorado
Am I an Artist?
Last night I faced the question I mostly dread these days. Sitting around the table at a fancy event with well-meaning, newly-met acquaintances, they asked innocently: “So what do you do?” I felt that moment of uncertainty, tinged with panic. A simple question, expressed with genuine interest. In America, we commonly inquire about a person’s…Read more Am I an Artist?
Lament for Colorado
Today is an anxious day. The largest air rescue since Hurricane Katrina thrashes air currents over Colorado skies. Searches for hundreds of missing people continue, even as gray clouds smother us in fear of what we cannot control. It seems utterly inconceivable that a state surrendering its ashes to scathing hot, cloudless blue only months…Read more Lament for Colorado
The Most Important Path
Recently, within a twenty-four hour period I climbed the “Incline” and wandered a prayer labyrinth. The juxtaposition intrigued me; two paths could not be more different. The one-mile Incline hike ascends from Manitou Springs at an average grade of 40%. Formerly a tourist cable car route, it slices straight up a mountain, visible across Colorado…Read more The Most Important Path
What I love about blogging
It’s like I am standing on one end of a simple footbridge, a path I’ve walked and loved for years; but I’m suddenly skittish and afraid to cross. That’s how I feel about writing and sharing my art and photography today. Two days ago, I received the humbling encouragement that my post was selected for…Read more What I love about blogging
Art collaborations with kids
Life is so very, very good. For of those of you who bore with me through my last couple of posts - thank you. This has certainly been a season of heart-searching and healing from the loss of my dad. An event I will never "recover" from, but also a journey of great beauty for me…Read more Art collaborations with kids
Texture and patina – in art and in life
I have grown to love texture and patina. My husband and I live in a 100 year old house with four active children and a dog, so perhaps it is simply a subconscious decision to accept the inevitable. But, actually, I think it might be rooted in wisdom. Earlier in life, I strove for pristine…Read more Texture and patina – in art and in life
Free Indeed
Red patterned light trickles across black curtains. A fanciful bouquet erupts on stage right: black-and-white-striped poles adorned with pink sparkly netting, fuzzy green puffs dripping with silver strands, orange tufts dotted with pink. Green cardboard-cut-out leaves ground the arrangement. Expectant silence swells as the curtain draws. Lilting music evokes the changing moods of “My Many…Read more Free Indeed
Reach
“You only get just one time around, you only get one shot at this, one chance to find out the one thing that you don’t want to miss.” One Life to Love by 33 Miles This song lyric often plays in my mind. Life on this earth tumbles by and falls off the final cliff…Read more Reach
Songs in the Valley
“It doesn’t look as bad as it did yesterday,” my ever-honest 12 year old tried to encourage me. I asked my husband, “Is it really bad?” “I like some of your other pieces better,” he conceded. I gave it one last look, and shredded it. Every piece of artwork, for me, seems to pass through…Read more Songs in the Valley
Colleen Briggs Images & Writing 