Jenni Fox Art: September 2015

I think we are all artists of life.

If you, like me, want to discover the heart of who we are and what we love and if you like art, if you make art, if you look at art. And if you observe and feel... then I think we're on the same page. Not just the page you’re on but the place and space where we connect. You connect in some way with what I felt in the act of creating. And I connect with what you felt/feel in the act of seeing. I like that Art is emotional. Deeply felt. Respectful of all colors. Logical. Illogical. Serious and whacky. Sane and chaotic. I think Art is in each of us. It has to do with our state of being--who we are, who we've been, what we practice with discipline and devotion. And what we love.

“The quality of of our lives and our art is determined by that to which we pay attention”

my adaptation of a quote from my Zen teacher Cheri Huber

I work and show at NamaStay™ ReTreat and Studio, a home-based yoga center I share with my husband and yoga teacher, Paul Gould. Together we teach what we call Evolutionary Yoga-- the art of yoga for everyday living in intimate classes and at week-long retreats in Tulum, Mexico and Tuscany, Italy.

(Visit us at www.NamaStay.net.) and me at Jenni@NamaStay.net 831 335-1910

And please join me for Open Studios (artist 134-Map D)

October 3-4 & October 17-8 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

I try to let each piece have its say as I create it, whether I’m hand building bodies or busts in clay, making figure or nature- oriented monoprints, putting together zen- based mixed media or abstract collages... or trying any new medium I can get my hands on. We are all made up of so many different personalities inside us. Why shouldn't our art be?

Neither does our art!

I never studied art formally until later in life becoming an art student and workshop junkie. Now I see there is no “former life” or “other life” in art. My thirty years teaching/studying human nature, anatomy and the body-mind connection through Yoga, Zen Buddhism, Hakomi and RCS (recreating the self) somatic-based therapies all influence my Art. So does my time in New York studying fashion merchandising and creating my clothing line FoxTops. And being born into an artistic family where for a long time "they" were the artists, and I was "just" creative. Now everything around me influences me including the work of other artists, the medium with which I’m working, my tools…my disasters, and my masters, especially my teachers who have encouraged me to develop my skills and my own style.

Art is all about relationship. It connects me to the truth of myself, to you, to our humanness, to nature, to something bigger that’s not completely in my creative control .It allows us to forgive mistakes, to be persistent, to be obsessive and completely involved in the moment.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time”.

Thomas Merton