Happy holidays and a happy 2014 to you all across the world.  On this painting you can see my husband and I kicking back and relaxing on our farm seizing the day.  Sitting under a tree having a picnic, sipping champagne, reading a good book all whilst being watched by the kangaroos and sheep and our two dogs; Moses and Saba.  Kai and Hillivi our children are flying kites nearby whilst the birds are all feeding their young in the trees, an idyllic summer afternoon (with a bit of artistic licence of course, lol) It’s from a few years ago now as the kids are all grown up and the dogs sadly passed on but still in our hearts forever more.

THE ART OF HAPPINESS

I hope this new year will bring you all that you wish for and be the happiest yet, and for some reason it doesn’t always work that way keep this in mind “The happiest people don’t have the best of everything they just make the best of everything”.  Wise words I think by an unknown author and something I have seen many, many times during our travels, some of the happiest people I have ever met have been in third world countries.  Happiness is not something measured by the number of cars you possess, the amount of money you earn or living in the fanciest of houses, no it is something within.  The beaming smiles and laughter and giggles often come from the simplest of dwellings, overcrowded and basic but everything is shared and strangers are welcomed as one of the family.

THE ART OF CARPE DIEM

So I would like to share a few quotes about Carpe Diem which means; to enjoy the pleasures of the moment without concern for the future.

“Life is short, God’s way of encouraging a bit of focus.”

(Robert Brault)

“Enjoy yourself.  It’s later than you think.”

(Chinese Proverb)

“Do not take life too seriously.  You will never get out of it alive.”

(Elbert Hubbard)

“Dream as if you’ll live forever.  Live as if you’ll die today.”
(James Dean)

“The important thing is not how many years in your life but how much life in your years”
(Edward J. Stieglitz)

“Be happy while you’re living, for you’re a long time dead.”

(Scottish Proverb)

“To change one’s life:  Start immediately.  Do it flamboyantly.  No exceptions.”
(William James)

“You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.”
(Ruth E. Renkl)

“Most of us spend our lives as if we had another one in the bank.”

(Ben Irwin)

“Minutes are worth more than money.  Spend them wisely.”
(Thomas P. Murphy)
“If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.”
(Larry McMurtry)
“Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out.  That is what it is for.  Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.”

(George Bernard Shaw)

“We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.”

(Japanese Proverb)

“Don’t ever save anything for a special occasion.  Being alive is the special occasion.”

(Author Unknown)

So on that note I leave you, till next time happy painting and sculpting and just enjoying life, Carpe Diem.

Love Marie xxx

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My husband and I have always had a happiness trick that we have used throughout the years and that is to play Saturday night!

The art of happiness, what is that I hear you ask – well it goes something like this;

You know when you have those days or weeks where life gets you down, the car won’t start in the morning and then you get the electricity bill which throws you and then you drop the jar of jam which makes a mess everywhere.  Mmmm… that is when my husband and I looks at each other and decide now we got to play “Saturday Night”.

Playing “Saturday Night” is great and the best thing about it is it can be any day of the week.  All you have to do is to make it cosy.  A yummy dinner is required but it can be as easy as a take away pizza or as fancy as a 3 course meal. Take away containers are not allowed in sight as it should feel special, so no plastic cups either just good glasses.  Setting the table in an artistic fashion adds to the mood, all the colors in the paint pallet makes me feel good.   Candle light is always nice, as is a roaring fire or sitting by a pool in summer or running water (even a small water feature will do.)

Now for us a bottle of red wine is a must but of course, use whatever drink is your favourite.  When we were having money problems early on in our marriage the budget would only stretch to a $4 dollar bottle of wine, but that didn’t spoil our fun one bit, it tasted just fine to me at the time.

If you feel like talking do so over dinner but if you need to just switch off get a good movie and just get lost in it.

When the kids were little we always had chip and dip and lollies on a Saturday and watched a family movie together before they went to bed and then we would continue with the adult version of our Saturday night!

THE ART OF BEING CREATIVE

Of course you could also schedule in a picnic or a day’s outing as you can see in this handmade ceramic and mosaic artwork – where we are going to Granite Island, South Australia.  Of course painting,sculpting and just creating anything has always helped me be happy too.  So I would really recommend that – a hobby of some kind, even cooking is creative.

If you have little kids they may enjoy an extra Saturday night every week too.  We swear by it, of course whatever problems you have are still there in the morning but to take a little vacation from the stress and worry even if it is only for a few hours, certainly has always helped us.

Oh before you think that our poor kids were fed a diet of chip and dip and lollies I have to say that during the week both at school and at home we all ate a very healthy diet, so once or twice a week to be able to have some “naughty” foods made it all the more special.

Just as sometimes if we went to an all you can eat type of place we would let the kids attack the dessert bar before their main course, lol.  This happened rarely mind you but it was so worth it just to see their excited little faces!

So here is a quote I think fits perfectly here by Jacques Torres;

“Life is short. Eat dessert first”. – Jacques Torres

Till next time, happy painting or sculpting!

Love Marie xxx

If you fancy reading another art blog about how to make yourself happy here is a link; 33. Art & Dont worry be happy

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

Dancing asparagus I hear you say, mmm…well moi have always been a little bit crazy and that probably is and asset when you are an artist! Lol Anyway this painting was the first one that I actually painted, on canvas that is.

MURAL ON THE NURSERY WALL

You see I was pregnant with my first child and was getting the house ready for this little bundle of joy (and as it turned out he was too) I asked my brother who is a very good artist if he could paint me a mural on the nursery wall.

So he came and started, laid down the background of grass and hills and a sky with the start of a train running through the country side.  However at the time he was the drummer in a band called Clowns of Decadence, and they had a very strong following and were always out on tours.  So I would be calling Matt up and asking when he would be back in town, and it would be “oh sorry sis, we are touring New Zealand now and won’t be back for a month.”

In the meantime I was getting fatter and fatter and fatter, and being a bit of a perfectionist there was no way that my baby was going to arrive with a half painted nursery.

So I thought to myself there is nothing to do but roll up ones sleeves and get on with it and start painting .

Now there were a couple of things wrong with that idea, one was that I had some complications with the pregnancy and should be mostly having bed rest.  The other was that I could not paint my way out of a paper bag!  I mean that literally, you see both my father and my brother are fantastic artists, very skilled and can do anything, whatever I had ever tried to draw or paint was usually laughed at, well not in a mean way but probably slightly mixed with pity,  lol.

ART IN SCHOOL

On top of that during my school years in Sweden I would be receiving maybe an F for Art,  I remember distinctly having to paint a still life; fruit bowl and mine was very hard to figure out what it was.    Us naive types find it very hard to see perspective (and hey maybe we don’t want to, maybe the world is just better when everything is close and within your grasp!)  In those days you were only considered good in art if you could reproduce something like a photograph.  So therefore I had not drawn or painted for years.

But as I was a woman on a mission and nesting,  watch out!  I got the paints out that my brother had left and off I went, and you know what, with an eye blink it was lunch time, too busy to eat. Kept on painting although I would lie down on the floor from time to time and look at my handy work (doctors orders you know) I blinked my eyes again and now it was night.

FEELING LOVE & HAPPINESS THROUGH ART

The next morning I woke up, feeling so very excited and energetic and I did not know why, I was 8 months pregnant and usually exhausted, so I laid there and tried to figure it out.  Well you know what, it was LOVE, I had fallen in Love and not with another man, no with painting.  I did not care what anyone else thought of my handy work, but I loved it, I loved painting it and I loved looking at it and it made me feel good.

That was how it began and if you are curious how this led to my life as a full time artist in the Naive genre here is a link for that art blog 114 Elders Fine Art Gallery.. never give up

So take heart you budding artists out there, don’t let anyone say you can’t and that you are no good, if it makes you happy then DO IT.

This saying by Winston Churchill fits very well here;

“Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all!

Love Marie  xxxx                                              (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

Well that is easier said than done sometimes isn’t it?  For me it is something that I understood with time and to make oneself happy may not always be through art necessarily but I do think it comes from making a decision and getting absorb and involved in something other than our own feelings and what ever it is that is troubling us at the time.

I have just had one heck of a day and don’t you just hate that.  You are minding your own business going about your life with all its ups and downs when someone throws a curve ball at you for no good reason whatsoever.  I think sometimes because they are unhappy with their own life and see others happy around them and want to take them down a peg or two.

ARTFUL AUTHORITY

It seems very strange to me that people get very militant about the smallest of issues when they are part of a committee.  It seems that when some people do not have enough authority over their own life and are unhappy within themselves they feel the need to exert their authority over others no matter how silly their arguments are.  My wish for people like that is that they would find something creative to do that would give them peace.

ART OF THE MIND

It made me think very much about this painting that is one of my early works.( excuse the quality of the image) ‘HAPPY AS A PIG IN SHIT” And no I refuse to call it mud, because shit was how I felt when painting it, well not the whole time obviously lol but I realized that I could take away my own pain and worry by getting totally absorbed in my art, and that you can make yourself happy and that happiness is a state of mind, something you choose to do.

That said let’s not diminish the fact that in some extreme circumstances that may not be possible to do for a long time, as when a loved one dies or other tragedies.  However I do believe that eventually when the pain and hurt settles somewhat we can again choose to be happy, perhaps not happy all the time but at least some of the time, well that is my naive view.

HEALING THROUGH ART

You see at the time I discovered that I could heal my own pain was about 22 years ago.  I had been painting for about a year, and had gone to The Northern Territory for 8 months, we had a large mortgage on our house in South Australia and lived in a caravan in the Northern Territory whilst my husband worked on the Tindal Base, and had a little 1 year old child.

I had left my glamorous life as a model to become a mum (being a mum was something I totally loved) although I had not counted on the isolation or the fact that I had relationship troubles with my own mum, and shortly after that problems within my marriage.   I was feeling homesick and living in a caravan and coping with the heat.   My darling dog died from rat poisoning in SA and to top that all of we suddenly found ourselves in big financial trouble.  Yes you know the drill – one thing after the other happened.  So my rescue from all these troubles was being able to get absorb in my paintings and making myself happy.

So life happens to you whilst you are busy doing other things as John Lennon is famous for quoting.

Another interesting fact I found out is that the saying Don’t worry be happy was originally said by the Indian mystic Meher Baba who lived 1894-1969, and not as I thought by Bobby McFerrin who made those words so famous in his song by the same name.  What a wonderful gift they both gave us – “DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY”

Till I see you again, happy painting and sculpting to you all,

Much love

Marie xxxxxx                                                                                       (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

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