A Glorious Tribute to My Uterus!

My embellished uterus is 14 inches wide by 12 inches high...


The golden angel has one hand on my seashell ovary and another on my elaborate cervix!


Photos related to the surgery...Healthy me with kitty, George. Surgery doll. Me with my surgeon. My children when they were young.



Thank you all for the tremendous support during the process of my surgery! I was so happy to experience the healing process of creating and decorating my own version of the transformation and honoring of my uterus during my first weekend home from the hospital...complete with lovely angels, charms, shells, and sea glass. It kind of looks like an elaborate Valentine's heart!

I am doing quite well. The experience was blessed and I was so magnificently supported and cared for. I am very grateful. The Blanket of Love experience just before my surgery began was amazing. I have never experienced anything quite so blissful! Fifty friends and family members participated! I kept telling the anesthesiologist that I would not need any drugs prior to surgery. I was so relaxed and filled with love. My surgeon is skilled and wonderful. I had a beautiful healing room with a view of the Flatiron mountains and room service meals whenever I desired them. I am experiencing a small setback today following many days of feeling so wonderful. I think that I overdid a bit yesterday...Another lesson in patience and slowing down...Alas.

I am missing my daily interactions with all of my wonderful, creative blog family. My energy is still a little slow. I will regain my momentum soon I am sure.

Surgery Shaman

This shaman doll surprised me up to the very last moment of her creation. I saw a photo in an anatomy book of a female pelvis complete with reproductive organs. I bought the book and cut out the pelvis knowing that it would be just the right size for a doll related to my upcoming hysterectomy. I spent the evening painting, glittering, and placing jewels onto the tiny cardboard pelvis while making sure that I left the lines of the initial diagram intact. It reminds me of a butterfly...

I spent another two days working nonstop on the figure of the doll. It was a birthing process which is how I feel about the preparations for my surgery. I used friendship bracelets for her colorful hair...She has jewels of the sea and fish swimming throughout...I kept placing the anatomical drawing on her pelvis as her construction progressed. For some reason, it never felt quite right.

At the very end, I hesitantly placed the mask over her face just to see what might transpire...That was the moment that the spark ignited the flame of my creation. She took on a tribal quality that embodied strength, wisdom, beauty, protection, healing and joy! These are the qualities that I will move forward with into this new courageous phase of my life...

I have been experiencing many days of not feeling well recently. It is difficult for me to photograph and post my work...Please continue to stay in touch with me. My art blog family is an essential and cherished part of my life!

My surgery date is set for January 26th. I am asking all of my friends and family to think of me during the half hour before my procedure which will be between 8:45-9:15 AM Mountain Time. The surgery will begin at 9:20AM. Mark your calendars and wrap me in a blanket of love made up of all of the healing colors of the sea...you can throw in some shells and seaweed and don't forget the mermaids...

"Sea Lioness" Revealed

I had to take a new close up photo. Blogspot was misbehaving and refused to put the original on horizontally! Now you won't have to crane your necks to see it! I am increasing my technical skills daily...


This is the only photo that gives a full view of her tail. It has cut-out beautiful fabric flowers sewn onto the trim.



She looks like she is swimming underwater in these photos...

"The lion's roar is to silence what the shooting star is to the dark of night." Laurens van der Post

Art Doll Soup has been quite a journey this week! I have spent the week recovering from a cyst that ruptured on my ovary. I feel like fireworks are taking place inside of the constellation of my feminine self. Surgery, a hysterectomy, has been scheduled for January. I have been struggling with multiple issues related to my uterus over the past year. I have missed many weeks of work. The emergence, finally, of this lovely doll has helped me to get through a very difficult and, at times, very dark week filled with emotion and grieving. I am beginning to emerge as well...

I am actually now grateful for parts of the challenging process that is taking place. I have only been able to drink liquids. Craving carrot juices and now intensely green drinks. I am both a mad scientist and an artist in the kitchen with my juicer in my determination to restore and supplement my health. (Frenchy, my tiny, wise dog, runs for cover each time I press the on button of the magical, roaring, cacophanous machine!) I am beginning to have clarity on issues that have been clouded by the foods that I used to stuff some deep emotions. Once again, the light is beginning to come out of the darkness.

So here she is! The "Sea Lioness." I used the cover off of one of my pillows for fabric. There are five different types of yarn incorporated into her wild mane of hair. I LOVED making her hair. It is delightful!

I cut the body design freehand based on my design for "My Swimming Self." She ended up with a wonderful curvy shape. I used shells once again for her fingers and toes. She has a beautiful piece of abalone over her heart for protection and radiance.

I used mung beans to stuff her legs and some small baggies of brown basmati rice inside her body to help with her balance. (I realized after doing this that those two ingredients help with my balance as well in one of my favorite Ayurvedic healing foods-Kitcheree.) I do hope that Frenchy doesn't try to eat her!

The word that kept coming to me as I was making her is "Courage." I thought of the lion in the Wizard of Oz. I may embroider some courageous words onto her body. Possibly a ROAR as well! I will also add a picot beaded edge...I'll wait and see what else she might ask for...

Art Doll Soup

Here is a photo of an emerging doll. The birth process has been complicated. She keeps speaking to me and telling me different things. Yesterday afternoon I finally had to go for a drive-for four hours!-because I couldn't tell what she was asking for. I beaded her face a few weeks ago. Her hair came through late last night after my "fresh air" drive. It was so much fun to make! I stayed up way too late...

She keeps telling me that she is a mermaid from the sea. Then she begs to wear a cape of glittery, jewel-toned, flowing, synthetic fabric...I am torn between getting my hands deep into the gifts from the sea and following her to a disco party! For a while she was "The Handless Maiden." Now she is the armless, headless...making up her mind maiden...I will be patient. Wait and listen. Art cannot be forced...She is already quite fabulous and so beautiful...She actually looks in the photo like she just washed up on a sandy shore...I feel that way quite often myself...Actually, this is exactly how I am feeling today!

My Plastic Self

I made this doll from a dream. She is "My Plastic Self." Making her was a powerful and transformative process. I used the sketch that I made following the dream. She is made of clear plastic. It was a fun experiment to hand embroider the stitches that define her through the plastic. I was wonderfully surprised when a clear pocket in her chest began to fill with jewels from the sea and sky, hearts, and a glow-in-the-dark fairy to watch over it all. Her hair is from a horse's tail and mane. She is so simple and so very complex all at once. Just like me...

Under The Sea Update

Here are some more photos that may show a closer view of this tender creature who lives under the sea. You will now be able to see the framed photo of the Virgin Mary that resides at the center of her chest to watch over and protect her.