Video about handmade paper making

 I know this is so random that I'm posting here. I haven't posted to this blog in like 5 years or something. Probably more. I switched over to Tumblr. I didn't post a whole lot on Tumblr actually. I like the aesthetic better over there, sort of, but I also find it really tacky and overwhelming when you're on the inside creating a post. I don't know what to do. This one feels old and familiar and nostalgic. I think the truth is, I feel like I sort of want to jumble it all up and start from scratch. Kind of. I also want to learn how to get paid to blog. It never really hit me before that this is a thing, until I started watching Jonna Jilton's videos lately. She is a Swedish artist who lives far up in the north of Sweden out in the middle of all these beautiful wild forests and she has created this beautiful life for herself and she started out by simply blogging about her life and somehow getting paid for it. How does this work? I want to know. I don't really understand it, but I will learn. 

So many thoughts right now. This blog reminds me of when I was in Ireland, in art school at the Burren College of Art. It was such a magical time. I'm not sure if it was the magic in the Irish landscape and the little faeries who were kindly helping me out, (I think that certainly helped), but I also think this magic is everywhere really and it simply resides in the space where we are aligned with our heart. It certainly exists in Jonna's life up there in northern Sweden. One of the most magical things that happened or was happening while I was in Ireland for me was a recurring dream that I had.   I had this dream nearly every night without fail. It was bizarre. I actually had it at a very specific time. Every morning (almost), I would wake up in the middle of it so that it was fresh in my mind in a very obvious way. It was almost as if the dream wanted me to remember it and be aware of it to show me the contrast between the dream and my reality. It felt like it was speaking to me. It really did. Before I tell you the dream, I have to tell you a little bit of the context. I'll try to keep it short and not tell you my whole life story (for now). I grew up in an abusive family. (There's my childhood). As a result, it took a monumental effort for me to regain my sense of self-autonomy and to really start to connect with my own heart again and do what I wanted to do with my life. 1,000s of hours of therapy and hard work etc. I had a pattern with my mother where I would attempt to move towards my dreams and then I would run into a patch of vulnerability, like I would doubt myself or feel scared or something and my knee jerk reaction was to call my mom. Inevitably, my mother would encourage me to just quit whatever I was doing and move home, which I would then do. This happened many times. I would find myself back at home, not knowing what to do with myself and my life, feeling depressed and being comforted (sort of) by my mother. It was like she needed me to be crippled and needing her support in order for her life to feel meaningful. It was a very dark, destructive pattern in my life that went on for a long long time. When I quit my full-time stable job with benefits to go to Penland School of Crafts for two months and pursue my art, I noticed, without really understanding why that when my mother called me, I felt very hesitant to call her back and avoided it. I eventually realized why and I spoke with her, asking for a break and some space from our relationship. When I went to Penland, the healing element this decision had for me was so astronomical that it was undeniable that it needed to continue. I told my mom that I needed our estrangement to be indefinite. This may sound extreme, but I felt so strongly and clearly that I needed it to safe guard my self and my dreams. I felt like my art was like a little baby that needed protecting and that I needed to surround my self with people who I felt would cheer me on towards my dreams and not encourage me to give up. 

Okay, fast forward to Ireland. I've been estranged from my mom now for about a year and I've noticed something odd happening. I've started having this recurring dream about my mother. In the dream, she is at home in the house I grew up in and I am there. Sometimes I'm with her in the house, sometimes I am wandering around the neighborhood, but there is always this very distinct feeling that I feel trapped there and I am thinking to myself, "Why am I here? Don't I have a life back in Asheville to get back to?" That was the whole dream: my home town, my mother and that trapped feeling of why am I here. This dream went on for the whole time I was estranged from my mother (the first time), but when I was in Ireland, it amplified. It was like the dream was screaming at me. It happened almost every night, like I said. And I would wake up with it fresh in my mind. In Ireland I lived right on the ocean, and I was in art school, so all I did every day was get up, get ready and go to my studio, which was right down the street, and make art all day. It was such an epic experience. I would wake up from this dream, with it fresh in my mind and realize that far from being trapped at home in my home town with my mother wondering why I was there, I was living on the ocean in Ireland in art school. It was like as extreme a contrast as is possible. Again, this happened every single night (almost). I just have to emphasize that. Imagine that happening every single night. The same dream. What would you think? I could not deny that there was something trying to get my attention. 

I don't really know for sure what the "answer" or message was, but my sense was that it had something to do with telling me I was on the right path. That's what it felt like. Like it was pointing out the contrast between how I used to feel in life and how I felt in that enmeshed co-dependent relationship with my mother that was so damaging and destructive for me and held me back in so many ways, and what it felt like to fully own my life and live from my heart and my autonomy. And to show me the magic and power in that and what can happen. The freedom. I really believe that miracles happen when we break ties with everything that says what we are supposed to do and instead listen to that place inside us that knows what we really want. There is no one else that can tell us this, simply because they don't know. They are not inside us. Only we know what we feel inside and it could be the most obscure weirdest thing that no one else would understand (like going to art therapy school even though you don't want to be an art therapist). Sometimes I think we don't even understand, but it's just about listening to that little voice inside us. 

I'm by no means an expert at this, but I have come to realize that it is the most important thing we can do in this life and I trust it so deeply. 

I guess I'll leave it at that for now. And I will include a few random pictures here for your pleasure from the past 5 years. :) 

This is me in front of one of my favorite paintings that I made in black walnut ink of my friend Kris. This painting sold! From "Bloom Gallery" (formerly known as "Lamplight Gallery"), where my paintings still reside, although I think they are all in storage now and the owner has asked that I come get them. They have been there for 3 years (over 3 years) now, while I have been in grad school for art therapy. I really need to take a trip to West Virginia asap. I'm working on it. 

Here's a picture of the show that I had there. This was in November of 2018, right before I moved to Santa Fe. It feels weird how quickly time passes. 

I guess I'm just play'n around with youtube lately and trying to figure out how to learn all these new fangled media and computer things. So fascinating. I wish Steve Jobs was still alive. Anyways, this is me holding a print of my painting "Amber and Clover" in the woods up on top of the mountain outside of Santa Fe. I love this aspen forest. I love to just sit in it and speak to them (the trees, that is). I love her so much.  You can buy this print through my website: suzannejoyteune.com and I hope you do. I just started collaborating with "High Desert Arts" here in Santa Fe. There is a man named John who owns it and he's awesome. 

I suppose that will be all for right now and I'll write another post soon and hopefully figure out wordpress and how to get paid to blog!  Enjoy!