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The Big Picture
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Text and images © Sue Shanahan. All rights reserved. www.sueshanahan.com
No matter where you go – there you are” ― Confucius
I shared my picture book, Glory in the Morning with the world today. That is code for saying it’s now available on Amazon. Getting this book into physical form and into the hands of children has been quite an experience. When I wrote and illustrated it, I had no idea it would be a way for me to speak my truth. After all, there was no deep thought required to get the words down on paper. It was just a fairytale that seemed to write itself. Today, I see it as a story that affirms my journey to wholeness. It reminds me of the powerful truths embodied in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I’m curious if the author, Frank L. Baum, figured out that he had been writing about himself, too?
“Just be yourself, there is no one better.” ― Taylor Swift
Glory in the Morning is for anyone who’s ever felt invisible. Growing up under the sharp gaze of a critical mother, I learned it wasn’t safe to be myself. Spontaneity often got me into trouble, so I silenced my free spirit. I devalued my thoughts and feelings. Worst of all, I suppressed my intuition. I used my mind and not my heart to make decisions. Canceling out my “inner guidance” to plug into my mom’s rules, protected me from her wrath. Unfortunately, what kept me safe in childhood, left me the shell of the woman I was born to be.
“With the help of God and true friends, I’ve come to realize, I still have two strong legs, and even wings to fly.” ― Greg Allman
After years of inner work and cultivating a connection to God, I became willing to share the “real me” with others. I knew I had to do that to continue to grow. Opening myself up to trusted friends, helped to heal my brokenness. I began to see myself the way they saw me, not as a mistake but a gift.
Glory in the Morning gives parents a vehicle to share the power of being believed in and the realization that eyes aren’t the only way we see with their children. Kids don’t need my backstory to understand the underlying message of the book. They naturally intuit the deeper meaning just like we did with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz when we were young.
It’s hard to know for sure why any of us are born. I’m certain creating Glory in the Morning is part of the reason I’m here. No, I don’t think my picture book will heal the world. But I do believe it’s a drop in a wave of self-acceptance and love that is washing over our planet. In its pages, lives a hero’s journey. A fairy named Glory will disappear unless she finds two people who believe in her before the sun shines high in the sky. Can she do it? Does she do it? Just that I’ve written these words confirms that Glory and I are here to stay. Us invisible? Not a chance.
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Text and images © Sue Shanahan. All rights reserved. www.sueshanahan.com
“What do you want to be?”
“Just a me.” – My answer to a friend’s question at age sixteen.
I did a little cliff jumping this weekend. I took a trip to Colorado to visit my best friend, Gigi, and went to a workshop on past-life regression. A little woo-woo sounding I know, but fascinating. Mira Kelley uses hypnosis to lead her clients into recoverIng memories of previous incarnations. If you can connect your current fears to a past life, those fears will often disappear. I was first introduced to her in a book by Dr. Wayne Dyer. When I learned that he was writing the forward for her book, Beyond Past Lives, I pre-ordered it. The day it appeared on my Kindle, I began reading it. Dr. Dyer gave a glowing account of the healing quality of Mira’s work in his own life. That pulled me in. I found her book sometimes hard to grasp but most times extremely enlightening. Gigi felt the same way so we signed up for her workshop to learn more. It’s a little scary for me to write about this because it is not mainstream, but I’ve made a pact with myself to be who I am in this blog. So there it is.
Me with Mira Kelley
I took another leap while I was in Colorado. I decided to invest in some David Smith watercolor paints and brushes. They are touted as the crème de la crème of watercolors, but in the past, I wouldn’t allow myself the luxury. They are rather pricey, and watercolor is a medium that has a mind of its own. They force the artist to be flexible with what they intend to get down on paper. To buy them meant I would have to paint with spontaneity (not always an easy thing for me). Listening to my heart, I purchased them. $350.00 later I am ready to paint with abandon. Sounds like fun doesn’t it?
I’m ready to paint with abandon.
“Be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.”
― Henry David Thoreau
I imagine humanity as being like an intricate, beautiful, stained glass window. Each piece of glass is lovingly chosen for its color, texture and amount of transparency. Next, they’re cut and ground to fit together perfectly, like puzzle pieces on board. Collectively, they form a masterpiece. A broken or lost fragment of glass will unsettle and disrupt the whole. In the same way, when we don’t allow ourselves to be who we are, a disservice is done to the rest of the world. Humanity needs your song to be sung. How you think, look and feel are no accident. It’s time to be who you are. Without you something’s missing.
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Text and images © Sue Shanahan. All rights reserved. www.sueshanahan.com
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” ― W.B. Yeats
Magic is everywhere. Like in my painting it’s right outside your window looking in, frequently unnoticed. It’s not that we don’t believe that anything is possible. Often we are blind to miracles because we have tunnel vision. We are so locked into our limited perception we can’t see what’s smiling at us through the porthole on the ship we’re sailing. It’s good to have dreams and plans but not to map out how they are to be manifested.
“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” ― Robertson Davies
Last week while babysitting my grandson, the concept of “seeing only what my mind is prepared to comprehend,” was brought to my attention. While Cameron was napping, I went to the refrigerator to get a bottle knowing that he would be waking soon. When I opened the door, I couldn’t find the blue carrying case his parents brought his bottles in. From top to bottom, I searched the refrigerator for that case. I looked everywhere, even in the freezer. Eventually, I put on rubber gloves and rooted through the garbage, to make sure I hadn’t thrown it out by accident. No luck. I was comforted that I had discovered a bottle of frozen breast milk in my search but didn’t know what I was going to do for the rest of the day. Finally, it came to me that I should surrender the situation to God and ask for help. And so I did.
I decided to poor a cup of coffee and relax until my little charge awoke. When I reached into the fridge for the creamer, to my surprise, I saw four baby bottles of milk grouped on the bottom shelf. How could I have missed them? I’ll tell you how. I was so fixated on locating the blue case I couldn’t see anything else. Surrendering helped me to loosen the grip on my perception and opened me up to what was right in front of me. It made me wonder how many other things I’ve missed in my life.
“That is certainly one way to look at the matter. There are others.” ― Patricia C. Wrede
In my mermaid image lives the perfect reminder of why I must stay loose with what I think I know. It’s good to have a vision but let a higher source fine tune it. That is the formula that brought my porthole painting into being. The figures in it are my daughter-in-law and grandson, Cameron. Pam grew up near Boston and spent her summers by the ocean. She has what we like to call saltwater in her veins. When I found out she was pregnant, I immediately began seeing her as a mermaid, stretched out on a rock, holding a shell to her merbaby’s ear. When Cam was born, I prepared for the illustration, by photographing the perfect “mermaid rock” for them to be sunbathing on. Now all I had to do was get photo references of my two muses. That had to be put on hold until Cam was old enough for his mom to hold him while he listened to the sound of the sea in a shell.
The mermaid rock I came across on Lucy Vincent Beach in Martha’s Vineyard.
One day last July, the plan for my illustration took on a new direction when Pam texted me a selfie of her and Cam. In the photo, Pam’s hair flowed across a pillow and her little guy, laying next to her, had a look of pure wonder on his face. It was magical. I knew the moment I saw it that it was the photo I would base my art on. I’m so grateful I was open enough to see that the sea creatures I wanted to bring to life weren’t sunbathing, but looking through a porthole, right into my soul.
The selfie that pointed my imagination in another direction.
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Text and images © Sue Shanahan. All rights reserved. www.sueshanahan.com
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. -Khalil Gibran
My best friend Gigi and I have deep conversations about where we are going as artists. I am an author/illustrator, she a photographer extraordinaire. One day she asked me why I felt compelled to share my art with the world. I was stumped. I had a vague sense that my talent is here to make the world a more beautiful place. But what’s the use of beauty? It has no worth that can be measured or weighed.
The arts are part of the force that keeps violence and despair in check, that keeps hope alive. -Lynne Taylor – Corbett
Then my mind went back to September 11, 2001. After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, I had the television on constantly. I listened to the media drone on about Homeland Security’s color-coded threat levels while I worked in my studio. I became frightened out of my mind. At my wits end, I walked out the back door and found my husband weeding the garden. He hugged me as I sobbed and told me to turn the TV off. After that I made a conscious decision to put my attention on what is beautiful, to what uplifts.
I began listening to music by George Harrison, Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell. Their melodies and lyrics soothed me. I can remember watching movies like, Fried Green Tomatoes and Father of the Bride. I reread To Kill a Mockingbird. I poured over children’s picture books and absorbed their exquisiteness. Gradually, I was brought back into feeling that a source of good exists and watches over us. Me, and those I love were safe.
Since that time I am very careful about the kind of energy I expose myself to. I no longer immerse myself in the news but glance at it. I keep my focus on what brings me to a higher place. Without fail, beauty does that.
Something sacred, that’s it. It’s a word that we should be able to use, but people would take it the wrong way. You want to be able to say a painting is as it is, with its capacity to move us, because it is as though it were touched by God. -Pablo Picasso
Whenever I sit down to draw I’m always at a loss. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. Understanding the responsibility of sharing my gifts makes it even worse. After I finally put my pencil to paper, something begins working through me. Some people call it creativity but I call it God. As skilled as an artisan as I am, without his energy guiding my hand my illustrations would be flat. A collaboration with the Creator is always a sure-fire way to bring forth the amazing.
I heard in an interview with Pharrell Williams that, like me, he wants to use his gifts to lift people up. He was asked, “Are you afraid if you give yourself too much credit, it would all go away?”
“For sure,” he said. “You see people spin out of control like that all the time. I mean, those are the most tragic stories, the most gifted people who start to believe it’s really all them. It’s not all you. It can’t be all you. Just like you need air to fly a kite, it’s not the kite. It’s the air.” Listening to his song, “Happy,” makes me want to catch that same breeze.
Beauty is alive and well in the fine-art photography of Gigi Embrechts.
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Text and images © Sue Shanahan. All rights reserved. www.sueshanahan.com
“I love you. I miss you. I’ll keep trying to look up.” – Robin’s daughter, Zelda Williams
Robin Williams was a good man. He was an artist overflowing with talent. He was devoted to his family and lived a quiet life. Unwittingly, his suicide was the most attention grabbing thing he ever did. I hope the light shining on this desperate act is redirected to his illness. Robin suffered from debilitating depression. That he chose to take his own life, shows how severe it was.
It’s well known that he struggled with addiction. Just last month he checked himself into a treatment center in Minnesota to reinforce his sobriety. In a statement last week his wife Susan said, “Robin’s sobriety was intact and he was brave as he struggled with his own battles of depression, anxiety as well as early stages of Parkinson’s Disease.” It’s rumored, that at the time of his death, the actor/comedian was taking prescription drugs to help control the symptoms of depression and Parkinson’s disease. One of the side-affects of these drugs is suicide. We may never know if this is what caused him to take his own life. What we do know is a brilliant man is gone and the people who loved him are heartbroken and baffled as to why.
“Tears may be the beginning, but they should not be the end of things.”
-Eleanor Farjeon
One thing is for certain, Robin wouldn’t want the world to focus on the horror of how he left. Our energies would be better spent on ways to prevent the kind of anguish he lived with. Perhaps Robin McLaurin Wiliams’ passing will draw attention to the massive cuts being made to mental health services across the country. It would bring meaning to something that didn’t have to be.
I believe in an afterlife. In my mind’s eye, I can see Robin in the heavens. He still has that irrepressible grin, and his humor is intact. He is free, and that twinkle in his eye lights up the night sky.
For a short, beautiful You-Tube tribute to Robin Click Here
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Text and images © Sue Shanahan. All rights reserved. www.sueshanahan.com
Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them, but you know they are always there. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
I just returned from our annual week’s stay on Martha’s Vineyard. Since 1997, my family has vacationed together there. Early on, my sister discovered painter Margot Datz lived on the island. She’s illustrated most of Carly Simon’s children’s picture books. I was crazy about her work. I made up my mind to track her down and introduce myself, although it took me a couple of years to work up the courage to call her. My resistance came from having placed her on a “one who has arrived” pedestal. After finally meeting Margot, her warmth and candor assured me she was not above me. We stood eye to eye. I now call her a friend and a more generous one you’ll never find.
Margot Datz on one of my Vineyard visits
This year when I reconnected with Margot she was frantically finishing paintings for her show in August. True to her nature, she dropped her paintbrushes to bring me to tea at her friend, author/illustrator, Susan Branch‘s home. After reading Susan’s memoir, A Fine Romance, I was dying to meet the woman behind that gorgeous book. Margot was delighted to make that happen.
When we pulled up to Susan’s house, a weird déjà vu came over me. In Susan’s blogs and books, she shares musings and observations of her daily life. They are illustrated to perfection with her watercolors and photographs. As she introduced me to her husband, Joe, I had to restrain myself from saying, “We’ve already met,” because we had, in her writings. From reading her posts, I recognized every charming inch of her house, even her cats. Susan’s life, like her heart, is an open book.
Susan’s cat Jack
The three of us sat around her kitchen table and sipped Susan’s own private blend of delectable tea. We talked about our lives as artists and other things. All three of us agreed to liking intimate gatherings over parties. No chitchat for us. We are of the soul-connection variety. When I confessed that I had no idea I could write before I began blogging, they tittered in unison, “No one does!” Really? So that means that I’m not alone but share a sort of universal creative process. Hmmm. Knowing that comforted me. I am not an oddball. I am an artist.
Susan Branch in her studio
He who lights his candle from mine, receives light without darkening me. ~ Thomas Jefferson
In my youth, I felt quite competitive toward professional creatives who, as I saw it, were living my dream. I was beneath them always grasping for what was out of my reach. I viewed the world as having only so many openings to be filled by people in the arts. If others arrived, that meant there was less of a chance that I could. The only way to find success was to somehow maneuver around them and snatch their light.
Thank goodness for the beneficent women who’ve shown up and taught me different. They’ve encouraged me and believed in me. Unthreatened, they’ve made it their business to help figure out a way for me to market my gifts to the world. Forging a friendship with Margot left me with the awareness that no one makes it alone. Bringing your heart’s desire to fruition is never a solitary act. It hadn’t occurred to me someone would actually allow me to light my candle from there’s. Wouldn’t I be stealing their flame? No, the truth of the matter is together we burn brighter.
Margot’s book, “A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids” with it’s sage observations is the perfect gift for any of your sister-friends.
Susan’s “A Fine Romance” is a work of art, part love story, part travel guide. Not to be missed by anyone who yearns to tour England.
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Text and images © Sue Shanahan. All rights reserved. www.sueshanahan.com
“Children are hopes” – Novalis
I began work on the above illustration in 1999 through the advice of my then agent. It was all over the news at the time, that an immigrant family had named their newborn “America” in hopes of not being deported. The baby’s parents desperately wanted to give their child a better life than the one they had fled. My rep thought it would be a great way to capitalize on the event and draw attention to my art. I am a follower of directions and immediately began work on the illustration. Shortly after that, I parted ways with my rep, realizing we didn’t share the same vision for marketing my work. I didn’t abandon my drawing, though. I finished it knowing the baby wrapped in the flag wasn’t specific to one child but symbolized all of America’s children.
“See, there’s the land of America…which you have to defend. But there’s also the idea of America. America is more than just a country, it’s an idea.” – Bono
True, our nation’s physical beauty is vast. And although magnificent, it’s not what makes America, America. My ancestors didn’t leave County Cork, Ireland, during the potato famine to find a more striking landscape. What brought them here were the intangibles. They were under the thumb of English landlords and came to a new world that promised freedom for their families. Freedom meant opportunity and most of all hope. And like their sons and daughters, it must be cherished and protected at all costs.
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” – Ronald Reagan
On June 9, 2014 a boy from the village of Mokena, Illinois, where I live, was killed in Afghanistan. Private Aaron Toppen was only nineteen and died serving the country he loved. He left behind a mother, sisters, a girlfriend and countless others. With him he took a piece of all our hearts. He was laid to rest in a casket wrapped in stars, stripes and the love of our community. In my mind’s eye, I can see Aaron’s spirit joining the ranks of a heavenly guard appointed to keep watch over our children. Once a soldier, always a soldier.
Aaron Toppen’s mother adjusts a medal before her son’s Turning Blue Ceremony.
Mokena welcomes Aaron home.
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Text and images © Sue Shanahan. All rights reserved. www.sueshanahan.com
Maya Angelou 1928-2014
“When you learn, teach, when you get, give.” ― Maya Angelou
Dr. Maya Angelou passed away peacefully on May 28th. She was a poet, memoirist, performer, educator, activist and mother. In 1982, when she took on a professorship at Wake Forest University, she knew she had come home. To her surprise she discovered she hadn’t become a writer who taught but was now a teacher who wrote. And teach she did. Many of us were introduced to her by Oprah Winfrey. Oprah took joy in sharing the life lessons she learned from her mentor. Today, many of those insights roll off my tongue. Whomever I quote them to invariably thinks I’m brilliant. Of course, I have to confess those wise words didn’t originate with me. I can only accept credit for being smart enough for taking Maya as my own.
“We are more alike than we are different” – Maya Angelou
I first read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings when I was twenty. Maya was an artist who painted with words. It was the first time I had read such an honest, intimate account of sexual abuse and the struggles of being black and a woman. I was not black or sexually abused, but I am a woman and knew how it felt to be treated as “less than.” I had an immediate connection to the author. On the surface we were nothing a alike and yet she somehow knew my heart. I learned that as a young girl Maya sat in the balcony of a movie theater, reserved for blacks, waiting to grow up and become rich, beautiful and white. Thirty years later, I sat in a theater waiting to become that same woman. It never happened for either of us but watching Maya embrace her unsung beauty gave me, a white girl uncomfortable in her own skin, permission to do the same.
“Love builds up the broken wall and straightens the crooked path. Love keeps the stars in the firmament and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides. Each of us is created of it and I suspect each of us was created for it.” – Maya Angelou
As an adult, Maya boldly never edited who she was. I admired that but didn’t think it was possible for me to be that way until I read an interview with her in O Magazine. In it Oprah asked her where her confidence came from. I was expecting Dr. Angelou to say it came from being raised by her stable and loving grandmother. But no, she explained that it sprang from love. She didn’t mean love in a sentimental or romantic sense. What she was talking about was much bigger than that. She was referring to a state of being so large that it’s unconceivable. Knowing of all the strikes that had been against her, assured me that that kind of love is available to everyone. If bidden and allowed, it will hold anyone’s head high and move through them to fulfill their life’s purpose.
“If you have a song to sing, who are you not to open your mouth and sing to the world?” – Maya Angelou
I’m grateful Dr. Angelou had the presence of mind to document her life in books and interviews for all of humankind. Even in death, she will continue to teach. I smile when I think of how God brings greatness out of the most unlikely people. Thanks to Maya’s heeding the call, a six-foot-tall, black woman is no longer considered an unlikely candidate for anything. The concept for the above portrait came to me when I realized the word “angel” is in Dr. Angelou’s last name. I dressed her in the garb I imagined her ancestors wore and placed stargazer lilies in her arms. They’re fitting flowers for her to hold because they mean one who is “high-souled” or spiritually evolved. I find hope in knowing that she didn’t start out that way. From a turbulent childhood, she grew into a seeker of truth and then lived what she learned. She followed the yearnings of her soul and became part of a movement that raised our country’s awareness of social injustice. She was an earth-shaker and a mountain-mover. She left none of her gifts unused. And for that, dear Maya, we thank you.
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Text and images © Sue Shanahan. All rights reserved. www.sueshanahan.com
In 2012, while vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, I was shopping for a beach read. A little volume, whose cover wore the night sky, caught my eye. Its title, When God Winks: How the Power of Coincidence Guides Your Life, intrigued me. Learning the author, SQuire Rushnell, lived on the island and had signed the book was all I needed. I purchased one. I began reading it that evening and finished it long before we trekked to the ocean the next morning. According to the author, a godwink is a message of reassurance that comes from above in the form of a coincidence. It’s a signpost in our life to let us know we’re going in the right direction. I yearned to feel God’s presence and in the pages of this book was a refreshing way to do just that.
“Your children first learn who God is by experiencing you.” – Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
It’s been said that we model our perception of the Divine by our relationship with our parents. That certainly was true in my case. To me a loving Creator was only wishful thinking. My family was riddled with alcoholism and the mechanism’s formed to cope with it. My father often told me he loved me but looked the other way when it came to my mother’s harsh treatment and verbal abuse. As for my mom, I can honestly say I never heard her utter the words “I love you” my whole childhood. I couldn’t help but grow up with the unconscious belief that although God may be there for others, he ignored me and my prayers. There seemed to be an impenetrable wall between us. Reading When God Winks gave me hope that there is a Higher Power who loves his children (me included) unconditionally. The notion that he puts serendipitous events on our paths to lift our spirits was a lovely concept to me. I liked this way of thinking and immediately began watching for winks. I had no trouble finding them again and again.
“Synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have eyes to see.”- Carl Jung
I’ve come to the awareness that my life has been filled with godwinks all along. I missed them because I didn’t know they were there. When reviewing important events of the past, I can see them glimmering throughout. One such scenario took place in 1994. I had a strong inner nudge to draw a portrait of Chelsea Clinton and send it her mother, who was first lady at the time. Mrs. Clinton had been getting such bad press about health care reform, I felt compelled to encourage her. I knew she was partial to angels and wore an angel pin on her shoulder. I had the inspiration to paint her daughter as an angel and send it to her. I’m not in the habit of giving my art away, but it was something I felt a strong call to do. For a woman who had little faith in herself, it was a real leap.
Chelsea Clinton Portrait
I didn’t realize it then but I now see that godwinks were there to give me hope and point me in the right direction the whole way through. After I decided to trust my intuition, I came across a wonderful quote to include on the illustration (wink #1). Next, I stumbled upon the perfect photograph of Chelsea’s face to base the portrait on (wink #2). My daughter was close to Chelsea’s age and I was able to photograph her body to work from to create the image (wink #3). I was going to ship the piece to Mrs. Clinton in care of the White House until I stumbled upon the more direct route of sending it to her address at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (wink #4). When the drawing was completed, I wrapped it up and shipped it off to the First Lady. In less than a week, I received the most lovely thank-you note from her. In it she told me I had captured her daughter’s spirit (wink #5). What a confirmation that I should trust my own instincts! Reflecting back, it seems incredulous that I didn’t notice how miraculously everything had fallen into place. But you can’t perceive what you don’t believe exists.
Letter from Hillary Rodham Clinton
Godwinks is now a household term in my family. Watching for them has made all of our faith bloom and grow. It’s almost a different form of gratitude. Of course, at times, I still slip back into my old thinking patterns. When I pray for assistance, I’m always given a nod from God that lets me know he hasn’t abandoned me. I’ve found the evidence of his love is everywhere if we only shift our focus and look.
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Text and images © Sue Shanahan. All rights reserved. www.sueshanahan.com
Commonplace Grace 