With The Summer

"With the Summer"  Mixed Media Collage by Crystal Neubauer

"And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

And so it is with the Summer, a season of beginning over again. I have a sense of new beginnings. Fresh breezes coming in the windows prompt me to throw the curtains in the wash and soak in the sun for the day. My thoughts stir with the excitement that the summer season promises to bring.

I feel a long post stirring inside. Snippets of words and thoughts float to the surface of my mind. but not today. It is still as a dream upon wakening; just beyond my conscious and still too abstract to touch. 

Today I simply want to celebrate the season. A lawn mower hums, the birds can be heard in the branches of the trees and the water laps at the edge of the lake just beyond the neighbors back yard. I am mellow and filled with joy. It is my youngest daughters 24th birthday. New things are certainly in the air and it is tempting to worry over them. but not today.

Today I bring to you an offering of new small works on my website and my series of 10x10 collages, sans frames. My own little Summer Art Festival, virtual booth, if you will. Check them out here and here.   

I Rise

"I Rise"  Collage Oil Painting Mixed Media by Crystal Neubauer

"Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise."

~ Maya Angelou