Unstuck

Unstuck

My brain likes to circulate. That’s my default response to how I like to think about things, go around and each time try to find newness until arriving to a solution. As a side effect, this way of problem solving has probably trained my brain to overthink. It’s a give and take.

I had been circulating here and there throughout my trip. In search of an answer to the things that had been troubling me the past few weeks. Finally a day before my trip ended it clicked.

I was talking to my friend Xerx and just had a moment of realization, it was nice. Xerx is one of my closest friends, we’ve seen each other through the most unhinged of moments. It’s nice to have a friendship like that in my life, thank you Xerx.

I finally felt unstuck. I had been focusing on external factors, which had left me in a state of turmoil. What I needed to do was focus on myself and a part of me that was unbalanced and needed care, then trust that would guide me and that everything would fall into place as it always has and always will. It seems like a very obvious solution looking at it now, I attract what I am. The external world created by the internal state.

I craved the ocean more than ever after this little epiphany. The next day I woke up at 5:30am and took an Uber to the ocean, found a tiny bay shaped area and submerged myself in it, I was alone in the ocean, some surfers further up, but no one near me. I sang the sounds that wanted to come out. Then I laid on the beach for a while before heading to the airport. The perfect way to end this trip.

Sunday, July 16, 2023
Malibu Beach, California

The Ocean: A need

The Ocean: A much needed trip

I am getting ready for a Vegas trip tomorrow. It’s a last minute one so those are always fun, my friend Lilly is out there djing and invited me out to go with her to the desert and then LA which means the ocean again. I’ve been in need of the ocean. My life’s been feeling in turmoil. It’s actually only been about a week and a half of this but it feels like it’s been long. I want to experience that beautifully awful feeling of salt water up my nose and down my throat again. I crave the ocean. One day I’ll have a home by it.

 

Starting “The Artist Way”

Starting “The Artist Way”

You could say that I’m a picky woman who likes to day-dream and over-think and you’d be right on most days. It’s a balance of figuring out when it’s a helpful thing and when it’s not. In the times it hasn’t been helpful it’s lead to a blockage of the flowstate, creating all sorts of other blocks in the process. I’m learning.

When I do follow the trust of flow, things have always worked out. It’s learning how to get there time and time again that has proven itself to be the lesson of my life.

I’ve heard a few things about this book and I’m curious about it. I’m told it’s a helpful tool for the creative process, I can’t recommend it as of yet but I’m open to it and we’ll see how it goes. It’s 12-week process so I may document as I go if it seems fit / helpful/ something I want to share here.
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Book:
”The Artist Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity” by Julia Cameron

Flowers and the Number 5

Flowers and the Number 5

Lately I’ve had a tiny curiosity with number significance. This started around April when I began seeing repeating numbers everywhere, a few weeks later it was palindrome numbers. I mentioned it one day in a group chat, and my friend Angel told me to keep a list of them so I’ve been doing that. I’ve forgotten to document a few but most are on there.

I’m fully aware that doing this would potentially make me more alert to finding more numbers. You find what you seek/ make yourself aware of. If you start seeking purple cars you’ll start seeing them everywhere because that’s what tends to happen. I’m very actively trying to avoid doing this. Angel also told me to keep track of what instances I find these numbers but uneventfully no patterns have been found. Sorry Angel. That’s my little update on that.

At one of the stays in Guatemala I stumbled across the book “Cheiro's Book of Numbers: The Complete Science of Numerology” in it was a detail that stuck. It claimed that all flowers with seven petals were original forms of the flower, meaning, they were not cross-pollinated with other flowers. I found this detail interesting, the number 7 seemed to carry the origin of the flower.

I looked further into the significance of flower petals numbers and found this journal, titled “Five petals: The mysterious number "5" hidden in nature” from Osaka University Economics School, the author, a professor seemingly with a background in math.

The article starts with an analysis on petal numbers. Flowers generally have between 1-6 petals (7 or more is rare), but a large majority of flower species fall in the 5-petal category. It dives into this idea that nature seeks the number 5 (Venus and Earth’s 8 year dance around the sun produces a shape of a 5-petal flower). It ends with the comparison of a human hand to a flower, and the idea that our number systems are based off of this mysterious number 5 we find in nature.

I’ve been more aware of 5-petaled flowers. For the first time in my life I have a home to garden. After last weekend’s rain, the first flowers of the season showed up in the garden, five-petaled baby’s breath. I had watercolor backgrounds I made weeks back and it felt fitting to commemorate the first flowers of the garden in a painting.

Some people have told me they see the flowers coming down from the sky others have said that they see them going up, the vote is somewhat divided.

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& like the good little writer I am, sources and links to the free texts bellow 😊

Cherio, “Cherio’s book of Numbers: The Complete Science of Numerology”, Fireside Books, January 1988, pg14

Yutaka Nishiyama, “Five petals: The mysterious number "5" hidden in nature”, Osaka University of Economics, January 2012

 

www.whereiswndy.com, Baby’s-breath. 2023. Watercolor and Gouache on Cold-press Arches paper. 7”x 10”

 

Unfortunate Discovery

Unfortunate Discovery

My contact form was set to the wrong email, any contact attempts made through the form from October 19, 2022 to June 15, 2023 are inaccessible.

If you did attempt to reach out, my biggest apologies, the error has been corrected.

Please send though any requests again here or reach out directly to my email whereiswndy@gmail.com. AGAIN SO SO SO SORRY! THANK YOU <3

 

Moon Faces

Moon Faces

The other day Miguel asked why I don’t paint people or animals. I’ve painted people before, in high school I did a full series with people as the subject. But for now I enjoy flowers, landscapes and presences, although I am not opposed to insects, and maybe someday humans will find their way back into my paintings.

I’ve been thinking about next year’s calendar and I’ve talked about my relationship with the moon in this blog so I wanted to explore faces for the purpose of including a moon-face in next year’s calendar. Miguel’s also been looking at moon-faced watches the past few weeks so I think some of that has subconsciously spilled over into my practice.

It has admittedly been a while since I’ve attempted a face so as a re-intro to faces, I sat in front of the mirror and began to make quick sketches of my face. This is an exercise many art teachers will have you do at some point and it was a nice little way to get back into drawing faces.

www.whereiswndy.com, Sketches of moon faces, 2023

Gallery representation

Gallery Representation

For the first time ever I am exploring the idea of working with a gallery as an artist.

More than anything right now I’m just curious. Curious what that could look like for me. Curious on the potential. Curious on fostering a healthy space for my artistic journey. Curious if this is the right next step.

Starting the exploration <3

Wrightwood 659 bathroom in Chicago

I’m backkkk

I’m backkkkkk ayyyy

In anticipation for this Guatemala trip I had been exploring watercolor. I expected to be moving around the country while there so traveling light was the move. Kept it simple, made myself a reference guide for the colors and wrapped the watercolor paper with painters tape to keep my edges clean. Overall the prep-work took about an hour. Below are the supplies with clickable links in case you want to recreate for yourself. I bought some of these things on Amazon, there are alts if you don’t want to buy on there, but since I tend to wait last min to pack and this was cheap and convenient it is what it is.

I let this be a time to explore and paint whatever my little heart desired. Towards the end of the trip, I got inspired after visiting La Galleria in Panajachel and seeing Nan Cuz's work. It led me to getting messier with my backgrounds resulting in the making of these orchid paintings I really liked.

Found some notable artists visiting galleries this trip that are now on my radar and worth checking out bellow:

Lastly, Antigua was a great city.

Rediscovering Tulips

Rediscovering Tulips

Tulips had never appealed to me, they’re mostly displayed closed, have a naturally drooping stem, didn’t feel like a flower to admire. But I recently came across a video that made me think differently. By gently bending the petals outward to open and placing a copper penny from before 1982 in the water, you get an almost too perfect looking flower that stands tall.

In a way they feel unreal and otherworldly, like something that belongs in the world of the Teletubbies or some other alt. universe. (A little tip: Trader Joe’s sells a bundle of 20 for $10.99 that could easily give you a good 3-5 vases worth).

I’ve enjoyed making these arrangements, it’s a nice way to get lost in the flowers, and now that I’m growing my own cut and grow garden I’m excited to have some more herbs and flowers to experiment with this year. I envision these displayed with my sky paintings in a series I’m building.

Lessons from my lineage:Healing the body from the poison that can come from a strong overwhelming emotion

Lessons from my lineage:
Healing the body from the poison that can come from a strong overwhelming emotion

Growing up, my mom stayed at home and raised me, she passed down many stories from her mom and grandma and so on. To this day I continue to learn new stories. This one, was one that I recently came to know and I will share, with hopes that if for whatever reason you find yourself or a loved one in a similar situation, you can use this little piece of knowledge. Healing the body from the poison that can come from a strong overwhelming emotion. 

When my grandma was pregnant with my youngest uncle she witnessed a scene that caused her to have a strong emotional response. She rushed to my great-grandmother’s place and my great-grandma fed her a spoonful of the burnt ashes from the stove, potentially saving my uncle from a miscarriage. As with any advice, take it with a grain of salt, my great-grandmother was the healer of the town, it was a middle of nowhere mountain town and going to the big town doctor was expensive and timely, she made remedies and brought babies into the world and had a certain knowledge that was helpful for the people there. 

My mom recently came across a finding that helped confirm the action my great-grandma took on that day. Similar to the burnt ashes, activated charcoal can be given to help victims of poison. There is a certain type of poison that can be absorbed through the body in moments of strong immediate emotion, people can internally poison themselves with anger, shock, a scare, intense grief, you get the idea. The effects of activated charcoal can be produced by burning any consumable dry grain on hand such as bread or a tortilla to a char black state (preferably with fire) and ingesting it. The though is that the poison produced is then absorbed by the burnt char and is able to be dispelled from the body rather than being absorbed.

So if you ever find yourself in such circumstances or with the ability to help such circumstances, you have this knowledge to carry with you, from my great-grandma to my grandma to my mom to me to you.

The current state of my grandma’s kitchen in her old home in Durango, Mexico

Ozito and my morning flower arrangement

Ozito and my morning flower arrangement

Unexpected detour to Trader Joes this morning, decided to pick up some flowers to play with. I love pink Ranunculus and their skwiggly stems. Also picked up some Safflowers because they’re super cheap, dry up nicely, and their shape reminds me of a cactus so I think they’re cool. Ozzie approved <3

SOFU

Coloured Pictures of Representative Flower Arrangements by SOFU
(Sofu Teshigahara: Originator of the Sogetsu School of Flower Arrangement)

In my free time, I like to go to used bookstores searching for inspiration. Sometime during 2021 I came across this book. It became a resource for me in my practice and one of my favorite finds.

If you’re curious in learning more about this founder and his Ikebana school check out the schools website here.

The school is also hosting an event at the Chicago Botanic Garden this weekend, April 15-16 with a demonstration and 50 ikebana floral arrangement displays by their students :)

arrangements and photographs shown by Sofu Teshigahara

The night I unknowingly crossed paths with Miguel

The night I unknowingly crossed paths with Miguel 
Memory from November 18, 2021

In our early stage of dating, Miguel had picked me up, we were passing by Arbella and I mentioned I had dj’d there before. That’s when he made a realization that he had seen me there. At first I didn’t believe him, I had only dj’d at Arbella once and I had only been there a hand full of times. But he kept insisting, describing the scenery he had seen me in, where I was, what I was doing and then I became curious. I asked him if he knew what day of the week he had been there and he couldn’t recall it. I had only ever gone to Arbella on Thursdays. I refused to give him any help so he could recall the date to it’s most authentic form, so he pulled out his phone. He had gone with his barber so he looked at their text messages, November 18, 2021, the day I went to Arbella for my friend Alyssa / Jillan’s Birthday. 

The day to me, unknowing to him, had more significance than just that. During this time in my life I had been finding myself grieving a certain situation. That day, I had spoken to my mom. We had a long conversation about life and love. My mom is a very religious woman now, very different from the woman who raised me in my early years, so at times I had found it difficult to have these conversations with her without her trying to convert me as an end goal. But this time I felt really heard by her, and the conversation resonated with me, it brought me peace. After hours on the phone I told her I needed to get ready, so she left me with this request, to go to St. Peter’s Catholic Church downtown and talk to God, I decided to give her that, so I promised her I would. I did have a period of my life when I was younger that I was religious, my religious era, around the age of 15-20 I recall having many moments where I would lay in bed before going to sleep, talking outloud to God about all sorts of things. So that night before going to Arbella I made the long detour walk to St. Peter’s Cathedral. But when I got there the doors were closed and locked, interesting sense of humor the universe has sometimes. So I silently sent my words before leaving. November 18, 2021. 

I’m glad I didn’t meet Miguel there, that night, it wouldn’t have been the right time. When I decided to start dating, my friend Karen pushed me to finally join a dating app, something I had been skeptical to do, and my friend Daniel told me to try Hinge, where I met Miguel. Thank you.

St. Peter’s Cathedral door November 18, 2021 at 7:26pm

The Pink Moon: Guidance from the Moon and the Ocean

The Pink Moon: Guidance from the Moon and the Ocean

Yesterday was the pink moon. This year, I’ve been more intentional about tracking the moon stages. That is because last year, I noticed certain patterns I was having with the moon.

This year, around the time when my curiosity of the moon was starting, a mysterious stranger came into my life coincidentally at the exact moment when I needed it. Due to a series of events I had found myself with no phone or wallet, nothing but the little white jacket I was wearing in the cold, within seconds, I saw a car pull up to drop off some people, I went up to it and explained my situation to this stranger and he told me to get in. On the car ride, he told me his name was Shawn but he went by Casper because growing up his friends gave him the alias after the friendly ghost, since he was one of the few white kids. I don’t remember how we got into this conversation, but in the short ride he shared he had had a heart transplant after working construction in Colorado. He told me he had died while on the operation table and recalled being pulled into a tunnel. Later, by some form, he came across media where he recognized the tunnel he had been pulled into, it was a tunnel in Mexico and the name referenced the moon. He dropped me off safely and refused I get some cash to pay him, he was a kind man and I left him with these parting words: “follow the moon”. I’m not exactly sure what that meant but we all have our own patterns to find, so maybe he knew what it meant.

The moon like the ocean have been guiding presence in my life. So today I will recount a memory I recalled a few weeks ago, and that marks the 2nd anniversary of this recent pink moon. I haven’t talked much about this here and I won’t do it now, but in brief, I was in a very long relationship in my life that I had started at the young age of 17. I learned many beautiful things in this relationship, and I am grateful for those experiences but it took a lot of time for me to choose to walk away from this.

I thank the ocean and the moon for guiding me, the first time that I swam in the ocean, April 18, 2021, I remember sitting on the beach with ocean water dripping out of my nose and this clarity about this situation, a certain acceptance I had never fully experienced before. I was still in a relationship at this point but I had come to terms with it internally. The first time I ever tracked feeling that level of acceptance. When I returned from my trip I could see things falling into the same patterns but my perspective had changed, it was the full moon, the night of the Super pink moon, April 26, 2021, after going to see the moon over Lake Michigan when I finally ended things. It was the guidance I needed.

Guidance from the moon and the ocean, thank you pink moon. <3

The Pink Moon on April 5, 2023 over lake Michigan at 9:10pm

Screaming in the Car

Screaming in the Car

Okay, to preface, for a very long time I’ve had this desire to go somewhere secluded and scream at the top of my lungs until all the air is out. I think I just imagined it to be a nice little euphoric release of some sort. I’ve never done it, the alternative seemed to be to scream in the privacy of my home but I’ve lived in multi-unit buildings all my life and never quite felt comfortable for fear of alarming someone. So this little desire stayed just that for a very long time until a few months ago when this idea popped into my head and I said fuck it and just screamed to the top of my lungs while driving on the highway in the privacy of my car. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before, I’ve used my car countless times to cry in but never thought of screaming in it. It felt really good. I won’t lie, part of me was a little hesitant, and still am sometimes to do so. The other day I did it and the car in front of me’s brake lights came on so it made me a little paranoid that I had been heard, but that was quickly calmed when I realized the reason for the sudden stop had been due to an exit closure and not my horrific scream. I still hope to some day live out my little desire to the fullest but until then I’m going to continue to do this and if you ever feel like screaming in your car, I highly recommend, feels really good, my lungs feel cleared, my head sometimes a little dizzy but we’re good and I get a little jolt of energy so 10/10 recommend. 

Documentation and memories

Documentation and memories

I’m a sentimental woman, catch me at the right time of the month and I might be shedding some waterworks over a trivial thought popping into my head. Today, memories. I watched “Terms of Endearment” for the first time last night and I cried. When asked if I liked the movie my answer was no, I did not like how it made me feel. I had a nice lazy Saturday, my first lazy Saturday of the year after a late Friday night out. I did not feel like thinking, much less crying. But there I was shedding tears for the kids, the mom, imaginary characters I had invested 2 hours of my life getting to know. 

Many times, I have found myself regretting not documenting more. Back in what I estimate to be 2017, I had a good portion of photos from my 20s wiped out of my phone forever, sometime after high school I had a similar thing happen on my laptop after not backing up and as a 13 year old, I deleted a bunch of photos I didn’t like of myself from my family computer. As time passes it’s inevitable that many more memories and mementos will leave my life removing the little traces of their existence. This, I can’t help but feel a little sad about today.

I’ve been keeping a written journal and in my calendar, I’ve been writing in each day to help me record the days as they pass by, but I want pictures. At least right now, at this moment, what I crave is pictures, I’m attempting a physical photo album that lives outside of my phone. I don’t want to make it something I’m forcing myself to do every day, I’m bad at rituals, but hopefully writing this on here will keep me accountable or at least remind me to document more pictures of the small special moments of life.

coming soon <3


Karen's new studio

MI AMIGA KAREN/ MONYEKA GOT A PHOTO STUDIO IN CHICAGO!!!!!

This shoot was fun, because we just had fun with it, it was Karen’s first shoot in her new space and I was so down when she asked to shoot me. I now have photos to feel hot when I’m 100-something looking back on my youth.

Book with her hereeee, hire her, have her shoot your project, tell ya friends. Karen is a vibe and she may or may not end up inviting you to her favorite spot in Chicago, that I now dub “Karen’s spot” and I think of her every time I pass by it. <3

Thank you for having me to be your first shoot in the space. This year will be amazing for you!!!

Follow her on insta, she may be doing a giveaway very soon. 🧚‍♀️

Insta: @monyeka_
Website: www.monyeka.com
Email: monyekaphoto@gmail.com



Noche de Romance Promo

Noche de Romance Promo

There is absolutely nothing that justifies me staying up until 5 am working on these videos. I started around 11 and before I knew it it was 5 in the morning. I’m imagining I’ll get super sleepy at some point today.

Noche de Romance: an original whereiswndy event
Tuesday, February 14th, Valentines Day
Punch House Chicago

come listen to Sparklmami and I play Spanish Romantic Ballads from 9 pm-1 am

Dance, cry, sing your heart out <3

Song 1: Y Volvere by Los Angeles Negros
Song 2: Europa by Santana

Wendy's Annual Friends & Family Calendar

Wendy's Annual Friends & Family Roman and Lunar Calendar 2023

I decided to make some calendars to gift to my loved ones.

Each calendar is 1/1 edition, with a hand written note. 30 Calendars produced by hand by yours truly. My little labor of love. Thank you so much to all of you for being amazing people and for your kindness. I hope you enjoy it and that it brings a little joy into your space.

Hoping to produce a larger batch for next year’s annual calendar. Love and appreciate you all.

Note: If there are empty days, write something good that happened to you that day, a nice memory, a dream, something to remember. At the end of the year, you can keep the calendar as a small memento of 2023. Besos <3