GREY MATTER || A surrealist art collection of mostly black and white watercolor (with some multimedia aspects) – painted on canvases with small pop’s of color. 

Grey Matter includes regions of the brain involved in sensory perception, such as seeing, hearing, memory, emotions, and speech. This collection explores what’s real and what is not – but on the inside – within the mind. The collection is one that is as equally dark as light. It is meant to take viewers through a spectrum of deep emotions. ‘Grey Matter’ is the female journey of the light and dark frequencies of consciousness, but all human beings can relate to the emotions that it brings forth. 

The collection addresses past, present, and future and the human dilemma to balance all three states. Visually the future is represented in images like the half robot half female abstraction that reads, “programmed to think”. It questions where we as women are going in the future. Are we programmed to think or will we evolve and act based on our own free will? Images of a broken black heart and an identity covering mask address issues of the past and how internally we all struggle not allow our pasts… alter our present states of consciousness. The collection addressed the present moment in the way the art is digested by the viewer. In a few of the pieces tactile mixed media is used. In “The Mask She Wears” thick white acrylic paint is used to depict the fur of the mask. The art itself is a representation of the present moment prompting viewers to reach out and touch – the HERE and the NOW. 

Each piece is very different, but flows together as the journey of self-discovery does. Live NOW. BE present. LET GO of ego. KNOW that it is OK to feel. See your fears as only illusion and embrace every step of the journey that is life.

Dive into the GREY MATTER.

From childhood we are trained to have problems.

When we are sent to school, we have to learn how to write, how to read, & all the rest of it. How to write becomes a problem to the child. Please follow this carefully.

Mathematics becomes a problem, history becomes a problem, as does chemistry. So the child is educated, from childhood, to live with problems - the problem of god, the problem of a dozen things. so our brains are conditioned, trained, educated, to live with problems. From childhood we have done this. What happens when a brain is educated in problems? It can never solve problems; it can only create more problems. When a brain that is trained to have problems, & to live with problems, solves one problem, in the very solution of that problem, it creates more problems. From childhood we are trained, educated to live with problems &, therefore, being centered in problems, we can never solve any problems completely.

It is only the free brain that is not conditioned to problems that can solve problems. It is one of our constant burdens to have problems all the time. Therefore our brains are never quiet, free to observe, to look. So we are asking: is it possible not to have a single problem, but to face problems? But to understand those problems, & to totally resolve them, the brain must be free!!

(via http://boundlessbyww.com/ )

Romantic involvement distracts you and can blind you to what’s really in front of you.

And, what’s really in front of you? You are.

You don’t even know yourself yet. You think you know and you want to assert that you do, now that you are a certain age, but you don’t. What’s in front of you is a whole world of experience beyond your imagination.

Put yourself and your growth development first. There are long-term repercussions to what you’re doing now. Everything you do, every thought you have, every word you say creates a memory that you will hold in your body. It’s imprinted on you and affects you in subtle ways you are not always aware of.

With that in mind be conscious and very selective.

(words by Phylicia Rashad)

Art by me :)

Take your mind back to the 90′s, how about 1995. Now imagine walking into your apartment after a long days work… pouring a glass of wine … sitting down and pressing a little button on your answering machine to see what messages you’ve received for the day. No long drawn out all day text strands, no cell phones at all. No Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram… just one active click of a button inviting yourself to listen to who has tried to reach into your world that day.

That was the simplicity of communication then. While I probably couldn’t completely revert back to 90′s technological communication … there was a beautifully uninvasive simplicity to that way of life. There was such power in living your day for YOU, accomplishing the tasks you needed to complete, and only when returning home checking to see who messaged. It kept life a bit more organic, more destined, more free. More things just… happened… like running into friends without having to pre-plan every moment via text. It let the universe do it’s work instead of only technology.

This weekend I tried to distance myself from my cell phone some. My friend Ashley and I yelped an amazingly cute Los Angeles lounge called the The Arsenal and stuffed our faces.. with possibly the best pizza I’ve ever had along side great beer. As we sat and chatted about life, what we’ve learned from the past, and what we are looking forward too… we ran into some close friends. As the night progressed we ended up with our entire group of friends that we would have hung out with had we actually took the time to plan out the evening. I think life… the universe… can unfold for you in spontaneous ways if you let it.

So live a little… and see what happens when you let go and distance yourself from your cell phone a bit!

Xo - Brette