🗞 FI BOOK CLUB NEWS 📚
Tag: Art
Design Your Life
EARTH DELIGHTS
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Let there be spaces in your togetherness.
Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.
I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
Work is love made visible.
If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.
Khalil Gibran
Create Your Fate
An excerpt from the poem Let Your Soul Breathe:
Create your Fate with no debate about the gate to happiness
It is not found in Gucci or Guess
And Stress is a by-product of poor decision
Malnutrition
And living by someone else’s standards
Let Your Soul Breathe
Read the full poem HERE
Girl On Film
The Girl on Film is me, on my birthday, at Silk City in Philly when I was young enough to not even dare go out before 10pm at the earliest. I was maybe 23 years old.
I met this cute nerdy photog that night and he snapped this instant of me, the flash blowing out my face in the dark bar. I immediately loved that it was me, but it wasn’t. Without a face I had no identity. At the height of my creative lifestyle, this was pure poetry in my mind. It made the gent even cuter.
I went to take a sip of my Yuengling lager and got bumped simultaneously by an anonymous passerby in the crowd, which so easily occured due to the tight shotgun shape of the retro diner redesigned into a nightclub. That little elbow bump thrust my arm and the bottle too quickly to my mouth, chipping my front tooth. Luckily it was so tiny it was unnoticeable, but I could feel it with my tongue, and proceeded to do so obsessively all night.
Years later I put the photo in a frame with this found metal honeycomb scrap to add an extra level of creativity. I never kissed the boy.
MINIMALIST DECLUTTER ROUND #?
INTERNATIONAL DEBUT: DLUX TATER BOWL
Lock me in a kitchen for a year and some interesting choices are bound to be made….
Introducing the DLUX TATER BOWL!
GIRL. Lemme just tell you. This bowl was 2 servings but I licked the damn thing clean. SUPÈRYUMZ
Vegan. Whole30. Paleo. Grain Free. Gluten Free. Dairy Free. Organic. #allthethings
9 times out of 10 I’m eating a #YAM but once in a while girlfriend needs a white ass potato, mmkay?
Bake the baby in the #instapot. If you don’t have this GET IT NOW. My #1 minimalist friendly kitchen tool.
TBH, #1 is tied between IP, Immersion Blender, + Juicer, but you get what I’m laying down, right? I’m a #minimalist; I only have 3 tools; they are all #1.
While the #tater is baking, sauté: onion, garlic, bell pepper, mushrooms, broccoli. Put big ole tater in a bowl a top with #nutritionalyeast, olive oil, salt + peppa. Then load on the sautéed veggies and top with #sauerkraut, #olives, & #avocado. Add Olive Oil Drizzle.
Yes. I said olives. OLIVES ON EVERYTHING.
Don’t challenge me. It’s dope. #saltfatacidheat
All of this from #PlanetEarth. How amazing is that?
Next, pretend you will save half for lunch tomorrow + devour every delicious morsel.
YW. 💕, DLUX
FREE ’21
Art for Art’s Sake
Free ’21 – A graphic revision of the original mixed media collage entitled “Free”
In honor of Aunt Dot. Happy Birthday. May you always fly free. RIP
YOU, Superhero
First order of business: You literally are a superhero. You have SO many powers to create your fate. Law of Attraction, Quantum Physics, Alchemy – whatever you want to call it, we have the power! Don’t talk yourself out of it – try it today! ✨❤️✨
Second, If you want a superhero collage with your face, I can do that for ya! Just let me know. Hang it on your mirror, on your fridge, make it part of your vision board – whatever you want to remind yourself and give yourself a little boost. YOU’RE AWESOME. Don’t let anyone make you feel any differently.
~ FIN ~
“You are stronger than you believe. You have greater powers than you know.”
—Antiope to Diana, Wonder Woman Movie
Credit Score Goals
As a goal oriented person, I always love setting New Year Resolutions, or New Year Goals, every year. I know alot of people that are adamantly against this. People say, “why bother if you’re just going to fail.” I see their point (kinda), but I have always followed the ideology of it’s not how many times you fall, it’s how many times you get back up. Fear of failure isn’t an option, but what’s more, it gives me something to work towards, as well as an opportunity to set an intention.
One of my New Year Goals for 2020 was to raise my credit score to 800. This one was tricky because I knew so much of this achievement would be out of my hands. First of all, there are 3 credit bureaus calling the shots and they don’t even agree with each other. Second, it’s a mystery to me how it even works. There is a lot of bait involved in this credit business. For example, my credit score would slowly tick up as I paid off debts and kept lower balances, but when I had a car emergency and had to take out a car loan, I was stunned to see that my credit score shot up several points after taking on this new large debt. Why? I didn’t feel I should be rewarded for that, but it’s some weird formula to encourage you to keep spending, and most people spend beyond their means when it comes to credit. Third, it took me years to get to 700 alone. I got my first credit card in college, along with the school loans, and promptly threw my score in the gutter for over a decade at just over 300 points. To say I was irresponsible with my credit is an understatement. I came from extreme poverty with a subzero financial IQ before I turned this ship around.
So, as you can see in the image, I did not achieve my goal of 800 points, BUT I did gain 89 points from the year before. In December 2019 before I made this goal I had just hit 700 even. Is this a failure? NOPE. This goal gave me mindfulness. Every month I recorded my updated score. I was encouraged because I was actively paying down debt, learning to live within a budget, and watching the score go up. I’ve been working on my budget for years but it takes a long time to master! Having this goal made me focused and vigilant to get the best results possible by persevering and course correcting as needed. I’d call this a win.
A credit score of 800 or higher is considered perfect and I was able to get so close that now I can definitely have it as an achievable goal for 2021. Even though it will take me a little longer to get there, I’m stoked to have stayed the course and to keep reaching higher.
What financial goals are you setting for yourself in 2021? Remember, it’s never too late to start anew. I re-evaluate my New Year Resolutions every quarter to make sure I’m on track and make updates if anything has shifted. It’s not written in stone, it’s your life novel to write and edit as you deem fit. You can do anything you set your mind to. I believe in you!
If you can believe it, you can achieve it.
~ Napoleon Hill
REFLECTIVE, GROWTH
Reflective, Growth
Mixed Media, 2019
The image in the center is a detail from my original conte crayon drawing and mixed media artwork called Reflective, which was a piece I created in the aftermath of losing my little brother, Brian, aka MC Logic, to suicide. I was swimming in the deep darkness during this time, trying to make sense of it, all the more shocking as I had found out at 5am on the day I landed on American soil after frolicking all over Brazil for 2 months without a care in the world. It was the last time I was truly, unequivocally free. Returning to this news was beyond devastating. Gratefully, I was surrounded by the undying love of my supportive community who kept me from drowning and helped me hold my sense of purpose to go on without him.
Both originals have already been sold, but Postcards and Prints are available in my Etsy shop, Luv Logica. You can also contact me here for direct inquiries and commissions of any work not shown on Etsy, including those shown on Utopia Dreamscape.
I’ll post the complete, original Reflective piece tomorrow so check back then!
ENCHANTRESS EMBELLISHED
“Enchantress Embellished”
Mixed Media on Canvas, 2019
As a lighting professional and an environmentalist, I’m sad to say that my industry produces a lot of waste. 😏 To do my part, I upcycle e-waste and lamp parts into new art to divert these items from the waste stream. This is part of an ongoing series I call “The Reuse Revolution”.
The fairy in this piece is a reprint from an original painting / drawing that I created several years ago and still love to this day. She is acrylic and ink.The background is spray paint using various trash as stencils.
This original has already been sold, but Postcards and Prints are available in my Etsy shop, Luv Logica. You can also contact me here for direct inquiries and commissions for any works not shown on Etsy.
xo, dlux
utopiadreamscape.com 