Upcycled Moon Goddesses - Mixed Media Musings

Or where the idea came from. Or why I was inspired to create the piece I did. These are incredibly difficult questions to answer succinctly in the way I imagine the person is hoping for. It is rarely a simple answer such as “I saw a beautiful landscape so I painted it in an afternoon.” Instead each artwork is the flowing together of many streams of ideas and influences.

I’ve read a number of articles, blogs, and newsletters from creators analyzing their creative rhythm. These writings are often in response to the speed and acceleration of trend cycles, questioning the break neck pace for delivering “content” and maintaining a performance of productivity. I suppose this is my contribution to that catalog of musings with personal introspection around the completion and exhibition of these two sculptures.

As I began this missive I went back into my notes to see where the idea for this project began to gestate. My earliest record of an upcycled mixed media sculpture was in an ancient notion database dated to January 2024, but that implies that the idea may have existed prior to the digital artifact. I remember that the idea had been sparked by a ceramic sculpture of a dancer that was destined to gather dust in a thrift store, or worse, smashed in a landfill. When her head snapped off in an unfortunate fall in my studio the first inkling of “upcycling” her came to me. Her head would years later find its way onto my Thunder Musings - Mixed Media Manifestations Mosaic. I share all this to shine a light that creativity is sometimes glacial in its unfolding, coming into focus only after dozens, or sometimes hundreds of idle thoughts.

A second stream of influence was a response to all the change in my life. There has been a lot of change in my life since I started this newsletter. When I began I only had one child, my son (I originally typed Sun 🤔... interesting) having just turned one ten days before launching. I hadn’t survived brain surgery yet. I still lived in the house that is now under construction, along with an art studio. I was still committed to being full time artist. I didn’t expect to be pregnant again or to be considering a change in vocation.

I share all this to shine a light that creativity is sometimes glacial in its unfolding, coming into focus only after dozens, or sometimes hundreds of idle thoughts.

With two years of this newsletter written I now sit in the wake of this change. I live under the mountain instead of out on the plains. Now I have two children. My art practice has shifted and I am owning more and more my gifts as a writer. And I am considering going back to school to step more fully into my passions of community building and ritual.

“To make altars and shrines specifically in collaboration with other people- to tap into the web of sacred energy that flows in and out of all things. To create with anyone wanting to anchor and ground the sacred into their rites of passage and events. To express my constellation of wisdom and expertise through creative, interactive, beautiful spaces.” - December 2024

I am still visioning and dreaming this call to action into reality. These miniature shrines made of found statues, broken jewelry, painted canvases and grids of crystals are part of an ongoing shift in my art practice away from abstracted paintings towards more representational pieces.

Last Summer I found myself possessed with a need to make more concrete and representational art. In contrast to the abstract invocation paintings of my previous collections, I experimented with creating art that an audience could more readily identify with. Watercolor crystal jewelry gave way to paper dolls, then messy art hearts, collaged frames, and eventually a growing collection of thrifted figurines waiting to become goddesses.

That was a year ago, and just now the first showing of these Goddess Sculptures is being witnessed. Part of the pace for this creative endeavor was lengthened by becoming pregnant again with my second child. Besides being flattened by morning sickness, fatigue, and the stress of chasing a toddler while growing a whole new being inside me, I found my creative drive shifted away from my artistic practice. Thankfully the Boulder Art Associations call for art ReCreate! fueled my ambition to complete and submit the two goddess sculptures I started in August.

This call for art and commitment to engaging with my local art community is the third stream that answers the question of “Why did you make this thing?” I love a deadline. Even though I adore making and creating for arts sake, on my own rhythm and inspiration, I still find a deadline incredibly motivating. The Boulder Arts Association is the one local art group I have have been able to keep up with in this new season of Mama Artist. I hope to weave back into a wider circle of local arts organizations as my children grow older, but for now I am thankful for the community I have found with the BAA.

When I saw the original Call for Art I knew this was the impetus I needed to finish these two pieces. It read “ReCreate invites member artists to create art with materials & items that would normally be trashed or recycled.” The two thrifted statuettes along with all the broken jewelry, found objects, recycled paper, rescued spray paint, all fit the call for the show. In my application I wrote:

“The main figure for the Full Moon Goddess is an upcycled statuette from a local thrift store. Her base coat of paint, the beginning of her transformation, was with spray paint from the hazardous material recycling center. She was then adorned and decorated with found papers, broken jewelry, and other ephemera collected across a lifetime as a mixed media artist and dancer. Some of the materials are from Art Parts. Lastly, the crystal grid, which charges the Goddess and acts as a base or halo (it can be placed under the statuette or hung behind on the wall) was also made with a variety of mixed media materials, and crystals repurposed from my personal collection of altar objects.“ - April 2026

These sculptures were not created on aesthetic mornings with calm cups of tea and incense burning. They were not created during a dedicated weekly grind. They were created in fits and starts, mostly around ritual time I was able to carve out on the New and Full Moon, when I could clear space in my half-packed studio (we moved in the middle of my pregnancy) to settle in with the story that wanted to come through these devotional sculptures. The art unfolded over five main stages: 1. Sketching and dreaming with the found objects; 2. Decoupaging the sculptures, 3. Decorating the sculptures with broken jewelry and found objects; 4. Painting the Canvases, 5. Building then affixing the crystal grids to the canvases.

When I found myself with the time for each phase of the creative process I fell into flow, finding my way into the sacred story I sought to capture in these miniature devotional pieces. The play of papers against ceramic was delightful to explore, noticing how the paper would shift and transform when it came into contact with the rounded shapes of the sculpture. The trial and error of finding the perfect charms from my stash of collected jewelry to activate the Full and New Moon energies of the goddesses. The jewelry held stories from yard sales, belly dance performances, family hand-me-downs, and broken memories. To see them restored and repaired in new forms as headdresses and mantles for these sculptures intrigued and delighted me. And finally to take a form I have explored for the last seven years of my art practice, acrylic gelli printing with mixed media on canvas, and see that elevated with the addition of a crystal grid into an altar or halo to support these two sacred idols was deeply satisfying.

And in considering these questions I see how my creative rhythm is pulled and influenced by the multiplicity of my being. My time is prioritized around my children, in this season of motherhood where I have newborns and toddlers. My attention is honed by the cycle of seasons and moons, for the focus of ritual will always deepen my attention to my art, inviting me to embody my muse and artist with care. And My desire to stay in relation to a wider sphere of peers will keep me accountable to deadlines and calls for art, like the show I am honored to participate in with the BAA this summer.

The jewelry held stories from yard sales, belly dance performances, family hand-me-downs, and broken memories. To see them restored and repaired in new forms as headdresses and mantles for these sculptures intrigued and delighted me.

I hope if you are local you find time to visit the Main Branch of the Boulder Public Library to see the fruition of these ideas encapsulated in the Upcycled New Moon and Full Moon Goddesses as well as all the other inspirational recycled art in the the ReCreate! exhibit. I plan to be at the opening celebration on Sunday, August 16th from 12:30 – 2:30 PM in Mt. Sanitas room of the Library. The BAA promises bagels, snacks & canned flavored sparkling water and invite you to bring your own reusable container for coffee and tea in the spirit of the show.

Be well and Blessed Be! ~Khiri