Clare keeps her treasure in her bellybutton.

clare's bellybutton., originally uploaded by kaliji.

Today was the day for a new banner. I love it. Change feels good. My old banner was too non-specific and boring.

I missed Clare, the tree spirit that briefly possessed me a few months ago. In so doing, the became part of an unfinished narrative concerning malevolent ogres and and giants that peel trees with potato peelers and create discreet color block graffitti on forgotten walls. One of my "ART-solutions" this year is to overcome my fear of creating outside of the safe confines of a book. This is my first independent piece (I did it!). I hope to create a series about Clare as her story unfolds in my dreams.

This all started because of Kimya Dawson whose music saturates the soundtrack of Juno. Her songs make my day when listened to in the morning and get me into create mode. Her song "I Like Giants" definitely infiltrated my consciousness and led me down a path toward Clare (Agent P. helped too).

My favorite lines are: "I like giants. Especially girl giants. Because all girls feel too big sometimes regardless of their size." I relate especially to that last sentence. That state of being so filled with inspiration and trajections of thought. As well as the state of being filled with joy or sadness. Having the freedom to experience thought and emotion to this extent is one of the many gifts facilitated by being a woman. It is an state of experience that many of our foremothers were not free to actualize for the consequences of being labeled a hysteric were severe. I would like to think that being a woman who allows herself to feel to such an extent is no longer negative. However the treatment by the media of the talented women in the political who filled boob tubes across the nation last year has caused me to think that we have not come as far as we would like to believe. It has certainly caused me to read my news online from sources without a recent history of misogyny, but I digress. If I were to truly translate my sentiments about the present state of "feminism" in this country into written form, it would be extensive and no doubt fueled by vitriol.

Instead, I will leave you with this clip of the official music video for "I Like Giants." The song is set to a really cute interpretative dance created and performed by her friends who are also members of the free choir she established in Olympia, Washington that anyone can attend. If I ever visit Olympia that will be on my short list of places to go for sure :) What music inspires you as you create?

xo Lara