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Seat of Your Pants
Art Book Gallery
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Classic Coffee Table Art Book:
Learning to Fly
10" x 8" book, 88 pages with 42 pages of
full color artwork and writings -
$25.95
by Doreyl Ammons Cain -
her Bio
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Limited Special
Buy the Book -> Get Free Art Print of choice
(8.5" x 5.5")
| "Learning to Fly" by Doreyl Ammons Cain
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As a child I roamed the mountains and coves of the Tuckasegee Valley in the southern Appalachian
Mountains of western North Carolina. The life within every leaf, tiny ant, soaring bird and slow
moving turtle intrigued me. I pressed myself as close as possible to the hovering bee and etched
it’s dusty wings forever in my memory. Colors, shapes, movement surrounded me and sparked my imagination,
coloring my troubled childhood with optimism. Living within the arms of nature, I learned to fly.
Since returning to the mountains I’ve worked for twenty years with my sister, Amy Ammons Garza, creating
performance art to her mountain stories for countless numbers of children and adults. Other venues remain;
painting pastel cover art for the Fun Things to Do in the Mountains regional publication, writing a column
called "Living in the Woods," painting cover art for book publication, making limited edition Giclee art
prints of my art, painting community based murals and living a sustainable life-style in the western North
Carolina mountains. My husband Jerry Cain and I have pioneered our own homestead called Nature’s Home. Many
of my short stories and antidotes in this book are based on living in the backwoods and the learning absorbed
from nature. Most of the writings are from my Living in the Woods column, first published in Fun Things to Do
in the Mountains.
- Doreyl Ammons Cain -
Price List
A TIME WHEN NATURE SINGS by Doreyl Ammons Cain
Nature and creativity go hand in hand. With spring just around the bend, the greatest display
of colorful creativity imaginable lies just beneath the surface, ready to pop up. Living in the
woods at the top of Smoking Sage Gap in Nature’s Home Preserve, I get to watch this magnificent
creative event in progress. Every moment brings new surprises...flower petals open to express
their wildness, tender leaves unfurl and bright eyes blink from holes in the earth. Spring has
sprung, creating quite a show in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
When you take the time to kneel, put your hands in the dirt, and plant a tiny bit of shiny dark
seed, you are becoming part of the miracle of nature; for within this small seed is all that is
needed to create food that will sustain human life. A most powerful and mysterious force is at
work, for the idea of the seed, its fruit and the intricate engineering knowledge to create it,
is stored here. This type of powerful “creativity” rests within every human being as well.
Most people think they are not creative. Somewhere during a lifetime another has criticized
them for being different, laughed at their efforts in music, art or dance; or an authority figure
has made an example of their supposed creative inadequacies. The truth remains in the tiny seed
that can create life, a beautiful flower, a corn stalk. Nature and human alike, we are all creative!
While pursuing my Masters degree in Biomedical Illustration, I spent four years in premedical
studies and the study of human anatomy. I discovered many astonishing characteristics of the human
body and the way it works. One of the most incredible findings is the difference between the left
and right side of the brain. The functions of the right and left brain show that every human has
the capacity for immense creativity. The right hemisphere is the spontaneous creative mode. We
“see” things in this mode that may be imaginary--existing only in the mind’s eye--or recall things
that may be real. We see how things go together in space and how the parts go together to make
up a whole. Using the right hemisphere, we understand metaphors, we dream, we use new combinations
of ideas. And using the right hemisphere we are able to draw pictures of our perceptions.
The block to expressing new ideas is our own (and that of society’s) reluctance to accept change.
Each of us has innate creative ability that can be used when we change our attitudes about our
capabilities and believe in ourselves.
As an artist my own creativity is at work all year long. New ideas and imagination come from a
spontaneous place. Challenging myself to create something new, I live in the moment allowing my
own artist blossoms to sprout through a sea of pastel dust. Discovery is instantaneous.
Progressing through a piece of art, I stay constantly open to “a-ha’s” along the way. As long
as I believe “it never has to be a certain way,” I can be creative.
About this time of the year I just can’t wait for spring to show up. This is the time when
nature sings! With every new spring nature tends to outdo the last one, so I am excited to see
what 2007 will bring.
Also arriving is my new revised edition of a “Greatness in a Nutshell, Exploring Creativity
and Following Your Dream,” a book to help you find the creativity inside. You can find it
at www.PastelArt.SeatofYourPants.org.
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