New Painting: "Secret Garden"

SECRET GARDEN SERIES (yet unnamed),
30x30 acrylic, pastel, and ink on canvas
Leah Campbell Badertscher
Copyright 2016, All Rights Reserved
(partial image, see below for full view)

Hello Friends-
I have a new painting to share with you!  This was one I started way back in 2015, had to pack it away in December for our temporary move to London, and I just unpacked it (and several others that are midstream) a couple weeks ago.  I went to an awesome painting workshop in Nashville last week with Felicia Forte, an artist I admire and have been following for a couple years, and came back more excited than ever to paint - and also with plenty of new tools in my arsenal.  More on that another time....

For now, I wanted to show you some pics of this painting which I finished a few days ago and let you know that through midnight September 24, 2016, I am offering this SECRET GARDEN SERIES painting at an early bird offer of $1250 including S&H (for the continental US & Canada, but will help cover partial expenses for international shipping if one of my friends abroad would like this piece!).  After Saturday, it will be available for $2,500 plus S&H. 

This painting, like all of them, has a story to it and I wanted to share that with you here.  I actually have several of these SECRET GARDEN paintings I've been dreaming up ever since I was on a retreat hosted by Tonya Leigh Rising and she told the story of how a French girlfriend of hers, a woman tres magnifique in many ways, shared with Tonya one of her secrets to a beautiful, charmed life - and that was that every woman should know she has and tend to mystery and beauty, every woman should have her own secret garden.  (I may be taking creative license with Tonya's story, but am interpreting it in the way that it struck me!)

My imagination ran with this - and what the possibilities for this metaphor physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  And so this painting came about - as well as the others that are living just on the other side of my brush right now. 

When I was thinking of what to name these paintings, I wanted to give them names that resonated and landed with YOU.  YOU, out there, who may not believe you are a woman that can or does have a Secret Garden...but secretly, you want to.  Secretly, or maybe buried so deep beneath all the pressure to be mainstream, normal, ordinary, acceptable, toned down, less out there, blendinable and this or that - you just have the faintest sense of it, you know there is so much more beauty, mystery, sensuality, loveliness, grace, goodness, power, wildness, fierceness, tenderness, strength and complexity and nuance than you let on in your everyday life. 

And so I thought, what better way to show this than to name the paintings after women I know, but even cooler than that, I thought, would be to name the paintings after the women who bought them, or for whom they are purchased!

Of course, if someone wants to buy the painting but remain anonymous, then only she and I will know the painting's true, secret name.  And that is pretty cool, too, I think. ;)

Also, a little additional story on the creation process of this painting, when I was feeling a little stuck when I returned to work on it a couple weeks ago, I stopped and asked it and My Self - "what is this about anyway?"  And I "heard" immediately an answer that came so clear and fully formed, almost like a poem.  It was: 

Oh come, Beauty,
and nest in my Soul.

Together there we will make a garden
that feeds the world.

That poem contributes to some of the text you see in the images here.  And there was other poetry of mine in there as well - but those exact words are part of my secret. ;)

If you are interested in this piece or any other pieces I currently offer, please message me at leah@leahcb.com.  I will have many more original works coming soon, so please be sure to check back and sign up for my mailing list (and I promise not to bombard your inbox!).  Also, if you enjoy my work but are not currently in the market for an original piece, please be sure to check out the variety of prints, canvas reproductions, and other lovely products I offer through my Society6 shop!

Now on to the rest of the photos!
 

In this one you can see the oh-so-less-than-ideal current turquoise wall color of my studio - but the light was a little better in there and actually made for a crisper shot that is more true to the vibrancy of the colors!

Thank you for reading and for your interest in my art!  I really do appreciate it. <3

XOXO-

Leah