SABRINA WARD HARRISON

you know that feeling when there is so much to tell, that you can't even begin. ..
but then the longing to connect is so strong, and the distance srats to feel so deep?
that's how I feel.
just waiting for the open space, when I know what to say.
and missing inbetween
I forget that I can admit overwhelm and not-knowing.
just like so.
hi.

{Posted by Sabrina at 1:18 PM}

Happy Birthday Muck!!!!

The cowgirls together in New York last winter rockin our new buck fifity H&M hats
{photo by muck visit this amazing woman at http://muck.wabqueens.com/}

{Posted by Sabrina at 1:27 AM}

{Posted by Sabrina at 8:47 PM}

Thank You Alexandrea The Great!
Three kicking ass ~
unforgettable months of wild and funny Fort ART Building

"The world is not respectable, it is mortal,
tormented, confused, deluded forever,
BUT,
it is shot through
with beauty and line,
with it's glints of courage
and laughter,
and in these,
the spirit blooms.....

~George contempt

{Posted by Sabrina at 1:57 PM}

I turned 29 last week,
yup.

?Thickets of Undigested Experiences?.

(I found this to be the best description of this past year.
I came across the line last night in my trusted old favorite
Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton.)
.

what has your year been like?

Life has been so tangled and unknown,
and sometimes quite ?unfelt?..(if that could make any sense....)
so much change and uncertainty and slivers of thrill
and vast deserts of lonely not knowing
trying to wish and hope ..
.for our country.
...for Kerry.
and what about this hard to place letdown?!

...and then,
just woven into all of it has
been all the RUSHING,
scrambling...!!
not sure towards where?

..to stay above water?
or maybe just avoiding having to stand
quietly still in the the murky knee high lake of how life feels right now.

my 20?s have swooshed by..and I wish I?d danced more, played more, smooched more,
and sat in that great old afternoon sun longer..

that?s the plan for this year.

I wanna go to:
Australia, Spain, Mexico
and back to the cottage...

So this is me right now.
probably pretty unclear,
it?s just what came out..

Since we are not just sitting
side by side
and able to say it with eyes
and sideways glances...
it will come just like so.

Cat Power ?covers? album
is playing.
It?s Friday, 5pm
and the
blue sky
start
of night.

{Posted by Sabrina at 4:54 PM}

seattle

{Posted by Sabrina at 10:31 PM}

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm up here in Canada with

my Nana and Grandpa

making bread pudding

and watching the

full moon

arm in arm.

sweet and simple

amazing grace

to you

and yours.

~sabrina

{Posted by Sabrina at 4:43 PM}

YOU ARE INVITED TO MY
SEATTLE
MESSY
THILLING
BOOK
READING & SIGNING
SUNDAY NOV.21ST.
5:00 PM
THIRD PLACE BOOKS
17171 BOTHELL WAY NE
LAKE FOREST PARK
206-366-3320

{Posted by Sabrina at 6:19 PM}

speechless

{Posted by Sabrina at 4:58 PM}

trying to understand how.

{Posted by Sabrina at 1:42 AM}

"and that�s why i have to go back
to so many places in the future,
there to find myself
and constantly examine myself
with no witness but the moon
and then whistle with joy,
ambling over rocks and clods of earth,
with no task but to live,
with no family but the road."
�pablo neruda

{Posted by Sabrina at 10:17 PM}

please
please
please

register to vote today!

~you must be the change you wish to see in the world~

{Posted by Sabrina at 9:38 AM}

I wish we could
just lie quietly
together
and
not have to worry
about,
all the rest.

{Posted by Sabrina at 9:51 PM}

remembering
three years ago.
such ache and fear and frantic

so today I made time.

I watched the birds dipping down
swooshing high again.

today my dad taught me how to ice a cake

I tried to sew on a sewing machine.

I am trying to let myself go.

I am trying to follow the moments I am handed

{Posted by Sabrina at 9:42 PM}

is born.

{Posted by Sabrina at 9:39 PM}

sunday with a cold remembering.

{Posted by Sabrina at 12:51 PM}

The NYC BIG Apple is done!!
5 days of wild art makin' here in NYC.
Right now it is on view in the storefront window on 5th ave @44th st.
In a week or two it will be placed in Rockefeller Center in front of the NBC studios until October 15th...
if you are in NYC, It would be fun for you to check it out...!

whhhew it has been a very VERY busy summer!..

{Posted by Sabrina at 7:33 PM}

here i sit on a greyhound bus on my way to boston from portland. i'm writing this from this little phone ditty tech wiz thing...hope it posts!

what a week! what an amazing weekend workshop in maine! massive SPILLING great women! funny honest true connections! i'll post pictures as soon as i can!

from here i'll be heading to Northampton for a little explore then back to boston for two SPILLING DAYS...then right to NYC to start creating the big NYC APPLE that will be up in the city for a few months (more on that from Val)...and in less then a month.....MESSY THRILLING LIFE will arrive! woo hoo! i think i'm ready! thank you for all your love. sab

{Posted by Sabrina at 2:43 PM}

I invited The great and lovely Erin (last Fall's wonderful intern)
down to my parents house for 2 days of restoring,
art making, connecting, and sweet sun slowness.

We need these times, more than ever...just to slow down, way down....

I think that
real friendship
bring us
to that soft
narrow path
through the trees
home to
ourselves...

I feel so blessed by my rich and blooming friendship with Erin.

p.s. Erin was just married a few weeks ago! It was BEAUTIFUL!

{Posted by Sabrina at 9:20 AM}

July 4th 2004

we picked up
the stones
of our
questions
and
threw them
like mad
into
the sea

our laughing
and release
went spilling
into the sand

{Posted by Sabrina at 12:56 AM}

Here is my Dad and his new pal Winnie.

{Posted by Sabrina at 12:17 PM}

could

we

meet

here one day

and

tell stories side by side

then dance while the sun goes down?

{Posted by Sabrina at 11:11 AM}

sab.

oh hello there ...good morning.

this is sabrina here.

(this is my first time trying to put a picture up with my message...
and what better one than this?)

how could something as simple
as a sleep and a shower,
result in something so .....
complicated as ..
this head of hair?

maybe it is some sort of expression of how life feels right now...

{Posted by Sabrina at 10:57 AM}

hi there sweet one,

Oh, spring has arrived.
gusting sunshine & swirling afternoons.
the skirts whipping up to the face.

home is tiny, but the park is massive.
here I am in this little nest of a perch along San Francisco�s Dolores park.
the book is down to the last -last-...LAST! few pages!

I have missed connecting and laughing and making on the floor with our colors together. I have wondered what you have been seeing, seeking...soaking in?

Isn�t it so much all at once sometimes?
then empty and quiet like 4 in the morning other days...?
which is it for you today?

I hope I see you soon..

Today I am having one of those ol� start all over again afternoons.....a bath...a book and some sunshine...

Today I am filled by..........

* A big welcome to Valerie Loe.

*this music I love : Peggy Honeywell

*this woman I am amazed by : Amanda Jones amandajonestravel.com

*this amazing website : futureme.org

*a birth to celebrate : Liem Gregory Reynolds

*a great old movie : Lady Jane

Love, Sabrina

{Posted by Sabrina at 12:58 PM}

A GREETING FROM VAL, Sabrina's new Project Manager:

hello to all... today, as i sit here in my new home office
i carry excitement...an enthusiasm to meet YOU, sabrina's readers, her contacts, her interns-to-be.

i carry an eagerness to create connection with the wonderful spirits that make their way through the sticky, tasty lives on this earth, in this space WE SHARE....
we share feelings, sentiments, energy.

i carry a wonder...i wonder "who will i share responisibities with? where will our interns come from? which companies will i connect with?" i will find out.

i carry the experience, the know-how, the motivation.
i will make it work for sabrina, for her readers. it will work.
it will enrich my life.

i will reach, connect, coordinate.
i will touch and be touched...inspiration will flow between us all. we can make this happen...i can aid the process.

i, val, am here to become part of a team, a tribe. WE ARE that tribe.

{Posted by Val at 12:55 PM}

"These are the days that must happen to you." ~ Walt Whitman

It feels good to be home.
I am in the little green bedroom at my parent's house, making a sort of nest/fort/studio space in the 8 feet of floor space I have.
In these 8 feet I will complete 176 pieces for the book in two weeks.
No, this is not a dare, this is my life right now.

Life has dealt me some twists this year. Hurled backwards flipping changes towards me.
It seems like the storm hit just as life seemed to be getting organized.
Life, I am learning, isn't organized, even for people who are neater that I am.

My boyfriend of two years moved to China all of a sudden 5 months ago.
A job, a chance, a need. Gone.
We had a house and a studio rented, so I moved out of the house and into the storage section of my studio. The studio isn't zoned for housing. I'm not allowed to live in there. It isn't a hip live/work loft in San Francisco. At first is was fun, it was like building a fort when I was nine. It was a chance to truly live in 'my box of paints,' as Joni Mitchell sings.
After a little while I started to feel like Anne Frank. Sneaking down the hall to the building's bathroom before people arrived to their offices at 9. There was hiding the bed behind boxes. There were essential elements missing, like a bathroom or stove, so I took to the routine of peeing in a bucket and eating Snackables for dinner. (That may be too much information for you. But life is in the details.)
It was sort of like camping.
I think I went a bit crazy.
But, I think I needed to. As we are getting older there's been this tendency to take myself too seriously, to start holding it so together, making stuff match, fill in the empty spaces.
I'd forgotten how to make it up with only what I have, invent the solution.

Often Erin and Muck would arrive to my studio to work and find me in a bit of everything: p.j.'s, a skirt, painting pants, chinese slippers, a wool hat covering my jungle of morning hair.

I had to reach out more. I had to ask for help, a couch to sleep on at Leigh and Jason's when it was too late to go back to the studio alone or a hot bath at the Back-ups. It brought me back closer into the realness of friendship, not the quick coffee dates, but the real reason we are in each other's lives. The slow campfire connection.

I had to invent the solution. I like what happened. I missed my partnership, I ached for all the time and work I invested into making a life out here together. I had to heal from the feeling of failure and abandonment.

But then, I began to feel the freedom rise inside.
I could take off the grownup shoes!
I could choose new grownup shoes--- my own comfortable simple ones that will have to be able to slip off easily.

I thought of the great old Joseph Cambell quote tacked to the wall:
"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

We must trust the changes that happen in our lives.
We must let go.

There is something marvelous waiting for you.

Bless you in your making.
Sabrina

{Posted by Sabrina at 11:04 AM}

Oh, hello there.

Here I am again swooshing around with varnish soaked brushes and paint smeared pants. It is less than a week before Christmas, and it feels the farthest from my mind...isn't that terrible?

How are you doing with this time?

It feels so amazingly busy! I am having a hard time staying steady in people's eyes, and I hate that sort of overwhelm.

The difference is so extreme from 20 years ago as an 8-year-old, desperately counting down the days until I could rip open my presents, hoping for a new pair of riding boots or a guinea pig. I had about a billion guinea pigs growing up. I was all about horses and guinea pigs.

Okay, anyway...packing and painting and building pages and walls of art. I did have a absolutely wonderful evening out on the town a week ago, thanks to a dear Birthday Present from Christine Castro, I was given 2 tickets to see Rosie Thomas at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco. I took Leigh, who just had a baby and needed out of the house like me. It was one of those perfect evenings of rich true music, good women, some sweet fellows and clear perspective.

Erin Muck and I are setting up the Open Studio sale party here for tomorrow. We are thinking Champagne might be in order, for all of us, after this whirlwind of a wild Fall and Winter.

In 8 days I will board a plane for China for a month. Some exploring and nonsense~nothing~ness time is in order.

I have loved my times meeting you, creating with you, laughing and sharing the real story of our lives. If we haven't yet met, I trust we will soon. Thank you for opening my books and reading along the way.

I can't wait to share my book with you, and it is due just about NOW.

So I do send you restful long laughter and a lounging reading on the couch afternoon. My favorite book has been The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd...so beautiful!

Bless you more than ever,
Sabrina

{Posted by Sabrina at 10:00 AM}

November 22nd!

It's Christine Castro's birthday, the magic web designer of my site!

I am sending you thousands of bursting kisses, and many twinkling dripping candles...

...You are a wish.

sabrina.

{Posted by Sabrina at 9:52 PM}

Greetings to All!

DIDO is blasting from the stereo, Sabrina is scurrying about to put her fantastic third book together and I am just looking out the window at the Berkeley Bay and feeling somewhat nervous to send this email to the thousands of you on Sabrina�s mailing list. I must say that there is something reassuring and even powerful in this group of folks who have picked up Sabrina�s work and felt a �yes� somewhere along the reading process that moved you to be on this list.

So here is to continued good work and opportunities for community and growth....

As the seasons are shifting and the new year approaches we invite you to join us at one of our �All Day Spilling� workshops. We will be holding two workshops, one in San Diego and one in Los Angeles. Both days provide a unique opportunity to reflect, create and spill in a safe and supportive community setting. These will be Sabrina�s final workshops untill her book comes out next August, so do come if you can.

Los Angeles, CA *** Saturday, NOV. 22, 2003
Silky, prickly, thin, cool; the feeling between your toes. These blades threading through your fingers as the pen fills the page with words. Take off your shoes, lay on the grass and feel your surroundings. There are many times when the details in touch and smell are forgotten. It is time to reconnect with these senses and the environment. We will investigate our surroundings and integrate found objects into art. As glitter spills, paint and fabric spreads, your personal journals and art pieces will come alive with more texture and energy. Time: 9am-3:30pm

San Diego, CA *** Sunday, DEC. 14, 2003
San Diego lies at the border of California and Mexico, this beautiful city is the literal example of what one of my favorite writers, Gloria Anzeldua would call �the borderland�. The �border land� is that place where our frame of reference, our experiences and our identities live. What does your borderland look like? San Diego is the perfect setting to explore the �borderland� you exist and navigate through. Expect laughter, collaging, sunshine, scraps of paper on the floor and word has it there will be pizza! Time: 9am-3:30pm

All workshops are $123.00 and you can sign up by clicking on the Pay Pal link on the Learn page to sign up for the �one day workshop�. After you sign up, send me, Erin, a quick email to let me know which date you will be attending. We are looking forward to seeing you in the next few months!

Sabrina just returned from a wonderful adventure to China! She is eager to share her experiences and photos from her journey so stay tuned for more to come from Sabrina.

Warmly,
Erin Hanley, Fall Intern

{Posted by Sabrina's Intern at 12:45 PM}

Wow, I just got home from a funny, wonderful week of TLC in LA.

Here are the little fragments I remember:

1. leading a great packed spilling workshop, which was so much fun....
and way too hot...
{it was nearly naked spilling.}

2. the welcoming of TIVO into my world...by my mother of all people! :)
7 episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight guy
4 episodes of Girls Behaving Badly on Oxygen
(I don't have cable at home, and there was a disturbing satisfaction in truly vegging in front of a massive screen, till I went cross eyed with the "fab 5.")

3. giving Molly a foot rub and listening to the baby inside her tummy, looking at pictures from journals we filled in 7th grade and the really tapered jeans and keds we wore.

4. sitting in the sand alone on Newport Beach watching the surfers catching their last waves as the sunset. remembering Alex that way.

5. the most caring adorable mom for me, and all her good love.

6. my gentle perfect old friendship with Jaysie from L10.

and a few other things...

The best movie I've seen recently: All the Real Girls -- rent it!

Radio show I've a always loved: This American Life on NPR.

Card company: 3 Mulligans & Company. E-mail threemulligans@yahoo.com for stores.

"Be well, do good work, be in touch." ~Garrison Keillor

love,
SAbrina

{Posted by Sabrina at 4:05 PM}

My, oh, my...I am up early with a hot chai tea before I head off to a printmaking workshop I am taking. It�s a 'Two-Week Intensive.' Learn, learn, learn!

That's how I go toward learning. I want to learn everything! And quickly!

But what I notice is that by the lunch break I was planning my escape route: How can I ditch the second half of class? It goes back to High School days. I hate being told I HAVE TO STAY IN CLASS.

I am listening to Stephanie Dosen's CD, Ghosts, Mice and Vagabonds. It is ever so lovely. She sent it to me yesterday, for she had written a song called "Brave" that she said was inspired from reading Brave on the Rocks.

I lay on the floor of my studio, arms open wide and closed my eyes and just listened and cried. It is so rare when music seeps down into the heart that way anymore...when the songs make you cry, tears rolling down into your ears.

Music lets me go.

I just came home from New York City. I went there with the mission to collect as much stuff off the street as I could fit in my back pack. I stayed at my old first apartment in NYC, sleeping on the couch in my old
bedroom, where my dear friend Vayu lives now. I've never gone back and slept at a place I moved away from. The familiar smells, the climb up to the roof, seeing the already shifting skyline.

It was sticky humid, mucky, no color sky. I saw so much exhaustion in faces around me, in myself. I have been gone from the city for nearly 10 months now.

Inspired by Christine Castro's "Good Things" list, I made one while I was there, to help me overcome:

* $4.oo sparkling Chinese slippers.
* Finding Dan Burn�s Music...remembering him singing at the Freight and Salvage.
* 'Basic time' around the kitchen table with cherry pie and Hilary's homemade lasagna.
* Getting lost on the S train, trying to find Nolita.
* The new pier across from Weehawken St. and the guy giving away free ice cream bars in the heat.
* Vayu's 'rescue remedy' on the grass, in the twilight, in front of the city.
* Produce boxes on the street and their beautiful graphics.
* Strolling and galloping to the East Village with Tymaree.
* Frank's Italian Restaurant.
* Cold white wine from Charles at Finally Fred's.
* The waitress at RICE and her $4.oo vintage dress.
* Remembering little moments with John at nearly every corner.
* Marc Jacob shoes I can't afford and Robert who loves to give them away like spare change.
* Having cable for 5 days. Watching Sex and the City, in the city. 30 minute meals on the Food Channel (and taking notes).
* Missing California.
* Thinking of John�s voice and passing corners where the first lingering conversations began.

Now I am home, and so glad.

The workshops have been so wonderful! My studio fills with light and laughing and sticky paint and glue fingers. I have loved everyone who has come ~ it gives me such hope to connect with you directly. We need each other directly as women.

Some of you have been sending me mix CD's and I LOVE them! THANK YOU! Send more if you are inspired! Music is such a big part of my art making, and your new tunes are well chosen!

I have some new prints up from all the printmaking I have been working on.

There are some workshops being planned for the future. I have two workshops at my studio left for the year.
I hope you can join me for them. And...one is being dreamed up in TUSCANY...ITALY! Now wouldn't that be brilliant?! Make a little note, October. 25 - November. 1.

I am crossing my fingers and wishing. Let�s all meet there!

I hope that you are letting all this grace around you today. I am right there with you in the questions...

~SAbrina

{Posted by Sabrina at 3:50 PM}

Come join us for Sabrina's Open Day Studio
Enjoy the recent prints inspired by her two years in New York Strawberry Creek Design Center.

Saturday, June 7, 2003 12-3:30 PM
at 1250 Addison St, Suite 1250, Berkeley, CA 94702.

Driving directions: From San Francisco, take 80 East and exit at University Ave. Turn right on Boner and left on Addison.

Click here to view the invitation.

{Posted by Sabrina at 12:43 PM}

My oh my. Well, here we are... Have you been feeling this way too?

Whoosh, bang, ahhh! Living! Everything is changing! Trying to digest it all!

Thanks you for stopping into my site for a little visit. There are new things happening...

I am one of those people who really likes a "new plan." A fresh start. When the neighbors left us a note yesterday that they were moving out at the end of the month, I thought, and quickly told my boyfriend, John, "Great, let's MOVE upstairs." Change for the sake of change.

It's fine, but it makes for a lot of shlepping ~ I have realized I could end up spending half my awake life moving and changing endings, beginnings, over and over... :)

My latest change...I have moved to a new studio. Just by chance I got a glimmer of it one day and thought it best that I make it happen. And it is all because of the late great artist Jenny Read. (I�ll tell you the whole story soon ~ thank you forever, Molly and Coille Hooven.)

I can finally see myself teaching here, lying out on the grass, eating fresh warm bread from the bakery downstairs. Playing frisbee with John in the park. Yoga on late Sunday mornings. This is the life I have wanted to make.

I start my first class there tomorrow night. I am nervous and thrilled about it!

This summer will be filled with wonderful new friendships and then there are OPEN STUDIOS! I will have my open studios for one day Saturday, JUNE 7th from 12-3:30.

I am all set up ~ it�s not like the last open studios in a shared raw space. This is my own spot, and many more pieces will be available, so come by for a little something nice: www.strawberrycreekonline.com. Studio 212 on the 2nd floor.

Thank God the weather has been lovely. It's been a rainy spring, but now the poppies and red sunflowers are ablaze on my stairs.

I have a lot going on and my mind feels cramped. I need a file cabinet for my brain. I am trying to get the final writing done for this book, and it's tough honest stuff, and is born for procrastination and overwhelm. Then 176 new pieces of art...

I keep forgetting and remembering about SARK's micro movements, Anne Lamott's bird by bird advice, just a bit, bit by bit...Mimi goals.

More than ever, I believe we must slow down and remember all the reasons why we are working so hard to make our life "happen." This is the time to see the wild roses growing along our over grown paths. We must remember.

The quote of the day: "A worried man can't love." --told to me by Richard Lang at Trillium Press

{Posted by Sabrina at 4:33 PM}

Clean, fresh beginning. Spring! Welcome to my new Web site!

Thank you to the amazing Christine Castro who designed it!

I am here in California.
Pink jasmine is blooming.
The sun is out on the deck.
Taxes are due.

I am writing down life, working on my third book which is due NOW.
Thrilling Messy Life.
I am printmaking and photographing and feeling very grateful for my first ever studio away from home, ie: free from phone and e-mail, and snacks every 8 minutes.

Thank you for all your love and support. Every bit helps fuel me on to becoming a stronger braver woman and artist.

Off to spill,
SAbrina

{Posted by Sabrina at 2:44 PM}