Ideally I like to surround myself with people who have very positive attitudes about their direction in life and aspirations for their future. I particularly love sharing with people who are also not afraid to travel beyond the confines of the norm in their thinking and being.
I guess I’ve had the notion of escaping the norm ever since I can remember. As a child it seemed that whatever you wanted TO BE in life was inextricably bound to whatever ‘career’ you chose and I changed my budding ‘careers’ nearly every week.
Science always attracted me, wanting to know how everything in life and the universe worked. But my final criteria, at the age of about 18 was to have the ‘Personal Freedom’ to explore and follow my own ‘dreams’ which were still forever changing and my priority was never to be restricted by a 9 to 5 lifestyle. At that time I didn’t equate ‘Personal Freedom’ with ‘Financial Freedom’ and the only people within my ‘realm’ that seemed to be living life to the fullest were ‘The Artists.’
Ironically I felt like a fish out of water when it came to actually drawing and painting, but fortunately I came under the early guidance of a few ‘Living Masters’ who taught me that a lot of the time, Art WORK was just that .. Basically 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration/dedication. Thus began my career as an Art WORKER and spending twice as many hours ‘WORKing’ as most people do in their ‘9 to 5 jobs.’
I graduated from Prahran CAE, Victoria with the Diploma of Art & Design * Majoring in painting but equally devoted to drawing especially in very fine detail using color combined with black and white.
Camelia * On the Edge * Colored pencil 300 x 180 mm
With an increasing interest in conceptual and environmental art I jumped at the opportunity to assist Tom McCullough, Director of the Mildura Arts Centre during a Sculpturescape Triennial year.
The Mildura Sculpture Triennials were the first events in Australia to promote and encourage large scale contemporary sculpture, site-specific installation and performance art.
Mildura, a remote regional city on the border of Vitoria, South Australia and New South Wales was an ideal convergence point for artists from around Australia and overseas to gather. And the Sculpture Triennials were the first events to promote and encourage large scale contemporary sculpture, site-specific installation and performance art in Australia.
‘The Mildura Sculpturescape attracted an increasing number of artists doing installation, process, earth and other forms of art that emerged when sculpture, as it were, left the pedestal, moved around the room and went outside.’ Noel Sheridan.
A few years later I returned to Mildura to establish ‘The Garden’ a collaborative work with Margaret Bell. Passing mention at ‘Not just a pretty picture: art as ecological communication’ on page 355 * Smile.
The following Sculpturescape ‘The Garden’ was returned to and claimed by its native surroundings. This time totally undocumented. Would love to devote a page to the three months of my life spent designing and constructing ‘The Garden’ and perhaps one day I’ll find the publication that I can still recollect having a wonderful laugh over with Tom: I’d made some wonderfully inane comments about all the events/participation the garden attracted rather than the actual garden itself. Which reflecting upon now is rather typical and possibly why I have always loved organizing group exhibitions and events.
It seemed only natural to become immersed in the reciprocal relationship between art and healing and in my silk art work in particular, after becoming technical adapt through painting on many different types of silk, I aimed at infusing the healing vibrations of crystals and plants including our native bush plants/flowers into my paintings. At that time I was also making my own Australian Native Flower Essences.
Magnolias * Costume details * Serti Silk Painiting
For me health and healing is ALL encompassing and involves far more than the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. Although all these ingredients are vital for our overall survival, our total wellness is also dependent on our reactions and responses to people/animals/circumstances, the myriad of impressions we absorb and assimilate on a moment by moment basis and all the dynamics of our relationships with each other and all living creatures including the earth herself.
A few years ago I realized that over the years, in order to ‘survive’ I’d been slowly compromising my ideals of instilling my art with something of ‘true essence’ and so just like that .. I stopped ALL personal art WORK and started exploring the world of on-line networking and business opportunities.
Throughout my working life, not all assigned tasks were to my own choosing and the one philosophy that has sustained me the most has been to ‘do what you love, and if you can’t do that, to love what you do.’
So now I ‘work’ at whatever I do on-line with just as much energy and enthusiasm. Perhaps even more so as I still manage to find outlets to explore and now communicate about both my image making and healing interests.
Design for Miracle Mineral Solutions
Perhaps the biggest influence on my philosophy of art and then health and healing can be paraphrased in this one sentence. ‘The Greatest Art is that of making a Complete Human Being out of Oneself.’
And so my blog ‘All Round Health and Healing’ aims to bring together my understanding of many different facets of our living that can play an essential role in the integration of the physical body with the emotions, mind and spirit, thus contributing towards becoming ‘A Complete Human Being.’
Just musing but it seems to me that blogging has become a fundamental component of full-filling one’s ‘Greatest Art’ for so many people. It’s great if you have an audience for your writing of course, if reaching out is your aim .. but ultimately blogging gives one a vehicle for individual self expression and so I really encourage it, both for personal and business development alike.
After years of ‘online experimentation’ I’ve culled my ‘Business Port-Folio’ down to a few primary complementary businesses, that in their separate ways, I feel will also contribute to the well-being of mankind.
Nurturing * Pathways to Abundant Living
Pathways to Abundant Living was my first blog and intended to be a reflection upon my own personal art and healing journey. Its rudimentary form was my first step towards developing mini websites, combining my interests in art and healing with my on-line businesses.
As my primary business GlobalVerge rapidly began to dominate the posts at Pathways to Abundant Living, the need for blogs for the members of my GlobalVerge Group .. And their invited friends .. Became apparent and so Allyinspirit Internet Solutions and Allyinspirit Wholistic Solutions have been developed.
You can see my GlobalVerge Story HERE.
Allyinspirit Internet Solutions provides information about ALL the Eco-Friendly and High Tech Communication products and services of GlobalVerge.
Allyinspirit Wholistic Solutions provides information about many different products and services that will contribute to the all round health and healing of anyone who uses them * Including some of the exclusive ecological products of GlobalVerge.
Have never been attracted to working with film, but nudged by a dream, I made my first owl and dolphin collages.
Pathway * Collage: photocopies and coloured pencil
Working with mixed media inevitably directed me towards studying photography and developing more personal concepts with collage/montage using my own black and white photography. Several series resulted: including one that was dedicated to my father * One of these works is below: I hope to write about and publish the series eventually. Another series 'Four women' is still in pieces: Ready to be assembled (one day.)
Reflections on Masculine our Feminine sides * Photography
I used the owl and dolphin collages in my first very short video. Preparing for my next video now that will be based on this mixed media series 11:11 Elements Series. Much of my collage work has been based on 11:11 which first appeared in my work intuitively without realizing the symbolic content it held. 
11:11 Element Series: Fire 1 * Mixed Media
11:11 Color Series: Blue * Photography and Mixed Media
About my writing now: I believe it is very important to encourage whatever personal skills, talents and aptitudes anyone has. And if one individual isn’t quite as good at something or another as someone else, they must NEVER be put down for the efforts they do make. Skills and levels of competency can be developed with further training or people may have other embryonic talents, that no-one including themselves are even aware of.
In my early teens it only took one English teacher, who didn’t go for my ‘rebelliousness’ to publicly ridicule and humiliate me, to make me feel that there was no hope for me in Academic English. But in my final year at school it was OK to start thinking for yourself and I topped the class .. LOL. (My brag: And that was at University High in Melbourne, which at that time was academically selective.)
Somehow with the shift from working with visual imagery to on-line writing, I’ve re-discovered as it were, my love of writing * But being more visually inclined, I can at times be given to making up words. So forgive me if the Academic English isn’t always ‘Queens.’
My writing (as with my art work) is copyright free. But of course if you are going to make use of anything from my Websites or Blogs, it’s simply good on-line business acumen and a WIN-WIN situation if you DO acknowledge the reference source.
indigenous handicrafts. I don’t begin to understand the higher mathematical/cosmic laws of the Crop Circles but I have responded to them visually and emotively ever since they were first sighted and have incorporated them into some of my art.
This little Avatar is one of my favorite Crop Circles and to me represents a harmonious convergence of energy. But if my image is a rose to you, then a rose it is as I love images that are inclined to be ambiguous, meaning something different to everyone who sees them.
Although my silk painting was exhibited widely, it couldn’t be shown as an all-encompassing collection * Which this blog will now attempt to do.
Ally * Alison Lee Cousland
Email: private@riseall.com
Social Media Contact
Personal Twitter: http://twitter.com/Allyinspirit
Collaborative Twitter: http://twitter.com/Happylittlebees
HUBmarketing Twitter: http://twitter.com/EcoPlusHighTech
Blogs
Pathways to Abundant Living: http://riseall.com/
Your Creative Muse: http://yourcreativemuse.com/
Allyinspirit Internet Solutions Blog: http://allyinspirit.info/
All Things Bright and Beautiful: http://budurl.com/AllThings
All Round Health and Healing: http://allroundhealthandhealing.com/
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