Why does it cost so much?

A lot of people want to own good art but they balk at the price.
What are you getting for your money?

Why do you buy art?
Is it for an investment, or to create the living space that we want, be it for the home or office.
When you are decorating your home, do you just want to fill a blank space or are you looking for something that tells people a bit about yourself, through your style and your interests?
Are you looking to create a certain atmosphere? Do you want the room to be inviting, to stimulate conversation, to relax yourself and others, to create a healing space within the chaos of life?

If you are looking to do any of the above except just filling a blank wall I would encourage you to look at real art, not mass produced wall fillers.

When I take an image I am trying to create an image that will bring the healing and peace of nature to those who invest in my art. I want to increase their quality of life as well as their wellness. I try to capture not just the image, but also the feeling of the place I am photographing.

People often have no idea what it cost me personally to take an image. I have fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis, so any activity I undertake costs me in pain and in the reduction of anything else I can do, but for me it also brings me healing and enables me to feel that I still have something to contribute to society.

Once I have taken the picture, the art work has only just begun. I process the image so that the feeling of the place comes through. I make sure that the image itself is of the highest quality and I create the final image with love and add healing to each image.
I am a Reiki master and as such I add distance healing to my images so that no matter where you are when you are viewing it, it will bring you the healing you need.

Strange I hear you say.

I believe that nature has a great healing ability on its own, but I realize that when we are out in nature it is the energy of the place that also helps with that healing, so with reiki I add this energy back to the image so it becomes a living work.
Something that will bring you a lifetime of health and pleasure.

As such I only have my images produced to the highest quality while at the same time keeping my prices as affordable as possible. Most businesses add a 100%+ markup on everything they sell. I add between 25% and 50%. I am able to offer such good prices because for me this is a gift I am able to give you. I use the money I earn to keep updating my skills and equipment and am supported financially by other means.

I hope this blog encourages you to look for art that will do more than decorate a room, but that will be an investment in you health and wellbeing as well.

This is an example of my "Healing Art- Waterfalls on Uluru" set in a lounge area

If you require a specialized size please email me & I can organize what you require and send you pricing for it.
My artwork can be viewed at the Busselton Art Gallery or at http://www.juliakharwood.redbubble.com/

Rest is the next best thing.

What is rest?
Peace, ease, or refreshment resulting from sleep or the cessation of an activity.

Sleep or quiet relaxation. Relief or freedom from disquiet or disturbance. Mental or emotional tranquillity.

Most people associate rest with sleep, but you are able to rest while being fully awake.

Why do we need to rest?

A quarter of all women and a fifth of men who work full time say they are dissatisfied with their work-life balance according to the 2010 Australian Work & Life Index. If we are able to have time to rest and relax we are better able to deal with the stresses of life. 32% of people also have insomnia or sleep disturbances, so they are stuck in a vicious cycle. However you can still get rest and recharge your batteries. According to Dr Matthew Edlund we need four types of rest - physical,social,mental & spiritual rest. 

So how can you get rest and restore balance to your life?

You take some "Me" Time.

Physical rest can just be a 5 min doze, social rest is about spending time with people that make us happy, mental relaxation can include visulization and listening, and for spiritual rest we need to be present in the moment. The way I find to do this most effectively is to sit out in nature and just enjoy the moment, however if you can't do this look at an image of nature instead, be present in the moment and imagine yourself in this setting. Spend a few minutes doing this a few times a day & you will experience the benefits. 

This is what I bring to you in my photography and art, a way to rest & relax wherever you are.

Natures Window http://juliakharwood.redbubble.com/sets/149771/works

Allow youself to imagine that you are sitting in this natural rock window looking out at the vista before you, feel the warmth of the sun's rays and the cool touch of a gentle breeze, see the reflections in the water and allow yourself to flow through the landscape with the river. Take a deep breathe and inhale the scent of the bush. Take time to rest!!!

How does it make You feel?

My blog is all about healing art, so I wanted to share this image with you to see how it speaks to you.

It has been proven that when we take time to contemplate nature scenes our stress levels decrease and our overall health increases. Do you feel that with this image?

Take a few moment to just sit with this image and the tell us what it speaks to you.

To me it lifts me, I feel it in my solar plexus chakra, it relaxes me and makes me feel hopeful and warm and it also makes me smile....your turn now.....

Child abuse

Have you heard the latest, apparently giving kids time out is corporal punishment and is soon to be banned in daycare centres in Australia. From there one can guess where it will lead...parents won't be able to use time out.

Apparantly we should allow kids to set there own limits!!!

Then we spend millions trying to fix our teen crime problems and ultimatly blame the parents...this is a nanny stat gone mad.

Yes this is a healing art blog and as such all manner of healing and health issues are addressed and beleive me this will be a health issue of the future.
Already they are saying we have a generation of nacasists, children that we have raised with an exaggerated sence of self from never being able to tell them they are anything other than brilliant. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge beleiver in being positive and building up our kids, but lets build there self esteem, not there egos.

Maybe it should be a prerequisite for would be parents to do parenting classes and poloticians in roles related to child upbringing should have to have had children!

What are your thoughts on all this and what ways will we have to teach children healthy boundaries?

Nature at it's best

Natural cure for skin cancer

Create a Healing Place

What is a Healing Place?

To me a healing place is somewhere you can go to take time out. A place of quite or soothing music. A place you can be on your own. A place that is nurturing to the body, mind and spirit.

I am fortunate, my healing place is the beach. I have a beautiful beach down the road which except during holiday season is deserted. I walk down on the white sand and it massages my feet, the wind gently blows my hair as the suns rays warm my skin. I look out across the vast ocean and know that all is well in the world. I am at peace.

Gaze at the Moon

I have reacently heard that a good way to inprove the health of your eyes is to stare at the moon. Who would have thought moon gazing is actually good for you. Apparently if you gaze at the moon for 5 mins each night it will improve the health of your eyes. It is also recommended as helpful for floaters in your eyes.

Christmas gifts for all ages

Christmas is nearly here and people are finishing their Christmas shp. Ususaly it's the hard to buy for that are left till last. I was listening to a programme on the radio the other day and they had a young man, 25, on and he was saying that as he lived in a unit, he didn't have room for lots of stuff and it was difficult to know what to do with things people gave him. I was interested to hear this as it was also a comment I had heard from a lot of people in the older demographic who had downsized, so what do you get them????
Some ideas that came out of the discussion were

• Art - it could be hung on the wall and was something good to remember people by.
• Experiences - Something that they could do that they might not otherwise think of or have the funds for.
• Dining out vouchers - giving them time they could spend with their loved one.

One thing that a couple had received was a weekend away, nice gift, but out of the price range of a lot of people. He said it was great to get in touch with nature and have some time to de-stress, which is fantastic if you can manage the time off. But what do you do for those you know can't get time off or can't leave the kids, how can you give them a gift that will help them?

One answer is "Healing Art". Art that goes on the wall, so doesn't take up floor space and that gives them the healing gift of nature without them having to even leave home.

Studies have shown that spending time looking at images of nature helps you to de-stress and gives you a greater sense of community, so you are then more likely to make time for your family and friends whereas otherwise it may not have been a priority.

So if you are interested in experiences I would recommend Red Balloon or if you would like Healing Art then check out Red Bubble.

My site on Red Bubble is http://juliakharwood.redbubble.com so you can check out my healing art, but there are also lots of other great artists on there too. They also sell gift vouchers.

Remember at the end of it all if you are feeling stressed and worn out, give yourself a gift by allowing yourself some time out in nature, even if its sitting outside with a cuppa or if your stuck in the office, have a look at some nature images on your computer and allow nature to work her magic!!!

Wellness Continued

This is part two of Wellness. To recap;

Wellness is the pursuit of the best health possible through fit body, balanced mind and peaceful spirit.

• Increase self esteem, self worth, optimism and confidence
• Help forget your own physical or emotional pain
• Help decrease stress and acts as a stress release
• Improve immune response
• Decrease feelings of depression and self doubt
• Increase sense of balance and over all well being

Step 4 follows on from number 3.
Increase self esteem, self worth, optimism and confidence. As we decrease depression & self doubt we also increase self worth and optimism.
What is self Esteem?
Your self-esteem is the way you look at yourself. If you have good self-esteem it means that you like yourself and you believe that you are as 'OK' as everyone else.

Wellness

Wellness is the pursuit of the best health possible through fit body, balanced mind and peaceful spirit.

• Increase self esteem, self worth, optimism and confidence
• Help forget your own physical or emotional pain
• Help decrease stress and acts as a stress release
• Improve immune response
• Decrease feelings of depression and self doubt
• Increase sense of balance and over all well being

Whoa! I hear you exclaim, that's a pretty tall order.
Lets break it down into more manageable pieces.

I'm going to change the order a bit here too.

Firstly, I think that until we can decrease the stress in our lives and find something that works as a stress release for us we are unable to focus on the other things as it all becomes too overwhelming and just another list of things we can't quite find time to get to.

So lets look at stress.
What is it?
Anything that poses a challenge or a threat to our well-being is a stress.
Stress is your body's way of responding to any kind of demand. Now we need to understand there is good stress as well as bad.
Our bodies react by releasing chemicals into the blood when there is a new demand on it.
These chemicals either give us more energy and strength, which can be a good thing if their stress is caused by physical danger, or a bad thing, if their stress is in response to something emotional and there is no outlet for this extra energy and strength.
So basically good stress is when we have a demand on us and our body produces the chemicals to help us deal with this demand. A bad stress is when we peceive a demand and the chemicals are released, but we have no way of using these chemicals and so they build up in our system.
An example of bad stress is worrying. We think something bad 'might' happen and so our body releases chemicals to help us deal with the actual situation, but it hasn't 'actually' happened, we have just imagined it might happen, and so there is nowhere for these chemicals to go and so our body gets stressed.
Some common stresses today are survival stress, internal stress, enviromental stress & work stress. To read more about these go to http://www.mtstcil.org/skills/stress-definition-1.html

People under large amounts of stress can become tired, sick, and unable to concentrate or think clearly. Sometimes, they even suffer mental breakdowns.

We need to find ways to release this stress.

Nature Makes Us More Caring, Study Says

Want to be a better person? Commune with nature. Paying attention to the natural world not only makes you feel better, it makes you behave better, finds a new study to be published October 1 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
"Stopping to experience our natural surroundings can have social as well as personal benefits," says Richard Ryan, coauthor and professor of psychology, psychiatry and education at the University of Rochester. While the salubrious effects of nature are well documented, from increasing happiness and physical health to lowering stress, this study shows that the benefits extend to a person's values and actions. Exposure to natural as opposed to man-made environments leads people to value community and close relationships and to be more generous with money, find Ryan and his team of researchers at the University of Rochester.

On a personal level, Weinstein says the take home message from the research is clear: "We are influenced by our environment in ways that we are not aware of," she says. Because of the hidden benefits of connecting with nature, people should take advantage of opportunities to get away from built environments and, when inside, they should surround themselves with plants, natural objects, and images of the natural world. "The more you appreciate nature, the more you can benefit," she says.

We are all Disabled!

We are all disabled in some way, it is part of the human condition.

Please explain?.....

Disability does not have to be a physical thing we can see or a mental illness we can quantify, it can be emotional scars, chronic conditions, and much more.

Lets look at the definition of "disabled"

According to Wikapedia:
"A disability in humans may be physical, cognitive/mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these."

In plain English, a disability is something that affects the way we get along in society.

For example.When we see a blind person we automatically realize they have a disability, they usually have a cane or a guide dog to help them, but are they any more disabled than the person with emotional scars that no-one can see and that continually gets hit by the preverbial bus when it comes to realtionships.

If a person was physically hit by a bus we would see the damage, either as a fatality or serious physical injury, but what about the person hit by an emotional bus, we see them all the time, people constantly making poor choices and then lamenting about how bad things always happen to them. These people are just as disabled as the blind person,  in some cases more so, as they don't see they have a disability and take the necessary measures to compensate for it.

So why write a blog about it?

Because I believe that if we realize that we all have disabilities we will realize that people with obvious disabilities are no different than the rest of us. We are all people, all trying to get along in society the best we can. People with disabilities do not need to be condescended to or treated any different to anyone else, we are all in the same boat.

Also unless we realize we have a problem we can't treat it. How many people have we heard of have a disease but no symptoms until it's too late, but if it had been caught earlier it could have been cured.
The same goes for disabilities, as we recognize them we can take steps to either overcome them or learn to live with them in a productive way.

So the question is, "What disabilities do you have?"
Do you have allergies, a chronic illness, arthritis, chrones, pain, emotional scars from previous relationships, your upbringing, your religion, your nationality, over sensitivity, lack of emotional connection.....the list goes on and on.

Perhaps now is a good time to rethink those with disabilities and realize we are all the same. Next time you see someone with an obvious disability smile at them knowing you to have your disabilities, just not as obvious and may we all work towards a healthier life, physically, spiritually and mentally.

I have many disabilities and have found that nature is a wonderful healing balm and I receive that healing on a daily basis through my photography and immersing myself in nature. I realize many people cannot do this & so I have "Healing Art"  prints that you can have in your home or your office or even a care facility to enable you too, to experience the healing balm of nature.

I wish you peace, love and happiness....and remember for ALL of us healing is an ongoing process...be kind to yourself and others.

Healing Art Photograhy

Tropical Sunset

What is healing art photography????
Good question. I beleive that spending time in nature helps heal our bodies, our souls and our minds. So often today life is so fast paste that we get up, go to work, come home, do the chores, go to bed and then start all over again the next day,. Never having time out to destress and it is that that is behind so many of the ailments we suffer today. Spending time immersing yourself in nature is very healing & theraputic.
BUT i hear you say, I don't have time. Thats where healing art photography comes in. I take images of nature and  make them available for you so that if you can't get out in nature, nature can come in to you. Be it in the office or the home. Put a healing art image up on your wall and spend 5 minutes a day, at least, just sitting and looking into it, imaging that you were there and feel the stress dissapaiting out of your body. I am amazed at how even looking at a nature screensaver for a few minutes will lift my mood, give it a try and see for yourself. I have a collection of images at http://juliakharwood.redbubble.com/ that you can also look at.
I hope you will find this helpful and benificial.
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