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/

Beyond tender loving care: 'TLCs' promise health and happiness

Beyond tender loving care: 'TLCs' promise health and happiness

Interesting article that explains ways to improve wellbeing without medication.  Also supports time in nature and meditation as tools to wellness.

February 17, 2011

Lifestyle changes—such as getting more exercise, time in nature, or helping others—can be as effective as drugs or counseling to treat an array of mental illnesses, according to a new paper published by the American Psychological Association.

Spending time in nature can promote cognitive functions and overall well-being. 

Relaxation and stress management can treat a variety of anxiety, insomnia, and panic disorders. 

Meditation has many benefits. It can improve empathy, sensitivity and emotional stability, reduce stress and burnout, and enhance cognitive function and even brain size.  

 

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.

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.