kelliesnider

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Moving - Please join!

Moving – Please join!

Hi, Friends! I am moving my blog to a different location, with new branding and junk, and I sincerely hope you will follow me. Please visit http://www.kelliesniderart.com/blog and click the Follow Me button. I look forward to seeing y’all over there!

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Texas Governor Ann Richards

Texas Governor Ann Richards

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about Ann Richards was a series of missteps by her opponent that led to her becoming Governor of Texas, narrowly beating Clayton Williams without a majority. It sucks that this is the first thing I think of, but she handled it just fine, thank you very much. She was the second, and as of this writing, was the last female and the last Democratic…

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Red and blue are not primary colors

Red and blue are not primary colors

Y’all keep asking me to go into more detail about my process, so I’m just going to dig in and start doing that. The thing I’m most excited about right now is the limited palette I’m currently using. The self-portrait below is one of the early pieces I did this way several months ago. Self Portrait of me, Kellie Snider , Oil on Canvas, 12 x 14 Here is a more recent one. Jennifer’s Hawaiian…

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National Association of ANimal Behaviorists

National Association of ANimal Behaviorists

Hello, Animal Behavior Friends, I want to let you know about a new organization that is focused on science-based animal behavior and training. Please take a look around our website! We are accepting article submissions to help us build our library. Our goal is to provide educational opportunities and credentialling for behaviorsts and trainers that have Master’s and PhD level education, but…

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Mama's got a brand new bag

Mama’s got a brand new bag

To see more art, please visit Kellie Snider Art and my Instagram at the.kellie. Listen to this while you’re reading: Mama’s Got A Brand New Bag It’s weird how often something you didn’t expect turns out to be the best thing that could ever have happened to a person. On October 27 I was laid off from my job as an animal shelter behaviorist. I’d been doing that work in different places for…

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Covid-19? Who cares?

I’m sharing an article today. I hope you’ll read it after you read what I’ve written here.  It’s about a real thing that is happening to people across the country these days. 

I see my FB (Facebook) friends, people I’ve either known for decades online, or who are IRL (in real life) friends, and they’re going out to restaurants and concerts and family gatherings, with their friends and…

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Lillie and Lola

The Wells family lived in a small town in Oklahoma. My Grandmother, Lillie Wells, was the oldest of 11 children. They lived in a sod house in Oklahoma. All of Oklahoma was rural then. They lived off the land, and everyone worked hard. Lillie cared for the younger children and animals, cooked, and helped around the farm. There wasn’t electricity or indoor plumbing. Education wasn’t very…

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Lower Case Trump

My Dad had his own vocabulary. It was just something funny he did, one of his most lovable quirks. The words he used had specific meanings, and the family all knew what they meant, and even used them ourselves from time to time. He used to call my mother, “Mus”, short for Muscles, because she was really strong. She was not amused because back then women weren’t supposed to be strong, so that was…

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The Time I Meditated for a Whole Year

The Time I Meditated for a Whole Year

Learning to meditate has not been what I expected it to be when I started. I once meditated for over a year every day, even when I had bronchitis and was really sick. I sat for 1.5 minutes one of those sick days because I was just too sick to keep going, but I sat. That was the point. Just do it.

One time I talked to my meditation instructor (MI) because I had to travel for work and was being…

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Anita Hill and Me

Anita Hill and Me

I have a story to tell about the 2016 election of Donald Trump as President of the US, but it appears I need to work up to it. So, I’m going to tell you about Anita Hill and me. My story took place at the same time as the events that made her famous, but for me the action happened along the Mississippi River Delta near the Gulf of Mexico, at place called Avondale Shipyards. Very few people know…

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Karma Cousins

I met Laura at the first meditation retreat I ever went to.  Before the retreat began there was a continental breakfast and social time. Laura and I had never met, but quickly learned that we had a lot in common. A love of animals and the arts. I was hand dying wool for rug hooking at the time and she was planning a dye garden… plants to be used to make dyes. She had several acres of land with a…

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Dying Time: Taking Refuge

Dying Time: Taking Refuge

Dying Time: Taking Refuge

I spent a year going back and forth between Dallas and Tyler, Texas. Nearly every weekend I left from work and headed East to help with my parents. I put a lot of miles on my Honda Element that year. My boss was so supportive it is hard to imagine now, looking back, how much she helped, by letting me take time off, work remotely, and whatever needed to happen during…

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The one and only dorkhound

The one and only dorkhound

I started working in animal shelters in 2008. As I wrote in my last post, my greyhound, Bravo, died the Friday before I started working at the SPCA of Texas. I knew it would be hard not to add to our crew working in shelters, and while that may have been the plan, I knew I wanted another dog.

A month in, there was a Galleria adoption event. We set up shop in the mall and adopted out animals…

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The four noble truths for four-year-olds

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Coping

There are a billion memes about 2020 being the worst bitch of a year. It’s hard to argue. Every stinkin’ day there’s a new thing. Australia burned, Covid-19. Meagan Markle and Prince Harry quit royalty. Covid-19. 45 was impeached and acquitted. Kobe Bryant died. The Iowa Caucus. Covid-19. Weinstein was found guilty. George Floyd. Brionna Taylor, and so many black lives I can’t get my brain around…

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Uncertainty in the Now Times

Uncertainty in the Now Times

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Same as it ever was

Everything about The Now Times is ambiguous. Change and ambiguity are the biggest things we humans struggle against, and we struggle against them constantly. Everything is changing due to Covid-19. We don’t know how it’s going to change, and that’s very uncomfortable. We can’t figure out what we should do to plan for the…

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The Before Times

When I think of great times we’ve had, it includes our tiny, crazy wedding from which we rode away on on a 4 wheeler after being pelted with bird seed, cozy dinners in small Ecuadorian or Scottish restaurants, or knee to knee with a family of three that didn’t speak our language or we theirs inside a gondola on a mountainside, and when their son’s game beeped we always thought it was a signal…