Cindy Helms
artist ~ author
MoJo - a drawing series in one word
Everywhere I go I eat it up
Imagination Takes Flight
Blooming Upon Reflection
One of my end-of-the-year rituals is to review what I’ve accomplished during the year and assess what I’d like to work on in the coming year. I set goals for the year ahead based an six life categories: creativity, travel, home, money, health/wellness/spirituality, and friends/family. These categories have changed over the years and used to include things like career, community, volunteering, and exercise goals. These six I use currently are the ones that make the most sense for my lifestyle today. A few years ago I began to give myself a word-of-the-year that would help remind me of the attitude I wanted to hold onto while pursuing each goal. To find my word, I reviewed my accomplishments and goals lists and notice if there were any common words or expressions I’d used. Usually one word would recur and stand out, becoming the word-of-the-year.
When I first started this word-of-the-year exercise, my word(s) were: Relax & Enjoy. I had just had a pretty hectic year and I realized I wasn’t actually enjoying anything I had accomplished. Using the words ‘relax & enjoy’ helped me set an intention to do just that throughout the following year. The next year I chose the word: Radiant. Relax & Enjoy had been so successful that I was feeling connected to my higher self. ‘Radiant’ helped me maintain that momentum into all my goals in all areas of life…with my artwork, when traveling, around my home, with friends, etc. Another year I used the word ‘playful’ to help me stay lighthearted in my goals and allow more fun into my ordinarily serious task-master self.
The year 2024 was the year of ‘mojo’, the word I had chosen at the beginning of the year to help me have more courage and confidence to consistently move outside of my comfort zone. It’s a badass, empowering word for me. I define it as uplifting, confident, grounded, free-flowing, effective, flexible, expansive and inspiring, all rolled into one. In my imagination I saw mojo being represented by several animals: lion, rooster, fox, bald eagle, horse, dolphin, and owl. They all embodied a distinct sense of mojo that I wanted to emulate throughout the year. I wanted to challenge myself in all of my life categories to find a more unique voice, to know myself a bit deeper, and push towards new edges of who I thought I could become. I wanted to do this creatively, financially, relationally, etc. In all these areas, I wanted to build up my own mojo. This meant I had to take myself into some pretty uncomfortable places, do things I had never done before, and take risks.
There are 17 drawings in this series that each represent an aspect of how mojo felt to me throughout the year. I chose 17 because it’s my favorite number and it’s my birthday number. There could easily have been more than 17 drawings because there were easily more than 17 opportunities for me to get outside of my comfort zone, push my limits, build up mojo. These 17 are more of a summary of what I accomplished under the influence of my mojo experience. All drawings are pen and colored pencil on 9x12 drawing paper.
(Eye Am) Approaching the D'Orsay
What My Dreams/Fears are Made of
Head, Heart & Home
MJ01- Everywhere I Go, I eat it Up.
Mojo, the word, is a combination of attributes geared toward becoming more in-tune with and accepting of myself. Mojo, the artwork, is also a combination of all the styles, ideas, dreams and unique attributes I’ve utilized from time to time that marinate collectively into my artistic style. I love variety, novelty and surprise elements that make something new and fresh. I love things that are whimsical, adventurous and insightful. I love to learn, explore and sample. I devour things and chew on them and try to imagine how to assimilate them in inventive and creative ways. This image is me as a hungry creature lapping up bits and pieces everywhere I go. The little bugs represent ideas and dreams, and the iconic structures represent getting out into the world and exploring. This year, 2024, my mojo year, took me to so many places and brought me so many ideas I just hungrily gulped them all down.
MJ02- Letting Imagination Take Flight
One of the hardest things for me to do is to share my imaginations, my ideas, my dreams, my style, my mojo, with others. This year I gave myself a blessing to release whatever it was that came into my head and heart as often as possible. This image illustrates ideas originating in my brain (the pink squiggle construct representing my inner world) and venturing off (the bird-like gaggle in-flight) in front of an architectural structure (the outer world of people and social interactions). 2024 turned out to be a heavy travel year bundled with an abundant overflow of creativity.
MJ03- Blooming Upon Reflection
2024 was also a year rich in self-reflection. I’ve been a self-help junkie most of my adult life, but recently there have been many ah-ha moments where things have come to completion, healing, and acceptance. I feel lighter, brighter, and more empowered than at any other point in my life. This design is divided into three layers. The middle layer of black and white structure is the complex make up of my own lifetime of stories, patterns, roles, masks, traumas, disappointments and failures. The lower layer is a reflection of the black and white structure. Reflections are not always mirror images of what’s being reflected and I found that sometimes the stories and patterns that I’ve been carrying around with me aren’t true or are no longer necessary. It took some good hearty mojo to look a little longer and deeper at what was going on beneath the surface and let some new understandings bloom out of the old.
MJ04- Head, Heart & Home
In a guided meditation vision I saw this image and knew it instantly as a self-portrait. My head is the tree tops with the variety of “birds” which represent ideas and dreams to me. My head is aflutter with a barrage of thoughts clamoring for attention. Usually I spend most of my time inside my head trying to give time to as many ideas as possible. They wear me out and I often think I have nothing to show for it on the outside (hence the winter state of the branches). The flower represents my heart which is full bloom, optimistic, colorful, yet fragile and easily dissolved into discouragement. My ‘home’, represented by the vase, is made from roots of the tree. No where is my mojo, my most natural outward display of personality, more evident than in my own home space. My work/studio area in particular is full of things I treasure. My roots/my home, so to speak, are the foundation of both my head and my heart. Symbiotically, my head and my heart help maintain a healthy root system. The healthy root system helps continually renew and restore the burst of love and creativity in the head and heart in a co-dependent circuit.
MJ05- (Eye Am) Approaching the D’Orsay
Mojo in Spanish is a conjunction of mi ojo, or my eye. Ojos translates as eyes. My early journal drawings are bursting with strange-shaped curious-eyed creatures mulling around wondering why they exist. The eyes have always fascinated me; I am not alone in that regard. Artists throughout history have experimented with eyes with folks like Picasso, Miró, and Dalí using them as devices and motifs throughout their careers. Eyes in art history were symbols of truth, clarity, light, vision, prophecy, awareness, and observation. They were thought of as windows (or mirrors) to the soul, where ‘eye’ and ‘I’ are interchangeable. This image is full of me, my hopes and fears and dreams of being alive and creative in a world that prefers conformity and confinement; in a world only artists have the mojo to resist. All of the creatures are ones from my “eye”, from my imagination (‘eye’-magination). They are all watching in hope that I will not back down from my direction, my path. I am leading myself as a little girl with a yellow balloon as if to tell her it’s okay, keep going, know yourself and be yourself. The yellow balloon contains all the happiness, optimism, cheerfulness, enthusiasm, growth, intelligence, and the freedom to safely express those dispositions and let them shine in the world. She and I are walking straight into the center of the grand clock at the Museum D’Orsay in Paris. One of the most famous art museums in the world, where ideas of all sorts from many parts of the world over many centuries, come to be on full display for all to see and critique and criticize and, also, be inspired by. We are crossing a lake of ripples of uncertainty and fear. To put it succinctly, this image is Mojo (my eyes/my imagination), with Mojo (courage and confidence) walking my Mojo path (being authentically individual).
MJ06- What My Dreams/Fears Are Made Of
Two things that I love and fear equally are: skiing, and being an artist. In both areas, I’m afraid of being hurt. With skiing it’s physical pain. With being an artist, it’s emotional. Both mess mightily with my self-esteem. My dreams at night can easily turn into nightmares and can be debilitatingly terrifying. The definition of success and failure in each category is a fine line and the goal post is continuously moving. I mistake successes with failures regularly and rarely bask in the satisfaction of accomplishments. This image is loaded with personal symbolisms. I dream of myself as an accomplished skier, turning all of my demons into sideline cheerleaders. This particular vista is drawn from the base of a tree, overlooking the Breckenridge, CO sledding hill, where my husband’s ashes are scattered. He was an excellent skier. I could only dream of matching his talent.
Going Where No One Has Gone Before
Turned Around in a New City
Dreams are Larger than Fears
MJ07- Dreams Are Larger than Fears
Since both skiing and being an artist are scary for me, I combined them here into one idea (only one bird is watching this scene unfold). Me, as a skier, am launching myself off a cliff taking the plunge to entertain my creative endeavors, as abstract as they may be. As a skier I could never muster up the mojo I needed to ski “back bowl” terrain. As an artist, I am slowing gaining the emotional ground needed to glide along those steep slippery slopes. At this point in my life (middle-aged) it’s easier to tackle emotional barriers than physical ones.
MJ08- Going Where No One Has Gone Before
Following on the theme of skiing and ‘art-ing’, 2024 was a significant year for me exploring new creative terrain. Uncertainty, awkwardness, and self-consciousness were the emotions that led the way. I entered that space in the best form I could, with full attention and intentionally taking risks. On the other side, though, was a leap forward in self-worth, achievement and a higher level of mojo.
MJ09- Turned Around in a New City
Getting lost, or turned around, is part of any travel adventure. In 2024 I visited dozens of unfamiliar places, Chicago being just one of them. Chicago represents all the other experiences I had being disoriented in my location both literally and metaphorically. I had the privilege this year of getting lost in Chicago, IL; Madison, WI; Asheville, NC; Cincinnati, OH; Duluth, MN; Ames, IO; Crested Butte, CO; Omaha, NE; Paris, Strasburg, Chamonix, Annecy, Bordeaux- France; Brussels, Ghent, Bruges- Belgium; Amsterdam, Haarlem- The Netherlands; Barcelona- Spain; and also right in my own back-yards of New York City, the suburbs of Milwaukee, and the woods of Lake Superior— I seem to loose myself and find myself all over again, everywhere I go.
A Boatload of Love in a
Sea of Happiness
Allowing Strange Things to Grow
in Strange Places
Telling Myself
You Are Beautiful
MJ10- A Boatload of Love in a Sea of Happiness
As I traveled around this year, I encountered many signs, murals, or objects that said ‘love’. From Paris to Chicago, love was everywhere. I started taking pictures of these love objects and created quite a robust collection of love. So much love that I called it a ‘boatload’. It occurred to me that I had acquired so much love while in a blissful state of travel adventure happiness. That’s how the image of a boatload of love in a sea of happiness was formed. It also fits the mojo concept. How many times are we afraid to love? How many times are we afraid to let ourselves be happy? It takes courage to love. It can take even more courage to admit that we are happy. In a world where so much suffering and grief-sucking energy runs rampant, to claim a status of happiness is next to mutiny. This was a mojo milestone for me, after years of grief processing and emotional healing, I can finally claim that I am happy, and I love myself for who I am.
MJ11- Allowing Strange Things to Grow in Strange Places
Walking down the streets of Amsterdam I found tulips growing out of the cracks in the side of a derelict stone ruin. The tulips were variegated and multi-colored with unusually shaped petals. I’d never seen anything like them. And there they were all perky and glistening in a heap of rubble. They were out of place, yet they fit right in. They were a visible paradox. Nobody bothered those tulips either. They were allowed to be. Nobody said, “hey, tulip, get out of here, you don’t belong.” Or, “hey, tulip, what’s a fine specimen like you doing in a place like this, let me take you to a pretty vase in my apartment.” I think it’s a wonderful reminder that good things can come out of tough circumstances. For me personally, I wouldn’t have the moxie I have without going through the rubble and the ruins I’ve encountered along my path.
MJ12- Telling Myself
Another one of those things it takes mojo to do is to tell myself that I am beautiful. Growing up and as a young adult, no one ever told me I was pretty. So I assumed I wasn’t. When I went off to college, I realized that I was a beautiful person on the inside. I knew I was sensitive, empathic, loving, kind and compassionate. I was all of those things to a fault, often teased, and highly gullible. I didn’t understand satire, sarcasm or teasing. I didn’t know people sometimes said mean things to be funny. Now I look back at old photographs of myself and I see so much beauty it being tears to my eyes. I was lovely and never knew it. This year of mojo revealed many levels of beauty and now I see everyone and want to tell them as well: You Are Beautiful.
Spring Thaw
Free Spirit
Dolce Duet
MJ13- Spring Thaw
Birds, in this mojo series, represent ideas, dreams, imagination. This little flock is sitting around on the window ledge, waiting for their chance to fly. As the fear and chill of a winter hibernation season thaws, new potential blooms, and the window can open for them to be released. This is the moment just before the window opens and the ideas fly out to see what it feels like to be free in the air. This year, for the first time, I entered art shows and won awards, had a drawing accepted into a 2025 state-wide calendar, I made a completely new series of artwork in a totally new medium and had it accepted into retail stores, I wrote a first draft of a new book, and traveled alone internationally. There are so many new ideas waiting on the sill for next year when it’ll be their turn to take off. I’ve gone from being afraid for my creative babies to be launched, to being curious about what direction they will take once they are set free to spread their wings. That’s a huge mojo shift.
MJ14- Free Spirit
Wings, the flight-action part of birds, need to be fully stretched out to get the most of flight. Even things as fragile and short-lived, such as flowers, can get far on a solid set of wings. Mojo is just like the wings. It’s the action part of confidence and courage. Even a nascent idea can go far with a solid sense of mojo lifting it. This year I’ve learned to let even ideas and dreams that aren’t yet fully formed get some air time. It’s the difference between sending a five year old off to school verses a fifteen year old. As a mother, I felt different letting go of each age, but they still went off to school regardless. If I wait until I’m ready, well, I may never be ready.
MJ15- Dolce Duet
I celebrated one year of marriage during this year of mojo. After losing my first husband ten years ago, I never thought I’d be sharing my life with anyone ever again. That idea was the farthest thing from my grief-soaked mind. But, love found it’s way back into my heart and the two of us together are singing a new song and making new flowers bloom where I’d never imagined they could be, like in the ruins and rubble of a broken heart. This may be an old piano (we’ve both loved and lost before), but it’s oh so lovely to try to play it together. With the courage of mojo came a gentleness of letting things happen on their own accord. Mojo here is the sweet sweet sound of togetherness, in other words mojo is a dolce duet.
Going Beyond my Two Backyards
MJ16- Going Beyond My Two Backyards
When I was little, we lived outside of New York City. As a teenager, the thing to do was to drive to a nearby overlook late at night and watch the city lights sparkle. It felt as if the city, fifteen miles away, was right in my own backyard. Knowing the city was at my doorstep gave me the feeling that I could do anything, be anything, dream anything. In contrast, I also spent a lot of time in the backwoods hiking and camping along rustic roads in Maine, New Hampshire, Upstate New York and western New Jersey. Trees were the rural skyscrapers in my country setting ‘backyard’ and provided the same sense of ‘the sky is the limit’, dream-big fantasies. But there came a time when I had to grow up, leave the dream-safety of these two backyards and actually find out what "do anything, be anything, dream anything" meant in real life. Going from the dream to the reality was heart-poundingly terrifying. Looking back at the person I was when I’d left home scared and unsure, I realized, like Dorothy, that I’d had mojo all along. Somewhere along the line, I’d lost it. 2024 was a year for me to recognize it, pull it back in, and let it lead. The girl here is raising up her hands as if to command her will be done.
MJ17- The Most MoJo of All
In her hands, she is fully capable of commanding all of her ideas and dreams. In the disorientation of newness, in the chaotic swirl of adventures, in the fine print writing that we neglected to read, the book of her life contains so much juicy stuff to explore, and she’s only reached the middle. As she turns the page, what else will she find that is fascinating and alluring and mojo-worthy? My late husband’s motto was: Arise, go forth, and conquer. To me this statement is all mojo. It’s mojo that make’s one arise, mojo that influences the going forth, and mojo to achieve such solid sense of satisfaction that confronting our limits brings. Mojo is bursting from the pages.
The Most Mojo of All