Lilly Lights is a commissioned piece that I created for the Parkview Regional Medical Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana

When Charles from Skyline Art Services in Houston called and said that he wanted me to create a commissioned piece for their client, Parkview Regional Medical Center, I was excited, and looking forward to the challenge of integrating water and lilly pads into my work.  LillyLights, was recently installed and I was able to go “visit” it this week.

I’m glad to see hospitals investing in art, I’ve visited medical facilities nearing completion before the art goes up and it truly makes a difference in the environment. Many, many people who know of my connection with art and healthcare, have mentioned to me how profoundly calming it has been to be distracted by the art in hospitals when they were visiting loved ones, or there for themselves. Thank you Skyline Art Services and thank you Parkview Regional Medical Center for choosing my work to be part of this exciting new medical center in Fort Wayne.

Breeze 101 is the first in a new 3 part series from artist Ann Teliczan

Pretty much every time I start a new project, I hope that I can do something that is special and better than my last work. This piece is part of a 3 part series that I finished up over the holidays, they were a lot of fun to make.

My work is available on paper or canvas in sizes up to 82″ on the longest side. You can find the rest of the series in my IX gallery along with some other new works in gallery VIII, my website was just updated (thanks Ry!)

Check out the new work at Anntopia.com.

Healing Garden 104 is one of my works included in the permanent art collection at Fort Belvoir, one of the nation's newest military hospitals.

In September, I mentioned that I was working on some new art pieces for a special project that involves our soldiers. So here’s the deal… I was contacted by Skyline Art Services in Houston, Texas regarding a special and big project. Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, VA was preparing to open a state-of-the-art, new medical facility to help replace Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC.

The $1 billion Fort Belvoir complex that my work was placed in is expected to handle more than 571,000 patient visits a year and is ready to provide world class medical treatment to service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as to veterans and military families. The 1.3 million square foot project was created in response to the Base Realignment and Closure legislation and was officially dedicated on October 28th.

375 of my pieces were placed in Fort Belvoir and I am so grateful to be chosen for this project. Our soldiers have a very special place in my heart and I hope that having my work as part of their healing environment will contribute to making their recovery easier.

Thank you Skyline Art Services for believing in me, and thank you Fort Belvoir for choosing my work to be part of your community.

Model: Amity Hudson

3 months ago I quit my job that I had worked at for 23 years and started my own business. It was a hard decision, but I’m glad I did it. Lately it seems like I know a lot of people who had been putting their lives on hold and they just got sick of it and decided to make changes. Big, big, big changes.

The truth of it is that if you know you will regret it in 5 years that you didn’t make changes now, you had better get busy. Often, what seems insurmountable is easier than staying in your comfort zone and continuing with the same old thing that isn’t working. If you are in a situation that isn’t working for you, I hope you will realize that you are stronger than you know, and you can do it. Believe in yourself and know that you deserve to have a great life. Dream big and live large.

Healing 103 is one of the new works in my newly updated fine art website.

There’s nothing like having a website updated to add a little excitement to my life. I’ve been working away at some new fine art pieces that I created for an incredible opportunity that came my way late this summer. I’ll be telling you about it within the next 4 weeks. Here’s your hint, it has to do with our soldiers and making life a little better for the ones who have been injured.

In the meantime, you can check out my latest work on my website. Some of these are my favorite ever.  www.Anntopia.com

Photo by Ann Teliczan

I’ve always been afraid of flying, which is ironic, because I’m married to a pilot. But when my son moved to Colorado, I made the decision to “get over” the fear of flying. There was no way I was going to let fear stand in the way of seeing my son.

That got me to thinking about other doors in my life that had been closed to me until I chose to do the uncomfortable in order to expand my world or accomplish a goal.

Another pivotal time for me was when I decided to share my work as an artist and photographer. This was very, very uncomfortable for me. When was in college, a professor of mine had torn me to shreds in front of the entire class after I had presented a work that was the best I had ever done. After that, I was reluctant to give anyone the chance to do that to me again. Years later, I learned that this professor had been fired for abusing young women in the classroom and then seducing them as he was “comforting” them. I also learned that I would rather share what comes naturally to me and gives me joy, so that others might have pleasure from my work too. I’m so glad I made that choice.

What doors are you waiting to open? Which ones have you opened already, and are you glad you did it? I’m learning that the doors I open, rarely slam in my face and usually let a warm breeze into my life.

ANN TELICZAN, Gently, 2011, Image Transfer to Canvas, 44 x 29 inches.

Shakti Gawain. I was going through a difficult bout in life and she thought it would help. I flipped through the book and then set it aside. The book is about the law of attraction and it seemed impossible that what she was saying could be true.

Over time, I heard more and more about the law of attraction and eventually picked the book up again, as well as Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. I tried working on Shakti’s principles and realized, rather quickly that what we think, we attract to ourselves. And, it goes both ways, you can attract both the negative and positive. I also realized that it’s helpful to know where you want to go, it makes it easier to get there.

Since working with the Creative Visualization meditations many good things that I would have never imagined have manifested into my life. Some things within days, others took months. Here’s what works for me:

1. Relax through yoga or with a relaxation audio recording.

2. Imagine how I want to feel, and the things I want to accomplish.

3. Write down the items in #2 as if they are coming to me.

4. When I have negative thoughts start creeping into the corners of my mind, I replace them with a line I smile and repeat to myself such as “Something wonderful is going to happen to me today.” or “I’m getting better and better, every day in every way.”

5. I smile. This literally transforms my state of mind… mind follows body.

6. Instead of engaging in negative conversations, I focus on the positive.

7. Every night before I go to sleep I think of 5 things that I am thankful for and then go to sleep imagining the things on my list are manifesting into my life.

There have been times in my life where this has worked so well, it has been shocking. You would think that I would do this every day, I don’t. Lately however, I have been making a conscious effort to visualize and work toward my goals. I’ll let you know how it goes.

The sky is your limit.

I took this photo at Red Rocks in Colorado. It reminds me of how vast and  abundant this life we have is. Sometimes we have to climb up the rocky stairs to reach the moon, but it’s there.

Behind these stairs, there’s a dropoff with a lookout area. When I reached the top, there was a woman quietly practicing ti chi, just her and the sky.

Sometimes I have to work hard at letting things work themselves out in their own time and not rushing what’s in store for me. I’ve been working on being more patient and not getting too frustrated when I don’t have all the answers yesterday.

The more I do this, the more I experience situations where something even better than what I was hoping for happens to me.

I’ve been busy working on new pieces for my 2011 gallery, which will be updated with several new works soon.

Spiderwort Dream, by Ann Teliczan in sizes up to 60"h

I like to come up with work that uses several different disciplines for something unexpected. This work is one of those cases. It’s a cross between a mandela, camera less photo, pseudo HDR and illustration on Photoshop.

In case you couldn’t guess : ) my source material was a freshly picked Spiderwort growing wild on a trail in the woods.

This just makes me happy looking at it. I hope it makes you happy too.