The New Site Is Up! www.rovinghorse.com

Hooray for the magic powers of the collaborative team!

After a year of gestation and development, the new website it finally live!
www.rovinghorse.com

Exciting new features include a brilliantly photographed and designed gallery, a news and events update, calendar, shop and links to a new blog and all of Wendy's and Roving Horse Henna's social media.

I am really just delighted to have Rovinghorse 2.0 out there!

Gigantic thanks are in order to the brilliant team!
Lee Moyer did the awesome logo and site design and all the post production on the gallery
Annaliese Moyer did most of the photography and all of the post production outside the gallery itself.
Laura Lawrence of Tinfoil Hat Design lovingly constructed code and midwifed the whole assemblage into being.

Additional thanks to contributing photographers Michael Sessions, www.largelifephotography.com and Alexis Achten of Jasmine Photography.

I have promised myself that regular blog posts and updates will be made at least weekly, hopefully more often.

I do hope that you like the new site as much as I do.

Surprise henna and Richard Thompson

(Photography by Annaliese Moyer, www.StageRightPhoto.com )


There are times when as a henna artist you might say to yourself, "I am going to throw this mini henna kit in my purse and take it with me today, just in case"... Every time I have thought to bring along a cone on any kind of adventure, I have been glad I did. This Wednesday night at Portland's Aladdin Theater was no exception. Granted, I had the slightest notion that there might be the slightest chance that Simon, the engineer and front of house manager for Richard Thompson's touring band might want a "Hello Kitty" hennaed somewhere on himself, but if I hadn't brought the henna along there would have been NO chance...

So, in fact, the dashing and talented Simon does decide to get his henna, during the set break when he learns that the process of getting Ms. Kitty will take less than 2 minutes. He decides the top of his hand is the spot, and we proceed to lay down a half-dollar sized design back stage. Complete with pink glitter. I am utterly charmed by Simon, and horrified at the thought that he might in some way manage to smear his henna between backstage and sound board and be obliged to hate me for two weeks while the resultant red smeary stain fades away. Job completed in one minute and forty five seconds, and duly photographed, we headed back to our seats. When Simon returns to the sound board his henna is dry and un-smeared. Hallelujah!

Throughout the second set of the show, when I happened to glance over and see Simon's large, henna Hello Kitty adorned hand (with pink sparkles) turning knobs and adjusting sliders on the big sound board, I was filled with great glee and satisfaction.

As fate would have it, though, I was not done with my henna for the evening!
Indeed, at a certain point later in the evening I found myself going up the backstage stairs with a small group including my brilliant friend and photographer Annaliese Moyer , Phil Garfinkel, and artist Gary Huston to meet Mr. Thompson and say hello to the band. Michael Jerome, Richard's drummer for the tour (also of Better Than Ezra) liked what he saw of the henna on Annaliese, and on Simon, and was assured by Phil that he could, indeed, have some for some himself.

After a brief moment of preparation and witty conversation with Richard and the band (about the use of urine in ancient woad processing in England) we were ready to put down some henna on Michael.

I knew that I had about 3 minutes to pull off whatever I was going to pull off, but I had no clue what design to lay down. Behind me I hear the conversation drift and hear the word "dragon" come out of Richard's mouth.
Ok. Dragon.
Cool.

And we went to town. I pulled a Debi Reiser style dragon with flowers out of the air and finished with holographic glitter in about 3 and a half minutes (not including conversation). Hooray. Michael smiled the whole time, and Mr. Thompson was interested enough to take a picture of the proceedings.

The Richard Thompson Band is currently touring and recording a new live album during the first set of the show. If you get the chance, in Eugene tonight, or in Arcata, San Francisco, LA... check out this concert if you can. The new songs are stunning and will be with you the next morning, and the morning after that as well. The tunes are brilliant, the band is brilliant.

I am truly grateful to have been there and delighted that some henna found its way onto the company.

Guess that mini kit I decided to carry was just the ticket for value added to an awesome evening.

Rovinghorse Rodeo Book 2 is avaliable for download Now!

Rovinghorse Rodeo volume 2: The Rodeo Alphabet!

Hooray! Book two of the Americana henna series is ready to be downloaded for 5 dollars from Henna Caravan here!

Jessica at Henna Caravan (our publishers) suggested a western/rodeo style font to go with the western themed designs in the other three books of the series, and at first, I'll admit, I didn't want to do it. Lettering is something I have struggled with myself.

The more I thought about it though, the more I realized that it would be fairly easy to make a skeleton font based on the "western" style and that you can embellish that skeleton just about any way you want. So I built 26 examples, from really simple to seemingly ornate, of Capital letters and a set of lower case letters done very simply.

All skill levels can enjoy this fun approach to fun mix and match fonts. I found that the mix and match factor made the lettering idea fun for me. My hope is that henna artists working in fast paced settings can add an easy set of 26 designs to their design books and still keep those designs fresh and fun. Especially when those designs are (the formerly dreaded) letters. These letters were made to pair up with other motifs- add a jackalope to a fancy "Z". Combine a cactus, wagon wheel or flower with a mix and match font and you have a custom design that can be done quickly and left your client feeling special and unique. And that is entirely the point.

A long running connection to some Goodness

Last Spring I had the opportunity to get to henna and to get to know Linda Olsen, who at the time was getting started with her Chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer. I hennaed a crown of flowers and paisleys and peacocks on her head that first time, and hennaed her head twice more during her process of getting through her treatments. In June, Linda asked me if I would be willing to henna her head and her chest over her mastectomy scars. She let me know that this would be for the June, 2009 cover of Goodness magazine in relation to their issue about self care, and hers and another woman's stories about going through breast cancer. I was honored that she asked me and was happy to do her henna. Linda referred to the henna that she had on her chest as a shield, and on her head as a crown. She spoke during the henna session that day of how she felt that her hennaed head helped melt the ice with people who she met. I was uplifted to hear that Linda's henna made it easier for her to go out into the world with no hair, and no hat, and no breasts. I love it that the henna seemed to make a difference between being approached with dread by people she met for the fear of what might befall any one of us... for the fear of having to go through cancer. You can find the article online at Goodness Magazine

Linda has finished her chemo now, and her hair has grown back. She has undergone her reconstructive surgery, and as a way of marking that transition in her journey, we hennaed her chest again just 3 days before that surgery, over the "place holders" and over her heart. We will henna again as soon as she is healed from her reconstructive surgery, and I will post a bunch of photos then of the whole year long process of the hennas we did together.

In an interesting tangent, I heard yesterday from one of the staff of Goodness Magazine, inviting me to henna at an event celebrating Cancer Survivor's Day hosted by all of the major hospital systems at Portland's World Forestry Center on June 6th from 1-4 pm.
If you have walked the path with cancer and are still walking, mark the date and plan to join us. Henna will be free to the attendees at the event. I look forward to networking and spreading the word a bit about henna as well as laying down the adornment to celebrate life!

I am so thrilled that more and more people are finding henna as away to mark the important moments of their journeys, what ever they might be. I am so grateful that the magic made adorning people with this generous little plant can do so very much good. When it comes to the idea of henna for promoting cancer awareness, and awareness that henna can help with going through the process of cancer, and henna as celebration of survival of that process, I am glad that the world has spokespeople like Linda and Goodness magazine.
(The photos above were taken by Joni Schrantz www.jonischrantz.com for Goodness Magazine)

And so we begin!

Though Roving Horse Henna has been on its feet for a few years now, it is finally up and running at full speed and ready to be off to the races! I will do my best to keep the upcoming events, new stuff, promotions, and ponderings updated here as we gallop full blast into year four as a business in Portland, Oregon.

The past year has seen some amazing growth, in every direction!
A new web page is ready to be born www.rovinghorse.com, a first book has been published, and 2010's projects and events are filling up the calendar already.

Some amazing partnerships and collaborations have been built and look to continue to produce crazy out of the box body art projects! I am referring to the collaborative work with my friend and photographic collaborator Annaliese Moyer www.stagerightphoto.com
And of course there is the amazing collaboration between Roving Horse Henna and Henna Caravan, the birth of our book series! Book one, "Rovinghorse Rodeo: Images in Henna to Celebrate the American West" is already available at http://www.hennacaravan.com/shop/patterns.html This is the first of a four part series dedicated Americana. The next book is "Rovinghorse Rodeo: The rodeo Alphabet", a mix and match font and fill -up alphabet book! Keep an eye out for it!
These books are perfect little sweeties to add to your festival design books and will open up a whole new demographic for you if you care to run with it (to the tattoo show, or the Rodeo, or the Rock and Roll and Hillbilly show...)