Right Brain - No Left Turn

There's gold in them thar' hills ...

2011-06-10T18:44:00.001-04:00

Well, there is in my living room. And, I do live in the foothills of western North Carolina. Was once a popular gold mining area. Bit of trivia.

Just finished a new abstract this morning and hung it up on the wall ...

Pockets Full Of Gold, acrylic on 1.5" gallery wrapped canvas / triptych of 18" x 48" panels.

I'm pleased with the painting. Hate the photo. Bad lighting in the living room for photo taking. Even zinging it through Photoshop didn't help much. Oh well.

Namaste', y'all ...

Triumph over turtle troubles!

2011-05-11T10:12:00.000-04:00

Wow. Been away from here way too long.

I have excuses, but I won't bore you with those.

Instead, I shall share my newest painting! I do believe this is my second most favorite painting that I've ever done. Funny that. I really struggled with this one, thinking at one point I might even scrap the whole idea. It was frustrating. I knew I had to paint sea turtles. Couldn't get the little buggers out of my head. They wouldn't let me move on to something else. I just kept slinging paint, getting irritated, slinging more paint, irritated again ... roller coaster ride. I bet I started over at least five or six times.

Then one afternoon I was online, looking at photos of sea turtles and stumbled across Templeton Rye Blog and The Adventures of Templeton the Turtle ...

Sweet wee hatchling turtle. I melted. I also had an idea. I printed out that photo and was off to the studio!

I started with the background. Wave meeting sand ...

Added the turtle ...

Basic turtle close-up ...

Wave close-up ...

Turtle detail ...

Turtle with necklace chain ...

Finished painting ...

I have yet to come up with a good title for this one. I haven't even put wire on to hang it. Maybe I'll go do that now ...

Namaste', y'all ...

I want ...

2011-04-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

It isn't too often I post stuff about knitting, which is surprising since I'm a knit-nut. Anyway, I was reading one of my fav blogs yesterday - Knitting In Color - and clicked on this link - Toe-up Entrelac Socks, by Natalia Vasilieva. Since not everyone is a Ravelry member, here is a picture ...

I fell madly in love. I want these socks. Only thing I would change about them would be make them longer. Not a big fan of short socks. Too bad I haven't gotten brave enough to begin the 'knitting my own socks' phase of knitterdom. Someday!

If I had these socks I would only take them off long enough to wash them, dry them, then put them right back on. They are awesome.

Bring it on, Baby!

2011-04-08T08:53:00.000-04:00

Seems that every time I walk outside I discover yet another mini miracle of Spring ...

My Hostas are coming up. I love the way the leaves look in the sun ...

Don't have anything planted in my flower pots yet, but Mother Nature gave me these pretty Dandelions for now ...

One of my old fashioned Lilac bushes is blooming. This one is still kind of small. It blooms before the bigger one, isn't quite as fragrant, but it's still very nice ...

Namaste', y'all ...

Lovely little violets.

2011-04-06T13:24:00.000-04:00

The first year the husband and I moved into our house I discovered these pretty violets growing in the yard ...

Commonly called "Bird's Foot" or "Crow's Foot" Violet.

I always look forward to seeing them come up in Spring. They are such a delicate shade of lavender and the leaves remind me of feathery fans. I wish they grew over every inch of the yard!

Deceptive.

2011-04-05T10:58:00.000-04:00

People in the southern states know that deep underground there lurks a monster. It's name is Red Clay. It's beautiful in color, but don't let that fool you. This stuff is what nightmares are made of. It can destroy worlds. Let a tiny bit of this stuff loose and it spreads and multiplies faster than you can say 'rabbit'. It stains worse than food coloring, and sticks like Gorilla Glue. It's mean. It's nasty, and it's now all over my driveway.

The husband is finally getting a shed, a.k.a. 'workshop'. This is where it's going to be built next week ...

Will be nice to have this view of the neighbor's carports blocked ...

This is my friend, Chris, doing the leveling of the land with a back hoe ...

This is what is happening to my driveway as I sit here and type ...

Chris has only been working for a couple of hours. It's going to get a lot worse before it's done.

I think I need another pot of coffee, or two.

Namaste', y'all ...

The joys of home ownership.

2011-04-04T10:14:00.000-04:00

It's 10:00am on Monday, and the plumbers are under my house replacing the bladder tank.

I didn't even get to make a pot of coffee before they shut the water off.

Great.

The upside is that hopefully we won't have troubles with the new tank for a long, long, long time.

I hate plumbing problems.

I really could use a cup of coffee.

Namate', y'all ...

Thursday. Rain. And more rain.

2011-03-31T12:48:00.000-04:00

Rain Rain Go Away

I know a calender filled with nothing but sunshiny days isn't really very likely here in the foothills of western North Carolina. There are four seasons, and each one brings it's own kind of weather. It just seems like Mother Nature would be nice and give us a little break after all the cold and snow of Winter, rolling us right along into a lovely green Spring.

Nope.

In early March she teases you with some warm days. For a blissful few days you get to throw open your windows and let the warm air circulate through the house, pushing out all those closed-up Winter blahs. It's so nice ... and so deceiving.

Hot on the heels of those tricksy teaser days Mother N. likes giving all that impending green a good head start with a month of rain. Buckets of it. Good, old fashioned 'gully washer' downpours. She also likes to turn the temperature back down a bit so you have to shut all the windows again, and crank your heat back on. Not so nice.

Y'all, I can't begin to express just how ready I am for warm days and sunshine. Yeah, yeah ... I do love my fuzzy socks and my warm sweaters. I really do. But I really, really like sunshine. I hope it gets here soon.

Namaste', y'all ...

12 weeks with little green pills.

2011-03-29T22:17:00.000-04:00

The mysterious Vitamin D ...

Picked up a prescription today for a mega, massive, OMG dose of Vitamin D, pretty green pills which look small and relatively harmless ...

Seems the blood/lab work I had done indicates I have a Vitamin D deficiency. Basically, I've felt like this ...

... for over a year now and it sucks in a major way. So much so that I finally caved and went to the doctor fully prepared to gobble down just about any medication he pimped out to me. All my symptoms seemed to fit Hypothyroidism, and I was expecting to end up having to take some kind of nasty drug, every day, for the rest of my natural life. Was a bit surprised by the Vitamin D diagnosis. Not happy about it, but honestly, I'm really glad it wasn't something "serious". Either way, I'm to the point that I'll do pretty much anything if it will just make me start feeling better, ya' know?

Hopefully, in a few weeks I'll start to feel like this ...

This would be even better ...

I'm aiming for this ...

Namaste', y'all ...

Troublesome turtle in my studio; turquoise with sparkles in my kitchen.

2011-03-28T08:00:00.004-04:00

Shame on me for not posting for so long. I've been busy! Painting! Turtles! Turquoise! Fun!

Right off the bat I'm going to say that I'm well aware a sparkly turquoise kitchen isn't everyone's cup of tea. Kinda' like a '57 Chevy Bel Air, only without a set of wheels. This color has a bit of a retro vibe (which I love!) yet a dash of contemporary style, too.

The paint color is 'Water Lily' in Valspar Signature Colors semi-gloss paint Valspar Paint Crystals in silver, both from Lowe's. Personally, I think it's awesome. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good photo with the sparkles. They are very subtle in daylight, but by golly they are absolutely gorgeous in the ambient light from the living room in the evening.

Every time I walk into the kitchen I see how this wall over the counter glitters like crazy and I can't help but giggle.

I actually have very little wall space in the kitchen. I think that's how I can get away with such an intense color without it being completely overwhelming. I really like the dramatic color play between the black tiles and appliances, the honey oak cabinetry and that screaming turquoise.

Of course, there's still work to do. Have to make curtains. Add (and remove) some accessories. I'm thinking about accent colors of lighter aqua, shades of lavender, maybe wee touches of butter yellow, and copper - which would match my kitchen faucet and cabinet handles. We will eventually replace the linoleum as well. My 'some day' vision with the room is a blend of the retro and the contemporary. I'd like to find old canisters to paint, or maybe a set in a bright copper. I really want everything to be streamlined and uncluttered. Less is more with this kind of paint job!

Speaking of paint jobs ...

My sea turtles looked like this the last time I posted their progress ...

They stayed in limbo for a couple of days. I looked at them, looked at them, and looked at them some more. I carried that canvas all over the house, propping it up in different places, evaluating it in different lighting and from different angles. Just so you know, the intention is for this painting to hang over the commode in the master bath ... yeah, I know.

I tried adding more white swirls. I tried adding more ... well, I tried a number of different things and it simply wasn't happening.

Yes, I started over.

I broke out the Golden Molding Medium, large palette knife, several colors of paint, and swished it all over the canvas ...

Got some great texture ...

I really like the swirls and mixes of color ...

I added one turtle back (instead of a herd!) ...

Slapped some color on it ...

Tried some spiral stuff ...

Hated that so I used a small palette knife to mush paint/molding medium on the turtle ...

Put some detail on the shell ...

Close up of detail ...

And that's were it is at this point. I'm still working, still looking, still pondering what I feel it needs. I want it 'calm', but not quite so plain. Today I intend to paint a white "waves" around the big gray circle. Have no idea where it will go from there. We'll see what happens!

Oh, yeah ... just for snorts and giggles ...

With wheels!

Namaste', y'all ...

Some days are kinda' like a surprise party!

2011-03-17T20:08:00.000-04:00

Thursdays are my "town" days. I get up, get ready, and get myself into town to take care of assorted errands like hauling off the trash, going to the post office, grocery shopping, etc. Yeah, I know, it's a blast.

This morning I took a detour on my way to the PO and stopped at a one of the local thrift stores to do a little pilfering. I'd been trying to get there for a couple of weeks but they were closed on the couple of days I had ventured into town. I'm still on the hunt for cheap, repurposable decorating stuff. So far I haven't had much luck finding anything.

Today wasn't any different in that endeavor ... although! ... I did make a great 'find' for one of my favorite hobbies. A stack of knitting magazines! I saw them as soon as I walked in the door and immediately asked about price. I was hoping for about 25¢ ea. or so. Nice lady at the counter said, "Dear, those are get three free with a purchase." Naturally, I wasn't deterred. I asked again, "Yeah, but how much if I just want to buy the magazines?" Nice lady got all flustered and called for back-up.

Nice lady #2 came out of the office and nice lady #1 babbled out her dilemma over my wanting to pay for free magazines. Nice lady #2 says, "Sweetheart, those magazines are get three free with purchase."

?What the heck? I may not be the brightest crayon in the box when it comes to math, but come on ... really? If I'm offering you money for something you planned to give away for free, wouldn't you just say Okay! and take it? Isn't that pretty much a no-brainer?

I put on my best smile, swallowed hard on the sarcastic remark I wanted to make, and instead replied, "Yes ma'am, I do believe I understand that. But I don't want to purchase anything, I just want these magazines. All of 'em. Now, how 'bout I give you five bucks and we call it a happy day?"

Nice lady #2 got all flustered and flapped her hands around in the air a bit.

I stood there, smiling, magazines clutched in a death grip in my arms. I think my look of crazy determination tipped her over the edge because she stuttered a couple of times and then said, "Well, um ... well, um ... I guess you could, uh ... put a little donation in the jar and, uh, I guess we could let you have them."

I slapped five bucks in that donation jar faster than a duck on a June bug and made a bee line for the truck. I didn't want to give her even one minute to think about it. Deal. Paid. Done. Gone.

This was my haul ...

Am quite pleased and will be sitting down with a lovely cup of tea to peruse my magazines later this evening.

When I pulled in the driveway I saw a box on the back porch. Thrill! My Dick Blick order came! I'm the proud new owner of these wondermosly fantabulously froggie-green paintbrushes ...

They are the Liquitex Freestyle. I saw them a couple of months ago at A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts store in Asheville and have been sending up prayers ever since to get them for my very own. And Ta! Da! Mine! I'd gotten the Dick Blick catalog (which is pretty much a book of crack for artists) in the mail the other day. Big ol' sale they were having. I didn't see the brushes, but when I checked their site online ... Low & Behold! ... those pretty green babies were right there, on sale, my name on them. Called the husband and warned him. I even got expedited shipping.

I have a particular piece I want to do with these. I think they'll be perfect for portraiture work and other similar types of painting. Can't wait to get started!

As an added bonus to the day, the sun was shining and the periwinkle along the driveway is blooming in a lovely carpet of little purple flowers!

Namaste', y'all ...

Back to square one.

2011-03-15T11:50:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you work, and work, and work on a piece of art and nothing comes together on paper (canvas) like your head has visions of it being. That, y'all, is most definitely what's happening with these sea turtles. UGH!

After the texture medium was good and dry I used the Elmer's glue to outline the turtle shells ...

A couple of hours later I put on the first layer of color ...

Then more color ...

Detail of color ...

More color and a dash or two of iridescent glitter for fun ...

Detail of color and glitter ...

When all that was dry I washed on a mixture of white, very pale purple and aqua to begin the foaming of the waves ...

I tweaked and tinkered and tweaked some more until I realized it just wasn't coming together.

Right now, I'm waiting for the nice, fresh coat of texture medium I spread over the entire thing to dry. When it's ready, it's going to get a pretty coating of gesso to obliterate everything I've done thus far and make it a blank white canvas again. When all else fails, drop back and punt.

Namaste', y'all ...

Sea turtles swimming in my head!

2011-03-11T08:00:00.001-05:00

I'm back to being a copy cat again. This is from my 'clipped art' files ...

Turtle Wave Wall Sculpture, designed by Joanne Ferrara (whom, sadly, I can find no information on to share with you) which I found in the previously mentioned Touch Of Class home decor catalog.

I'm also inspired by these images ...

Sea Turtle. I stumbled across this painting while surfing the net. I was floored to read it was created by an artist in St. Charles, Missouri named Samantha Davidson ... who is 11 (yes eleven) years old. Holy crap! Awesome. Intimidating. I would like to have it for my very own.

Sea Turtle Wall Art. I found this, again, while net surfing. No information about the artist. Bummer. I love the colors.

Sea Turtle Tile. Hawaiian Tile created by artists Christiane Jones on the island of Hawaii and Tracy Lamon on the island of Maui. They do some very lovely work. What I like about this tile is, naturally, the color palette, but also the raised outline of the turtle and shell. I had the idea of doing something similar with mine and using Golden Gel medium to fill in the spaces to give the shells depth and dimension yet allowing the painting underneath to show through. Imagine putting a small puddle of Elmer's glue over a spot on a painting. When the Elmer's dries it will be clear and what's underneath will show through. Could be interesting.

At this point, I've gotten the canvas drawn off with the basic sketch ...

Added Golden Molding Medium with the help of one of my assistants ...

Which looks like this ...

And this ...

I've kept the areas for the turtles smooth canvas to do the outline/gel thing ...

It was all very tiring for the Studio Assistants ...

Tuck Butt ...

Zipper ...

Now I have to wait for the texture medium to dry. I don't like the waiting for stuff to dry part.

Namaste, y'all ...

No, I can not leave well enough alone and that is not a bad thing.

2011-03-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

After I finished Dancing In Lavender - for the third attempt at this triptych! - I hung it on the wall and lived with it for awhile. Sometimes it's the only way to really know how I feel about a piece of art. I liked it well enough. I had even dared to think I would leave it alone.

Uh ... nope.

I couldn't exactly put my finger on it but something about it wasn't working for me. With it hanging on the wall, which is opposite where I sit here at the computer, I could look over and study it when I was online. I had to walk past it going to the kitchen or the bedroom ... or vice versa - from the kitchen to the studio, etc. I could either glance over at it in passing or I could stop and really look at it. I could analyze how it 'fit' in the room.

Over the past couple of weeks I grew more and more dissatisfied with how it looked. It didn't represent what I was trying to express. It didn't feel calm. It looked flat and uninteresting. I realized I wasn't pleased with the particular shades of purple I had used. It didn't have any sparkle. What to do?

By now, y'all should know I am a big, big, big fan of the do-over. Hallelujah for a fresh coat of paint - or in this case, gesso. Like an eraser on a pencil. Gotta' love it.

Off the wall and back to the studio it went!

I didn't take the work-in-progress photos because I pretty much did the entire background in one sitting. Anything that wasn't working was quickly painted over and I'd go at it again while everything was still wet. When I was satisfied with the background I let it dry overnight. The next morning I added the green lines and dots - got some kind of dot fixation going on - and let it dry for a couple of hours. Next came the gold. Dry an hour. Painted the edges (1.5" gallery wrap canvas) with the exact same paint we used on the living room walls so the image would visually 'float' away from the wall. Dry an hour. Hang it back up.

Am liking it.

Dancing In Lavender, version II ...

Detail of background ...

More detail of background. I just love the swirls and blending of colors! ...

Detail of gold sparkle ...

Side angle ...

For me, this triptych is so much more pleasing. I love the colors, pale and watery. It has an overall quiet feeling even though there is technically a lot going on with the movement of the colors. It feels restful. My only complaint is I wish it were larger!

Now I'm off to the studio to paint some sea turtles. My inspiration is this mixed media painting I did several years ago entitled Ocean of Time ...

I've been wanting to do another version, something larger but with the same expression. I pulled a 24"x48" canvas out of the closet and am going to start on it now ...

Namaste, y'all ...

Connecting the Dots.

2011-03-09T10:49:00.000-05:00

Finished the Circles and Dots painting. Not sure I like it. Somehow, as is often the case, what was in my head didn't quite make it to the canvas. Still don't have a title for it either.

Finished painting ...

Detail of dots ...

More detail of dots. I like this bubble ...

Namaste, y'all ...

Lining the nest on the cheap ... with thoughtfulness and creativity.

2011-03-08T15:43:00.002-05:00

Squirrel Animal Medicine

Gathering, Activity, Preparedness.

The gathering power of Squirrel is a great gift. It teaches us balance within the circle of gathering and giving out. They remind us that in our quest for our goals, it is vital to make time for play and socializing.

Squirrel teaches us to conserve our energy for times of need. If your totem is Squirrel or Squirrel has recently entered your life, lighten your load of things that are unnecessary – things that you have gathered in the past and may be cluttering your life – thoughts, worries, and stresses.

Squirrel is also the totem of action. Ask yourself are you too active, not active enough, afraid of enough, hung up on accumulating and collecting. Squirrel people tend to be a little erratic – trying to do many things at once. Take the time to stop and listen to your inner self – and don’t forget to play!

Why all that makes a whole lot of sense to me ...

This morning, while I was sitting on the back porch drinking a cup of coffee, I watched a squirrel gathering leaves and twigs on the ground and taking them up to it's nest in the top of a pine tree. I could hear the "stuff-crunch-stuff", and then the squirrel would scamper back down, grab another mouthful of leaves and twigs, haul it home and do the "stuff-crunch-stuff" thing again. I watched the squirrel do this about nine or ten times. I assumed it was girl squirrel cozy-ing up her nest in preparation for having babies. She was decorating.

For a few days now I've had home redecorating on the brain. Maybe it's my artistic nature. Maybe it's the lure of Spring and things being "new" again. Maybe it's that I want to get out of the rut I feel I've been in for too long. Whatever the reason, the urge to re-do my nest has been biting my butt pretty hard.

While the will is there, sadly, the wallet isn't. The upside to a seriously limited budget is I like the challenge it presents.

I'm sure y'all have seen all those shows about how to decorate on a budget, on a shoestring, or the classic "Makeover your living room for under $500!" Those kinds of shows are great for inspiration/ideas, but if y'all are like me, that $500 is bill-paying money. Who's got a spare five Ben Franklin's laying around for throw pillows and knick-knacks? Not moi'. So I have to be really creative. Shopping has be done at thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets, etc. I'll have to refinish or re-purpose things I find or that I already have. A little ingenuity can go a long way when it comes to decorating.

I've already said that my thoughts on the color scheme is based on 'water'. Calm, cool, soft ... like this sea glass ...

I want to blend pale aquas, khaki, mocha, lavender, light blues, and sea green through the house, but I also want chocolate browns and the occasional "pop" of brighter versions of the colors like this great rug ...

I'm also pretty crazy about this pillow ...

I want to play with textures and different finishes. I have a tv cabinet I would like to refinish like this chest of drawers ...

I want to keep it an overall contemporary decor with some eclectic touches. It should feel relaxed, yet artful and interesting. I despise 'matchy-matchy' decorating. I think it lacks any originality, personality or imagination. The husband would argue that.

So, I'm on a mission to decorate without spending much money. I might even try to do one of those self-imposed tricks like only giving myself $50 or $75 per room just to see how creative I can be. Do one room per month. I think that would be a lot of fun!

The other side to my decorating plans is getting rid of a lot of stuff. I want to really 'clean house'. Not only does that reduce clutter and junked up closets, it also helps me un-clutter. It makes me feel burdened to have so much stuff. Didn't used to be that way - the more the better! - was the motto. Now I just want minimal. I want to open a cabinet and see it organized. I want to open my sock drawer without it exploding.

And that mindset bleeds over into my life in general. I need calm. I need to de-stress and let go. I need to get outside and plant flowers, go hiking, sit in the sun. I've spent the past several years in a space, both mentally and physically, that has been the complete opposite of where I wanted to be. I think now is the time to change it ... and sewing a new throw pillow or two is a great place to start!

Namaste', y'all ...

Evolution of Circles and Dots ...

2011-03-03T10:17:00.003-05:00

Shame on me for not updating on the 'Circles and Dots' in progress. Been busy with it almost every day but just haven't gotten around to getting the images loaded into the computer and dragging 'em through Photoshop. Took some time this morning to do that but didn't get overly exacting on taking the warping out. Digital cameras do that distortion thing - which makes me nuts. I hope y'all will overlook my slackness.

Here's where it is thus far ...

The original inspiration for the painting. Metal wall sculpture entitled "Particles" by J. Warren ...

The background. I squirted white and aqua paint onto the canvas (36" x 48") and used a large, flat brush to blend and move the paint around ...

The brush has a really cool feathery edge to the bristles and makes interesting brush strokes ...

Made the circles with a compass and then painted them a dark chocolate brown ...

Some of them I glazed with silver and gold ...

I also added sparks with black using a liner brush ...

I painted the circles to appear rounded, more like rings of metal ...

Painted the first of the dots ...

Painted more dots with different colors ...

Painted a few more ...

The dots all have different detailing; some are flat color, some swirls of color, some are more detailed and have shadowing to give them form and dimension ...

I added shadowing to the circles, dots and sparks to pull them from the background. I'm going to go back in and give the shadowing another glazing layer to deepen the color and give the painting more depth ...

Detail of shadowing ...

I've still got quite a bit of work to do on the dots. Those little buggers are time consuming! Good thing for me I enjoy the detailing part. I also haven't decided on a title for the work, but that's okay for now. I'm just enjoying myself and happy being in the studio.

Namaste, y'all ...

Happy Dr. Seuss Day to ya'!

2011-03-02T14:34:00.000-05:00

Today is March 2nd ... Dr. Seuss Day! Hope y'all have a razzellem, doo dazellem, foo fazellem day! For fun, you can go visit Seussville.com to celebrate!

Namaste, y'all ...

Circles and Dots and Dots and Circles

2011-02-28T08:00:00.001-05:00

One afternoon several months ago I took my daily stroll out to my mailbox to check the mail. Among the usual junk and other assorted stuff I was kind of surprised to find a catalog called Touch Of Class. I have absolutely no idea how it wound up in my mail that day. I don't recall ordering it. Not my usual preference in decorating style. But I figured, what the heck!, and flipped through it as I walked back to the house.

Well, H.E.L.L.O.!

Nope, not my taste in decor, but certainly my taste in some of the artwork! I just loved some of the contemporary canvases. What really caught my eye were a few of the metal wall sculptures. I took a pair of scissors to that catalog as soon as I walked back in the house. Ideas! Ideas! Ideas! I clipped and clipped and stuck all of those little nuggets of inspiration into my art files. I keep a filing cabinet in my studio with images of other art, greeting cards, magazine clippings, etc. as inspiration and future reference materials.

One of the things I particularly liked was this ...

It's called Particles by J. Warren. This mysterious person, J. Warren, is rather elusive. I've looked online for a website but can't find any other reference than the metal work in Touch Of Class and a couple of other places. Disappointing. Would like to see more work.

Anyway, it's been in my folder for some time now, waiting on me. Today is the day! Since I'm currently only creating art for my house I don't feel bad about snitching the idea for a new piece of work. My idea is the basic circles and dots, with a twist. Of course, I'm not a metal worker, I'm a painter, so that's the first deviation. Instead of landscape, I'm going vertical. Canvas is 36" x 48". Not sure what's with all this big sized stuff lately, but I'm not going to fight it.

More 'twisting' is I've washed canvas with fat brushstrokes, blending shades of aqua with white, to create my background. What the game plan is - create the circles and dots in varying shades of purple, sienna and copper, with some small touches of moss green and maybe a bit of buttery yellow.

I also want 'sparkle', like lead crystal when it catches the light. Somewhere in all my craft and art supplies I have a package of glue-on crystals ... remember the craze of painted sweatshirts and Keds tennis shoes? I think I will use the crystals for a few of the smallest dots. Not too many or it'll get tacky and over done with bling instead of the scattered twinkle of light I'm looking for. And just for giggles, I Goggled those sweatshirts for a ~~scary~~ fun flashback ...

I'm still trying to figure out the best solution to making the large circles. Although a liner brush and liquidy paint gives a nice thin line I'm not so sure about making the lines completely uniform all the way around. My hand isn't that steady! I'm considering painting the edge of a large bowl, then pressing the bowl to the canvas. Vaguely like rubber stamping, I suppose. I can use varying sizes of bowls for the different sized circles. I'm going to try a test one on another canvas first. I'm pretty pleased with the background I painted a little while ago (waiting for it to dry now) and don't want to muck it up!

So, I'm off to the studio to play with more purple paint!!!

Namaste, y'all ...

Playing with purple paint.

2011-02-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

In Wednesday's post I talked about the evil abstract triptych and my desire to start over. I also had a fixation with purple and felt compelled to do something with it on the painting. Well, that's exactly what I did ...

Took the abstract down from the wall and gave it a nice coat of white paint ...

Let that dry and sort of sketched out an idea with a field of lavender flowers because I was thinking about them, too ...

Somehow it felt as if it was going to end up too literal if I kept up with that particular idea, which is not what I wanted. I wanted abstract, an "idea" of a field of lavender flowers, and I wanted texture - so I added Golden's Molding Medium with a large spatula, then mushed it around with my fingers to give it some movement, reminiscent of the way lavender flowers grown in rounded clumps and rows ...

Went into the studio after I got home from doing the grocery shopping on Thursday and discovered two cat paw prints in the texture medium. Crazy ass cats. Must have sneaked in there and danced around on the table when the medium was still wet. I got the texture medium back out and smooshed it on the canvas to cover the paw prints. Now, I'm not sure exactly what came over me, but I couldn't stand to wait for that to dry before I got busy with the paint. I didn't argue with myself. I grabbed my spray bottle, misted the canvases, squirted on some paints and went somewhere off into abstract land. In a matter of a couple of hours I had this ...

Dancing In Lavender, acrylic on canvas - 10" x 30" triptych.

I do believe I shall leave this one alone.

Namaste, y'all ...

It's almost here!!!

2011-02-24T13:36:00.000-05:00

On my way into town today I saw a wonderful thing ... forsythias starting to bloom! So close to Spring you can almost taste it. To celebrate, let's look at a happy forsythia bush ...

Namaste, y'all ...

Obviously, I'm not one to leave well enough alone.

2011-02-23T20:33:00.000-05:00

The abstract triptych I was working on has been bothering me. I hung it on the wall and studied it for several days. It felt unfinished. Then again, I'm also not so crazy about the way it looks against the khaki color of the walls. Problem. I like, but don't like, the painting. It feels muddy and heavy. The copper doesn't shine the way it should because it's hanging on a somewhat shadowed wall.

I even tried adding some "brightness" to it by coating string in paint and laying it across the canvas to make lines. Also some flicking and spotting of the same paint in a bit of a burst pattern. Let that dry. Hung it back on the wall. Still, not quite there.

I thought it possibly needed a touch of a mossy green on the bottom half. I thought about that all day and well into the evening. I decided to just go to bed and sleep on it. As I was lying there in the dark, snuggled up with my cats, I started thinking about the color purple. Not just any purple. Pale, icy lavender. I think I even dreamed about it.

When I woke up this morning I went through my usual routine. Shower, get dressed, start a pot of coffee (green tea today), clean litter boxes, go for my walk. All the while thinking about the abstract. Why did it not feel right? What could I do to fix it? I stood in the living room and stared at it for a long while. The purple kept creepy into my head.

Then I had one of those "ah ha!" moments. It wasn't exactly a good moment, I must admit. What I realized is I created the triptych while I was angry and frustrated. It was an expression of resentment, bucking opinions, pushing against caving to another persons ideas ... all the things I'm struggling against in my work. Plain and simple, I was mad and that's what I saw every time I looked at the painting. It was evoking negative feelings when what I want to create is calm.

Well. Damn.

I've talked about how, in the work I'm doing for the house, I want to create a relaxed, watery, peaceful, zen-like space with the art and overall decor of my home. It was the motivation behind the White Lotus painting. This triptych is the antithesis of my desire. This morning I put a nice fresh coat of white paint over the entire thing. Magic swipe of my brush and it's history. I always get a rush when I do that.

I believe that's why the purple is dancing around in my head. I need calm. I need soft and light and peaceful. I need lavender flowers, fields of lavender flowers. Hmmmm. With that thought, I'm off to the studio.

Namaste, y'all ...

Sometimes it's time for a makeover!

2011-02-17T16:47:00.000-05:00

Some people go to a salon to get their new groove on.

I am not one of those people.

I, on the other hand, get a big ol' bunch of feelin' fine when I paint over something I've done and am feelin' no love for. Oh yeah, a few swipes of a brush and I get goose-bumps galore! Like the shoe-crack high we women get when we find a great pair of shoes, in our size, on sale. Yeah, I'm not much on lounging around a beauty salon getting my nails done but I'm girly enough to admit to my love of shoes.

A few days ago I posted about the triptych I'm working on. I was loving the background. The cherry blossom branch was 'okay'. Somewhere between branch and adding blossoms I realized I didn't want to paint it anymore. It had become one of those paintings which looked great in my head ... on canvas, not so much. I tinkered with it, mooshed paint around, a bit of detail here and there, more twigs on the branch, a whole day of putzing around and getting more irritated by the minute.

Painting isn't supposed to be irritating.

Fortunately, there is that marvelous cure ... the makeover!

Allow me to demonstrate a painting makeover ...

Last place I was when I posted ... tree branch okay but still needed detailing ...

Little blobs of color for blossom placement ... this is when I started getting that seriously irritated thing going on but I was willing to keep working ...

Started detailing the blossoms ...

More detail on the blossoms and branch developed ...

The next day it became this ...

Now it's a nice abstract that I really, really like ...

"Putting My Stamp On It", acrylic on 10" x 30" canvases

Stamp detail ... that is my thumbprint in the box...

I think part of the problem began when I didn't go with my first instinct and do an abstract to start with. I want to but wasn't sure of what to do with one. I couldn't get a solid "idea" formed so I caved to indecision and went with the cherry blossom thing instead.

Some folks might think that abstracts are just a matter of slinging paint at the canvas and voila', it's an abstract painting! There are probably a lot of artists out there who do exactly that. Kudos to them. Not my style. I like to have a basic idea, theme, feeling, or purpose when I do my abstracts. There needs to be a reason behind the work, even if it isn't obvious to the viewers who look at it. I prefer to let them (you) find their own interpretation to a piece of art because that, for me, is how art should be. I may have my own story to tell through the paint, but someone else may see something I never even thought of ... and I like that.

With this abstract my personal story, as is with all my abstract paintings, is explained in the title. For many years my paintings were greatly influenced by others' suggestions, thoughts or opinions. Over time I felt I was losing touch with who I was as an artist and a person. I didn't paint what was in my heart to paint. It got so bad I actually stopped painting. I had lost my enjoyment and satisfaction, lost my love of doing the one thing that means most to me in this world.

Between the painting the branch and painting the blossoms, it hit me I wasn't painting something because I truly wanted to ... I was painting it to hang in a particular place in the house, with a consideration for what the husband might like to have hanging there, too. The longer I worked on it the more I realized I was thinking far more about his reactions to the work and not my own. I was painting from the head and not the heart. The blossom painting felt sort of like stepping back into those cheap, ill-fitting shoes. The abstract is like a mini-salon treatment ... I washed away that mode of thinking and got a groovy new hairstyle.

Namaste', y'all ...

Sneak peek of Spring!

2011-02-15T13:29:00.000-05:00

When I stepped outside yesterday morning to start my walk I was thrilled to see one of these guys ...

Bluebird Totem: Bluebird is about your happiness within and without. He signifies a contentment and fulfillment that is happening or is about to happen. Bluebird shows how to find those joyful gems in everyday life with an appreciation anew. He teaches a balance of work and play and reminds us to reinstate the fun back into life. Listen to the song of Bluebird in order to sing your own of joy with an awakened confidence and internal peace. It is time to look for chances to touch joy in your life. Dance and sing with every step, Bluebird will show you the way.

I also spied this tiny little fellow on the porch railing ...

Got him on a stick and put him over in the ivy so he could go along on his merry way, doing whatever it is Inchworms do. Not sure what Inchworm Totem Medicine is (probably that I need to get started with some serious Yoga!), but here's a bit of info y'all might enjoy about seeing and understanding Animal Symbolism in your life.

I love to see the bluebirds here at the house. Let's me know that Spring isn't too far away. Every year the Winter seems colder, longer, and harder to tolerate. Of course, if it weren't for cold weather, I wouldn't get to wear sweaters and thick, fuzzy socks! Got to find the positive in every situation.

Namaste, y'all ...

Mondays are for painting and snuggling a fat cat!

2011-02-14T13:58:00.000-05:00

Monday of last week saw the beginning of a triptych. I've been wanting to do one for awhile. Okay, years. For reasons unknown I've never gotten around to it. I'm 'round to it now. Three panels of 1.5" gallery wrapped canvas, 10" x 30" each. Working in acrylic again on this one. Here's the start ...

Base coating of soft white, aqua, blue ...

Building up the aqua with glazes of deep green umber and a touch of burnt carmine ...

More aqua glazing, more green with a hint of black ...

Added some bright blue between the aqua and green, tamped in some moss green with a sponge on the green to look like, well, moss ...

Mix of black, greens, aqua, and a midge of a pastel shade of the aqua to make a tree branch and twigs ...

Hopefully this evening I'll get the blossoms painted. This is a rendition of a cherry tree, but my blossoms will be varying shades of pale peach, apricot, orange, terra cotta and burnt sienna instead of the traditional shades of pink. I want the complementary color play of "orange" against "blue". I think it will really make the blossoms pop and give the triptych depth and dimension.

This is my assistant, Tuck Butt Martinez ...

The husband caught me and the fur-boy snuggling at the computer and snapped the photos. Tuck loves to rub the top of his head against my head. He's a strange, but sweet fat cat.

Namaste, y'all ...

Time out of the studio ... it's good and it's bad.

2011-02-11T12:41:00.000-05:00

Wednesday I took a road trip to Raleigh with my dear friend, Sue. Left early, got home late. Never made it down the hall to the studio to work on the triptych I've started. Haven't even gotten the in-progress photos downloaded from the camera yet.

Thursday was spent in town running errands, doing the grocery shopping, and then being totally unproductive at home. Getting up at 5:30am Wednesday morning and not getting home 'til after 9:00pm, then the town excursion, sort of wore me out. No studio time. I just couldn't focus even though I wanted to.

Today is Domestic Goddess day because the husband is on his way home for the weekend. Took a nice walk down our road with my neighbor because I've been too inactive the past few months. My plan is to walk every day.

Now, the rest of my day will be a fun-filled hoorah of dusting, cleaning bathrooms, and pushing around the vacuum cleaner. woo.hoo. Got veggies and a large roast in the crock pot after my walk so I can feed the man when he gets here. I put in extra veggies because that's what I'll eat. I am so loving this new crock pot! Extra big. 7.5 qt. Love it. My old one, a small 4 qt. would hold the roast, but not so many veggies.

In all honesty, all I want to do is run back into the studio and not come out. I feel cranky and frustrated that the necessities of life are in my way. But, I do realize time out of the studio is really a good thing. I get so single-minded and caught up in my own little world. Not much else gets done, which isn't so good.

Guess I need to practice some balance with it. It's just a little difficult.

To suit that balance theme, let's post a nice picture to reflect the concept ...

Namaste, y'all ...

Crankin' 'em out and hangin' 'em up ...

2011-02-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

Not sure what's going on, but I seem to be rollin' along rather quickly with the painting stuff. I'm not complaining.

Got the Poppies done last night. I like how they turned out. I like that I'm done and ready for the next victim, too. I've got months of not being able to get into the studio to make up for.

So here's the last half of the process and a grand finale ...

When I paused to take a lunch break I came back to the studio to find a seat thief ...

After relocating Zipper Doodle, I cranked up the colors on the poppies ...

Glazed some darks to start building the forms a little clearer ...

Painted in a watery line of black around the flowers and stems to separate them from the background a bit, as well as to highlight the petal edges. Lightened up the inside of the petals a touch to give more dimension. Decided it needed some gold to catch the light ...

Signed my name and it's done ... (fuzzy photo, not sure what happened.)

Grabbed the hammer and a picture hanging hook and put that thing up on the wall in the office area ...

Woo Hoo!

Namaste, y'all ...

Poppin' poppies and small spaces.

2011-02-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

For the past couple of years the husband and I have been in a slow but steady process of home redecorating/remodeling. We haven't gotten wild and crazy, busting down walls or ripping out plumbing. We don't have big bucks to spend, nor do we have good amounts of time. The husband is a truck driver, so he's not home every day and weekends like most people. It all has to be done as we can, when we can ... hence the fact it's already been two years and we're still working on it!

Most of the areas we've worked on have lots of things to do to call them finished. Some places it's major stuff. New chest of drawers in the bedroom. New rug in both the living room and the dining room. Curtains, throw pillows, etc., etc., etc. After ten long years I'm finally gonna' get my living room furniture reupholstered!!! And, there are rooms we have yet to tackle. Kitchen untouched. Guest bath also untouched. Laundry room tagging at the end of the line.

One of the areas we have pretty much brought to completion is the foyer. When we bought our first computer we didn't have a good place to put it, or the God-awful monstrosity of a computer desk we purchased for it. (I give all the blame to the husband for picking that thing out.) Since we rarely use the front door the niche area in our foyer was wasted space, thus it became our 'home office' area. Honestly, I'm glad I don't have the before and after photos to show you. Just the after. I don't even like to think about the before. Suffice it to say, it was bad, and over the years it I developed a progressively stronger and stronger 'hate this space' feeling for it.

Now, we have this nice, functional, streamlined work space ...

Pretty impressive what you can do with some plywood, stain, and peel-n-stick floor tiles. The husband did a great job. Just one minor problem. You see that big ol' open wall above the computer monitor? Screaming for a piece of art. I love the new space, and enjoying working at the computer now, but it's a little bland. Needs color, a touch of personalization and some warmth. Good thing an artist lives in the house! Also going to reupholster that chair, but that's another story.

Well, I'm on it. Paint barely dry on the last work and I'm at it again!

Right after I finished the White Lotus I got started on a new painting for the office/foyer. My original intention was to do something like this ...

Came across this image on the internet. Unfortunately, I can't find out who the artist is to give credit where credit is due. What I will say is I love the softness and simplicity of it. I love the contrast of the vibrancy of color with the subject matter. I also am completely enamored by the way the image travels across the canvases into a triptych.

When I sat in the chair and stared at the wall I wasn't thrilled with the way I thought a triptych would look between the shelves. Too linear. I got to thinkin' about some paintings my friend Kasey had done of poppies. Here's one I particularly admired ...

Poppies #4

I really liked them, had been inspired by them, and wanted them for my very own. Alas, that wasn't meant to be, but it didn't mean I, since I can paint, couldn't do some for myself! Ka-ching!

I think one of the things I love so much about Kasey's work is that her style is so different from my own. She has a freshness and spontaneity to her work. It's happy, full of color, texture and originality. Huge fan, I am.

Anyway, I copy-catted her poppy theme and began this ...

30" x 30" ... quick sketch of placement of poppies and some Golden Molding Medium for texture. Yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to go so big with my next piece of art but I couldn't help myself. I think the size will work very well on the office wall.

Base coat of black paint to create depth under the colors I will be adding ...

Glaze coat of chocolate brown to warm the black ...

Drew the poppies onto tracing paper, cut them out, decoupaged them onto the canvas for more texture ...

Smooshed more molding medium over the tracing paper, used a pallet knife to create a sort of ruffled edge to the petals, then used my finger to smooth the surface and give a bit of directional movement to the flower ...

Started glazing in browns and aquas ...

Building up the colors of the background and first coat of a deep orange glaze on the flowers ...

Still a lot of work to do, but it's getting there.

Namaste, y'all ...

White Lotus, Part II

2011-02-07T08:00:00.021-05:00

(Technically, this was written on Friday night but I didn't want to double-post.)

After publishing Friday's post, White Lotus, Part I, things started rolling. I wasn't sure I was liking the amount of terra cotta in the upper portion above the flower. It seemed to dominate overmuch. I also felt I didn't have enough dark (purples and greens) in the lower half to give the work depth like a pond. I loved the burst of the aqua yet thought maybe it was a bit too large.

So, I propped the painting against the wall in the dining room where I intended to hang the finished piece. My dining room and living room are basically one large rectangular space, and the colors I'm using to decorate are incorporated into the art. I needed to see how well the wall color, a medium toned khaki, played together with what was happening in the painting. I knew the fairly neutral background would 'pop' the colors even more and I could better judge what I needed to do. I want color, but I also want an element of softness as well. The white of the lotus needed to 'glow' and make the flower the focal point, even when juxtaposed against the more vivid colors.

With the painting leaning against the wall I sat down at the table and stared at it for a long time. I compared it to the printed out version I was using as my reference and realized I was right about the dark half. The upper half needed a bit of a 'tone down', too. I took it back to the studio and got busy.

On the lower half I pulled more of the darks up closer to the reflected petals of the lotus, both reducing the area of the bright aqua and giving it another layer of shadows. I also blended in a small amount of a deep burgundy to 'dirty' the water. Ponds are murky.

I brushed a wash of a soft buttermilk white mixed in glaze medium over the upper part, and added some areas of the darks to give a bit more 'depth' to it as well. I used a rough brush to tamp and smudge some of the burgundy above the lotus to break up the intensity of the terra cotta. This also gave the painting a bit of visual 'texture' to counter balance the expanse of predominately smoothly blended colors.

I brushed a bright white on the lotus petals to play against the more creamy white they were painted with. I also brushed the white horizontally across the canvas with a small brush, then blended it with a clean fat brush to blur it, creating a soft illusion of ripples on the surface of the water.

I carted it back to the dining room, propped it against the wall, and stared at it again. Then I walked away and watched a show on Hulu.com for about forty-five minutes. Sometimes you just have to stop looking at something in order to see it again.

When I walked back over to study it some more I suddenly realized it was finished ...

I'm pleased with the end result. What a wonderful feeling. Particularly after taking so long to get the Angel done! This painting, even though it's large (24" x 48"), only took around a week to paint. I think I'm still surprised to be finished so quickly. I wasn't prepared for an, "Oh, well, I'm done." in a week. Yeah, good feeling.

Not sure what's next, but whatever it is, it starts tomorrow!

Namaste, y'all ...

White Lotus In Progress, Part I

2011-02-04T15:47:00.000-05:00

Picking up where I left off, sort of.

Despite a few interruptions and detours with other things commanding my attention, I've been working on the lotus painting. I get back there in the studio, crank up the iPod, and moosh paint around on the canvas. Sometimes I think the process of paint mooshing is the best part. Blend a little here ... drop a little of this color there ... swish in a bit of that color ... mist it all with a spray bottle and moosh some more.

Can't help it. I love blending. My lovely and impressively artistic friend, Kasey, calls me the Goddess of Blend. I admit, I like to blend. And this particular painting is all about blending on the background. Happy camper, I am.

But for snorts and giggles, I thought I would post an update on my progress. It's often hard to show 'work in progress' because, as the artist, you know so much isn't done yet. Kind of like having your date show up early and you're caught in your ratty bathrobe, legs still unshaven, half your makeup on. Nope, not pretty.

While working on a piece of art things change, they develop, and sometimes, they disappear. As you can see from this canvas, the background is still evolving. And it may very well do that for awhile. It will be what it will be until I moosh the paint into something that pleases me and I don't want to moosh it anymore lest I muck it up. It's not really a process I can explain. I either know it's working and I like it, or it's not and I don't.

Then again, it may totally and utterly frustrate me. Not unknown to happen. I could easily end up painting over parts (or the entire thing) and try again. This seems to freak some people out. I've gotten the "Oh My God! You Didn't Just Paint Over That!!!" reaction from a few people over the years and I'm never sure what to say to them. Maybe what I had painted looked good to them, but it wasn't working for me and I wasn't going to keep paddling that canoe upstream. The creation of a painting should be enjoyable, not make you want to attack the canvas with a machete.

The beginning ...

Phase 2 ...

Phase 3 ...

Phase 4 ...

Phase 5 ...

Phase 6 ... lotus close up

Phase 7 ... where it's at right now. The weird, shinny spots are wet paint.

Namaste, y'all ...

In the studio again!

2011-01-26T14:16:00.000-05:00

I'm going to fess up to being a copy cat. I'm not ashamed of it. Not in the least. I blame Kim Attwooll. It's her fault for making such an awesome painting, one I've envied for several years now. I've tried for some time to locate more of her work, but I only come up with a few decent links. They are here, here, here and here. I want to give her full credit for being the inspiration for what I'm working on right now.

Honestly, I consider myself fortunate that I'm able to be a copy cat 'cause I get to do this ...

Background is started ...

I hope it will look sort of like this when I'm done ...

It was sparked by this image ...

Now, her original painting appears to be watercolor and I'm working in acrylic. Mine is also lots bigger. 24" x 48" to be exact. It's a 1.5" deep gallery wrapped canvas, too.

I love the colors of Kim's painting. Those vibrant oranges and yellows, the intense reds, the pop of aqua just get me. The image is both delicate and passionately alive with color. Of course, the question is why would I not reproduce it just as it is? Well, it's about home decorating and neon orange not being a color that really 'goes' in the house. "Stick out like a sore thumb" is the phrase that comes to mind, particularly since the painting I'm doing will be hanging in my dining room. Gonna' pretty much be the first thing someone sees when they walk in the back door.

The decorating in the house is about calm, quiet, and zen. Day-glow yellow isn't really all that zen-like. The changes I'm making to the work keeps some of that pop of color - the aqua - but is more water than fire. Softer, muted and relaxed. I'm working with the mental and emotional approach of how it really feels to me to sit beside a pond. I love water. Yes, I'm a fire-bug. Love me some fire! Yet water, and my personal feelings surrounding it, are the theme for home decor.

The outside world is a crazy, frenetic, constantly moving place. I want to live in a space which feels and expresses the total opposite of that external chaos. Maybe it's where I am in my head right now. It's where I've been striving to be for a long time and have let too much of the world leak in. This painting is the beginning of putting the world back outside the door where it belongs.

Namaste', y'all ...

Black and gold, with sparkles!

2011-01-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

The husband's studio, like the majority of rooms in a house, has four walls.

One wall has a window, which I made these curtains for ...

One wall has two doors - one closet, one enter/exit, and two blank walls. On the south wall we've taken care of the art issue with the previously blogged about Angel. On the space between the door and closet he has hung my Prophetess painting ...

This left the last wall, the north wall, empty and in need of attention. Lots of debate has gone on about what to put there. My suggestion was a nice table and a big amethyst geode cathedral like this ...

I really like the geode!

I made a few other suggestions, but none met with any enthusiasm on the part of the husband. Then, several months ago, he came up with an idea for a piece of art. Considering the months of struggle with the Angel, I wasn't all that thrilled with the prospect of another special request. His idea: a painting of his music pseudonym, Au. This, for all you non-chemistry heads out there, is from the Chemical Table of Elements for Gold. Okay, I could work with that. Of course, he had to throw a kink in it ... he wanted the letters to be embossed. Argh.

I had to stew on it for awhile. What was the best way, with the tools I had available to me, to create large, gold nugget-like, embossed letters on a canvas?

Light bulb!

I decided to use a 24" x 24", 1.5" deep gallery wrap canvas which I had previously started to use for an abstract painting. I'd gotten as far as spreading some texture medium on it, but then had to put it away in my studio closet while I worked on the Angel. I pulled it out and painted it with two coats of black acrylic.

I took the Au logo from his CD art into QuarkXPress, sized it, then printed it out via the tiling option. I put the pieces on my light table and taped them together, then cut them out. I used Elmer's Glue on the backside of the letters, sort of reverse decoupage', and stuck them onto the canvas. The glue softened the paper so that I was able to mush it down into the peaks and valleys of the texture medium. Let that dry for a day.

Using the tip on the bottle, I ran a bead of glue all around the edges of the lettering, both sealing them to the canvas and creating a space (once the bead dried enough) I could then fill in with more glue. I repeated this process three times to create about a 1/8" deep layer of embossing. Since I wanted it to have a higher level of embossing, as well as both smooth and rough texture ... like a gold nugget ... I added another 1/8" or so layer of texture medium with a small, pointed putty knife. I worked the medium to be rough, but then went back over it in areas with the flat of the putty knife to give it the smoother areas. I also knew the medium, being applied so thickly, would crack as it dried, giving more texture. Had to let all of that dry for about a day with a big fan blowing on it.

It surprises people to find out that I don't have expensive acrylic paints like Winsdor & Newton or Liquitex. What I use is those little, cheap-o bottle of craft acrylics. The kind you'd think to use for painting Tole or that awful One-Stroke stuff. They come in a huge variety of colors, which I think is marvelous! Yeah, they are liquidy, unlike the way tube acrylics are heavy-bodied and squirt out like oil paints or toothpaste. I'd love to have some of those thick acrylics but I just can't afford them. So I do what I gotta' do, ya' know? The liquid acrylics work for me because I paint them like watercolors, just using glazing medium instead of water.

I pulled out a few of the gold paints I had and decided on Antique Gold because it looks more like 10K gold, what mine and the husband's wedding bands are made of. I'm not fond of bright gold, like the 24K stuff. It doesn't look "real" to me. Yes, I know that sounds strange. It took two coats of the antique gold to cover the embossing. I had to pay attention and make sure I got it in all the nooks and crannies. Any place I 'slipped' had to be touched up with black paint.

Once the paint was dry, I used a gold glitter paint, with a extra-fine cut glitter, on some of the rough areas of the embossing. I left some places with just one coat and other places I used two or three coats to get the right amount of sparkle. Next, I grabbed the Elmer's again and put dabs of glue in some of the deepest cracks and ridges, then sprinkled on some large cut glitter. Messy, but I wanted small touches of 'rough sparkle' on the lettering so that it would better catch the light better when you walked past it. The final step was to use the fine cut glitter paint on a few places on the texturing of the black background. Just to highlight it a bit and keep it from being too stark and bland.

This is the end result ...

Now I have to put wire on the back and hang it up!

Namaste', y'all ...

Nineteen Months In The Making.

2011-01-04T18:59:00.001-05:00

It's been so long that I've worked on this particular project it almost seems strange to say, at long last, it's over. Finished. Stick a fork in me and call me done. Way done. Ready to turn my back and run, not walk, in the opposite direction.

In June of 2009 I started working on this angel for the husband's studio. The green background is the color we painted his walls. He wanted it for the wall behind his keyboard desk, done so it appears to be coming out of the wall and looking down at him as he's sitting in his chair. The original idea was to paint it as trompe l'oeil on canvas, then attach the canvas to the wall in such a way that it blended in smoothly. Great in theory, not so great in practical application.

This thing is big. The angel measures 6'9" from wing tip to wing tip, 3'10" from top of head to bottom fade of gown. Big. The only place we had large enough to hold the canvas was the dining room wall ... and there this canvas has stayed, thumb tacked up and in constant view, for the past nineteen months. I can't begin to express just how sick and tired I am of looking at it. I think the word 'loathsome' comes reasonable close.

This finished image is done entirely in graphite, with white conte' pencil for the highlights. It didn't start out that way. Actually, is started with black acrylic paint and glazing medium with a completely different angel pieced together in Photoshop from several images I found on the internet. Spent months on that and was frustrated beyond belief. The image was all wrong, had to correct for proper shadowing/highlights, completely change the hair and gown, etc, etc, etc. It was a mess from the get-go.

Then the husband said it might look cool if it had color ... like she was a statue and then 'coming to life' as she was emerging from the wall. I painted over and started again, trying to incorporate color. Months, months, months. Mess, mess, mess. By now, I was ready to rip it from the wall and set fire to it. Believe me, I gave that serious consideration.

From the beginning, I knew the reference material I was trying to work from was woefully inadequate, to put it mildly. But I thought I could make it work. I was so wrong. At my breaking point on the second attempt I told the husband he was going to have to help me take real photos of me, dressed up, with correct lighting, etc. and I was going to start over with that. Ugh! Whole 'nuther kettle of fish trying to get him to take the photos that fit the image I had in my head! Three attempts and about eleventy dozen photos later we got some I could work with ... after more of that Photoshop tinkering stuff.

I pulled out my enlarger and traced it off for the third time. By now I had decided I was NOT going to attempt it again with paint. I wanted a 'part of the wall' feel to it and knew I had to use the background green color as my neutral tone. That left black for shadowing and white for highlights. I'm not experienced enough with charcoal to go there, so all that was left me was graphite. Daunting to consider creating basically a pencil drawing 4' x 7'. Kind of like vacuuming a football field with a Dust Buster.

Thing is, I knew I could do it, knew it would take a lot of time, and knew I was also really hanging on by a thread at even having any desire whatsoever to begin again. I was never really thrilled about doing this project to start with, but the husband had asked for it. So, I started on this third version, I think, sometime in May or June of 2010. It was around this time the husband decided he didn't want it attached to the wall after all - just in case we ever had to move he would like to take it with him. Of course, this means the canvas will now have to be stretched and gallery-wrapped onto stretcher bars like a regular painting. With the gallery wrap, we won't have to use a frame, just hang it.

When I started, I had made myself a promise that I wouldn't paint anything else until this was finished. Of course, I had no idea I'd just chained myself to the dinning room wall for the next nineteen months or I would never, ever have made that promise. No siree. Nuh-uh. Nope. No way. It's been torture. I've had a bazillion ideas for paintings going through my head and haven't been able to do a damn thing about it. Well, you can bet your sweet pa-toot this ol' gal is gonna' to be making up for lost time. I'm going to be buried in my studio for ever. Watercolors, here I come!!! Acrylics on small canvases! Woo Hoo! Crafts and sewing and all kinds of fun and adventure will be happening in my little corner of the world.

As for the angel, I'm going to get some graphite spray fixative, spray that ol' witch a good coat or two, take her off the wall, roll her up, and lay it in the floor in the husband's studio. He gets the chore of taking it to the framer to get it stretched, and he get the chore of getting it up on his studio wall. And, I'm even thinking I'll let him finish painting the green on the canvas after it's wrapped. 'Cause, ya' know, I'm done.

Namaste', y'all ...

Pain, puking, and flashy blue lights ...

2010-02-15T16:17:00.000-05:00

Lots of people have migraines. They all have my deepest sympathy/empathy. Migraines are awful. They are debilitating. They are mean and nasty. I know, first hand, up close and personal. I've spent the last few days dealing with one.

Years ago, I used to get them frequently, often as twice a week. Many times I've had to get friends to cart me to the emergency room for a nice big shot of Demerol, then haul me back home so I could crawl into bed and let the drug send me off into pain-free oblivion. I was very close to calling a friend last night. Only the lateness of the hour and the fact that I didn't think I'd be able to ride in a car that far without puking my guts out kept me from making a call.

Over the years my migraines have slowed to occurring maybe once or twice a year. I can't tell y'all how many ways from Christmas the level of pleased I am about that. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I can catch one early enough with a dose of Advil and ratchet it down to an the equivalent of an ordinary annoying headache. But every once in awhile, WHAM! No amount of Advil will help and I'm reduced to curling up in a fetal position somewhere and wishing I could cut my head off and bury it out back in a deep, dark hole in the ground. This most recent migraine was the worst I've had in a long, long time.

I spent nearly the entire day yesterday on the sofa, cold rag on the back of my neck and my head in my hands. Didn't move much except to worship at the porcelain shrine of Vomictus, the God of Nausea, a time or two. I was, in a word, pathetic.

I'd been fighting the migraine on and off since Wednesday. I had a bad day that day. Thursday I had to force myself to be productive and go into town to run some errands. Friday was rough. On Saturday I had to make a trip into town to buy bread for my neighbor and to help a friend decorate the restaurant where she was having her mother's 70th birthday party. Then I had to stay for the party. My fabulous computer tech guy also brought my computer back to me (it coped attitude and had to be resuscitated) that evening. When I sat up in bed yesterday morning I felt like my head had been kicked by an elephant.

I took Advil. No help. I puked my guts up. No fun. I tried Reiki. Couldn't relax and focus. I complained to the cats. They ignored me. I debated dunking my head in a bucket full of cold water. I was already switching between extreme, sweating hot and shivering cold body temperatures. I didn't think the bucket idea would help much, just get my hair wet and I didn't have the umph to dry it. So, I sat there, head in hands.

Sometime around 7:00pm I was pretty much at my low point. I focused my eyes long enough to send the husband a text message asking him not to do his nightly call. Even thinking about hearing the sound of the phone ringing made me want to throw up. I was sitting there, debating which friend to call and take me to the emergency room, trying to decide if I thought I could ride in a car without dying, feeling absolutely horrible at the thought of anybody having to come help me ... and then, as embarrassing at it is to say this, I'll tell ya' folks, I started crying.

As I sat there, ready to break down and call my neighbor, thinking I just couldn't take it anymore, the oddest feeling came over me. I saw the most beautiful flash of electric blue and the top of my head went warm, like someone put their hands on it. My shoulders relaxed so much they felt like they dropped a foot. I heard my guide, Myrium, ask me why I waited so long to ask her for help. I could see her, in my minds' eye, run her hand down the back of my neck ... and the pain was gone. Just like that. Gone.

I was still feeling a little weak, slightly dizzy, stomach a bit queasy, but otherwise completely pain free. I thought, "Holy cow!". It was incredible. It was wonderful. Where, not a minute before, I was sitting there hunched over and so sick I was crying, I was now actually sitting straight up and smiling like an idiot. I jumped up and sent the husband a text to tell him to call. I didn't feel like dancing a tango, but I felt pretty damn good all things considered.

Now, I know lots of people who would think that story was just nuts. But I also know a lot of other people who would just nod their heads in understanding. They know what I'm talking about. They know their own spirit guides as I know mine. And they would ask the same question Myrium asked me, "Why did you wait so long to ask?". Truth is, I was so caught up in feeling bad, so self-absorbed in my misery, I just didn't think of it. I feel a little guilty about it now, but I also know that my guides don't hold it against me. They already know I'm a pain-in-the-ass 90% of the time. In working with me, their patience knows no bounds. A fact I am infinitely grateful for.

But it brought home to me how far I've been away from them over the past year. 2009 was tough. Three hundred and sixty five days of some pretty rough going. I have, without realizing it until now, been retreating into a little bubble of self-protection and isolation. I used to be very hermitish. I closed off nearly everyone and everything and just moved through my life in that same bubble. I functioned, but I was 'shut-down'. Like living on auto-pilot. I've spent the last 10 years working hard to come out of that old behavior pattern and open up to life. I made huge progress. Amazing progress. I have a life full of blessings.

Somewhere during the past year I "slipped" and fell. I can't say it was one thing in particular, more a combination of things. My response was to retreat. I think this migraine was a 'wake-up call'. When I think back to the times my migraines were frequent and nasty, it was always during difficult times. My body's way of dealing with an overload of suppressed emotion and stress. It's hard to face life sometimes when you are an overly sensitive person. Being around people can feel suffocating. Stressful situations and upsetting events can be just too much. It's like always being on the edge of a panic attack. Sometimes the only way to cope is to shut down.

Sitting there on the sofa last night, sick to the point of crying yet fearing to call for help, it hit me ... not asking for help when I need it is one of my biggest problems. It's like putting handcuffs on myself and then expecting to be able to wield a paintbrush and create a masterpiece on a life-sized canvas. Not going to happen. Instead, what I need to do is take action. First thing to do is make a doctor's appointment and, as much as I hate the thoughts of taking any kind of medication, get something for the migraines. Then I need to start getting back into life, hopefully find a job to get me out of the house and bring in some extra income. Maybe join a knitting club or something like that. And most importantly, start paying attention to my guides again ... maybe if I do that then hopefully I won't need to take any migraine medication because they will just go away. Sounds really good to me.

Thanks, Myrium.

Namaste, y'all ...

My coffee cup bites the dust.

2010-02-11T11:49:00.002-05:00

Do you ever get attached to things? I do, I'll admit it. I have my favorite shoes, my favorite paint brush, favorite pen to write with. You get the picture. I also have a favorite coffee cup. I've had it for years. At least 15 years, if not longer. I killed it today.

Back story: I was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. Well, half raised. When I was eleven, after my parents divorced, my mother, brother and I moved to the foothills of NC where my mother was born. In 1975 is was a cheap place to live for a single mother with two kids. Most of her family still lived there. Spent several summers visiting, stayed with my grandparents, played with cousins, typical summer vacation kind of thing. It was okay, but I liked being in Atlanta better. City kid.

It was upsetting to move away from my friends, places I knew and was familiar with. The actual moving day wasn't too bad because my uncle (Mother's brother) and his family had come down from NC to help. He and my aunt had two kids the same ages as my brother and I so we entertained each other and stayed fairly distracted about the whole move thing. It was late at night when we finally got to the house my mother had rented. Too dark to see anything. We just piled in the house with what we needed and went straight to bed.

I will never forget waking up that first morning, looking out my new bedroom window, and seeing acres of cornfield and chickens in the front yard. I stood there and cried. I was immediately homesick for Atlanta. I stayed homesick for years. Went back a couple of times years later for college and a job, but it just didn't work out that I could stay. Ah well, that's another story.

Back to the coffee cup ...

In my mid-twenties I started collecting Coca-Cola stuff. After all, Atlanta is the home of Coke. I was also a Coca-Cola addict, but again, I digress.

I collected all kinds of stuff ... antique Coke trays, cards, advertisement posters, dish towels, coasters, vintage bottles, magnets, etc. I even had one of those huge antique red metal 'button' Coke outdoor store signs that hung on my wall in my living room. But my favorite thing was an old, green glass soda shop Coke mug. The kind used for making Coke floats (Coke with a scoop of vanilla ice cream). I have no idea of the date or antique value of the thing, and that didn't really matter to me, I just liked it. I had found it at a yard sale for .25¢. It became my 'cup of choice' for nearly everything I drank. Sure, sometimes I'd use a different cup or glass, but it stayed my preferred cup for all these years.

I sold off nearly all of my collection a few years ago when I moved back to this area. Big ol' yard sale. Cleaned house, literally. One of the few things I kept from my Coke collection was my cup. Couldn't part with it. Loved my cup.

Today, I'm deeply saddened to say, I broke it. Washing dishes. Slipped right out of my hand and WHAM! Hit the side of the sink and broke into a half dozen pieces.

I stood there a full minute, stunned, before I launched into a tirade of non-printable swearin'. I wrapped all it's pieces in a towel and buried it in the trash can. Had a fresh pot of coffee and no favorite cup. I shall miss my cup.

I wanted to show you a picture of it (ya' know, 'cause blogs are so much better with photos) so I did the typical thing ... Googled it. Not really expecting to find anything and have to post this naked of pictures, I was surprised to discover one for sale on ebay. Who'da' thunk it? I clicked the link.

Holy schmoly! Would you believe the seller is asking $36.12? And that's reduced from $42.50! Granted, they have a bottle opener for sale with it, too. But $36.12? Are they outta' their minds? Now I really loved my cup, but thanks, I'll have to pass on that offer. I'll use another cup I already have.

Did I mention it's a Coca-Cola cup, too?

Namaste, y'all ...

Library find!

2010-02-09T19:19:00.001-05:00

No Impact Man

I found Colin Beavan's blog, No Impact Man, several weeks ago and bookmarked it for future pursuing. There was a lot to read and I just haven't taken time to sit and go through it all. I did take the time to add his book to my Amazon.com wish list.

Went to the library on Monday for a round of 'shelf diving' and for some reason decided to have a look through the "new book" section. I hardly ever look there for anything - mostly 'cause I find an armload in the regular shelves and just can't carry anything else!

Anyway, I'm standing there, head hanging to the side in that goofy, library shelf-looking way and noticed an odd title in blue letters on the red spine of a book. Eh? Could it really be? I set my armload of books on the floor and pulled it from the shelf. Yep, indeed. No Impact Man. I laughed and said, "Well, yee ha!" out loud. Yeah, the library ladies gave me a look, but they know me.

So I slapped it on the stack with the rest and headed to the checkout counter. Plan to start reading it right after I finish the one I'm currently reading. While I almost always have several books I'm reading going at the same time I thought I would like to give this one my undivided attention.

While I was gathering images to put with this post I discovered it's been made into a movie as well ...

No Impact Man DVD

Guess this means a trip to the video store sometime in the near future - that is, unless they have it at the library!

Namaste, y'all ...

Momma Nature and Old Man Winter ... it's a tag-team effort.

2010-02-05T18:32:00.002-05:00

Call me crazy. Call me a person swimming in wishful thinking and vain hope. Call in an order for a large White pizza from Roma's Italian Restaurant and have it delivered. Call Momma Nature and Old Man Winter and tell them the party is over and this is the final call from the bar. I'm ready for warm weather now, thank you very much.

I've been eye-ballin' the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administraton page for my location and watching as the nasty stuff crept closer and closer all week. We got dumped on Monday with a foot of snow. We got another couple of inches of sleety/snowy/freezy stuff last night. Been steadily drizzling more of the same all day. Calling for more of it tomorrow. Did I already tell you I'm really, really ready for warm weather?

This is what I woke up to this morning ...

I will be the first to admit it is beautiful ...

But despite the beauty, I look out my window and see how the weight of it makes the pines lean over like hump-back old men. I can't quite get the "this stuff makes trees fall down really close to my house" thoughts out of my head. Living in a house surrounded by trees it nice, but it does have it's down side at times.

So, the furry vermin and I found parking spots and enjoyed ourselves ...

I chose the sofa with a hot cup of Earl Gray and a book ...

Tuck got comfy on my side of the bed ...

Zipper got his blankie at the foot of the bed ...

And we had a good day.

Namaste, y'all ...

I have been hereby summoned ... duly noted. I'll bring my knitting.

2010-02-04T13:30:00.002-05:00

Back in November of last year I had to renew my driver's license (got a terrible photo, by the way). When the assisting officer asked if I wanted to register to vote I thought, "What the heck!" and told him okay, sure, why not?

Now, some people out there might blow a gasket at my stating the fact that I don't vote. Let me go on record right now and tell you I've heard all the arguments, all the opinions - both reasonable and dumb-ass - from people over the years about voting and non-voting. I stand firmly by my own opinion that if, on that ballot, there isn't a single person I feel worthy of giving my vote to then I'm not voting. It's like being given a choice between being snake-bit by a copperhead or a rattle snake ... I'm supposed to choose between the lessor of two evils? I prefer not being bitten at all, thank you very much.

But there's another side to being a registered voter I'd completely forgotten about. Jury duty. Needless to say, getting a summons for duty in the mail the other day was, well, a surprise. And ya' know what? I'm not complaining. I'm kinda' thinking it might be cool.

Years ago I lived in a small town in South Carolina. It was 1992 and the only year I have ever registered to vote. I got summoned that year, too. Only that time I was called for jury duty in Superior court and would have had to serve for the entire year. Somehow, they had too many people and ended up throwing everybody's name in a hat, pulled twelve names and two alternates. My name didn't get pulled and that was that. Never served, life moved along. Didn't give it anymore thought.

Thanks to that officer at the DMV I've been offered (okay, summoned) a second change. While I know for some serving on jury duty is a big hassle and everybody always gripes about it I'm oddly looking forward it. It's not out of any feeling of civic duty or other such stuff as that. It's about having a new experience. Who knows what might happen?

No, I'm not looking for drama of a murder trail or tangled intrigue of illegal mayhem. Surprisingly, for being relatively small, this county has had it's share of such doings. But I'm not sure I'd want someone's future in my hands ... to be part of a panel of people that could put someone in jail for the rest of their life, or worse. Doesn't sound like something anyone would find enjoyable unless you were nuts. It's simply the process of it all. Learning about the system (which, I know - I know, is flawed) and what all goes on when you serve on jury duty. What kind of cases do you hear? Etc, etc, etc.

So, on February 23rd I'll be at the courthouse in my Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes and see what's what. I'll stuff a book and some knitting in a bag in case they make me wait around. Who knows, they, too, might just send me back home.

Namaste, y'all ...

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day ...

2010-02-03T19:57:00.002-05:00

... when it's cold outside I've got the month of May ...

It starts with this very pretty Fancy Sparkle Organdy from Hancock Fabrics (color is Sunny Jasmine) ...

Which, naturally, must be inspected very closely ...

Because being creative is tiring you have to take a breather ...

But then you get busy and make some cute little pleats ...

Add some rings ...

Measure up a nice big hem ...

Which, naturally, must pass another inspection for accuracy ...

You get to hang this lovely bit of sunshine and sparkle on your window ...

And admire your handiwork ... or sniff it, depending on your preference ...

Namaste, y'all ...

Momma Nature smacked us again ...

2010-02-01T12:29:00.001-05:00

Have you ever noticed the way the whole world seems to go quiet after a snowfall? It's both peaceful and spooky. Out here in the boonies, where it's usually quiet anyway, the snow quiet is even more pronounced. No birds chirping. No faint sounds of cars and trucks on the main road a couple of miles away. No dogs barking. Nothing.

I drove into town on Friday and did a few errands, bought some groceries, prowled the library for some reading material, then vamoosed myself back home as fast as I could. I wanted to beat the "snow shoppers", you know the ones, like locust, they descend on the grocery store at the slightest hint of snow and buy up every single gallon of milk and loaf of bread within a 50 mile radius. Freaky. I try my best to avoid them.

The sky was cloudy and you could smell the snow on the air. Didn't need the weatherman to tell me what was coming. Good ol' Mother Nature had decided we needed more snow, and snow she gave us. While not as much as the last time (about 15 inches at my house), she still dumped us with about a foot of that fluffy, sparkly kind on Friday night. Then she graced us on Saturday with a full day of a very fine sleet/snow mix. So fine it looked like a thick, heavy fog through the woods.

The sun came out briefly on Saturday morning before the sleet stuff and I went outside to clean off the front and back steps and to make sure the A/C unit wasn't buried under a ton of ice like last time. Going out the back door I nearly walked face-first into this ......

Icicles as long as my arm. Hanging from the gutter right over the back door. I could have been a shish-ka-bob! Fortunately I backed up in time, made a U-turn to get my camera, and snapped a couple of pictures. I'm not sure what it is about icicles that fascinates me so much, but they do. I think they are amazing and beautiful. These were lovely and sparkled in the sun. Bad photography or whatever prevented capturing the sparkle. Oh well ... they were pretty.

Namaste, y'all ...

Signs of Spring!

2010-01-27T10:55:00.002-05:00

On the way out to check the mail this morning I was most happy to see three of these little fellows ...

Bluebird:
Keynote: Transformation. Passage into happiness and fertility.

In an ancient Pima tale, the bluebird is described as having been an ugly color, but then one day it found a sacred lake where no water ever flowed in or out. The bird bathed in it four times every morning for four mornings, singing a sacred song. On that fourth morning, it came out of the river with no feathers at all. When it bathed itself again on the fifth morning, it came out of the sacred lake with its blue feathers. The bluebird became a symbol of transformation through sacred song and sacred acts.

In the Pueblo tradition, great importance is placed upon rituals and ceremonies honoring the six directions. In the Niman Kachina ceremony, the bluebird represented the southwest direction. The southeast and southwest directions represented the rising and setting of the shortest day; thus the bluebird was a symbol of the setting on the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. Hence the bluebird is considered a winter bird, but it often indicates that each day that follows will have greater sunshine.

The bluebird is also often considered a spring bird, representing the movement out of winter into spring. It is a bird of transition, of passage--from winter to summer, from child to adult, night to day, barrenness to fertility.

In the north the appearance of the bluebird heralds the coming of spring. Its habitat is one of open fields with scattered trees and is one of the few birds that has benefited by the spread of agriculture, and thus it is often a sign that we will also benefit from the agriculture within our own life. The things we have planted and the seeds we have sown will come to fruition.

Among the Pueblo, bluebird feathers were used to promote snow and ice, moisture that will bring new growth. Because of this and other similar associations, the bluebird is also related to fertility on all levels.

The bluebird is a guardian of all passages and transitions that we make or are about to make. We speak often of the bluebird of happiness, and this is rightly so. It makes our movements more fertile, productive, and protected so that we can attain the happiness we need in life.

When the bluebirds show up, we are about to see a change in the climate. Darkness will soon fade and more sunshine will arrive. Our own fertility in our endeavors will increase, and our passages and movement in all endeavors will be protected. Those things or people who had hindered our endeavors will find themselves bogged down in their own "ice and snow."

*Animal-Speak/Ted Andrews
Keynote: Modesty, Unassuming Confidence and Happiness
Cycle of Power: Winter and Summer (changes of seasons)

The bluebird is a native of North America. Although once common, they are now quite rare. This often is a reminder that we are born to happiness and fulfillment, but we sometimes get so lost and wrapped up in the everyday events of our lives that our happiness and fulfillment seem rare. When bluebirds show up as a totem, it should first of all remind you to take time to enjoy yourself.

Bluebirds are part of the thrush family, and you may wish to read about thrushes to learn more of the bluebird. The males are entirely blue, while the females are blue only in the wings. Occasionally there will be some warm reddish tones on the chest as well. Pay attention to the colors and where they are located. This will provide some insight.

To the Cherokees, blue is the color of the North, while in many magical traditions, it is the color of the East. The edges of many Jewish prayer shawls were often the color of blue. Blue is associated with the throat chakra and creative expression. Blue is symbolic, so ask yourself what blue means to you personally,.

The idea of the bluebird being symbolic of happiness is fairly recent. The concept has developed more within this century than any other time. As far as I have been able to discover, the bluebird did not play any major role in Indian myths or tales.

This bird always has a plaintive song and modest, unassuming appearance. Its shoulders are hunched up when perched, giving an impression as if ready to dive. This can be symbolic of a need to work hard and play hard. Are you trying to shoulder too much responsibility?

To the Pueblo, bluebirds are considered winter birds because they descend to the lowlands with the snow and cold during that season. This transition from winter to summer is dramatic in the area of the western home of the Pueblo. It is a transition from great coldness to summer heat.

This is symbolic of a passage, a time of movement into another level of being. Specifically, it is connected to the transformation of a girl into a woman, and thus the bluebird is also sometimes connected to puberty rites. This, of course, has connection to human fertility and a new confidence and happiness in coming into your own.

Other Pueblo rites revolved around the use of bluebird feathers as prayer sticks. They were considered beneficial for snow and ice, and for bringing the summer rainy season. There are also rites in the Pueblo tradition that tie them to the fertility of the land.

Bluebirds are gentle and unaggressive. They do not push or bully other birds, but they are very scrappy when threatened. They have been known to put to flight jays and even larger birds. Their homes usually have an entrance facing South, the direction for awakening the inner child. If a bluebird has come into your life, look for opportunities to touch the joyful and intrinsically native aspects of yourself that you may have lost touch with.

***************

Even though it's only 37° and the weather is calling for more snow later in the week I can't help but feel thrilled to see them. They are what I consider a sign of Spring coming 'round the corner. It can't get here soon enough!

Namaste', y'all ...

Knitting for love, sewing for fun, and One Small Change update.

2010-01-26T13:13:00.000-05:00

My neighbor, Joyce, is a wonderful, remarkable person and a very dear friend. Always happy for me to walk down the hill to her house, hot coffee and good conversation ready. We talk about everything, share recipes, craft ideas, homemaking ideas, chit-chat about life in general. I love visiting with her. It was deeply saddening to learn she was diagnosed with breast cancer several weeks ago.

Being the kind of woman she is, Joyce got a jump-start on dealing with hair loss from the radiation and chemotherapy she was going to face in the coming weeks. She had her grandson shave her head! We joked about temporary tattoos and fancy scarves tied up like turbans. With an incredibly positive attitude, love and laughter, Joyce has dealt with a bad situation in a way that is unbelievably admirable. Despite the treatments, the side-effects of the medications she has to take, she has moved through the process with the only word I can think to use ... grace.

So, with it being winter weather around here right now, and her having no hair to cover her noggin', I got busy knitting a gift for Joyce. Using the roll brim hat pattern from Simple 1-2-3 Knitting, Lion Brand Homespun yarn in the colorway Tudor, I knit up a noggin' cover. Very easy pattern on #9 circular needles, then switched to #9 DPNs to finish it off. According to the instructions it says you can make it in a couple of hours but, well, I'm just not a fast knitter and it took me longer. Meh, I don't concern myself with speed, just the joy of the process of knitting and I get there eventually! Anyway, the yarn (pattern calls for mohair) I used is soft, machine washable & dryable, and is a lovely blend of cream, tan, rose, lavender and blue. Being a boucle' yarn, it also has an interesting texture and has a slight "fuzz" to it which is somewhat mohair-ish, too. Yes, it technically called "bloom" or "halo", but I'm not technical.

With the studio in a somewhat more functional state I've been doing a little sewing for the home. Throw pillows! Ridiculously easy to do and they change the entire look of a room with a small amount of fabric and cost. I like that. I got these fabrics back in the fall with the intention of making the pillows after the major part of the living room renovation was done.

Alas, studio was packed like a sardine can and sewing anything just wasn't an option. I found the new fabrics in a stack of leftovers at a discount fabric store. I used the stuffing from the old pillows to stuff the new ones. I've still got another set to make for the chairs but I haven't found just the right fabric yet. Need something dark to balance the mulberry colored ones on the sofa, but I want to bring in some deep rust colors as well. I'll stay on the look-out for something. A trip to the thrift store might bear fruit. Come to think of it, I may have some old pillowcases in a dark rust color --- *Note To Self - pilfer linen closet! But here's what's done thus far ...

Back at the beginning of the month I told y'all about stumbling across Hip Mountain Mama and her blog about One Small Change. What a phenomenal thing it has grown into on the web! Inspiring! Please visit the Community of Change and see for yourself. Better yet, join in and make one small change in your own life. To update on my choice of a small change: Paper Recycling. I decided to clean out space in my pantry and put in a second recycling container for paper in addition to the one I already had for plastic bottles and cans.

Like it is for many others out there, times are tight and the husband and I are watching our pennies. We live out in the middle of nowhere so we don't get the fancy-schmancy recycling containers the city provides. My pantry is kinda' small, too. I had to be budget friendly and a little creative ... laundry hampers from the Dollar Store for $4 ea.! For the time being I lined them with large trash bags. Now that I have access to my sewing machine again I'm thinking of using some old sheets to make liners. Jazz them up a bit.

What I've found since starting this change of separating paper from my regular trash is that I've only had one bag of trash to take to the landfill. ONE! In a whole month! Amazing! Before I would probably have had five or six bags. I still have to get a burn barrel to burn the paper stuff but that's okay. I'll get one soon. Until then, there's still lots of room in my recycle bin.

I've been thinking about what the next "One Small Change" will be for February. With a closet full of fabric and a sewing machine at the ready I'm inclined to whipping up a stack of napkins. I haven't bought real paper napkins in years because the husband likes paper towels for napkins. For myself, I used dish towels. I think it would be nice to make the switch to cloth napkins, as well as cloth towels to substitute for the paper towels. Not to sure the husband will go for it, but I can at least use cloths for all the other things I've used the paper towels for ... wiping up spills, etc. It would be interesting to see how long a roll of paper towels would last if they were only used by the husband as napkins. Since he's only home about 10 days a month, probably a long time. Yep, cloth napkins for February!

Namaste,' y'all ...

Thoughts and Prayers for those in Haiti ...

2010-01-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

I've been reading the news online about the devastation in Haiti and it is a true horror story, one that seems completely overwhelming. I can't go and help. Like many these days, I am not in a position to send goods or funds. But what I can do is light a candle and say a prayer. It's a small thing but it's something. That's what I'm doing today.

Namaste, y'all ...

Balance ...

2010-01-14T14:08:00.000-05:00

Have you ever felt like you were walking a tightrope? I feel so unfocused and lost right now and I don't even know where to start looking for an answer. I'm trying to feel grateful for all that I have in my life but somehow it isn't really working. I can't put my finger on what I feel is lacking. Yes, I know finding a balance is important to finding happiness, but I don't know what would be my definition of happiness right now. Maybe it's just the winter blues? Ah well, take it day at a time. That's all I know to do.

Namaste, y'all ...

The book is almost always better than the movie ...

2010-01-12T20:22:00.000-05:00

I have just finished reading Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevaier for the upteenth time. I love the imagery, the descriptions of the paintings, the rooms, the characters. I love the way the girl, Griet, looks at things with an artists' eye for color and composition. It speaks to the artist in me. How could it not?

While I did very much enjoy the movie (it was beautifully done) with Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson, I am still a person who prefers the written word. I can make my own 'mini movie' in my head while I'm reading. No Hollywood movie magic can compare with what I can imagine on my own.

Off the top of my head I can think of one exception ... The Bourne Identity. I read all the books in the series several years ago and enjoyed them, but y'all, Matt Damon just kicks ass. Period.

I get lost ... but it's so much fun!

2010-01-05T13:14:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what it is but every time I get into Photoshop I get sucked in. Before I know it time has been sucked in with me into some black hole of creativity and my day is gone. I'm not necessarily complaining, just commenting on the phenomenon.

A couple of months ago my husband and I got new cell phones. He the Motorola Droid and I the HTC Droid Eris. In my email this morning was a list of contact numbers he wanted custom icons for. I've just spent a lengthy amount of time making them and having a lovely time doing so. Here is the one for our dentist ...

Namaste, y'all ...

Taking out the trash ...

2010-01-03T16:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was surfing 'round the net, reading blogs, checking out what others have posted about their New Year's resolutions, and what-not. I came across Hip Mountain Mama. The post for the day was this: One Small Change. I'm not really a resolution maker. I've done it, sometimes with success and sometimes with a definite lack of success. On reading this post I was struck by the simplicity of the idea, and I was all over the list making process for what I would like to change in my world. It's not about making resolutions, it's about changing your life one small step at a time and I like that.

Starting point. I've been working on becoming vegan for several years now. It's been a slow but positive and rewarding change in my life, my health, my attitude. I believe if everyone became vegan the entire world would bloom. Of course, it's not likely to happen any time soon. Sad but true. Getting my own husband to become vegan/vegetarian would be the equivalent of single-handedly reversing the effects of global warming! The only one I can change is me. So January is the month to begin one small change toward moving even farther forward in my journey to being completely vegan.

Now, I'm sure there is a hand raised out there with the question of, "Why is it taking you so long to convert?" attached to it. It's a good question and I have a number of reasons.

1) It's a really big switch, even from being vegetarian. Veganism is more than not eating meat. It's about eliminating ALL animal products/by products from not only your diet but from your life as well. It's about becoming educated. It involves learning what and where all that stuff is (manufacturers are sneaky) and finding an alternative. Even with internet accessibility to lots of alternatives, acquiring them is not always simple and easy. While there are as many approaches to being vegan is as there are people on the planet, for me it also means being eco-conscious. Yep, tree-huggin', dirt-worshipin', savin' the planet all rolled into one big enchilada. It means being aware of the impact you have in everything you do.

2) So, again, it's a really big switch. Think about all those things you've used/loved/consumed all of your life and suddenly not having any of it. When I started out I was overwhelmed. The more I learned, the more I felt the need to go through every single thing in my house and throw it all away. My shoes were nearly all leather. My health/beauty care products were animal-tested and had horrible chemicals in them. Cleaning products were equally as toxic. My carpet, my art supplies, my knitting and quilting stuff, my books, my light bulbs, my cat food, my Jeep, my brand new wool/cashmere Land's End pea coat ... ALL BAD, BAD, BAD! I'm not wealthy. I couldn't just chuck it all in the trash and buy everything new. And trashing it was BAD, too! Starting from scratch was (is) completely and totally unrealistic. I had to stop, breathe, and form a reasonable, practical plan.

3) Health. Priority one. Learning about diet, vitamins, minerals. Many people who become vegetarian forget there is more to it than just eating tofu and vegetables. They end up suffering a host of health problems and go running off to the doctor - who is inevitably going to convince them to start eating "normal" again. It's important to know what replaces what in a vegetarian diet. Where do you get your protein if you aren't eating steak and eggs? What about vitamin B12 (again, found primarily in meat, eggs and dairy products)? How much do you need of everything? No one book or website gives you a 100% run-down. And what if you don't like tofu? It takes time to learn what you need, how much you need, and where to get it in a way you will still enjoy it.

4) My husband is a carnivore. He's a person who doesn't give much thought to just how those paper towels got from Point A (manufacturer) to Point B (kitchen counter). He focuses on the convenience of having them. Period. I'm not saying he's totally oblivious, but he moves through life like most people do. If you want a cheeseburger, you don't think about how it started out as a living, breathing, feeling, thinking cow - you just go to your favorite burger joint, order it, eat it, and then go about your merry business. Learning to compromise what I want vs. what he wants has been a challenge. Some things have been easy to switch (he loves the Kiss My Face shaving lotion) but others, sadly, will probably never change (he loves cheeseburgers). This means that no matter how much it makes me cringe I still have to buy stuff I don't want to.

5) The great art of compromise. Not only does my husband's way of life conflict with mine, I sometimes conflict with myself. Example: I am an artist. The bulk of my art supplies are not eco-friendly. I know every time I buy a tube of paint I'm buying a 'bad' product. There are places you have to learn where you will drawn your line in the sand and where you won't. I may be okay with using fabric bags instead of plastic at the grocery store, but I'm not giving up my art ... and I'm not going to try making my own yellow ocher or Prussian blue paint. I'm not going to try making my own paper. I'm not going to make paintbrushes. I'll leave all that up to somebody else. Sand = Line.

There is compromise in other things as well. Some from simple cost factor - organic is expensive, and accessibility - I live in a small town with limited options. Internet shopping is not an option if the shipping cost is outrageous, which is often the case. Driving an hour or more to shop in a larger city isn't always practical either. Part of being earth-friendly means being aware of not only what I buy, but where I buy things. I personally think Wal-Mart is evil on many levels, but if that's the only place I can buy the toothpaste my husband likes then that's what I have to do.

6) Living with or living without? Think about the things you just don't want to give up for any reason. Everybody has something they just don't want to let go of, stop using, or live without. Over the years I've been switching to a vegan lifestyle I've come across a few things that I just refuse to let go of. Some are personal, some are emotional, some are practical, some are simply because I am human and I'm not perfect. My art supplies are one example, as I said. Another is my jeans. Okay, I hear the WTF???????'s in the crowd. For years and years and years I have worn Levi jeans. What can I say? They 'fit' me. I've debated the issue from all angles and perspectives. I know they are "bad". I know all the reasons why I should NOT wear Levi's and y'all, that's something I just have to suck up and live with. I'm not comfortable with my other options and that's okay. If I come across them used on ebay or in a thrift store, in my size, and in good condition, that's wonderful ... but if I have to buy them new, then I will and I won't apologize for it. I won't give up my Levi jeans.

So what, after all this long list of reasons, is the point? What "One Small Change" is up for January?

Trash.

Yeah, trash. I've been a plastic bottle (husband is a coke drinker) and can recycler for a long time now. But I haven't been very diligent about other recyclable materials. I want to start with paper products. Like everyone, I get junk mail (though I've reduced that by quite a bit), there are those paper towels, cereal boxes, product packaging, etc. that fills up a trash bag quicker than you might think. I'm going to clean out the bottom of my pantry and set up better recycling system - adding bin to include paper stuff. That is the first step and I'll do it today.

Now, the next question is what to do with all that paper stuff? Some of it would be perfectly safe to burn or compost, some not. I'll have to find out more about that aspect but it shouldn't be too difficult. What has this to do with stepping up the vegan thing? The change is ultimately taking less trash to the landfill and lowering my impact of polluting the environment = in my book that's a really good vegan thing.

Namaste, y'all ...

New Year = New Blog Design

2010-01-01T16:50:00.000-05:00

Thought I'd start the new year with a new page design for my blog. Yeah, I'm wild and crazy like that. Not sure I like it so much yet. Always a work-in-progress. Eh, it's only the first day of the year ... I still have 364 days left to tinker with it - who knows what might happen.

Namaste, y'all ...

2010, The New Year

2009-12-31T11:54:00.002-05:00

Let's just see what happens.

Namaste, y'all ...

Enough already ...

2009-06-26T09:36:00.004-04:00

Just when I'm starting to relax about the whole "SNAKE IN MY HOUSE!" drama I get another jumpstart to my morning. Dragging myself out of bed, 56.7% still asleep, my head-cold in full swing, I stumble into the bathroom with visions of a nice hot shower and a fervent hope that at some point in the process I'll start to feel better.

What I find, to my horror, is my cat, Tuck, hunched in the 'I'm going to attack and kill it' position beside the vanity cabinet. From the angle I'm approaching I can't see what he's looking at. Naturally the first thought in my sleep and cold fogged brain is ... "OH F&$@! The SNAKE!" I almost did the girly scream. I'm instantly awake, shivering, and ultra aware that I'm buck-naked and shoeless. Not good at 7:30 am if there is a snake in your house.

I'd finally started to relax a bit since the SNAKE IN MY HOUSE! adventure a couple of weeks ago. I've stopped jumping at shadows, stopped thinking about the little bastard slithering into my bed while I'm sleeping. I was making progress. I was even beginning to analyze WHY there was a snake in my house on a 'message from Spirit level'. After all, Snake is my totem. It's my power animal. It's the animal representing my time of birth in all cultures. It's my greatest phobia. I am Snake and Snake is me. The Divine Comedy/Tragedy of my entire life's story.

But let me back up and tell the first of the tale ...

A couple of weeks ago I started collecting boxes to hold all the stuff I was clearing out of my house for a yard sale I was planning with my friend Rena. I had a few of the boxes stacked beside the back door. One morning after I had come home from a short trip of doing errands in town I decided to get busy cleaning out one of my closets. I reached for the boxes beside the door. An odd movement beside the box caught my eye.

It took a couple of seconds to register that I was staring at a snake. Half second later it clicked in my brain 'King Snake', harmless, small one, IN MY HOUSE ... OH HOLY MOTHER OF ST. PETER!!! A SNAKE IN MY HOUSE!!!

I felt all the blood rush from my head to my toes. For some inexplicable reason I thought about the fact I was wearing flip-flops instead of solid shoes. I made some weird squeaking noise. I started backing away, trying not to faint, trying to remember to breathe.

I rounded the dinning room table and moved toward the kitchen. My mind going ninety miles and hour over anything and everything I might have in the house to catch the thing. Somewhere in that few seconds it crossed my mind I'd probably have to get close to it again to catch it. Standing there, shaking and on the verge of hyperventilating, I turned my head back toward the snake just in time to see the last five inches of its' tail disappearing in horrifying slow motion down into the heat/ac vent in the floor. I proceeded to have a nearly full-blown panic attack. Why I didn't faint there on the spot, I'll never know.

A snake, alive and loose, in my house. A nightmare turned real. I called my best bud, Sue. Sue knows how to kick snake ass. It was a glimmer of hope in a dizzy, heart-pounding ordeal. In two leaps I was on top of the living room chair, frantically dialing the phone, gasping for air and trying not to cry. "There's a snake in my house!", I squealed into the phone when Sue answered. I swear, I think she laughed.

I babbled the whole episode into the phone, my eyes glued to the vent, feet tucked up as far under me as I could get them. She says call Animal Control. This meant I had to get off the chair, cross the living room to get to the phone book. Though my eyes never left that vent, I managed to do it. She said she would call her son Chris and see what he suggested while I made the call to Animal Control.

I couldn't find the phone number so I ended up calling the Sheriff's Dept. to get it from them. Nice woman answered the phone, listened with sympathy to my slightly hysterical chattering, and told me she would call for me since no one worked at the A.C. on Saturday. She promised she would call back. While I waited on the chair, Sue called and said Chris recommended closing all but that one vent and turning on the A/C full blast. Snakes are cold-blooded and it would seek heat, meaning that hopefully the thing would crawl back out of the vent.

I can't begin to describe how hard it was for me to go around the house, reaching my hand toward those vents to close them. There are twelve vents. The thing could have made it to any one of the others. Eleven times I had to stand and scan the area around the vents before I could get near one. I think I had eleven mini panic attacks.

About this time my sister, Glenda, called to tell me she was on her way over to help me with the yard sale stuff as we had planned a couple of days earlier. Didn't take her but 1.3 seconds to realize from the sound of my voice I had a problem. "What's wrong?", she asks. "SNAKE in my HOUSE!", I whined into the phone. Like Sue, Glenda laughed. She said she would bring tape and we could tape the vents closed.

That sparked an idea. With it being summer here, I couldn't very well close those vents off indefinitely. I needed an alternative, and I had one.

The husband had recently completed a 'honey do' chore of replacing the screen on the front door. There was screen material left over. By the time Glenda got to my house I had cut pieces of screen to fit over the vents. She taped them in place with packing tape. The one vent the thing went down we left open, but covered with a box and netting to catch the thing if it came back out. Turned the A/C down as far as it would go. Waited for what seemed like eons. No snake. After a couple hours or so Glenda went home. Not going to accomplish much with the yard sale stuff with me freaked out over the snake.

All the rest of that day I was a nervous wreck. Anything I caught in my peripheral vision made me jump. Shadow on the floor, I jumped. I kept a hawk eye on the snake trap. I couldn't do much but wander around the house, fidgety and completely ill at ease. By nightfall, I was exhausted but still highly anxious. I wouldn't go into a room without turning on the light and scanning the floor for some slithering dark shape, anything out of the ordinary. I didn't sleep a wink for jumping at every noise. Kept the covers tucked around me like a burrito, visions of the thing crawling under the covers seeking warmth. For the first time in years I went to bed wearing pajamas.

At one point, around 3:30am, I heard what sounded like the cat whacking the cardboard of the box I had placed over the vent. I literally levitated off the bed in fright. All I could imagine was the snake had come up out of the vent. That Tuck, being curious of the scent of the snake, had knocked the box aside and let the thing loose in the house. I'm still not sure how I got my nerve up enough to go check to see what happened. Fortunately, the box was still just as I had left it. Didn't see Tuck anywhere. It was an awful, sleep deprived night.

The next morning I made a bee-line to check the box. Still no snake. And while I'm standing there contemplating the situation the thought crosses my mind that the packing tape Glenda had used might not hold up so well against the cold air flowing from the vents. It damn sure wouldn't stand up to a curious cat.

I needed Duck Tape.

I searched the house from top to bottom. No Duck Tape. I had to make a trip into town. A 20 mile round trip for a $3 roll of Duck Tape was well worth it. I was showered, dressed, gone and back with Duck Tape in hand within an hour. I took a minute, got into as close to a Zen place as I could, then started re-taping the screen over the vents. I couldn't let myself think about the thing possibly crawling up and out of a vent while I was taping it. I couldn't think about anything but taking my time and covering those vents as methodically and completely snake-proof as I was capable of. I even took away the snake trap and taped up the vent the thing went down. It was only after I had finished that I sat on the sofa and cried. Big ol' sobbing, from the gut crying. Fear, stress, no sleep. I was due for a good bout of boo-hooing.

Over the next few days I stayed on high alert. I wouldn't go into a dark room without turning on the light and scanning the floor as I did that very first night. I watched the floor as I walked even in the daylight hours. I dreaded opening a cabinet door or dresser drawer. I poked my shoes before I would put them on. I tried not to think about HOW it got into the house. I tried not to think about it being trapped in the ventilation system. I slept in pajamas.

I've gotten more at ease in the last week. I still scan the floor as I'm walking. Still turn a light on before I go into a room, but the pajamas are back in the dresser drawer.

Then this morning happened. Tuck in attack position in the bathroom. Me naked and barefoot. I'm sure God got a big laugh at me at 7:30am this morning. A foot long King Snake reducing me to a whimpering girly-girl. I didn't think it was very funny. It took a full ten deep breaths before I could peek around the corner of the vanity to see what Tuck was fixated on.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing there but air and carpet.

Furry little feline vermin with their totally bizarre behavior. And I swear he actually had the nerve to look up at me a grin.

So that's my morning. Hope yours started better.

Namaste, y'all ...

Open Hands Online!

2009-04-04T10:25:00.003-04:00

Okay, the most important news of the day is I finally got the Open Hands Reiki Natural Healing website online. We are officially www.openhandsreiki.com. Happy days, I'm tellin' ya'. Been one of those monkeys on my back, needing to get it done and only able to tinker some here and some there with it for months now. Granted, it's a 'canned' template to start with, but it's something. There is still the work of getting it plastered all over the internet with search engines and such, but again, it's functioning as is and that's a good thing. The nitty-gritty of a "real" website with our logo and all that jazz is down the road a little ways.

Other news in my world is that I finished a painting (!) but haven't had time to take photos and get it on my website. Shoot, I haven't even put the picture hanging wire on the back of it yet either. I'll tell ya' the truth, just having a brush in my hand again was nice ... really nice. I'd have no problem running away to Bora Bora to do nothing but paint for a few months.

Like everyone else, times are tough and it's been living a day-by-day thing for me for awhile. Although things are difficult, I'm grateful I have so many good things in my life. I have a good, kind man as a husband. I have food, clothing, and a roof over my head. I am humbled by the wonderful friendships I have. I have Open Hands. I have the sweetest cat in the world. I have my studio and my art. Today is a beautiful, sun-shiney day. Yep, blessings abound.

Remember to hug somebody today ...

Namaste, y'all ...

Rainy days are meant for snoozing ...

2009-02-28T09:26:00.004-05:00

Take a good look at this photo. It's exactly what I wish I were doing right now. It's Saturday morning, it's raining, I'm chilled, I'm sleepy, I'm at work. *sigh*

I've been thinking about my lack of blogging. I miss sitting down and "talking", telling about what's going on. I've blamed it on my crazy schedule. Never seems to be enough time to sit and write about current events and/or what's on my mind. I realized that isn't entirely true.

Some time ago I found out a few people I know read my blog. While having readers IS the intent behind any blog, it still sort of wigged me out. I got paranoid about what to say - or not to say. My blogging cramped. Something like 'performance anxiety' kicked in. I know it sounds bizarre, and well, a little foolish. I can't even really explain it. It simply is what it is. I just have to get over it. I miss blogging.

My most exciting news is that Open Hands Reiki Natural Healing is now, officially, a non-profit organization. Yee-Haw! We're going to be applying for grants, etc. to help us financially move forward with doing things we want to do. Things like working with veterans, the elderly, Hospice, and others. While having anyone walk in off the street for a Reiki session is always nice, I know there are so many people out there who could truly benefit from it and are unable to pay (even though we are 40% less on our prices than anyone else around) because of the fact that insurance companies have yet to list it as a payable alternative therapy. (That day will come!)

Honestly, it breaks my heart to tell some sweet little old woman with a host of problems, "Sorry but no, we don't accept Medicaid or Medicare." I know what Reiki would do for her yet there isn't really anything I can do to help. Open Hands still a business with expenses and unfortunately, we can't give sessions away for free. We offer a senior citizen discount and hold a Reiki Night the third Wednesday of every month where the general public can come in and get free 10-15 minutes sessions to 'check it out', but that's about the best we can do. Hopefully, with an influx of grant money, our ability to help those with financial limitations will be vastly improved.

Artwork-wise, my paint brushes are still on hold and dry as a bone. I can't seem to get my mind in the right space to paint. As usual, I have all kinds of ideas floating around in my brain. Getting them from mental canvas to physical canvas simply isn't happening. I'm torn between repainting Orange Kimono in a different style, re-working the current Work-In-Progress for the bazillionth time, or just mucking around with an abstract for snorts and giggles. It's frustrating. I wish I could just shut myself away in my studio for a couple of months, but that isn't likely to happen. I've got to figure out a happy medium soon.

Knitting is going a little better. I've got several things in-progress. One of them is this cute little project ...

Acorn ornaments! Aren't they adorable!?! I found the pattern on Ravelry.com from Carmen Rigby. They are really easy and quick to make, which is giving me some of the 'instant gratification' I've been needing lately for completing projects. I think I'm going to knit some plain, but with others I may add little feathers to the top and eyes on the nut part ... little acorn elves! I've also got a 2x2 rib, tri-color scarf and a cardigan sweater on the sticks. Oh!, and funny little bookworm and mousie bookmarks as well. Don't have photos of those to show right now.

Unfortunately, that about it for today. Duty of working is calling and I'd best go be productive.

Namaste, y'all ...

When you need a bit of happy in your day ...

2009-02-12T12:57:00.004-05:00

Courtesy of CuteOverload.com

It's been rough day today. Just looking at this face makes me feel better.

Namaste, y'all ...

Making a dent.

2009-01-13T19:27:00.004-05:00

For the most part the housework is done. Done for now anyway. The ceiling fans and lamp shades will just have to wait 'til another day, or five. The studio, however, gets my attention again later this evening. I made the mistake of venturing in there this afternoon and had an attack of the neat freak issues. This was not good considering there is a month of Sundays' worth of cleaning and straightening to do in there. It's appalling. It's housed stacks of magazines and whatnot over the past few months. Whatever I couldn't stand looking at stacked up in the other rooms of the house got shuffled back to the void of the studio, piled on the drafting table, piled on the light table, piled on the floor ... you get the picture.

For some inexplicable reason the urge to start weeding through the piles overtook me around lunchtime. Maybe it's a subconscious nudge to make me get back to some painting. Maybe it's the realization that unless there is room to work no work will get done. Maybe it was an avoidance tactic. I'm inclined, I shamefully admit, to avoiding doing some of my To Do list for the past couple of days. I just needed time off. Down time. Non-work related. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my store, my part of running the business and all that goes with it. I love being there even if nothing is going on and no customers or clients are there. It's a nice place and I'm proud of it. But it is true owning a business is virtually a 24-7 kind of job. Sometimes you just have to say 'when' and take a breather.

Not that spending most of the time breathing has been devoted to housekeeping, as I've done for the past couple of days, could technically be called an official breather. Work is work no matter what form it takes. Although, housework, while physical, can be a meditation if you let it. A "wax on, wax off" with the polish kind of thing. The physicality of it is good for you, too. It feels productive and there is the instant gratification of a nice clean glass-topped coffee table with just a swipe of a lint free rag and some custom-made vinegar cleaner. Yep, I make my own cleaning solution = White vinegar, hot water and some essential oils. This, too, gives the instant gratification of making the house smell fresh and clean even with the heat pump running and the windows closed against the winter weather outside. I love fresh air, having the windows open, and the house smelling clean helps a lot through the cold weather months.

I can't say I've made much of a dent on the To Do list, but a dent in my level of frustration and aggravation was achieved. I feel more relaxed and less overwhelmed by so many things needing to be done ... and feeling so overwhelmed that I didn't feel like I was getting anything done. That's a miserable place to be.

For the next hour or so I'll work on those piles in the studio. I don't see much getting done past that for the next several days. Maybe this coming weekend will grant me some more time to be the Domestic Goddess of Clean. I'd like to get in an hour on the sweater knitting if possible this evening, too. Then, it's off to bed. Tomorrow is another day for attacking the To Do list.

I'll leave you with a perfect picture of Zen ...

Namaste, y'all ...

I've tried and tried but I just can't get the house to do it's own housework.

2009-01-12T19:07:00.005-05:00

My lack of blogging is not due to an excessive amount of housecleaning. Quite the contrary. The house has been relatively ignored for over a month. Oh sure, I've kept the dishes clean, the laundry done (if not all folded and put away), swept the kitchen floor, made a quick swipe of the toilet bowl with a brush ... just enough to get by but not pass any Happy Housekeeper inspection. My time has been spent wrapped knee deep in bookkeeping for the store, computer work, and other stuff. (Yeah, okay, all right - knitting - I confess!) The housework slid waaaaay down on the list of priorities.

I can only take dust and clutter and an un-vacuumed carpet for just so long before a combination of guilt and previously habitual neat-freak tendencies crawl up my spine and have me wigging out in a not so pleasant way. One more day of looking into a toothpaste bespecked bathroom mirror would simply send me, walling and shrieking like a banshee, over the edge. So, today, I cleaned. All day. Cleaned. And cleaned some more. Not pleasant, but it made the house cleaner and made me feel better. I really do hate an untidy house.

I decided to temporarily ignore the three dozen other things on my To Do list. I'm not a very good multi-tasker. Granted, I didn't get every cobweb out of every corner and scrub the tile grout with a toothbrush. No, I didn't get that deep into my Domestic Goddess duties. Even a Goddess has to draw the line somewhere when she's faced with the mountainous tasks of housekeeping left undone for far too long. There's always another day, sometime in the future, to wash windows and dust the pictures on the walls. Besides me, the husband and the cat, not many people see the inside of my house and one or two dust bunnies under the bed won't bring down 200 years of karmic bad debt. At least, I don't think so.

The frenzy of house cleaning did play havock with the sanity of my cat though. Reasoning out why I would polish the glass on his coffee table or vacuuming up his fur off the carpet was beyond him. Tuck, like most cats, isn't a fan of the vacuum cleaner. Poor fella' spent most of the day, wild eyed, behind the sofa. Can't say I blame him. I would have much preferred hiding back there, too, instead of polishing the coffee table. But now it's time to take a break and get back to the serious things in life ... like knitting.

Oh yes, knitting. I'm wallowing in knitting. I am making another sweater. Lovely heathered-brown cardigan. Caron Eco-Simply Soft yarn in the color Twig. Knitting Pure & Simple Pattern 994 Neck-down V-neck Caridgan. This is the "big" project. Suffice it to say it will take me awhile to finish. Will be worth it.

The other things are small, relatively quick to finish (I am a slow knitter) so that I get a little completion gratification in the face of knitting a sweater. The exception is a scarf I'm working on with the same yarn as the sweater, only it's a 2x rib with three color changes; Twig, Charcoal, Black. No photos of it just yet. The other things I've finished are ...

Lovely bubble-colored fluffy scarf of Lion Brand Homespun boucle' and matching eyelash yarn. Extra long fringe just because I could! This is so pretty and warm, too. How can you beat that?

Scarf and hat with Lion Homespun boucle' and novelty eyelash yarn. This Homespun is a pretty colorway of soft dark beige to various shade of browns. Has a few twists of a spicey rush color as well. The eyelash is a chocolate color with a threading of sparkle to it. Nice long fringe on the scarf.

Scarf with Red Heart baby yarn and eyelash yarn. Had this stuff for a couple of years now and couldn't decide what to do with it. I like pink, so a pink scarf worked for me. Didn't get too wild with the fringe.

Chenille and novelty ribbon yarn. The soft but bright and happy butter yellow worked well with the rainbow colored ribbon. I decided I didn't want it as a traditional square-ended scarf so I decreased the ends into points and tied on a little fringe for fun.

Boucle' scarf with color 'tufts' woven in the yarn. I bought a single skein of this a couple of years ago because I thought it looked fun and quirky. I made it a simple scarf to play up the interest of the yarn.

Tarot Bag(s) with Lion Brand colorway acrylic yarn. I found this pattern via Ravelry from NicolaKnits. After I sent her questions on how she knit it Nicola was kind enough to post the instructions on her blog. They have an interesting star shaped decreasing on the bottom. Made one to size, then made another slightly fuller but shorter just to see if I could. I was thinking about making some of these up - with some alterations to the pattern - to sell in the store. They would make good Tarot bags, medicine bags, crystal bags or whatever. If I can get faster on the knitting part it might indeed be something I do. They are worked on DPNs and I'm as slow as a sloth with DPNs.

There is another Tarot bag in the works but it's a different shape altogether. Again, no photos of it at the moment. It's more of the Lion Brand colorway acrylic in different colors than the ones above. I'm thinking I may do a cotton lining for it. Haven't decided.

So that's what going on here. Store and business stuff. Domestic Goddess stuff. And knitting stuff. The studio and painting are at a complete standstill save the ideas in my head. Hopefully it won't be long before things happen in that area as well. While I certainly enjoy the knitting I do miss having a brush in my hand.

Namaste, y'all ...

Good things in tough times.

2008-12-05T20:50:00.002-05:00

Earlier this evening I had my nightly phone call with the husband. It was upsetting because I had to tell him the computer system he's been contemplating buying to go with his Korg keyboard, financially speaking, isn't an option right now ... nor in the foreseeable future. I had to explain the nasty and ever increasing costs of living over the past months vs. his lower income since having to change jobs earlier in the year. But, we are like thousands of others trying to make ends meet on a tighter and tighter budget. It's depressing as Hell. It made me feel miserable to burst his bubble on the computer. It felt even worse to explain why. Yet, there isn't much to be done about it. Life is what life is for all of us at present and we do the best we can.

But even sitting here feeling sad, upset and wanting to do nothing but sit in the middle of the floor and have a good cry, I had to stop and think about how there's still an incredible amount of abundance in my life. It lead me to think about something in particular that has happened recently that I have neglected to share. Sorry about that, but I've been sort of keeping it close to explore the feelings privately for awhile. This seems like an good time to talk about it.

Back in September I posted about a woman I referred to as "Anne". In that post I told you about dealing with the issue of my belief that Anne did not like me. As things ironically go, a short time later I posted the surprising bit of news that Anne was interested in reconciling the situation between us. I yammered on about my reaction and feelings and all that fluffy stuff. I left it hanging with no conclusion as to whether or not Anne ever came to talk with me. Well, she did and I'm damned happy about it.

While I won't deny we are both still stepping a little lightly and being cautious, I think it's not unrealistic given our history. Neither one wants to go backward into any of that again, or step forward wrongly with each other. It's quite natural that we take time and build the friendship, just as any two people trying to get to know each other would do. But personally speaking, I'd say she's become a welcome addition to my list of friends. It's nice. I'm glad things are as they are between us now. I look forward to the discussions we'll have (she's smart and funny), things we might do together (she's creative and crafty), things we'll learn from each other (things as ordinary as cooking tips to big stuff like life lessons), etc. as friends do with time.

The whole experience has already been such a lesson for me for a lot of reasons. It's a lesson in being willing to resolve things I find to be unpleasant and would prefer to just walk away from. It's humbling to be given a second change at friendship. It's been an opportunity to express thankfulness and appreciation to someone I thought I'd never be speaking to again. It's been a lesson in opening myself up, to understanding forgiveness, and being understanding of the feelings of others in a way I really hadn't been able to do before.

And it set me up to puting some of these lessons into action with another person I know with whom I've recently had a misunderstanding/miscommunication/conflict ... for which I'm largely responsible. I took something she said, read an incorrect meaning into it, and slammed her for it. It was wrong, but at the time, I really did feel her comment was snipey and hurtful. As is in my nature to do, I lashed back. (There is indeed real and fitting truth behind the decriptions of the traits of our astrological signs and I am a Scorpio.) She, of course, responded in kind.

The me of not so long ago would have just said 'F' it and walked away. Written it off and moved on. But this time it all just didn't sit well. I chewed on it for a bit and then discussed it with a friend whom I have the deepest respect for. I value his opinion and trust his advice. He pointed out things about myself I hadn't really been aware of, helped me re-evaluate and look at it from the other side of the fence. That evening I apologized to the person I had created the conflict with and have made arrangements to meet with her to discuss it one-on-one so that she may say anything to me she would like to say further about it. I plan to extend my apology again and, hopefully, put it behind me as a lesson learned. Maybe it will be resolved and it won't, but this time I couldn't let the conflict linger for years. I couldn't turn my back and attempt to wish it into oblivion. This time I am making the effort to confront and resolve it with good intentions and sincere apologies for my part in it. I'll let the Divine take it from there.

And I think that's a good thing even if it's hard to do. I think, even while the realities of everyday life are hard and troublesome and I want to sit and cry, it's a good thing to still count the blessings I have. I have the gift of a new friendship. I'm really trying to move forward positively in dealing with a negative aspect of my personality - a personal growth thing. I have a friend I call talk to about all of it and know I'm heard, never judged, and cared for enough to be told the truth - even if it stings. Even though I've got problems and trying times at present I'm still wallowing in abundance when I open my eyes and see it. And that's most certainly a good thing.

Namaste, y'all ...

A day to be thankful ...

2008-11-27T13:14:00.004-05:00

Happy Turkey Day, y'all ...

Technically speaking, I think every day you should remember to be thankful for what you have. I'm saddened how anymore it seems to require a holiday to make people stop and remember to be grateful/thankful. When I light that stick of incense every morning I take a minute to say "Thanks!" for all the good stuff in my life ... and "Thanks!" for all the not-so-good stuff, too. Good things, well, are good things. The bad, they help you appreciate the good and they are lessons to learn from. Of course, that's my humble opinion.

The things I'm thankful are probably simple and ordinary to most folks, but I'm okay with that. My list includes, but is not limited to:

Every day is a new opportunity to try again.
The gift of being human.
My Spirit Guides and how they care for me, protect me, and help me on this journey.
The ever evolving and growing connection I have with the Divine source.
Every event and every person who has contributed in one way or another to my being who and where I am today.
That I know what true love is.
M. Personal and I won't elaborate.
The husband and all he does for me.
The miracle of the incredible friendships I have in my life.
My home, it's comfort and protection.
Tuck, and the sweet and goofy bundle of furry kitty-love that he is.
Open Hands and the friend/business partnership I have with three amazing people.
The ability to paint and the joy of art.
The change of seasons even if I'm not particularly fond of cold weather. - But hey, knitting and knitted stuff is a bonus to cold weather, so it does have it's upside!
Knitting and stores full of delicious yarn.
Coffee and flavored hot teas - most wonderful stuff.
Books! A person can never have enough books.
Rubi, my pretty little Jeep that reliably gets me where I need to go.
Thick, warm socks.
The invention of electricity and light bulbs.
Camping and the campfire.
Creeks, especially one you can camp next to.
Adobe Photoshop.
Chocolate truffles. Need I say more?

Yeah, I could sit here for a long time and rattle off dozens of things, but you get the gist. Like I said, items on my thankful list are rather obvious. But maybe that's as it should be sometimes. Too often we forget about those simple things, everyday things. The things we take for granted, like having a car that starts on a cold morning or a glass of sweet iced tea on a hot summer day. Those are the things that make up our lives moment to moment. Yes, be thankful for the big stuff, but don't forget the small things.

So let me leave you with this image of considerable charm and the magic of love ...

Photo swiped from CuteOverload.com

At last ... an accomplishment.

2008-11-17T10:52:00.001-05:00

I decided to take yesterday, Sunday, off from any form of work. No housework. No store work. No art work. It feels like months since I've been able to do that. Always a list of a gazillion things needing my attention or to be done hovering over my head like a big dark cloud. Even the few times I've curled up on the couch with the husband to watch a movie has been overshadowed by the knowledge of what else I should be and/or could be doing with that couple of hours. I've been feeling like all I do is work and no play. Not a good thing.

I really needed a break. Downtime. My time. Just a day to do what I wanted and nothing else. I spent the day kicked back on the sofa, pot of tea at the ready, watching movies and knitting a scarf my friend Rena requested as a present for her friend Michelle. The yarn is a lovely super bulky acrylic bouclé in a cherry & burgundy colored fiber blend by Red Heart. I had started the scarf a couple of days ago, snatching an few minutes here and there, but hadn't gotten more than about 10-12" knit. I used my favorite size 11 bamboo needles and a plain garter stitch.

I've only met Michelle once and wasn't sure about "size". She's not a tall person and about average in body size. I also wasn't sure of her scarf preference. Some people like big fluffy scarves for warmth, some like small and more as an accessory than for being functional. I opted for an in-between.

Since Michelle actually picked out the yarn herself, I figured the scarf needed to show off the yarn more than the stitches ... and bouclé, being all bumpy and twisty, isn't conducive to showing stitch pattern anyway. I don't really remember the number of cast on stitches, somewhere around 12. It measured out to be 4" wide. Using the size 11 needles with such a bulky bouclé kept the knitting dense, disguising the plain garter stitch (which isn't my favorite in appearance). It shows off the both the puff of the yarn and it's bi-coloration nicely.

So, I, like I said, I made a pot of tea and popped in the first movie. I picked Das Boot because it's a long movie, I've seen it several times, and could "listen" more than watch. I'm not one of those enviable knitters who can knit without watching what they're doing. No sir, I've gotta' watch every stitch or I make a big mess. All things set, I started knitting. And knit. And knit. And knit. Three long movies and two pots of tea later I'd knit up another 60" of scarf, making it a total length of 72". Nice and long.

On Saturday after the store closed, Rena and I drove up the mountain to Asheville. Our first stop was Asiana for sushi. Very tasty, I might add. Then we zipped over to AC Moore crafts store to buy beading for the scarf. I thought it needed a bit of extra pizazz. We found a cool pre-woven rick-rack & bead combo by TrimTations. Matched perfectly. After finishing the knitting part of the scarf, I stitched the bead-trim to the ends. If I do say so myself, I think it turned out rather pretty.

See for yourself ...

And that was about the extent of my day. Not too bad. Only downside was it made me want a lot more days just like it.

Namaste, y'all ...

Decisions, decisions.

2008-11-04T22:00:00.001-05:00

I'm lying there in bed last night, completely frustrated over my attempt at painting. I reworked that damn butterfly from Hell seven times and STILL didn't like it one iota. Not one. Not even half an iota. Niet. Pas. Nicht. Non. Não. I don't even like it multilingually. And I stewed, just as I said I would. Stewed into the wee hours of the night.

Eventually, comprehension set it. I hate the shape of that damn butterfly. Wings are wrong. It's too flat. It's just wrong all over. Wrong. And then the question of what to do about it began rolling around in my head.

Damn butterfly.

--- Ah Ha! ---

Paint over the little bastard. I don't even care if it does screw up the background, which I was actually starting to like. It's acrylic. Get over it and paint over it. Adios old butterfly. Start fresh. A better butterfly. New and improved butterfly. Painter friendly butterfly. Nice butterfly.

So I did. Poof! A few swishes of the brush and bye-bye butterfly. I can't begin to describe the feeling of relief. No matter that so much effort disappeared in a matter of 2.3 minutes. It was good. It felt good.

Why does it take so long to figure this stuff out? Why do I keep working at something until I'm frazzled and cranky and hating every minute of the process? Why is it that I have such a hard time of recognizing a block and moving around it? I do this surprisingly often when I'm painting. It's as if I get stuck in trying to make something right (or work) and worry with it like a dog with a bone. Do other artists do that?

Anyway, I pilfered through my reference material, found a butterfly I like much better and have just finished drawing it onto the canvas a few minutes ago. On a roll now. At least, I was until I started thinking about coloration. Sheesh! Decision making time. There I am, feeling rather sassy and all geared up to sling some paint and Wham! I've got color issues.

I guess I should go sit and stew some more.

Namaste, y'all ...

All's quiet on the western front, that is, when the cat is sleeping.

2008-11-03T21:18:00.005-05:00

Life Of Leisure

Wow! It's been eons since my last post. Okay, maybe not eons, but close. Where does the time go? February was last week, wasn't it? Scary, this getting older thing and the way time zips by like a dragonfly on speed. The getting older part isn't bad. It's just the time thing that bothers me. Too much left to do. Good thing I plan on living until I'm 102. Since I just turned 44 yesterday, I've still got a long way to go.

So what's been going on over the past month? A lot. Big changes at the store. We've started our own publication called ACCESS. Considering there isn't much in the way of being able to advertise locally, it made sense to take matters into our own hands. Granted, it's going to be a huge, and sometimes frustrating, undertaking to put together each month but I think it's well worth the effort in the long run. Unfortunately, this is only our second month and it's too soon to gauge it's effectiveness. The response from people who have seen it has been positive and that's encouraging.

So far, both issues have taken far longer to get ready and to the printer than they should have. Both times there have been deadline issues, program issues, file issues and such. I know it's going to take awhile to really get the kinks out and have it be relatively easy to do monthly in a timely manner. That's the nature of graphics, printing, advertising, distribution, etc. I hate to say it, but it brings back bad memories of my days in the graphics industry and I'm not much likin' that part. But like I said, it's our best shot at getting the advertising we need to keep the store moving forward and the doors open.

Other changes are happening at the store as well. Some associates are gone, some hanging on, and some will probably go by the wayside before long. That's okay. Those who want to be there will be there and make use of the space available to them. Kind of like weeding the garden so the flowers have a better chance to grow and flourish. I'm disappointed about some of them not working out as I had hoped. Unfortunately, you can't make someone take advantage of a good opportunity, nor can you force them to do anything they aren't ready or willing to do. You just have to move on to the next thing and forget what didn't work out. I try to think of it as a positive thing (weeding) and believe the store will be the better for it.

Work in the studio has been painfully slow, almost non-existent. Although I've sneaked an hour here and there I haven't made much progress on the work-in-progress. It's really frustrating, wanting to paint and not having time ... or having a little time and not wanting to do it. To be perfectly honest, the painting isn't going like I want and I'm disgusted with it. I can't figure out what to do or where to go with it. Like having a flat tire, dead on the side of the road and no spare in the trunk. Do you wait for a ride or start walking?

I won't lie, I dread the thought setting it aside and starting on a new piece, but that's what I may have to do. Maybe I could try doing it smaller? The large canvas feels overwhelming given the amount of time I'm able to get in there and paint. I just don't know. Stew on it for awhile longer I suppose. But, I do have a few photos to add to the Wet Brush page on the website. Hopefully I'll get them posted in the next few days.

The quit smoking - hypnosis thing didn't work out after all. The therapist remembered another appointment she'd scheduled prior to scheduling mine and it kind of left me hanging. I'd gotten myself all worked up for that day and poof! No-go. Considering that she'd felt that I was going to be a "challenge" and had to do extra research in order to work with me, the difficulties we'd had with scheduling in the first place, and a couple of other issues, when I got her email about the prior appointment my confidence level in the process went straight down the tubes. I'm extremely disappointed and don't think, knowing how I am, that I could get it back very easily now.

I guess it means I'm going to have to figure a way to just do it on my own, even if I have a melt-down in the process. (I'm not sure if I'm kidding about that!) I do know if I chose to seek out a different hypnotherapist I'll have to find one with years of experience under their belt. Thing is, I just don't feel all excited about it like I did. My bubble got burst. I'm actually feeling rather sincerely crappy and sad about it. I felt like I'd found a viable source of help and the rug got pulled out from under me. But I'm not giving up on quitting! As I said, I just have to figure out a way to do it by myself. Wish me luck.

Got Tuck fixed. Knocked in neutral. Nipped & tucked. Poor fella'. Surprisingly, you wouldn't think anything was out of the ordinary with the way he's been ka-zingin' around the house ever since he got back home. One would be inclined to believe he's been smoking the catnip on the sly. Either that or he's happy as Hell to have come away from the vet's office alive, if not totally intact. At least it's over and done and he won't start doing that male cat thing of pissing all over the house to mark his territory. Folks, if you've ever had a boy cat markin' up the house, you make damn sure it isn't likely to happen again with any new boy cat you get. Pee-ew!

Well, sorry to end on a pissy note, but hey, I'm tired and I've still got lots of stuff to do before bedtime. But then, maybe I'll go to bed and get up early instead. Hmmmmm .......

Namaste, y'all ...

More changes and good days ahead ...

2008-09-30T09:00:00.001-04:00

No changes on the painting this weekend but a few other interesting things happened ...

1) Had a phone conversation with Sheila, a new friend and one of the associates with our store, this past weekend. She's simply delightful. She's a hypnotherapist and I'm going to have her help me with my smoking issue. Yes, I'm a smoker. Form your opinion about that and move on. I've smoked since I was twelve years old. I will be 44 in November. I've been trying to quit for a long time. Trust me when I say this, it's far easier said than done. You don't have to give me all the hoo-ha schpeel about how bad it is for me, what a nasty habit it is, blah, blah, blah. Heard it all before. I've attempted all the pills, patches, gum, tying myself up with rubber bands and assorted other gazillion and fifty three ways to stop smoking. Hasn't worked thus far.

I even tried hypnotherapy years ago. It was a "group" seminar a friend/fellow smoker asked me to attend with her. I sat in a metal folding chair, beside a terribly staticky speaker, in a crowded room, uncomfortable as a cat in a puddle. It was cold in the room. I couldn't hear the man conducting the session very well. I spent most of the hour shivering in my chair, looking around at the people there, and wishing I was someplace else. Long story short is as soon as I walked out of the building to leave I lit up a smoke. $40.00 down the tubes. (Or up in smoke.)

So why try hypnotherapy again? Well, this is different. It's one-on-one with someone I really like. Someone I would be comfortable with. In a place I'll be comfortable. And because I want to do it. I want to quit smoking. When I tried the group thing all those years ago I didn't really want to quit, not really. It makes a huge difference. This time, I'm looking forward to it. I've realized my quitting smoking isn't the physical withdrawals that bother me so much. Heck, I quit drugs and drinking years ago without any problems. It's the psychological aspect. It's a mind thing. Just the thought of being without cigarettes messes with my head. This is the heart of my addiction. This is where I have to focus the effort to quitting. I think hypnotherapy will be the key, for me, to breaking the habit. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. This time I'm ready. It will be a big change in my life, but this time I want to.

2) Two friends, one very near and dear to my heart and the other a somewhat new friend I think very highly of, fell head-over-heels, deep down to the giggly smiley bone, in love. Y'all, I couldn't be happier for them than if they had both won the Powerball Lottery for a gazillion bucks. I won't deny that some time back I planted a little seed in their brains about their spending time together. Both are single, about the same age, have an unbelievable amount in common, and it just seemed like a perfect match to me. Guess that little seed took root. I've been standing back, watching the sprouting like a proud Mamma. Looks like a has flower bloomed.

They came to see me this weekend to tell me they are officially a "couple". They wanted me to be the first to know. As if I couldn't see it for myself! Lordy! They were like silly teenagers. Smiling as if they'd just swallowed a handful of happy pills. His comment was, "Knocked on my ass." Honestly, I couldn't stop smiling either. It was beautiful. I loved seeing them so happy, so full of that mystical, magical feeling called love. Especially early stage, brand new, make you feel all tingly and giddy love. I can't imagine two people more perfect for each other.

And while I am coming to care very much for her, he has been a close friend for several years now. He's one of the few people in this world I actually trust. Seeing him smile, seeing him this happy, is better than words can describe. It's like seeing that illusive thing called "faith in something bigger" live and in action. He is an amazing human being, deserving of all the joy this world (and any other) has to offer. It fills my heart to bursting to see, to be a part of, such a blessing as this friend finding love in his life. It's a gift.

3) In a previous post I talked about a woman whom I called "Anne". I told you about my not being liked by this woman and spoke briefly about the troubles I've had with her. I also told you that because she is friends with some of my friends, I said I was willing to open our doors to her being a part of the store and it's changes if my friends felt she would be a benefit to us. Truthfully, I didn't think that would ever happen. Not because of my feelings toward her but because of what I believed her feeling toward me to be. Well, I have to say I got a big surprise about that this weekend. A really big surprise.

Seems Anne had told a mutual friend she thinks she may have cast unfair judgement on me and is open to mending the fence. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Really. I was shocked to my toenails. I think I was stunned speechless for a minute. I've thought about it since I heard it and am still in a mild state of shock. Naturally, at the first opportunity after hearing this yesterday I called my best friend (the one Anne almost caused me to lose) and told her about it. I needed to hear her opinion on the subject. She was shocked, too.

Part of what surprised me was my split-second initial reaction. Which was, Oh Hell No! I honestly thought I would have had a different reaction. I thought I was past such a reaction. I would have sworn I was. When I analyzed it I understood it was simply more fear bubbling up. Still a deep insecurity of Anne possibly destroying another friendship that I value. The thought of it makes me shiver to my bones. Yes, I have a deep fear on that level. But as I analyzed it further, I felt better because I know these friendships, the ones I fear losing, are stronger than Anne, stronger than anything she could say or do. These people know me and care about me. They would come to me if any problem or conflict should ever arise between us. And the feelings we have for each other would triumph over any conflict. While that knowledge didn't completely erase the fear, it abated it considerably. I'm still a non-confrontational person and part of the fear is in dealing with a conflict should it ever come up. That fear is an old, way back from early childhood, kind of fear. It's the same one I feel when I hear someone yelling or arguing. I don't know if I will ever get over that particular fear.

Anyway, on with the story. I told the friend who told me about Anne's desire to reconcile I would be willing to talk to Anne. But I have a couple of conditions and I don't think they are inappropriate or unreasonable considering the circumstance. The first being that I'm not going to be the one to make the first move. My conscience is clear about the past issues between Anne and myself and I don't feel I have anything to make ammends for. The second is that if Anne messes with any of my friendships, starts any crap, I will be on her like white on rice. I may be non-confrontational at heart, but I can attack when necessary. I won't hesitate to go for the throat with Anne. And, I'll boot her from our store, no matter what, faster than the speed of light. I will not allow her to mess with my friendships, and I most certainly not allow her to mess with the store. Period.

But my second reaction to this is "Wow?!". Yes, both exclamation point and question mark intended. I'm still puzzling over this coming up just a couple of days after my having posted a blog entry about Anne. Interesting timing. The question mark end of it is I'm very curious to see where this will lead. And why, after all these years, is she suddenly having a change of heart/attitude? I think it's partly because Anne has finally realized there was another person, who shall remain nameless, who is largely responsible for the trouble between us. And partly because she sees what we are building at the store, the potential for what it can and will be, and wants to be a part of it more than she wants to keep feeding her ill will toward me. I think it's good. Now, whether or not Anne will indeed call me or come to the store to talk to me remains to be seen.

4) The changes in myself, on a personal level, keep expanding and growing. Instead of feeling so confused and undirected in my life I am starting to feel the possibilites. Like the first glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. I'm seeing questions answered and old issues resolving. I'm thinking about things in new ways, with new eyes and a different attitude in my heart. I jokingly made the comment at the end of the previous post about Anne that maybe what I was thinking at the time showed me I was making progress. Maybe I was more right about that than I realized. I feel I am making progress with me.

I had a very long talk with a friend about my spiritual question/difficulties the other day. The feeling I had at the end of our conversation was relief. It wasn't a great "Ah ha!" kind of relief, more of a putting an extra warm blanket on the bed on a chilly night kind of relief. I felt relaxed in a way I haven't in a long, long time. No, I didn't solve all of my problems nor answer a lot of my questions, but it seemed like being confused and lacking clear direction wasn't as big of an obsticle in my way anymore. It feels like, no matter what my issues are right now, spiritual or whatever, that it's Okay. And it's going to continue to be Okay. I know, can feel, resolutions and answers are coming, and it won't be long. I'm looking forward to what's just down the road because I know it's all good.

Namaste, y'all ...

Cha cha cha chaaaangeeeesss ...

2008-09-23T14:26:00.004-04:00

I babbled on last post about my current work in progress and today I'm going to babble some more. Though I haven't posted the update photos on my Wet Brush page yet, I will soon. Hopefully in the next day or so. What I'm going to babble about is the changes that have already occurred in a very short time. Basically, overnight.

If you read last post, I spoke about how a work in progress is just that ... a work in progress. Now, I'm not going to presume to speak for other artists, though I know several who do this, but I sometimes deviate quite a bit from the original "plan" in my head for a painting when I work with acrylic in an abstract way. I almost always start out with something in mind, a thought or a word or a memory I want to express with the paint. If it's a portrait like Preordained, I stick with the program. Abstract is spur of the moment. On the other hand, with watercolor, I usually stick pretty darn close to the plan. There is a reason for that.

Watercolor isn't forgiving the way acrylics are. You don't just paint over something you don't like or isn't working for you. You're talking water, pigment, paper. Although watercolor is thought of as typically transparent, many of the pigments stain (IE: cadmium red) and won't lift from the surface of the paper without scrubbing. While that might be okay on occasion, most times it's a "no-no". Scrubbing the surface of paper lifts the fibers and creates rough spots which then disallow being able to do smooth gradients or blending - such as a soft check or neck area on a face like Orange Kimono. You get a rough spot there and, well, you're screwed. That smooth cheek looks like it has some kind of freaky skin disease. Unless you're willing to shift gears and make the painting more abstract or maybe a collage, nothing else to do but start over on a new sheet of paper.

Acrylics, on the other hand, lend themselves beautifully and perfectly to over-painting. They are opaque and cover each other up when used undiluted or in several layers if diluted not too thinly. When dry, they are somewhat like a thin film of plastic on the surface of the canvas. Where watercolors sort of soak in to the paper's surface, acrylics sit on top of the gesso coated canvas. Applied thickly enough to a relatively smooth canvas you can even partially peel them off if you want. I don't do that. I paint over.

What does this have to do with the work in progress? Well, I started using a dark bluish-purple on the butterfly to create some contrast against the pale blue/lavender background. As I mentioned before, I'm using An Ocean Of Time as a kind of reference for the current painting. On Ocean I used a dark brown to create contrast between the white and teal blue of the "water". I had thought to use the blue-purple as the contrast for the sky on this one. After getting the butterfly all painted up with the blue-purple color I stood back and just hated it. It's too stark. Even at this early stage in the process it just took over the whole thing. It threw the entire painting so off balance I knew if I used it as I had the brown in Ocean the entire work would be heavy and completely ruin the feeling of floating that I'm trying to convey.

My original "plan" was to do the painting quite different than where I've currently ended up. Where Ocean is brown, I'd thought to make this one white or a pale blue or lavender. Unfortunately, I realized I had painted the background so light that I thought the lighter color would not be contrasting enough and the butterfly (and some other elements I plan to include) wouldn't stand out the way I wanted it to. Conundrum. But not. Remember, I'm working with acrylics. I just got happy with the paint and darkened the background with a few thin glazes of paint, yet kept the 'blendiness' of the rainbow colors. Using water to thin the paint helps make different colors run into each other and creates more colors on it's own. Watercolor does this (though I don't use watercolor the way I use acrylics) and it's amazing. There is an artist, Roland Roycraft, who is incredible with pouring watercolor. I'm a fan of his watercolor work. Here's a couple of shamefully snitched without permission images to show you his lovely technique ...

Morning Mist by Roland Roycraft

Fall Birch by Roland Roycraft

Ah, so pretty ...

Now, moving along, this glazing of colors to darken the background pretty much obliterated the clouds I had painted on the canvas and that's okay. After studying them over the last couple of days I decided I wasn't really pleased with how they looked anyway. They were too defined, not as misty and vague as I had wanted. I can do them over, hopefully achieving the original effect I'd had in mind. This is exactly what is so nice about acrylics. If it ain't a'workin' ... paint over it!

Same goes with the butterfly. At the time of this posting it has already undergone several more metamorphoses. Pardon the pun. Right now, as I'm typing, I'm waiting for yet another change in it's paint job to dry. (I've taken a few breaks to paint while working on this post.) I have in my head an unclear idea of what I want it to look like and thus far haven't managed to make the paint cooperate enough to help me solidify the idea. What I'm going for is an effect much like the turtle in Ocean, a painterly effect. Not a fantasy butterfly, not a completely stylized butterfly, something dancing somewhere in between. The problem I've been having is I've been painting it too refined, to near realism and not loose and flowing as I 'see' in my head.

Well, maybe now the paint is dry and I can get some more work done ...

Namaste, y'all ...

It's about time.

2008-09-22T14:09:00.003-04:00

As promised in my previous post, I took pictures of my current work in progress and finally got them posted on my Wet Brush page of my website. Honestly, after redesigning the site and creating the page I really thought I'd be making good use of it. Ah well, you know what they say about good intentions and that road to Hell. Anyway, it's got something on it now and y'all are welcome to have a peek if you're so inclined.

The thing about creating the page was to give people an opportunity to see a real work in progress - after all, it's the title of this blog page; people want to see an artist work; and also, it was meant to help get me over the fear factor of showing incomplete work. What you start out with is often times not what you end up with. All the stages in between can be sometimes pretty cool looking and sometimes what I call "the ugly stage." More times than not, until it's near completion, the work lurks mostly in that ugly place. The husband is one of the worst for asking things like, "Why is that spot there?" or "Is this going part to stay like this?" It can be very irritating because, typically, what he's questioning is part of the painting I haven't worked much on. It will be changing, developing, and I don't always know exactly how yet.

When I paint, I move around the image a lot. I work on one area, then another, then another, etc. Typically, I don't "complete" an area until I have worked on some part of the entire thing. A lot of artists out there do finish one area at a time. I can't do that. I like being able to mess with this part or that, build up this and compare it to that, and so forth. I might work one area while another is drying. I might be having so much fun (or trouble) with one area I keep at that place until I'm satisfied with it. Like doing a puzzle. Piece and part at a time.

So, when I show work that isn't complete, I sort of duck my head 'cause I know someone out there is going to look at it and think it's messed up or pick it apart .... all because, like the husband, they have a hard time grasping that IT ISN'T FINISHED yet. Just like with the current work in progress, if you look at it, you will see I changed the butterfly design. I don't show all the photos, but I even changed the butterfly coloration several times. I changed the clouds a couple of times. Nothing, at this time, is set in stone and it's all subject to change at any given moment. And thus, as I said, I'm hoping the page will help me with the issue of displaying unfinished work. That's my theory anyway.

On to another subject entirely...

I had a friend over last night and we spent a long time talking about a lot of things. It was a really nice evening and as it went along I realized more and more why I like this person so much. She's wickedly funny, intelligent, and very insightful about many things. She opens mental doors for me by simple statements she makes or even through some of the questions she asks. She makes me think and I love that. One of the things which kept knocking around in my head long after she left was in regards to a discussion we had about a mutual acquaintance. For ease of story telling I'm going to call this acquaintance "Anne."

Now, Anne, for reasons I can't presume to know or attempt to explain, doesn't like me. I think it was one of those instant dislikes from the first moment we met a long time ago. Honestly, I felt her wall go up the minute I looked into her eyes and said, "Hello." Ya' know, reality is that not every person you meet will like you ... and vice versa. That's life and I accept it for what it is. Although I felt her dislike I tried to be friendly with her, accept her into my life because she was friends with my friends, and because it's just the right thing to do. Do unto others and all that jazz. What was very hard to accept was how her dislike of me infiltrated a friendship I had with someone else. I won't go into details but suffice it to say it created a tension between my friend and I. We resolved the thing, but I pulled away from having any more contact or association with Anne than absolutely necessary.

Some time later it happened again. And again, I'm not going into details. Let's just say that this time it was much worse. It involved the same friend and I came within a gnats' ass of losing the friendship. It almost broke my heart to think I was going to lose my friend. I don't get close to many people and when I do I invest a lot of my heart into the relationship. I see that relationship as a lifelong investment, a commitment, that I take very seriously. Naturally, in response to a perceived threat to my other friendship, I made every attempt to shut anything to do with Anne out of my life completely. I didn't hate her, I simply didn't want anything to do with her. I detached myself emotionally from her and her feelings towards me; pretty much thought of her as if she didn't exist. For a long time it worked.

A while back, it almost happened again with a different, relatively new friend who also knows Anne. The fear of losing a growing friendship I was enjoying and coming to care about, the frustration of Anne harboring her resentments against me, just the whole issue of her having any effect on my life at all really got under my skin for a little while. This new friend and Anne had had a "falling out" and I had encouraged my new friend to try to rebuild her friendship with Anne. But I'll tell ya', Anne certainly felt like a bad penny that kept turning up no matter what I did. I'd been out of any contact with Anne for several years and if anyone brought up her name to me I always said the same thing, "I think Anne is a beautiful, intelligent, creative and talented woman." I do feel that way about her. I may dislike other things about her behavior, but I can admit, willingly so, she has some positives, too. We all have positives and negatives. She's no different.

With the last incident, that it angered me and frustrated me for a couple of days, made me realize I hadn't let go of the fear of her creating problems between my friends and I. It wasn't really her, it was my own insecurity talking. It's an old insecurity, goes way back, based on the experiences of losing people or things I would get emotionally attached to. After a bit of mulling this over, I had to thank her (silently and to myself, of course) for helping me deal with an old bag of rocks I'd been carrying around. It also helped me to see how some of the people I care about care about me in ways I hadn't really been seeing clearly. Valuable learning experience. A personal growth experience. Life lesson. Point taken.

Anne came up in the conversation with my friend and I last night because I had mentioned Anne in relationship to some changes going on in the store. I had wondered if Anne might be another person who could be a part of what we're working on building with this business. Part of me suggested it because I realize Anne is still friends with some of my friends; part because I believe Anne to be creative and talented and a potential benefit on those terms; partly because I know Anne could probably use the money she could make from the store; and because I was trying to be nice. I did tell my friend I didn't know if Anne could get past the "me" part of associating with the store, but I would at least be willing to try. If it bit me in the ass again it would be no one's fault but my own. I did have hesitations and such, but I would try if my friends thought Anne was someone they wanted as part of the business.

My friend, after talking for awhile, asked me point blank, that given the history between Anne and myself, my reservations and hesitations and all of that, why I would even suggest it. I think I mouthed out all of the reasons I thought were behind it. I meant them when I said them. But later, after I was alone and getting ready for bed I realized I think I wanted more the opportunity to truly put it all behind me. I'll say it again, you can't go through life with the thought that everyone you meet will like you. You'll be quickly disappointed and disillusioned on that notion. I don't expect Anne to like me. I don't expect to change her mind. I don't want to make apologies for things I didn't do and try to smooth things over. I don't want to even attempt to rehash any of it. As I thought about it more, I understood it wasn't resolution or forgiveness or closure or any of those things I wanted. I simply want to move forward away from it. But I also realized that I care about my friends and the success of what we're doing that I am willing to accept Anne for the benefit of the whole if she would indeed be such a benefit.

As I lay there in the dark thinking about it I had one of those little epiphanies: Anne has taught me another lesson. I was learning a lesson of the heart ... I have some of the most amazing, caring, beautiful friends anyone could ever hope to have. And although at this time I'm having my own struggle with self-worth and emotional detachment towards myself, blah, blah, blah, my heart is still open to them, my friends. It's wide open. It's exposed and vulnerable and I'm really, surprisingly, okay with it. For once, instead of fearing it, I'm deeply grateful for it. Instead of retreating to my own little world as I would normally do when I'm having self issues, I'm still keeping my heart, and my little world, open to others. Big major step for me. A "Holy Shmoly!" kind of step for me.

I'll take it to mean I'm making progress. :)

Namaste, y'all ...

Back in the saddle again ...

2008-09-17T21:19:00.005-04:00

This past weekend I had all I could stand of not being in my studio. It’s been months and I haven’t painted anything. Nada. Nary a drop of paint has touched a brush since sometime in May, I think. See … it’s been so long I don’t remember when it was. Damn. That's just pathetic.

The store, and life in general, has taken a lot of time and effort and there hasn’t been much left over for, energy-wise or creativity-wise, working on art. And lately there's been so much stress in my little world that I don’t want to do much more than crawl in the bed and sleep for three months. Since that isn’t likely to happen any time soon I realized I need to take a mind-break. I needed to find a space to retreat. For me that is painting. I’m not one of those artists who can multitask when it comes to working. I get focused on the painting and tune everything else out. It’s a kind of meditation for me. At least, most of the time it’s a meditation. This weekend it wasn’t.

Why? Three factors. One, the husband was home. Now, you might not think this would be a problem but it often is. I love to be alone when I paint, getting into the process, maybe listening to some music, burning incense, groovin’ with my paints and brushes. The minute I get into the studio and get a brush in my hand the husband invariably comes in to see what’s going on. It’s like the studio has become a huge magnet and he’s iron filings. Y’all, I honestly do understand a non-painter’s fascination with watching an artist paint or draw, but it’s still irritating. They want to watch up close, ask questions or engage in general chit-chat – which is completely distracting to me. It’s like being on display and it makes me tense and easily frustrated. I can’t get lost in what I’m doing, focusing on how the brush feels or how the paint moves across the paper or canvas. I can’t get Zen with the colors and the magic of how they blend together. In essence, I can’t get my groove on. And no, it’s not an option to ask him to not come into the studio while I’m working. I won’t even get into trying to explain the reasons. It’s just the way it is and we’ll move on.

The second factor is a bit more complicated, weird even. Given the fact that I’ll be the first to admit that I’m weird you’d thing it wouldn’t be a problem. Yeah, well. The thing is, and if you’re an artist you might understand this a little better, being out of the studio for so long has a psychological effect … fear of painting. How do you even begin to explain being afraid of doing something you love so much? I already have insecurities about my artistic talents. It’s not an uncommon thing among artists, trust me on that. We are our own worst critics. But the fear comes from this bazaar mind game of thinking about doing the work, craving doing the work, being unable to do the work for an extended period of time and when you finally get to do it, you freeze. You wonder if you can remember how. Like I said, it’s weird. Add a want-to-watch husband and it really compounds the issues, in spades.

The third monkey wrench in my painting works this weekend was a cat (Tuck) who has yet to learn the rules of being in Mom’s studio while she’s working, or trying to work. Creepy had been with me so long she’d learned what she could and couldn’t do. She’d come in, drink some water out of my water jars (preferably one I’d used to clean a paint brush in!), then find a spot and chill out. Tuck, on the other hand, wants to walk on the canvas while it’s wet, stick his nose/toes in the paint, pester me every 2.7 seconds for attention, chew on paint brushes, chase the brush across the canvas when I’m trying to paint, attack my feet, on and on and on and on. He’s cute as Hell but he’s relentless. Naturally, I'd try to be patient with him, be understanding that he’s still a kitten, hasn’t had time to learn the rules (and it hasn’t helped that I haven’t painted since he came to live with me), and of course, with both Creepy and Tesah gone he’s got no one else to play with except me.

Despite all the distractions, irritations and fear, I did manage to get some painting done. It was coming along reasonably well, all things considered, when the husband walked in for the bazillionth time and asked, “So, how does it feel to be back in the saddle again?” There I was, on the floor in the studio (where I like to work with acrylics and large canvases), feeling all bugged out anyway, and he asks me that. I had to stop and make myself breathe. I wanted to have a tantrum. Instead, I just paused, breathed slowly a couple of times, and then made myself say, “Fine.” He hesitated at the doorway for second then beat-feet it down the hall to the living room. I think he suddenly realized he’d just crossed a line.

Simple, innocent question, you might say. But if you know the husband you know that it was a loaded question. It meant he’s very aware of my lack of painting and he doesn’t like it. It was his way of conveying this, sugarcoated and mild mannered. And it really pissed me off. Excuse me, but I’m more aware than anyone that I haven’t been painting. To the bone aware of it. I don’t need to be poked and prodded about it. It’s not like I can pull ten extra hours a day out of my butt and be in the studio working. I do like to sleep sometimes. Anyway …

Back to what I did manage to get done. When I was last painting, I had started an abstract and had gotten relatively close to finishing it. I propped it against a wall and studied it for awhile. I kept getting that feeling that it just wasn’t complete as it was but I couldn’t figure out the best resolution. I tossed around a couple of things but they just didn’t work. So it lingered in the studio, frustratingly unfinished. I took it to work with me one day last week to get my art buddy/business partner Paul to give me his opinion. After some discussion we came up with what I thought was a pretty good idea. Later that evening I started implementing the idea. Halfway through I again propped the work up again to study it. That’s when it hit me … I didn’t like the painting. I didn’t like the way the whole damn thing looked. It didn’t flow, didn’t feel like what I’d had imagined and tried to convey. The colors that had seems so exciting a few weeks before now seem depressing and flat. It had no oomph. It just didn’t work for me.

God is an artist and that’s why he invented gesso. Hail gesso! An artist’s best friend. I got out my big jug, a big brush, and painted over the entire canvas. Granted, it still had the texturizing medium I’d put on it for the abstract but hey, I can live with texture. That canvas was nice and white and clean again. Ready for something new. I feel the need for something light, something less abstract, something like An Ocean Of Time. So that’s what I’ve started. Only it’s a butterfly instead of a sea turtle. Blue’s and lavender’s and magenta’s and yellow’s and green’s. We’ll see where it goes. And you can, too, because I’ve been taking pictures as I’ve been working so that I can put it on my web page, The Wet Brush. I think it’s sucked pond water that I created the page and haven’t had a good chance to use it. I hope to get the images I have thus far up this coming weekend. I’ll let you know.

For now, it’s late and it’s time to get some sleep.

Namaste, y’all …

This goodbye came way too soon ...

2008-09-15T21:35:00.006-04:00

Why it happens is a question there is no satisfactory answer for. Some say it's just life. Some say it's God giving you an angel for a short time. Some say it's just a mystery. I think I'm inclined to believe it's a bit of each. I just know for certain that in the short time, two months and one week, Tesah was a part of my life I came to love her very much. She was a sweet, delicate, and precious ball of dust bunny fluff. She's been gone two days now and I still look for her to come running across the floor to jump into my lap.

I'm still listening for that funny little burbling sound she made when she thought she was alone and was calling for me or Tuck.

I miss the way she "made biscuits" with her front paws when I scratched her back.

I miss the way she would sing when she purred.

I miss her sweet little face and the way she would touch her nose to mine.

I just wasn't prepared for this loss, not so soon after Creepy passed way, not so soon after Tesah came to live with me. This has been hard. This hurts.

Long story short is that about a week ago I noticed Tesah wasn't acting quite right. Not eating like a horse as usual. Drinking a lot of water. Refusing to play with Tuck. Not exactly lethargic but not very active. She wanted to be in my lap constantly. I also noticed that her abdomen seemed distended more than it should be. I thought she might have eaten something that was blocking her digestive system but noticed she was using the litter box relatively normally. She didn't seem to be in any pain, just not feeling good. I thought that maybe ... well, I thought a lot of things.

I took her to the vet's office on Saturday morning and Dr. Jennifer diagnosed her with Feline Infectious Peritonitis. She could have been born with it, it's hard to say because she said it doesn't usually show up until 3 months to 3 years of age. Tesah, best we could guess, was about three months old. There is no effective treatment for FIP. No cure. And it's contagious. Being diagnosed with this disease meant two things: 1) Tesah was going to die no matter what I did and 2) she could no longer be anywhere near Tuck.

The things that ran through my mind were these: I was not going to let Tesah suffer just because I wanted more time with her; even if I were that selfish I couldn't keep her locked up in a bedroom, isolated and alone; I couldn't risk putting Tuck's life in further danger (though he's still not out of the woods yet); and that as hard as it was going to hurt I would have to put Tesah down.

And that is what I chose to do. I held her little body in my arms as she passed, humming a lullaby to her as her heart stopped beating. I brought her home and buried her on the hill behind the house, just a short distance from where Creepy was buried on July 5th. This was the first time I've ever had to do such a thing as make the choice to put an animal down. It was horrible.

Tesah came to me on July 6th through my friend Sue, as a buddy for Tuck and a balm to my heart after Creepy's passing. And she was a precious gift indeed. I thank Sue, and I thank God, for the short time she was with me.

Goodbye, my baby Tesah.

Perplexity

2008-09-08T10:35:00.001-04:00

As defined by Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary:

Main Entry: per·plex·i·ty
Pronunciation: \pər-ˈplek-sə-tē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural per·plex·i·ties
Etymology: Middle English perplexite, from Middle French perplexité, from Late Latin perplexitat-, perplexitas, from Latin perplexus
Date: 14th century

1 : the state of being perplexed : bewilderment 2 : something that perplexes 3 : entanglement

Synonyms of the word 'perplex' by Roget's Super Thesaurus: confuse, puzzle, mix up, *discombobulate, confound, muddle, befuddle, mystify, baffle, bewilder, dumbfound. ANT. clarify, enlighten, *show the light.

As defined by Carol S. Martinez: stewing in your own juices.

Now, you might be asking, what in the name of St. Peter's pajamas has all that got to do with anything? Well, this post is going to be a long, rambling diatribe in an attempt to explain. Of course, the short of it is the word sums up my current state of existence. Feel free to stop reading right now if that explains it well enough for you. Otherwise, you're welcome to read on and hopefully you won't end up in a state of perplexity, too.

For a long time I've had an internal war raging in my head, in my heart, and it's beginnings are based on those age old questions: What is the purpose of life? Of my life? What am I doing? Where am I going? What am I supposed to do and how do I do it? It's the journey of spirit and I don't think there are many people who haven't asked themselves those same questions. If you haven't, well, bless your heart. Stand up and take a bow ... then tell the rest of us what your secret is. 'Cause we'd really like to know.

Over the past few years the war has gotten louder, stronger, and increasingly more difficult to ignore. Oh, sure, the mundane worries of life sometimes drown it out for awhile. Then it rears it's ugly head and shakes a fist in my direction. It demands attention, much like a two-year old having a full fledged tantrum. A heap of flailing arms and legs, sprawled out on the floor in the middle of the department store isle, wailing and screaming echoing to the rafters.

And there is naught in the world which will console that raging two-year old. No demanding. No placating. No pacifying. No promises of cookies and sticky sweet oceans of candy. Nothing but to drag it out of the store, your shoulders hunched in defeat beneath your flaming red coat of embarrassment and humiliation, and cart it's screaming ass home. By the time you get there you're hopeful it will have expended it's nasty little temper and fallen asleep in the car seat, angelic expression on it's innocent face. You spend the next hour, as it slumbers peaceful and quiet as a church on Saturday night, wondering why in the Hell you thought procreation was a good thing. And you wonder what set that wee bit of humanity off to such an extreme in the first place.

It's a right of passage with two-year olds. Ya' know - the terrible two's. The reasoning behind a tantrum is rather simple ... when confronted with what feels like an intolerable situation the reaction (although an overreaction) is to have a angry melt-down of epic proportions. A monumental cleansing purge of emotion. Like a good cry or a mind blowing orgasm. Being totally in the moment. Being the moment. It occurs on all levels of mind, body and spirit, with complete abandon. When looking at it from a world worn and weary adult perspective it's really an enviable thing.

But, if you're still reading, you're probably asking what the war is all about. What's it's subject? Who is fighting and why are they fighting. The answer to that is both simple and complex. The 'who' is, as you would rightly guess, Me #1 vs. Me #2. Why we are embattled will lead you straight back to those aforementioned age old questions. But that doesn't really explain anything, now does it? So let's roll up our sleeves and get down and dirty.

Me #1 spent most of her life in a cocoon. Dysfunctional childhood and all that psychobabble crap you'll find plastered on the cover of 2.2 million books on the shelves at Barnes & Noble or Walden's Books or wherever you shop for reading material. You can find it all sweetly and safely packaged in the 'self-help' section. I mention it this way because a couple of those very same types of books smacked me between the eyes like a two-by-four way back in 1990. Adult Children of Alcoholics by Jane Woitiz fractured my little cocoon. The second was My Parent's Keeper: Adult Children of the Emotionally Disturbed by Eva Marian Brown. Well, damn. I sprung a leak. It's been a wild ride ever since.

I'm not going to go into a big elaboration of the effects of reading those books. Suffice it to say my eyes were not simply opened, my eyelids suddenly felt as if they had been peeled off. Once the light comes on, it's on, and slinking back to the dark corner isn't an option 'cause there are no more dark corners to slink off to. You pretty much have to sit and stew in your juices, like it or not. It's not fun, it's not happy-happy-joy-joy. It's growth. It's illumination. It's your life and you have to live it every day. You chose ... am I a victim or am I a survivor? Y'all, there's a big difference. Me #1 was a victim.

Me #2 (survivor) surfaced after the rude awakening of Me #1. Presumably, making the choice to be a survivor and saying hello to the light is a positive thing. Well, certainly it is. But it's hard work. Newly awoken survivors now have to learn just how to be a survivor. Being a victim, though miserable, is relatively easy. You sit back and blame the world for what's wrong with your life. You're not responsible. You don't have any obligation to fix anything because you didn't break it in the first place. Survival means realizing you really did play a part in breaking it. And even if someone else helped, it's still solely up to you to fix it. That partner(s) in destruction is probably still being a victim. Unless they get their eyelids peeled back too, they will remain in the dark, they will remain a victim and there isn't a fucking thing you can do about it. You're in a boat, in the middle of an ocean with no land in sight, and you've got two oars and a travel bag with bare essentials.

So now what? You start rowing. Most people will start reading every self-help book they can get their hands on. After all, you assume that with 2.2 million of them on the shelves somebody has figured it out, somebody has an answer. I know I did. Then comes the realization that all those books talk a lot but don't give you a perfect answer. It takes a little time, but soon you begin to comprehend a scary truth: it's a cold, hard fact that there is no perfect answer. Nobody really knows the true way of survival. You've got to figure it out on your own. Remember - one boat/two oars/travel bag. That should have been your first clue.

You row a little further. Sometimes in the distance you think you see land. It's a faint, hazy gray spot on the horizon and you start rowing for all your worth. Now, if you recall from older posts, my personal opinion is that the Divine has a really twisted sense of humor. No matter how hard you row you never seem to get any closer. Sometimes it disappears from view so completely you'd think you were in the middle of a desert having some whacked out mirage experience. You're sitting there in your little boat yelling at God, saying stuff like, "But! But! But it was just there! Land Ho! and all that, damnit!" Sometimes, the Divine likes to remind via mind tricks of disappearing land that you just have to tuck those oars into the boat and take a siesta, even when you're not sleepy. Just try to make a two-year old take a nap in the middle of a really good play session. Oh yeah, you can bet your bananas a tantrum will ensue.

Sometimes it goes the other way. You're all snuggled in with your blankie and the Divine whips up a nice tropical storm. Ya' just thought you had those oars stowed away all secure, didn't ya'? How about a real bit of excitement? Let's just see what you can do with hurricane season, smarty pants. Thank you very much, God. Appreciated that. Boat floods. Oars scattered to the four winds. Wet as a herring. Snugly blankie all soggy. No nap for you #2. No sir. Can't have you sleeping on the survivor job. I have been known to give the Divine the finger a time or two. Great act of defiance with only momentary and fleeting amounts of satisfaction. Trust me on that.

When you do finally hit land your shoes are good and squishy, even walking on sand. But damn, you think, that sand feels good just the same. It's spring time and there's warm sunshine, salt breeze, swaying palm trees and coconuts. You think you might like living on the beach for awhile. Were it not for the way sand can gets into everything, including your skivvies even when you're fully dressed and theoretically protected, you would probably stay right were you are. But sand in your skivvies is not a comfortable thing. So you move inland. You wade through swamps, trudging through the mud and the muck, searching for higher ground with fewer creepy-crawlies and no mosquitoes. Again, the Divine only gave you the oars and a travel bag with essentials, not bug spray. You have to keep moving, learning what can help you navigate and survive.

Eventually you get to a spot with soft grass, maybe some shade trees, gentle rolling hills with a scattering of wild flowers. It's summertime and the sun is high. Might get lucky and find a fruit tree or wild grape vine. You think, "Nice place. I'll stop here and rest for awhile." You've learned a thing or two about making use of the things in your surroundings. You've learned that small, dry sticks make a warm fire when you're cold. Leaves and grass make a soft bed and your now dry blankie is snuggable again. Through trial and error you've learned what plants to eat for nourishment and strength, what plants heal wounds, what plants repel mosquitoes. Life seems pretty darn good. The Divine didn't tell you about autumn. Didn't tell you about winter. Oh no, you thought those summer days were endless. You were wrong.

Fall is really beautiful with it's changing colors. The crisp blue sky and a slight chill in the air. It's refreshing after a hot summer of survival. Slowly but surely you see the landscape around you is changing. The colors fade and the leaves fall to the ground. The blue sky shifts towards gray and the chill in the air isn't burned away by a bright sun. Nope, that sun is steadily growing weaker, paler. Little warmth and pallid light. You can't live out in the elements anymore so you start searching for shelter. Before the first flakes of snow start falling on your head, you pack your new travel bag, the one you made when your first one wore out, with all your stuff and start another journey. You head for the distant mountains, where you think you might find a cave to live in, a place to ride out the winter storms.

It doesn't take long to reach the foot of the mountains, to find a suitable cave to inhabit. You've developed skills through the previous seasons. You've started to understand the responsibility of being a survivor. You know it's hard work but you've achieved a measure of success and reaped a bit of reward for your efforts. The Divine patted you on the head. But to make sure you were really paying attention, while you were all secure in your blankie during you're first night in your new cave the Divine called up a blizzard with twenty-two inches of snow and ice. Maybe you learned some stuff, but snow and ice wasn't in the program. You spent all your time in a warmer climate. You were wearing sandals. Sand in your skivvies seems like bliss compared to frostbite.

But the beach is a long way back, down the mountain not up. Survival means you have to make another choice ... freeze to death or figure out how to keep warm, how to find food and nourishment in a frozen world, how to protect your delicate little digits from frostbite. After a nice tantrum, you use your hands, wrapped in pieces of your blankie, to dig underneath the snow and ice. You find wood, moss, sharp stones. You discover snow melts into water when heated. You learn to tap trees for sap, strip bark for weaving. You learn to hunt. You learn to survive through ways you hadn't thought you were capable of. Hadn't even imagined. Your skills develop to an entirely new level. You've mastered your environment vs. it mastering you.

Spring comes 'round again and you start feeling a subtle Divine nudge to move up the mountain a little further. After all, you are a survivor, on a journey of exploration, heading for your mountain top. You know summer will follow the spring and living will be easier. You're experienced and believe you can be well prepared for the fall and winter. Surely there will be shelter up there. Surely there will be everything you need to survive. You pack your travel bag, slip on sturdier footwear and set out. Feeling confident and capable. You climb a distance up the mountain and suddenly you notice some really big rocks scattered here and there. "No problem!", you think to yourself. "I'm a survivor." Oh you foolish, foolish child. You got cocky, thinking the Divine was going to leave you to your own devices. You'd proven you could survive a hurricane at sea, a blizzard at the foot of a mountain. You thought you knew stuff. You didn't know squat. And God was watching.

Gradually the rocks become a little bigger, a bit more concentrated. You have to climb over some, navigate around others. You stumble over one or two. Some, you discover, are half buried beneath the underbrush and leaves. You have to watch where you're stepping more than check out the sights of what's around you. You also realize the mountain is far steeper than you thought. Periodically you have to stop and take a breather. You didn't know the air was thinner up here, didn't even cross your mind. You didn't know the ways of the mountain. You were a flat lander. You weren't as prepared as you believed and it's disconcerting. The travel bag gets heavier but you're afraid to cast anything aside lest you need it further up the mountain.

Days you climb and nights you find a place among the rocks and trees to rest. Spring turns to summer, then autumn. Being a survivor, you know already that the coming winter won't make good traveling so you start hunting and find a new cave to shelter in. You know to prepare as much ahead as possible to help you get through the coming storms, the snow and ice. You've gathered lots of firewood, nuts and berries, you have stones and moss and warm moccasins instead of sandals. You think winter will be a good time for resting, for storing up your reserves for the spring and resuming your climb up the mountain. You have visions of reaching the summit and believe you're going to make it through just fine and dandy.

Happily, you do just that. You weather not one, not two, but four or five snow storms through the long, gray winter. The skills you've learned have proven you can take what comes and survive. But God's still watching, waiting in the wings, preparing you for the next leg of the journey. Letting you get good and ready before the trap springs. And it's a real doozie. Caught between summer and autumn you stumble and roll part of the way back down the mountain. Laying there in a daze you check yourself for broken bones, a punctured lung, a fractured skull. The wind really got knocked out of you. Half the contents of your travel bag are scattered across the terrain like dry leaves in strong breeze. You lost a moccasin. Suddenly it seems just too hard to keep going. The mountain is too steep, there isn't enough time left to climb back to where you were and still prepare for the next winter. All the things you held dear and important in that travel bag are scattered and broken. You think you just aught to give up. Lay there in a little heap of pathetic humanity and stop trying. But then you remember you're a survivor. Now is a good time for another tantrum. It isn't productive, but it damn sure feels good. You then get busy, hunkering down right where you are, gathering whatever you can to get you through 'til you can resume the climb.

Slowly, year after year, you begin to realize just how far up the top of your mountain really is. You also begin to suspect you might not get there, that the act of climbing is the point, not actually reaching the goal. This is an unpleasant consideration. Everything in you has urged you onward and upward to the top of that damn mountain. This is when you discover a very subtle, sneaky Divine kink in the works. Doubt. It's not a physical situation to deal with. It's a mental one. Doubt opens the door for a host of other things to come crawling in. Doubt is the harbinger for perplexity, the instigator of wars, the fly in the ointment.

Here we get, at long last to some nitty-gritty. Me #1 was a classic victim. I wasn't the problem, the world was the problem. I had an alcoholic father; a not so stable mother; I wasn't hugged and snuggled as a baby; my first bike was a $6.50 used hunk of scrap metal and rubber from the Salvation Army and not the flashy, brand new bike my brother got; I had to make my own cake for my 16th birthday and celebrated alone; blah, blah, blah. Everything and everyone else made my life miserable. It wasn't me. I didn't do anything. After all, I was the victim. It sucked, but it was easier.

Me #2 woke up and smelled the coffee. Me #2 chose to be a survivor. I chose the hard road, the uphill climb to the top of the mountain. I chose to struggle through the mud and the muck; the storms of winter; head-long tumbles down my mountain just to get back up and start the climb all over again. And for what? What was the point of it all? Just what did I think I'd find up there at the top? What would I do with it when I found it? What difference would it make in my life? To be honest, I really can't answer any of those questions. I don't have a clue. And therein lies the delimma. Yet there, hidden somewhere in those answers I don't have, lies the key to winning the war. No two-year old tantrum will give me the answers. I have to keep climbing, keep making the journey up the mountain.

Recently I read a book, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, and while it wasn't a novel of epic proportions and life changing pros it still made my head swim with thoughts and created even more questions than I already had. Stoked the fires of war a little more. But let's get to the heart of it. More than just down and dirty. True confessions at it's most bare. I'm searching for the meaning of Me #2. I'm searching for what makes my soul dance and the way to always hear that music. The way to live the dance once I've found the tune. I want to know how to live in this material world with peace in my heart yet I want to live in a cave on a mountain and come to know who and what God really is. I want to not have questions with no answers. I want to know what I'm supposed to be doing with me and my life.

Sometimes it's really hard to get up and do another day without feeling any sense of real direction and focus. The mundane worries of life seem to feed off my energy and I don't want to think about the bigger picture of God and my soul and my life's purpose. On the flip side, there are days when all I want to do is sit somewhere, quiet and alone, and wait for God to whisper in my ear and tell me the secret to living. Sometimes I think if I have to answer another phone call, open one more bill in the mail, clean the cat's litterboxes, get in my Jeep and drive into town, dust the coffee table or make the bed just one more time I will lose my mind.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Not looking in the right places for answers. I've read literally hundreds of books about life, spirituality, the meaning of it all and how to have a wonderful life. Every now and then a little nugget of wisdom shows up and gives me a spark of hope, a few more days of willingness to climb a little further up the mountain. Sadly, yet oddly and inexplicably, the hope seems to fade and I'm stuck right back where I was. Full of unanswered questions and a heart full of frustration.

When I look around at other people I sometimes see what appears to be a person who has found a few of those answers. I get both excited and envious. I want to ask them how they did it. What was their trick, their secret to success. But I'm not really even sure how to ask. I know what works for them isn't what will work for me. That's the sneaky part about spirituality ... it's highly individualized. Your way to God will not be my way to God. You can tell me to pray Hail Mary's, to meditate, to open my heart, to open my mind, to chant and whistle and shake marracas 'til the cows come home but that doesn't mean it's going to work for me. I still have a wall and I don't know how to tear it down.

And there you go ... the heart of the matter. I feel disconnected from my spirituality, from the Divine, and I don't know what to do about it. I want to do something but I haven't a clue what that might be. I don't want to spend months and years learning some transcendental hoo-hoo levitation technique (okay, yes I really would like to be able to levitate). I know living isolated on a mountain for twenty-one years ain't gonna' happen. Hell, I find it difficult to sit and meditate every day much less have to get into some complicated metaphysical wand waving, crystal chanting, marraca shaking, drum banging, ceremonial hoop-la.

Then again, my mind rationalizes, ceremony and/or the faithful practice of a spiritual routine creates a safe place to open your heart and puts you in a quiet enough place to hear God whispering in your ear. But why does it feel so ridiculous and fake and foolish whenever I try to do it? And don't think I haven't tried. I have. I've got rosary beads and sage bundles and guided meditations CD's and crystals and statues of Buddha and candles of every color in the rainbow. I've sat in the woods in the day time. Sat in the woods by firelight. I've sat in the middle of a creek and I've prayed in candlelight while soaking in the water scented luxury of my garden bathtub. I've gone to lectures and watched DVD's and read more books on spirituality than God and the law should have allowed to be printed.

Nothing clicks. Nothing sticks. Nothing sparks and lights me up and fills me with hope and spiritual union. No nirvana. No Zen bliss. I'm at a loss about it. I'm at war about it. My heart cries out for something it can't even name. My head tells me it's right there - I'm just not looking hard enough, not climbed my mountain far enough. But I'm so tired. I'm so disillusioned with everything. I'm staring in horror at a world of material greed and chaos, which is falling apart at the seams with corruption and monumental sadness, and I'm lost. I want to DO something but haven't a clue as to what to do. I'm seeing how far we all are from anything deeply moving, deeply meaningful and fulfilling, and I don't see an effective way to change it. And I feel smothered by it. I keep thinking that if I find my own spiritual union I'll find an answer. I'll find hope. I'll find the reason for my life and the purpose for living it.

When I look at the blessings in my life I feel ashamed. I have a warm and safe home to live in; a good husband who cares for me and supports me even if he doesn't really understand me; amazing and beautiful friends I'm not entirely certain I'm worthy of; a new business that has done better in it's short existence than I ever imagined it would - and which also provides me the opportunity to help others; I have relatively good health and insurance to help keep it that way; and I have dozens of other little things that bless my life with abundance to the point I should have absolutely no reason to complain or feel lacking. Most anyone would ask me what the Hell my problem is. Why am I having a tantrum when I've already got so much?

I won't lie to you. It's just not enough. It isn't satisfying and spiritually nourishing. It doesn't feed my soul. Would it matter what car I drove or what job I had if I woke every morning to the feeling of the Divine's light in my heart? I hardly think so.

As I said way back at the beginning. A long diatribe of rambling thoughts that lead nowhere. An attempt to explain what I'm feeling, what I'm thinking about, where I am. I'm sure I'm not alone in these thoughts, feelings and questions. Again, what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another but I would still like to know what you think. What's your opinion? What are your own questions? What do you think the answers are? Would you be willing to share them with me?

Namaste, y'all ...

Fun With Food ...

2008-08-25T18:02:00.002-04:00

There are several blogs I read almost every day. One in particular, Cute Overload.com, because of the cute photos of all kinds of animals. But every once in awhile Meg will post something unusual. Today I found the following photos and I was charmed. I laughed out loud. People can be so imaginative and creative. This isn't just fun with food, it's edible art. How could I not love that???

Brought to you courtesy of Cute Overload.com

Here's how our good friends, the Japanese, manage to stay fit and trim so that they can continue to hand our Cheetos-enhanced behinds to us in the cuteness department: Food so adorable you don't want to eat it. Go ahead -- you order a plate of this stuff and see if you aren't still staring at it three hours later.

Bon appétit

Namaste, y'all ...

Because cats can ...

2008-08-22T22:16:00.004-04:00

Stare at the sleeping human at 4:30 in the morning until it
wakes up and sees you up close ...

Take a bath in the middle of the dining room floor ...

Nap where you please ...

Play without moving from a good nap spot ...

Flash some paw at the camera ...

Make your mom love on you even when she's got
work to do at the computer ...

Musing.

2008-07-28T07:16:00.003-04:00

My art muse is riding my ass lately. I think I've been a disappointment to both her and to myself the past few months. Very little art has been created back there in the twilight zone that has become my studio. I don't blame her for being pissed. I'm certainly not happy about it either. In fact, I'm down right cranky.

I want to paint. I really do. I get a bazillion ideas flying around my head while I'm busy trying to do other things that require my attention. There is so much to do I'm having trouble balancing it all. My house doesn't clean itself, nor will the laundry jump up and take itself to the washing machine. These new kittens, while unlike a puppy that is freakishly needy and has to be attended to like a small child, still need care and attention. The store takes up a huge amount of time and I expected it to be that way for the first few months of being open. Family and friends can't be put on a back-burner either. All of it has taken priority over being able work on creating art.

Something's got to give a little or I'm going to hurt somebody. Art is my outlet, my creative, meditative, introspective, hermitish way of getting along in this life. I may not be a Rembrandt but that isn't the point. Doing the work for the way it feels is the reason I do it. I can't imagine my life if I'm not creating, not painting. I simply can't. There is almost a "Why bother?" feeling at the thought of not being able to mush watercolors around on some paper. If you are an artist, you'll understand that feeling. Same would go for anyone else who has a deep love of doing something meaningful whether it is painting, making music, or whatever. Just try to imagine never doing that thing for the rest of your life. Kinda' scary, isn't it?

So, okay, life has temporarily sidelined my art. It's happened before and I'm sure it will happen again sometime down the road - hopefully way, way, way far down the road! For now, I feel that the sidelining has got to stop and I need to get busy mushing paint. Question is, what to paint? Aarg! It's a dilemma. A conundrum. A thorn in my side frustration that my bazillion ideas got lost somewhere. Damn.

Well, maybe that's not completely true. I have an idea floating around. I'm just really stuck on how to accomplish it. I've been looking at the work of other artists, mulling things around in my head. There are a number of artists I admire. You've got the golden oldies: Michelangelo, Dali, Mucha, Rackham, Rockwell, Wyeth, Klimt, Waterhouse and a host of others. You've got current artists: Helena Nelson Reed, Stephanie Law, Brom, Daniel Merriam, Linda Ravenscroft, Maxine Gadd, A. Andrew Gonzalez, Brian Froud, Kasey H. Moran, Linda Joyce Franks, Johanna Pieterman and a slew of others. Then there are literally hundreds in between. I could create pages upon pages of the names of artists whose work I admire right down to my toes and back again. And I've been cruising the internet checking them out.

It's both intimidating and inspiring. Then again, spending time looking at other artist's work is also keeping me from being in the studio creating my own.

Thing is, I'm still looking for that "personal style" my art is missing. Take any one of the aforementioned artists and you'd be able to readily identify a painting as theirs without even seeing their signature on the image. The frustrating thing for me is I know what I want to do, I just don't know how to do it. Ain't that a lovely thing? One of my big self-imposed problems is that I have a hard time just 'testing the waters' and 'giving it a whirl' when it comes to painting. I always seem to need a plan of action, a layout of what's going to go on that paper or canvas. It's very hard for me to be spontaneous when it comes to creating much of my work. Abstracts are the exception. Everything else gets hours and hours of thinking and planning. I spend so much time getting reference material, figuring the overall scheme, and other stuff before I ever put brush to paint.

My best buddy and compadre artist, Kasey H. Moran, whose work I'm a huge fan of, just kills me sometimes. She can doodle some ideas in a sketchbook, pick one to start from, draw it off on canvas with a stick of charcoal, and then starts slingin' paint. She works very intuitively, letting the work tell her what to do and she just goes with the flow. If it isn't working for whatever reason, she'll just whip out the gesso, cover it up and start again. She doesn't get wound up over whether or not the proportion is exact, whether or not the highlighting or shadowing is exact, or even if she paints a woman blue instead of natural flesh tones. And her work is amazing to me. I have one of her paintings hanging in my living room and I can stare at it, awed, for hours.

Her work is so expressive, so very much her own, and has a wonderful "Kasey" style. Yes, I envy her, but in a good way. Let me show you an example of her work ....

Blanket Girls
Acrylic on canvas, 36"x36"

Key Lady
Acrylic on canvas, don't remember the size - something like 36"x48"

These web photos don't do the originals justice. Not by a long shot. I think they are wonderfully vibrant, interesting, exciting, beautiful pieces of art. I wish I owned them both. Hell, I wish I owned all of her originals. Of course, if I did I wouldn't get anything done for sitting around staring at them.

Speaking of sitting around ... sitting here is also a deterrent to being in the studio. Maybe I should just shut up and go paint ......

Namaste, y'all ...

Mondays ...

2008-07-21T11:43:00.004-04:00

My sentiments exactly.

Tuck Tail and Run

2008-07-13T08:46:00.005-04:00

It's been a rough week here at the House Of Vermin. The veterinarian appointment on Tuesday went well, all things considered. Tuck was given a clean bill of health and his first round of shots. Tesah, on the other hand, had a nasty case of ear mites, a head cold, and was deemed still too young for her shots. Gotta' be eight weeks of age. She's barely pushing six, seven at best. And even if she was old enough, she was just too sick to get them because they may have made her worse. Poor kid.

She did at least get a treatment for the ear mites. As small as the wee vermin is the vet's assistant still had to take her to the back and get another assistant to help her hold Tesah while she did her ears. My God, that kitten screamed like she was being skinned alive. I sat in the exam room with Tuck and cried like a baby. When the vet and the assistant came back in they were quite surprised to see me sitting in the chair, boo-hooing up a storm. All I could say was, "'scuse me y'all, I'm a bit emotional right now." I briefly told them about Creepy's passing. They both just nodded their heads in sympathy and understanding. Tesah looked about as soggy from the ear mite treatment as I'm sure I did from crying. They also give her medicine, liquid stuff with an eye dropper, for me to force down her throat twice a day. Not fun. Tesah is little, yeah, but she's a squirmer with needle sharp claws.

Since Tesah was sick and obviously felt like a deflated party balloon (spent the first three days here sleeping) and because head colds & ear mites are contagious, I decided to keep her secluded in the master bathroom/bedroom for the rest of the week. Just like when I first brought Tuck home. Bathroom at night, bedroom & bath during the day. I figured the peace and quiet would be good for her. Tuck had been driving her nuts, attacking her, making her holler at the top of her lungs, giving her no rest. He thought she was the best toy in the world. Tuck, naturally didn't like the new arrangement at all. Whenever I went into the bedroom to check on Tesah he would fret, meowing and poking his paws under the door until I came back out.

Of course, every time I opened the bedroom door ... ZING! WIGGLE! DASH! ZOOM! ... Tuck made a greased-lightening fast break past me into the room. I'd have to snatch him and take him back out with me. It got to be a real pain in the ass because I'd go check on her every 30 minutes to an hour. I knew, even if she was just sleeping, I needed to give her attention, let her get used to me, and take her to her food and water bowls or the little box. Until her felt well enough to ramble around on her own she needed extra care. Doing nothing but sleeping for three days had kept her from exploring and discovering the lay-of-the-land.

After a couple more days of rest, lots of food and water, and her medicine twice a day, Tesah started perking up. She began wandering around and playing with some of the toys. I started spending a little more time with her each time I went in the room, trying to judge her health, strength and agility. I knew it wouldn't be long before she would have to be re-introduced to Tuck. He's a lot bigger, stronger, and operating at full tilt kitty boogie. I wanted Tesah as healthy and strong as possible.

While Tesah needed extra care, I still had to pay attention to Tuck. He's a love muffin and very snuggly. He doesn't like being alone. He's okay as long as I'm at least in the same room, even if I'm working on the computer, and he can come over during his breaks between killing all the cat toys and generally flinging himself around the house in a spastic kitten frenzy. I look forward to his naps, believe me. So, between the two, it's like have a couple of toddlers.

There has also been the emotional roller-coaster of dealing with Creepy's passing. For a couple of days during this past week it was all I could do to take care of myself, like taking a shower, much less two needy kittens. Creepy's absence is really starting to sink in. She doesn't greet me when I come home. She's not there, snuggling close to me at night. The little routines we had have been abruptly terminated. My life feels like it's been turned upside down. Everything has changed. I can't tell you how many times I caught myself staring off into space, tears in my eyes, missing my girl. It's probably not something a lot of people understand, but I feel about my "pets" like some people feel about their kids. They get the full dose of any maternal instincts I have because I don't have human children. Losing Creepy, for me, is very much like losing a real child. It hurts like Hell and there is an emptiness, a loneliness and deep sense of loss I feel every minute of the day. It will be this way for a long time to come. But, I have to keep going and doing. I can't sit and nurse my grief no matter how much I want to. I have two new kittens who need me. I have the store. I have artwork to do. I have my husband. I have a life I have to live. That's the way it goes, and it goes on, one day at a time.

So the day finally came that I decided Tesah and Tuck needed to start their time together. The day before yesterday I let them play for awhile, watching closely, making sure it was really play and not Tuck beating the snort out of Tesah. She's so small and delicate compared to him. When they wrestle, he hardly makes a sound. She, on the other hand, wails, growls, and screeches like she's being skinned alive. Honestly, it made me a nervous wreck, afraid she was going to get seriously hurt. After a couple of hours I had all I could stand and put Tesah back in the bedroom. They proceeded to harass each other under the door.

Yesterday, after I got home from work, I let them play again. And again, I kept a close eye on how they behaved. Much to my surprise, and relief, she gave back as good as she got. Tesah chased Tuck, stalked and pounced on him, generally smacked him around a good bit. He loved every minute of it ... until he decided it was nap time and tried to relax on the rug at the front door beside my chair. I think Tesah is a can of worms Tuck's not so sure he's totally happy to have opened .......

Meh! Nothing interesting about this ...

Hey now, this thing moves!

Attack!

I'm sure I saw it go up here ...

Yessssss!

A tasty little nibble ...

And a nice big bite!

Hey wait, I was chewin' on that!

Holy crap! I barely got out alive! I better keep my tail tucked!

Namaste, y'all ....

Wee vermin in the house.

2008-07-08T08:00:00.002-04:00

Creepy's passing has left a void in not only my life, but Tuck's a well. They were just beginning to connect. Had a couple of nose-touching moments which were so sweet it almost brought me to tears. Creepy was actually learning to play with him and a couple of happy cat chases occurred in the days before she died. While I'd always had at least two cats together, Creepy has always been alone. It was difficult enough to accept her in my life after Medford and Scooter disappeared. The thought of getting Creepy a playmate when she was little seemed like a mountain I just couldn't climb. Thus, technically speaking, it was my fault she hated cats. She was raised solitary, had "Mom" all too herself for almost eight years.

Last year I thought about getting another kitten. Truthfully, I was too afraid Creepy would never learn to accept one, and quite possibly, seriously hurt it. I decided against it. Then, as the Fates would have it, three weeks ago Tuck came into our life. Yes, Creepy freaked over him in the beginning, but as I said, amazing things were developing. God, it made me so proud of my girl when she tried to play with Tuck! Then Creepy died, leaving me, and leaving Tuck.

Saturday we both, Tuck and I, wandered around the house in a daze. The rest of that day after she died he wouldn't play. Several times I found him laying in the spots Creepy used to lay to nap. He ate out of his own food bowl. Y'all, from the very first day of being loose in the house, ignoring his and eating out of hers seemed to be a great thing. Yet in that strange, inexplicable way of animals, and as young as he is, he knew something was seriously wrong in our world ...

At one point in the afternoon, when the husband was inside taking a short water break from digging Creepy's grave (I had him dig it in one of her favorite spots behind the house where there are trees - lots of roots and hard red clay dirt to have to dig through) he looked at me and said, "I don't mean to add salt to the wound but maybe you need to hurry up and get another kitten for Tuck's sake." As bad as I felt, as much as my heart squeezed up at the thought of another new kitten being in the house, I knew he was right. I told him about how I'd had a dream nearly a week ago that Tuck was playing with a little buff colored kitten and Creepy was sitting off to the side, barely within the range of my peripheral vision, quietly watching them. I was thinking it meant I was going to end up with three cats ...... not that Creepy would die. Guess being psychic didn't help me with that one at all. Oh yeah, you don't have to tell me knowing in advance wouldn't have made her death any easier. Trust me, I know.

All day Sunday I tossed the idea around in my head that maybe I should do the opposite. Maybe I should consider finding a new home for Tuck? After stewing on it for awhile I started to mention it to the husband, but before I could, he made the comment that I shouldn't wait to look for a kitten, that Tuck was already lonely and that he, the husband, considered Tuck a part of the family and loves him. Obviously, I kept my mouth shut. Instead, I promised on Monday I would start looking for a kitten for Tuck.

Again, the Fates stepped in.

My dear friend, Sue, called. The first words out of her mouth were, "How about a little gray tabby kitty?" Y'all, I am a complete and total goob for gray kitties. My Medford was gray. Anyway, I asked her how old it was and she said somewhere around Tuck's size. Sue was at the Animal Outreach booth they set up in front of Lowe's Hardware sometimes on the weekends. I asked her how much and how late they would be there. She said, "If you want it, it's on it's way to you." My Sue. She's amazing. What would I do without her?

Half an hour later she's at the door with this tiny speck of dust bunny fluff .....

The husband immediately fell in love. Head over heels. Wanted to stay home from work and play with the pretty new kitty kind of love. I'll admit, if I were going to pick a new kitty, I would have picked her. She's delicate and too sweet for words. From the way she reacted to the food bowl, growling like a beast and clamping her tiny paws protectively over it, it's sadly obvious she's had a rough start to life. Her ears are filthy and she's got a bit of a runny right eye. Tuck thinks she's the best new toy in the world. But he is a little bigger and I have to watch out, jumping to her rescue if he starts to rough her up too much.

We've got a 10:30 am appointment for the vet today. Everybody is getting a good once-over, shots and baths and all kind of vet inflicted indignities on little kitty persons. I think it's sort of like the cat version of a women's gynecological appointment. We women really hate it, but ya' gotta' do whatcha' gotta' do. Wish us luck.

I'm still reeling from Creepy's death. I'm torn between wanting to take care of these two babies and push them away because my heart misses my orange fluff ball so much. I'm sure, given time, my grief will lessen. I'll become attached to the new kittens. I am, after all, a cat person. And for now, I most certainly won't deny them love and attention just because it's really Creepy I'd rather be holding in my arms instead of a new kitten I don't really even know yet. The bond with these two will develop and grow in time. Life isn't always fair, isn't always easy, but maybe the Divine brought these two into my life to ease the loss of Creepy's passing. Maybe caring for their immediate needs will help keep me occupied enough to not dwell overmuch on how badly I miss her. This is what I tell myself. While it's not the happiest of times to come in, I have to say "Welcome to the family, Tesah."

Namaste, y'all ...

My girl ...

2008-07-07T12:00:00.000-04:00

I think this is the hardest thing I've had to write about in a very long time. Early Saturday afternoon, July 5th, my darling baby girl, Creature (aka Creepy) unexpectedly passed away.

My orange fluff ball is gone.

I can't believe I just typed that sentence.

I confess, I'm still in a state of shock. One minute she was fine and the next she was gone. I believe she died of a stroke or an aneurysm. I'm indescribably grateful that when it happened she was in my arms and it was very quickly over. Two minutes. In two short minutes my life has changed completely. Intellectually I realize she isn't with me anymore on this physical plane ... emotionally, I'm scared that if I really let myself start crying I won't be able to stop. My heart feels like a rock in my chest.

Eight years ago the husband and I were living in a rental place, in the process of buying our first home together. I had two cats (though I wasn't supposed to) at the time. I really wanted to keep them inside until we moved but both of them loved being outside too much. They always had and they only stayed inside for a couple of weeks to acclimate whenever I have moved from place to place over the years. Medford, a beautiful and unbelievably sweet gray tabby, had been with me for 11 years. Scooter, a silly white guy, had been with me for about five years. Long story short, in June of that year they both disappeared. Poof! Vanished into thin air. To this day I have no idea, though I have suspicions I hate to even contemplate, as to what happened to them. I was horribly upset and swore I would never have anymore cats. Losing Scooter was bad, but losing Medford, well, I still grieve and miss her terribly. I can hardly think about her without crying.

One Sunday evening 'round about August or September, the husband and I were at home, in the kitchen cleaning up the breakfast dishes, when we heard a neighbors' dog in the front yard barking. I looked out the kitchen window and saw him standing there, barking at the front porch. Just then I heard a tiny meow. I mashed my face to the window, looked toward the porch, and saw a little orange fuzz ball between the railings. I told the husband to go to the back door and call the dog around to the back of the house so that I could open the front door and get the kitten.

As fast as I opened the door this little bitty, scared shitless, kitty came flying in and climbed straight up my leg and into my arms. Shaking and squeaking like a mouse, it snuggled under my chin and clung to me for dear life. From it's size I guessed it to be about 7-8 weeks old at best. All I could think of was, "Well, damn, what do I do with this?" Honestly, I didn't want her. I was still too emotionally raw from losing Medford. But I figured the least I could do was give it some food and water, keep it safe until I could call the Human Society the next day. All the remainder of that afternoon and evening the kitten stayed glued to my lap if I was sitting down, or scrambled around under my feet if I got up for anything.

I spent some time that day looking around for more kittens but never found any, nor any sign of how the kitty came to be on my porch. We didn't have close neighbors, lived on a main road but still 10 miles from town, and all I could figure was someone had set out kittens somewhere near our house. When I checked the kitty over I discovered it was a she, was sort of skinny and undernourished, and her claws were shredded and bloody. She was also scared of everything and particularly horrified of being under a blanket or put in a box. Which, of course, made me assume she must have clawed her way out of something, box or bag. I felt bad for her, cleaned her up and doctored her paws, but wasn't going to get attached.

On Monday I tried calling the pound to find out their hours so I could take her to them. No one answered the phone. All day, calling every 30 minutes, I got no answer. The next day I even drove the 20 miles to see if they were there, to check the hours they were open. No one was there. The door sign said they were supposed to be open 7:30 am to 4:00 pm. I went home frustrated. I kept calling every hour or so. I called, every day, for a week. Never got anyone on the phone. If I went to town and drove over to check no one would be there.

By this time the kitten was starting to grow on me. She was my shadow. Hated to let me out of her sight. Screeched like a banshee if I went out of the room and she couldn't see me. She snuggled beside me, as close as she could get herself, in bed at night. One day near the end of that week I was kicked back on the sofa reading a book. She was snooping around the living room and checking things out. When she got brave and tried to kill the curtain I called her a creature she came running over to me, climbed up on the sofa, nudged my book out of the way and curled herself into a ball next to my heart. She reached her little paw up and touched my chin. She started purring for the first time.

I was hooked and cooked.

She got named, as you can guess, Creature.

I stopped trying to call the Human Society and took her to the vet for her shots, etc. Spent money at the store for toys, scratching post, cat litter and all the stuff a kitty should have. Since Scooter and Medford had preferred to be outside there were things I didn't have in the house. And since I wasn't really supposed to have pets, I didn't want a repeat of the vanishing act. I knew I had to keep Creature inside, hidden, until we got moved into our new house.

Creature, who's monikur eventually became "Creepy", was, without doubt, a "Momma's girl". Whatever happened to her in her first few weeks of life left an impression. She would hide from anybody except me. She barely tolerated the husband's presence when he was home. If anyone came over they didn't realize I even had a cat unless they saw the toys. But with me, she was loving and sweet. She was in my lap if I was sitting down, playing at my feet if I was standing up, tagging along behind me if I was walking through the house, snuggling close if I was in bed sleeping. If I talked to her, she talked back.

Over the years she gradually lost some of her skittishness and would stay in the same room if people came over. She began to like the husband, playing with him or sometimes sitting next to him on the sofa if he was watching a movie. At some point, maybe two or three years ago she began to sleep next to him on the bed sometimes, laying just at the perfect distance from him for him to be able to reach her and scratch her shoulders the way she liked. As more time passed she became friends with some of my friends. She really liked Sue and Paul became her "boyfriend". She trained him to get her pounce treats whenever he came over and rewarded him with a show of flirtation ... rolling over, showing him her tummy and batting her eyes.

I'm not sure when exactly it happened, but the most dramatic change in her behavior was to become one of the most precious to me ... sofa napping under the blanket with me. I have an afghan I keep folded over one arm of the sofa for taking naps or if I get cold while watching a movie or reading. I don't care where she was in the house, she had an incredible cat-sense when I got on the sofa and covered up with that afghan. She was johnny-on-the-spot to climb under it with me. I had to lay on my side, with my back pressed again the back of the sofa, knees drawn up to form a little snuggle spot next to my stomach for her. She would get under the blanket, circle around a couple of times then tuck up close to me and start purring so loud you could hear her across the room. I also had to put my hand on her side, letting it just rest there, or she would keep wiggling around until I did. We had some awesome "cat naps" and movie watching/reading afternoons curled up together under that afghan.

I could sit here for hours, telling you story after story about my girl, my Creepy. I could spend the rest of my life telling you how special she was, about how much she came to mean to me over the past eight years. Instead, I will fill the rest of this post with pictures to show how incredibly beautiful she was. Sadly, there is no way these images can express the deep love I felt in my heart for her, nor the infinite joy she brought to my life for having chosen me to be her Mom. The time was too short, but it was a living definition of a true blessing.