Pearls on a String, no.7

I'm finally back here...it's been a long time!  My husband's cousin came for a visit and that was a nice break, but now I'm working my way back into my daily routine.  I do so love a rhythm to my day...I don't mind calling it a routine, because it keeps me grounded and the day has a certain flow.  I have several projects in the works at the moment...enough to make me feel a bit scattered, so my daily routine is even more important so I can stay focused!  I've just finished this little piece up...Pearls on a String no.7  I have a couple more in the works, along with a new Summer piece for the Four Seasons series...great fun and always a surprise, even for me, to see what comes next!

Have a great weekend!

The Hand Drawn Line

Pearls on a String no.4 was posted in my etsy shop a few days ago and continues my exploration of line...there is something so direct and beautiful about that movement of your hand across the page that creates a line, however halting or clumsy.  The allusion to writing, to the history of our collective lives...we are all pearls on a string.  

A pattern is emerging for me and Thursday seems to be create a Treasury on Etsy day!  It's just so fun to explore all the great work, even though, with only 16 slots, it's often very difficult to choose.  I always find new shops, new artists and artisans to learn more about and today was no different!  No surprise I'm sure, about the title for today's treasury The Hand Drawn Line.  Have a look at all the work and those oh, so beautiful hand drawn lines.  In case anyone has a question about what makes a hand drawn line...for me it can be in any medium---sewn, scratched into clay, made with marker, paint, anything....you know a hand-drawn line when you see one--it bears the mark of the maker.

How A Tree Gets Its Water....Pearls On A String!

Pearls On A String, no.3 is posted now in my shop, MissouriBendStudio.  That little bird is just calling out to the universe with all of his tiny being, isn't he?  I just want to share with you a little moment of revelation for me. I'm reading a pretty fascinating book that I bought not long ago, A Splintered History of Wood, by Spike Carlsen, and in the early part of the book he talks about trees and their amazing ability to pull water from the ground.  Here's how it happens...in theory.

"...for while water isn't sucked up the tree, it is literally pulled up the tree.  When the minute pores, or stomates, in leaves are open, water evaporates from the leaf.  Each water molecule is part of a continuous unbroken column of water traveling through vessels, or tracheids, reaching all the way to the roots.  The water molecules adhere to one another through cohesion; each time a water molecule evaporates from a leaf, it pulls the entire chain of water molecules up behind it.  At the roots, a molecule of water is pulled out of the soil to fill the gap in the chain.  In other words, the roots, trunk, and leaves form a continuous system that connects the soil below to the air above."

The universe is made of pearls on a string...

Pearls On A String, no. 2

Here's the second in the series, Pearls On A String, made just recently.  There are more in process and I just have to say that making these pieces brings to mind how much I love the meandering line.  I've always loved line...such possibilities for expression.  Making a line...any kind of line, feels like I am connected to the pulse of my own being in a very direct way and the line translates that pulse out into the universe...a total abstraction...but somehow knowable.  I hope this makes some sense...especially to those of you who have an affinity for "line"...thanks for looking!

Pearls on a String...the first in a series

Pearls on a String, no.1

Here's the first in a series of new intuitive and meditative drawings underway...everything seems to come together here...my interest in language and text plays itself out in the lower portion with the layers of  handwritten quasi-language...it just nice to feel your hand move across the page in the act of writing/drawing...and in some ways, aren't they one and the same?  Pearls on a string is a metaphor for words and language, but also for something much larger...aren't we all particular pearls on a string...of history, of the continuum of time...links in a chain in a way...that goes on indefinitely.

The little collaged pieces are drawings done in India ink on dry used teabags, which are then dipped in beeswax.  I fell in love once I stumbled onto this....there are more in the works.

Enjoy and love to have questions, comments and conversation!

Cheers!