The Lost Week

I lost a week....maybe you've been wondering where I've been. Mostly on the couch. I came down with some icky flu-like bug over the weekend....it started with a sore throat that developed steadily during my work day on Saturday. After several days the flu bug did improve and I went back to work but by the next day I was sick again. I've finally gone to the doctor and have a sinus infection, so am on antibiotics. I was beginning the think I'd never get well, since I felt worse each day....but I definitely should be on the upswing now. Meanwhile, there were no trips to the studio....the days went by, but there were no drawings made to commemorate their passing. It was a lost week, but I'll begin again with tomorrow's drawing and will look forward to getting back into the rhythm. Now, if I could just quit coughing!!

I don't want to leave you without anything to see, so this is a fairly new finished piece that will make it to my website when I have the energy. It's a new series I'm playing with....the delicate handmade paper is folded into separate sections before drawing on it. It's also been dipped in beeswax and then stitched to another sheet of backing paper for a little more support. I have made another in the series, but it's not quite finished, as I still have to stitch it to another support paper.  Hope you like this one....I kind of fancy it myself.

Lives of the Ancestors

Have a great weekend! See you soon...

Time Opens Up and Out

Greetings at the beginning of a new work week....well, as I have Monday off, my work week begins tomorrow, but I'm still hard at work in the studio. As I continue to adapt to my new life of work in the library, I am finding somehow that the hours of the day grow to accomadate my needs when I am at home. I somehow have time to put new plants in the ground and admire the way everything has grown so quickly this spring....I swear the plants grow by inches a day! The irises are already blooming and it seems things in the garden are about a month ahead of their normal routine. I hope this will be a nice, long summer. There is also time to read and be in the studio, not just making the daily drawings, but the other works I've had in progress.

I know there is a shift inside of me, because  today when I was working in the studio....doing the slow work of hand stitching a large wishbone on one of those pieces....the echos of my thinking bubbled up like they used to. It's hard to describe, but it's the thing that happens when I am relaxed and working that causes me to say that I think through my hands. It's how I understand myself and my place in the world. And here's what my innermost self said to me quietly today as I made stitch after stitch...."we are always on the inside looking out." It came as a whole sentence and I understood what that meant immediately. Those are the moments of connection....those moments of the nearly audible thoughts bubbling up, with the insights that help me know I am "in the moment" and in the flow....that's where I come to know what it is I know.

Let's see if I can elaborate on that thought...we are always on the inside looking out. We are our bodies....we cannot help but see the world through the filter of our own history, culture, and the sheer physicality of our being, which governs so much of how we move through the world. In a way, we are trapped here inside ourselves....and this is not a negative, it just is how it is. We can never be really walking in anyone else's shoes, not matter how much we empathize. We can love another person with all of our being and as close as we often are, think of it, the gaps between each of us is so vast....and yet, it's all part of our humanity....don't we do the best we can? It's just good to remember that the way we experience the world is just that, it's our take on things, and for someone else, it is entirely different. Knowing this....does it make it easier to be kind to one another....to know there are infinite ways of seeing and experiencing anything? I suppose it begins with accepting ourselves.

Journey Tales

Boat Under A Bridge

I realized after I wrote the last post on Friday that I'd mentioned the two new pieces in the MissouriBendStudio shop, but then I forgot to show you! They are shown above and were quite fun to make....all those little round bits on the lower one are the punched holes from an old map. Might as well get caught up with the dailies since Friday as well....they are all posted at MissouriBendMusings, but here's a view of each.

April 19 2012

April 20 2012

April 21 2012

April 22 2012

April 23 2012

So, the hour is late, but I'm off to do some reading before bed. Hope you have a great week!

Thank you once again for reading and sharing in my new adventures in the back-to-work world...such great friends I have here!

Just One Thing After Another

Hi Folks....a crazy time the last few days.  I guess everyone had trouble with Blogger being down for a while.  All seems well now, except that I received a couple delightful comments on my last post from Carole and theFairyyellowbugQueen, which I published, and now they appear nowhere!!  They've disappeard and I can't seem to bring them back. So, to Carole and the FairyyellowbugQueen, I say many thanks for your kind words!

That was just the beginning of my computer frustrations, however.  I've been so behind on my blogs that the other day when I went to read the backlog, I had nearly 450 posts to go through.  My poor computer, a dear Mac that has served me so well, is six years old and quite elderly now.  They say every human year is seven dog years...so, how does that work in computer years?  This poor baby is pushed to its limits from the first thing in the morning til nearly midnight and I fear it is beginning its decline.  As I scrolled through the blog posts, endlessly, the fan kept cycling on, which I never hear....a sign, I'm told, that the processor is just working really hard and may not be quite up to the task.  The battery on this poor baby, has long since died, so I can only use it if it's plugged in.  That means, if I want to move it, I have to shut down and then reset the time and date every time I bring it back up.  My main work desk is upstairs here in a little alcove off the kitchen, but the printer is so big (it's also a copier/fax...not that I can use the fax, since we don't have a landline, ha!) that in order to print, I have to take the computer downstairs to the printer, because the wireless doesn't reach and it's the only way to connect to the printer.  You can imagine what a pain this is....clearly, Ms. P. needed a new computer.

Well, now I have one, but only because I flew into a panic in the middle of the afternoon yesterday when I'd spent an hour making an Etsy treasury and just as I was about to "publish" it, the computer screen went black....dead! Not having backed up in some time, I was practically having heart palpitations, thinking this was the end.  I quickly packed the computer up, got in the car and drove the hour to Sioux Falls to the MacDoctors....alas, on the way, it slowly dawned on me, that it was possible that all that had happened was that the plug had come loose and with no battery, naturally the computer just shut itself down.  Ugh, I groaned, as I was probably in the middle of an unneeded venture....aha, I thought, at the very least I'm going to buy a battery for the computer.  But, once I got to the MacDoctors and we found out that yes, all was well, and that the plug had just come loose from the power strip (SILLY ME!), but no, they didn't have a battery in stock but could order one...I was in a tailspin.  Did I really want to put over $100 into a battery for a computer that was clearly a geriatric case?  I sat in the car for quite a while, before heading home, as I rationalized going ahead then and there with the purchase of a new computer.  I mean, really, I am trying to run a "business" and am clearly giving the poor machine a workout everyday....it took awhile, but I marched back into the MacDoctors, which also sells computers and in no time at all, I came away with a MacBook Pro.  Now I have to buy software....it's only money, which grows on trees...a laugh a minute!  I still sit at my desk off the kitchen, typing away on Old Faithful, but I will make the transition to the new computer, which should be noticeably faster and quite worry free....and what will it be like to be able to operate the computer on a battery when necessary??!!!

Such crazy antics I go through, most times feeling like a fool....does any of this sound familiar to anyone?  Needless to say, my work in the studio this week, with the rock adventure at the beginning and the technology mishaps toward the end, has been most sporadic.  I can only show you fragments of works in progress...I'm calling these collectively "The Pink Pages"....a little enticement I hope!

That's my report....we're off this afternoon to a very lovely nursery in Nebraska to buy a few plants....it's actually a cold, grey day in the 50's....what happened to 95 degrees?  Hope you all have a fine weekend.

Violett sends greetings to all the well-wishers!!!

Cheers and see you soon!

Migration!

The news around here is that the migration of geese is in full swing!  This is our third winter/spring here on the river and I don't quite remember the fall or spring migrations being anything quite so amazing.  The geese are here in huge numbers, including flocks of snow geese...at least that's what I think they are.  They make so much noise that they wake us up at night, even with all the window closed.  The like the river too and hang out in droves on the sandbars that form here and there.  Sunday morning, for some reason (the noisy geese?), we were up before the sun rose and took a lot of shots of the geese just as it was getting light. They were hanging out on the river, but would spent much of their time in flight...in strange sort of undulating circular formations.  I know there must be a structure to it, but I couldn't find the pattern.  Here are a few shots of our friends!

More new work to share here...a couple of meditation drawings and a piece that calls itself Spring Showers, all of which have been added to my shop.  The titles are linked and will take you to more view

and description.

Spring Meditation no.8

(this shot doesn't capture the lovely deckled edges of the paper like the one below)

Spring Meditation no.9

Spring Showers

Hope you've had a great weekend and are ready for the unfolding week.  I know we all have the folks in Japan weighing heavily in our thoughts and hearts.  See you fine folks tomorrow for A Walk Through The Universe....have a lovely evening.

Rolling Fog Across the Missouri River

Yesterday, in my haste, I forgot to post the photo I took in the morning of the fog over the farm field across the river.  The Missouri River is beautiful and wide and in this part of the state, is the dividing line between South Dakota and Nebraska.   We look out over farmland and the bluffs of Nebraska and sometimes the fog rolling through is spectacular...I looked out the window as I was eating breakfast and hopped up to find the camera!

Thought I'd show you the finished little sewn drawing that I showed you yesterday while it was in process.  I know I've said this before, but it's just so satisfying to sew on paper!  This Japanese paper is so soft that it feels almost like cloth.

Enjoy the weekend, if I'm not back before Monday!

The Fourth in the Fork in the Road Series

A Fork in the Road no.4

Very busy in the studios these days, trying to keep up with new work for my etsy shop and making the pieces for Awakening Breath, the exhibition my husband and I are collaborating on.  As you can see, we even have a title!

We are fortunate to have plenty of studio space (well, really...is there ever enough!?) so we each have our own spaces and then a large shared space...it's the whole downstairs of the house.  So, things are buzzing in both studios, but we are on a roll and finally truly collaborating, which is quite a different thing than two people making work to have a show together.  It's exciting and we can't wait to see all the pieces together!  In the meantime, I've posted A Fork in the Road no.4 at MissouriBendStudio, which is very much in the spirit of the work we are making collaboratively.  Soon enough, I'll be able to post a few pieces I hope!

Thanks for stopping by and reading my posts!  Cheers!

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!

View From The Twilight Valley

Meet, View From The Twilight Valley, a little drawing that still delights me years later...perhaps because it is one of a group of five drawings that I made some time ago that seemed totally free to invent themselves as I let go and let the play take over.  That's when it's best, isn't it, when we cease to struggle?  Step away, but remain alert, and watch something brand new come into being, as if by magic!