A Rearranged Life

A new week beginning and so far, so good. According to the calendar of course, the week began yesterday, but as my entire life has been wrapped around the academic calendar (even now, because of my husband), the week always feels as if it officially begins on Monday. Our weekend was spent in reorganizing the studio spaces....a task that needs to be repeated endlessly, it seems.  This time, though, I think I've got it right! There was just so much clutter in my space, in John's space and in the large outer shared area, that it was hard for me to concentrate.  I would have cleaned up before, but we didn't actually have places to put things, so bits of this and that were piled everywhere, including all over the ping pong table, which we'd like to actually use sometime to play ping pong!  A trip to Target netted two sets of wire shelving on sale, and with a swing over to Lowe's we came home with a number of nice looking garden bricks and two more 6 foot boards for my studio.  Having the new set of shelves in the outer area allowed me to use the space for storing art supplies that we often need to retrieve, but don't need cluttering up desks and spaces underfoot.  And I finally figured out the ideal arrangement for my studio (how many tries has it taken!?!), so that the room doesn't feel like a trailer (12' x 24')!  The spaces feel just right now and the clutter is slowly disappearing everywhere....even into the newly organized storage area, which I am now referring to as "deep storage"....available, but not visually in view!  I was pretty tired by the end of the day, but entered the studio with a new enthusiasm, since the spaces had a better flow and the clutter was gone....at least temporarily!!

The little sitting area is now somewhat sectioned off and the 

brick/board instant shelving extends the entire width of 

the space (the bookshelves moved to the other end of the room)

so everything above it can be "pin board" space!

The sewing machine table/desk is also where I do my morning 

meditation drawings and my morning pages (a short writing practice)

The tables now form kind of a rectangle....the table closest to the 

front is all the work in my shop, MissouriBendStudio.

One of the things I'm making sure to incorporate back into my life is books...reading them, that is.  John and I both read a beautiful little book while in Wyoming, The Solace of Open Spaces, by Gretel Ehrlich when we were at Brush Creek.  A little reading throughout the day kept my mind open and fresh.  Now, I've just finished Bird Cloud, a new book by Annie Proulx.  I'm very sad to have finished it, but it was the perfect read for easing me back into life here....Bird Cloud is her property in Wyoming in the very area where we just had the residency.  This is a lovely memoir about her life in Wyoming, the search for the property, as well as the trials, tribulations and joys of building a dream house.  There are sections in the book about here French Canadian roots, about the wildlife in the area and about the deep history of the land.  I identified with every last inch of that book....I too have French Canadian roots on both sides of my family, I too am in love with land in Wyoming and although I've not built a house anything like she has, I have built two houses and was able to share and delight in the tale of Bird Cloud's construction.  Needless to say, I loved this book....but must tear myself apart from it and move to other things.

I've mentioned numerous times my interest in the rocky landscape of the area where we were in Wyoming and how it has influenced my work. Since I know very little about rocks and the earth sciences, I'm happy to be learning all kinds of new things in this book I just bought to assist me in my amateur geological pursuits!

That's it for now....there is enough time left in this day, I hope, to post some of the new pieces on my website...FINALLY!

Thanks so much for reading and sharing your comments....always great to hear from you!

The Language of Mark Making

I was walking up the gravel driveway the other day and chanced upon this charming stick!  I think it's quite charming anyway and have decided to take its portrait.  I'm quite jealous of the intuitive drawing ability of whatever creature made those marks on the stick, so reminiscent of counting and marking time.

My first thought was the squirrel, the same culprit who has not only foiled practically all our attempts to hang a bird feeder but who chews away at the recycled material in the posts on our back deck when he is especially peeved.  Perhaps he is doing some sort of counting there....is that the number of times he has chewed a big hole in the thistle bag, causing the contents to spill everywhere...or maybe that's the count of the number of times he has been able to yank the whole bird feeder contraption (feeder, sturdy pole and clamp) off the railing of the deck!  Oh, but doesn't the world just revolve around us?!  My husband thinks bugs or worms drew those lines...what could they possibly be counting, I ask you? 

I've had quite a week, just too busy, with a list of so many things to do and so many things to take care of, that any short window I had in the studio was nothing but frustration because, with so many things left on the list, I couldn't relax!  But, today I'm feeling better and spent a bit of the morning finishing up this little meditation drawing...random marks, entirely intutive, no pressure, no wrong moves...it is what it is.  I wish it could always be that way when I'm working and now, I'm heading back to the studio, before the spell is broken!

Winter Meditation no.1

Thank you so much to all the new followers who came this way, no doubt, through Bridgette via the interest in her Monday feature on The Walk Through The Universe!  Welcome to all and wishing each of you a fine weekend!

The Scroll for Counting Backwards

Well, now I've got two tiny scrolls listed in my shop!  The Scroll For Random Phrases was listed yesterday and today I'll introduce you to The Scroll For Counting Backwards...another one inch scroll with clusters of tiny seeds that go from twenty to one.  This is volume 1...there could be an infinite number of scrolls for counting backwards, I suppose!  These are great fun to make...another one is just about finished.  I just have one problem with them...I am constantly misplacing these little guys!  I spend a lot of time trying to remember where I last put one of them...somehow they are so small and blend in with the background that I find myself scouring the studio and then the whole house trying to find the one that has been mislaid.  Such silliness!  Hope you enjoy these and thanks so much for stopping here to look and read!

A Grounding

I realized today that this little embroidery hoop that's been hanging so quietly on the wall of my studio had never been posted in MissouriBendStudio, my etsy shop...don't know how it got missed, but I posted it this afternoon.  Seeing it anew, this afternoon, was a gentle reminder for me...a kind of reining back in, as I've been a bit frantic of late, exploring so many avenues in the studio that I found myself getting frazzled.  I think it's so important to remember that we need to make the work that is inside us...because that's our job...no one else on the planet can make the work that we are called to make.  It's just another way of saying, be true to yourself and not what you think others would have you do and be. It's the way to stay grounded.

This little found text poem on the right is accompanied by cropped circles from photographs my mother took when she was a young woman in the 30's and 40's.  The poem reads:

this time
around still
many questions
but what of golden
spinning bees glistening
in the sunlight
by and by
open the glass door
into a reluctant
farewell