Envisioning 2012

Welcome to 2012!  I hope this year brings many wonderful surprises to your life....I am hopeful of good things to come.  As one year moves seamlessly into the next, I find myself envisioning what I'd like my life to look like in the time ahead and what it will take on my part to make it happen. Sometimes, it's hard work to make things come to fruition, but it helps when there is a vision to guide you.  I'm finding also, that sometimes all that is required is a change of attitude, which can make life look completely different.

I am still thinking about the conversation with you, my readers, that will unfold over the coming months and how I can do a better job of engagement, creating interest and inspiration for all of us.  No concrete resolution yet, but in my musings, I've thought about authenticity, what it is that makes me happy, and what are the lifestyle choices that define me.  Where are the gaps that exist between the person I aspire to be and the one who walks in my shoes day to day.

My husband and I had a wonderful Christmas holiday in Athens, Georgia where a good deal of my family gathers each year at my brother's house.  It's a time of good cheer, good food and drink and generous gift giving.  Books are always high on the list and this year was no exception....I have a LOT of reading to do....

Among the titles are a number of books that will enhance my life in the kitchen, where my aspirations are to live a life filled with nourishing, beautifully prepared food.  I love good food, but often find that I'm in such a hurry, I don't take time to enjoy the process of preparing food that is equal parts healthy and beautiful.  A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented For Your Kitchen is wonderful book by the owner of 5 & 10, a fabulous restaurant in Athens, Georgia, where we go each year. John and I have become very intrigued with the world of cheese in the past couple of years and ended up giving each other books on the subject. My book, Artisan Cheese Making At Home, promises a lot of goodness in our cheese future....if I'm up to the task! I'm also interested in learning to bake bread and one of the books in the pile here is my source of knowledge, From A Baker's Kitchen: Techniques and Recipes for Professional Quality Baking In The Home Kitchen.  I've admired this beautiful book, Vegetables: From Amaranth to Zucchini, as it's been given to some one of the family members each year for the past several....this year John and I were the recipients and I'm so glad to have it....well researched and beautifully presented, the book gives all kinds of background information and recipes for all the vegetables you've been curious about, but have been too intimidated to try, not to mention the ones everyone knows and loves.  

So, when I'm not in the studio or in the kitchen, I have plenty of other reading to do....among the lovely new titles on my shelves are the following: 

The Hare With Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

Swamplandia, by Karen Russell

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, by David Mitchell

I'm overwhelmed!  Meanwhile, there is job hunting, time in the studio, yoga practice and my usual musings about life to keep me occupied.  We are all a little bewildered by the weather in this part of the country these days. No snow....how we could have driven from South Dakota to Georgia and back at the end of the December and not seen any snow is beyond me!  I'm not complaining in the least....not with a weather forecast predicted to reach the upper 50s in a few days.  Strangely enough, here's the view this afternoon from the front of the house....not the usual January view.

But here's something that calls to mind a more normal vision for this time of year....Trees In Winter, a new piece in my shop:

Hope the start of the new year has been full of new energy and inspiration for you...feel free to share new visions for your year!  

Winter Rhythms and Fine Reading

Winter No.2 from the Season Cycles Series

Well, somehow this felt like a big week with a couple of nice blog features for Missouri Bend Studio!  Robyn Gordon's blog Art Propelled post on Nature Lovers featured one of my recent book pages, along with the work of some other really wonderful artists.  Many of the readers of this blog are surely familiar and probably followers of Robyn's blog as well!  If not, it's a gem and I encourage you to visit just once...you'll be hooked!  I was also fortunate to be the topic of the day on the Thursday sketchbook feature on the Artisans Collective blog, which you can link to here. Since I don't really keep a bona fide sketchbook, I sort of walked through the process of making one of the book page pieces using the most recent Page from The Book Of Loose Associations.  

Also as you can see, I've moved into a winter mindset and have started up on the winter pieces in the Season Cycles series.  I have a few more in the works in the studio, but the second one was posted today.  I've been reminded of the beautiful shimmering grays that winter brings and am finding out that perhaps this is my favorite season...at least in terms of inspiration for making art!  Not to worry, I'm not letting the book pages go....they are still in process as well!

Late this afternoon I managed to spend a little time on the couch reading and that was delightful...not only to be reading and watching the gorgeous sunset with a glass of wine, but reacquainting myself with the rhythm of winter days when darkness sets in early and I tend to hunker down and surround myself with books.  That got me thinking again about books and the recent  posts about books in many of the blogs I follow.  I have books and bookshelves in every room in the house and have hauled nearly all of these friends of mine across the country and across town in recent moves.  I tried to part with them, but found I couldn't.

Many of the books I've collected have not been read and truth be told, I doubt I'll ever get to some of them, but give them away....highly unlikely...they belong here on my shelves.  Of the books I've read, so many have sent me soaring or stopped me in my tracks while whole new worlds opened up or brought me to tears when I couldn't imagine that such words strung together across a page could be quite so beautifully written or so powerful.  But ask me to tell you about them, to describe them...I'm kind of at a loss.  Perhaps my memory is not so great, but I think the issue is really that when you read a book, it's like a fine meal (the expression "devouring a book" is probably quite appropriate) that you consume and that literally becomes a part of you....in a physical way, but also emotionally as a memory of a time and place.  Enjoy a delicious meal, but in a few days time, if asked, could you describe it to someone else in any meaningful way?  You could only say in the most cursory terms how wonderful it was, or perhaps how awful, but chances are you probably couldn't even call up in your own body the very tastes you experienced.  Any good book read, once savored, is likewise absorbed by the body, nourishing even as it becomes a part of the very structure of our being....it has become who we are.  

So here's what I'm getting to...I randomly pulled a few fine dining experiences to share with you.  I can tell you this about each of these books...every one has been a part of making me who I am. They lifted and transported me to unknown places and I returned from each journey just a little larger.  

The Book of Salt by Monique Truong, beautifully written novel about Paris in the 1930s through the eyes of the Vietnamese cook employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. This was her first novel and I've been looking for something new every since...

The Shape of Content by Ben Shahn...the book must be a classic and if you ask me, it is essential reading for an artist. 

River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West by Rebecca Solnit.  I think Rebecca Solnit is pure magic...here's the blurb from the cover, which I wholeheartedly endorse: "Brilliant...never less than deeply intelligent, and often very close to inspired." -- New York Time  Book Review

Now I've gotten myself all excited to reread these little gems!

So....what books have so moved you....what books have provided your best meals????  I'm anxious to hear!

A hearty welcome to the recent followers of this blog!  Have a fine weekend everyone!

Winter On Its Way

Nothing like a little seasonable chill in the air and frost on the ground to get you mentally ready for winter.  I'll admit, I was a bit shocked when the temperatures began to drop.  At 71 degrees just the other day, I was beginning to think I was back in Florida...but now, alas, as it is nearly mid-November, having nightime temperatures below freezing should be quite acceptable!  One thing it does do, is get me in the holiday spirit, thinking of that beautiful snow falling outside, clinging to tree branches and the mornings of waking up to hoarfrost...glorious!  Clearly, it was time and so I found myself making the first piece for winter in the Season Cycles series.  Hope your week is going well...enjoy!

Winter No. 1, acrylic, ink and embroidery on handmade paper