12 Days of Christmas, 2008

I forget to post in chronological order! This was my contribution to the 12 Days of Christmas swap on my Altered Art Reliquiary Yahoo group. I wish the bird showed better. I made a mold of the bird in rubber stamp material, then made the birds from PMC silver. I used my new kiln for the first time to fire them! Yea! It worked! After polishing I added resin with silver or turquoise Perfect Pearls to the resin. I added the potato freshwater pearl danglie and tied with hand dyed silk ribbon. I hope the Diva's enjoy hanging them on their trees each year as much as I enjoyed making them. The beautiful things I got in this exchange will be treasured.

Don't you just love Rust!

Don't you just love rust? And I had been listening to Joan Baez' "Diamonds and Rust" on the way down to Albuquerque. Juliana had this incredible old, let me say ancient, pickups in her backyard. Couldn't resist memoralizing this rust!

Nest Necklace

I wore my Nest necklace all weekend at the Xtreme Journaling workshop for good energy. I love this thing. I have been inspired by the instructors at Art and Soul in Portland in 2008. I think I saw something similar around Nina Bagley's neck. Anyway, I have seen these wire nests on several artist's blogs, etc. I had to have one. While I was at the annual Craft at the Beach Week in October, 2008 I made this copper wire next and added a gorgeous glass egg from "Ellen's Eggs" on Etsy. She makes beautiful lampwork beads, but I am especially taken by the eggs as I have a current addiction to anything bird related. Eggs are the best! I used whatever beads I had left from my week of crafting. I'd like to make more, when I get the time! Thanks Nina and thanks Ellen (who just happens to be Nina's sister)

Xtreme Journaling

A shot of our worktable! Juliana has a tiny little house behind her home which has been made into a perfect studio. Lots of New Mexico sunshine, warm, inviting. She had the worktable covered with, what she terms, her crappy stuff. Our job, and we chose to take it on, was to create from what was around us without resorting to our old techniques, the things we love to use, that with which we were comfortable. Sounds simple? Wait, I resist change, I like being comfortable, I always balk at stepping outside my box! We did it! It was an exhausting, inspiring, and yet fun two days! I'll post my pages in the next post.

January 2009

Here I am, road trip to Albuquerque NM. It's hard to take your own photo while driving 75 miles an hour down the highway. I sort of managed. The weather was spectacular, the scenery fabulous. I love to see those wide open spaces. It gives me an opportunity to feel like my mind still has room for more! And I had my new Ipod! What a travel companion? I listened to "The Audacity of Hope" by our new president, Barack Obama. Very inspiring and it really makes one think about their own life and how they impact the world in their own individual way. One of my favorite thoughts, and it is certainly not original, but the beach is made up of single grains of sand. Each grain contributes to the whole and without them there would be no beach. I am going to try to rethink my contribution to this little world of ours. Anyway, I am on my way to do a two day workshop with Liliana Coles, "Xtreme Journaling"! I have been looking forward to this weekend!

The Book of Qualities

UNCERTAINTY

I have lived with Uncertainty for a long time.  I had thought ours would have been a much briefer affair.  I had no idea how intimate we'd become until you showed up.

And now you are asking me to leave him, and there are a few things I need to know.  Who are you?  What are your motives?  Can I trust you?  Is it really me you want to spend more time with or Uncertainty you yearn to visit?

                                                                                      J. Ruth Gendler

Freedom from worry, a goal to strive for!

Oh for the freedom of childhood!  As I watch my nearly 4 year old granddaughter, I see that maintaining their element of surprise and astonishment at each new day and each new experience can add dimension to one's life that seems to be missing from many of our adult lives.  When you smoosh around paint and scribble with pencils, bang on metal, spread solder we are fortunate to regain a piece of that freshness and openness that gives us such pleasure.  How fortunate is the artist!   We recreate nature, our emotions, our lives by the manipulation of inanimate tools.  We change nature, add to it, take away.  What a way to expend frustration, anger, sadness!  We, too, can have a run on the beach with abject glee without even leaving our studios.  Is that why we create art, for the freedom it gives us?