Some more Crochet

 

  

Mark and I have been re-watching a tv series at night, and I've been using up some more stash yarn.  I made the green bag first, and have been using it as a purse.  The original reason to make it differently than my other net bag pattern was that it was more closed, and could keep rain off a library book.  I really like the way the stripes turned out on it, and the handles.

 I started making two other things out of the dark green yarn, but there wasn't enough to do much with - so I made a pair of slippers out of it instead.  I ran out of yarn just as I finished the second one -  and then ran an edge of gold yarn around it to make it a bit more even looking.

 

And the dogs had told me something about needing even more floor rugs - since we keep having to boot them off the one by the stove when we cook.  I'm not really sure where another rug could fit - but I used up a bit more stash yarn to make a really nice striped pattern.  I still have to tie up all the yarn bits on it.

North American Solar Eclipse 2024 April 7th

 

 

The shadows through the trees on my postal route (above)

The artwork I made the night before (below) in my sketchbook

poems for the first week of April

 

Grow and Be Happy : Heron on Nest

inks and colored pencil

Illustrated poetry book : Unspoken Things Made Words 

available to order in print here at Amazon

'Acorns'

 

Acorns

Someday we will walk together

along this path in wonder

at the same leaves on the ground

that small oak

which neither of us trod upon

instead allowing it to put down roots

for years, there in the soil

it has now grown tall

and we can sit in the shade of it

well before we thought was possible

rest our heads against the bark

and say how lovely is the day?

 

 

 my little cat, Minion

Tortoiseshell

Little black cat

with the one orange paw

curled tightly in a ball

on top of a shirt in the laundry basket

that I wore yesterday

discarded there on my way in from outside

no longer with the warmth

but perhaps still the smell of me

this is one reason she has chosen it

She tries to ride the bow of my hip

at night, while I sleep

but my ship it rocks too much

while I am dreaming

turning over and over and over

she tries to cling with claws

then we disagree

and the tossing turns to Neptune

she has to admit -it makes her a bit seasick

so the laundry basket, it is

begrudgingly

 

 

And the other day - when I was feeling a bit up and down over social anxiety.. It's a strange feature of that - that I will reach out to someone and it will be very good - or I will attempt a hard task or lesson on something and it will also be very good - but then the next moment I often feel even more anxiety that has to calm down, like a fire that has burned too hot and now everything is boiling to the top of the pan. So, I've learned that feature and now work to dig myself out of those feelings as soon as I recognize them. I congratulated myself, that night, which is a necessary part of reflecting on it all, for how many times I pick myself back up, ten times in an hour it feels like sometimes, no really, it was good, you are doing well, just get out of this feeling, it's an emotion, and one we have to keep working on...

and this flowed out:

Pompeii

When I fall down unseen,
within these hallways, inside my head
I get back up, ten times in an hour
over and over, or perhaps just one
handspring that was barely noticed
but each time I work my way up
and ask which way the wind blows
that makes me feel so light
such glass in my bones
but at least glass has weight to it
this is more like volcanic ash
reduced to ghosts and fragile shells
from fires too hot to handle
ready to blow away unless I capture it
in my palms and carry it to a safe place
so gently, where it may perhaps
against all reason - become rock again
I must take them, these fires, in small pinpoints
where they rush through the surface
needing to take a few moments to cool down
so that is what I am doing
when I am inspecting the ground like this
with my fingertips, furiously sketching, seeking
looking for a place cool enough to take grip again
and hoist myself up

Out into the Mathematical

 

Out into the Mathematical - the tesselations, the colors how they change, lines of geometry crisscrossing the scene, I cannot describe to you what I find so thrilling in the 'mathematical' ways of the plants and trees - it is something I have no actual equation for, only that I know it when I see it, and some little part of me that cannot do the calculations rejoices all the same in seeing it played out before me by Nature

  The Snowball bush, and the trees, this morning - although the color behind the trees was much more of a purplish-blue that the camera cannot capture.  We've had that with the morning glories before, too - it just doesn't capture the same color as I see with my eyes.

 

Our little tortoiseshell cat, Minion, drinking from the water trough

and some post-it note sketches of our goat sleeping by her hay bowl, using pens that were easily to hand

 

Languages : starting with Romanian (oh wow, there are words I had forgotten and it feels almost new to wrap my mouth around 'oraș' and 'ţânţar'...and yet, I'm better at it than I should be, so some part of my brain remembers I had studied it a few years ago.   Will head over and do the French and either Spanish or Catalan after a little bit.  Was proud that when I did the Romanian test on my phone profile on DuoLingo I was popped up to nearly the end of the first section to start in .. and I am at the middle of the second section in the main profile on the computer.  I made a mistake in order that probably set me back a little - but that was a good score!

At the Limit of Reflection - acrylic painting

Convolvulus : Morning Glories - sketch

The Morning

 

"La Dimineata' : The Morning

viburnum in jar, colored pencil

  

thoughts first thing in the morning, as I made the bed, and washed dishes, and started the coffee before my shower... I think that many, like me, were trained to think happiness is a warning sign, 'regular happiness', contentedness, not a reaction to some major life event, if we are content it is because something has surely been forgotten, we have slowed down when we should have been keeping up, there is something wrong if we can and do stop and realize that 'we are happy' in this moment, this simple task, this morning, these feet on this road, this small goal made and then reached. And that is so much opposite of the truth. Because we know that it is momentary, and we are looking for 'the other shoe to drop', as it will, eventually, but then we entirely forget this moment, the one we are happy in, WHILE we are in it, in the distrust of it. And we are trained that way, by our society, it seems... Well, I was. And I'm trying to get out of it, here and there, between shoes.

 

Poem (from me)

Le Bonheur

Have you heard it?

That little bell that rings

when you find yourself suddenly smiling

chin on your hand, and you ask Who Me?

Do you see it, that bit of blue

shining out between the tree branches

the taste of your favorite meal

although you had nearly forgotten it

in all the spaces in between

do you feel it?

This is the bonheur

welcome back traveller

drop your bags by the door

while you realize you have returned

to sit upon the hearth and be warmed once more

Medium in Art

'Mortal', ink drawing, 30 minutes, left hand

I keep experimenting, and think that is more being an artist than making four foot murals all in one style etc...  There is a difference between being an artist and being a commercial artist .. although, yes, you can be both, the goal for one 'mode' is necessarily a bit different than for the other.

The Thoughts:
 

My husband was commenting on some art news that (almost) everyone he sees making big splashes seems to be 'one medium' - usually something like oil painting, or welding huge metal sculptures etc etc.. and that is all they do, and they are celebrated for it and the museums are full of huge sculptures and four-foot-wide oil paintings etc while there are thousands of artists out there doing their thing in small formats and whatever medium brings their idea most to light. I do like the variety that is shown in the DayLight Gallery in Camden, TN for that reason.

 

I told him that the one medium I focused on for my years in school was ink - but for some reason the main reaction to that was : 'And it's all 'just' ink - how do you have the patience to do that?', and the second reaction was 'Where's the color'... so yes I have branched out over the past decades into not only colored inks and watercolors, but colored pencils (which are often seen as 'not professional') and pastels and paint ... but the other side of that is that it seems unfocused. You can't have your cake and eat it, too - either you're versatile or you are focused. 'Why do you make so much? Do you ever sleep?' The thing that, I believe, makes me an artist 'the most' is that I am compelled to create, to express, to chase whatever it is almost every single day.

That also equals mountains of work, and little outlets for most of it.. it can be a bit overwhelming at times truthfully to look at it all. I put a few small things in the gallery, or offer one up on a site for a while, but that doesn't mean I'm not making another item tomorrow etc. I tend to send some pieces off to special people once in a while, and then that is sending off little bits of myself to say 'I thought this might mean something to you, too.. and either way, here it is'....

 

 

 'What Can you Reach from Here?', paint and inks

black paint, white paint, blue paint, black india ink, gold ink, brush, palette 

What can I reach from here?  This palette, this brush, these paints, this pen... what about that mountain?  I don't know, I haven't built it yet.

Experiments, like left-handed drawing, and 'we're gonna run with whatever we can reach from this point without getting up.. and we're starting with this brush, good luck...'  It's constraints and yet it's also freedom within the circle to do whatever it is that circle can bring... and then expand it, refocus it, do something else.. and through every single thing you do, each thing that is different from each other, the same element is you - and those that can see that, then they know something more than just the casual observer of one piece

Poem : 

Graywing

The clamor can quiet a bit

that deafening onrush of Time

when watching the plain gray moth

grip the stem of the plant

swaying under its weight

and drink nectar from the white flower

that you had not even seen