melismata

It's been so long since I posted I almost forgot how to do it.

2011-04-08T22:20:00.000-07:00

And this is an old picture, four years old maybe?

Some days I look around at my life and think is this it? And then other days - most of them, or more than the is this it days, anyway - those other days I look around and think how in the world could I want more, even if much of what I thought I wanted never happened and half the things that seemed so important for so long just don't seem to be such a big deal anymore.

Sun today, and birds.

Merry Christmas, almost.

2010-12-08T21:37:00.001-08:00

Making some progress on the murals in the house, about 3/4 of the house is at about this sort of stage. Still working on the overalls thing, though. Can't seem to put into words just what I love about them. But patience and working a thing over and over until it's just right is part of it, so Niels, I hope you can wait a little longer, if you still want a piece for your book about the beautility of overalls.

Man. It's been a long time since I posted anything.

2010-10-07T19:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wish I wasn't such a flighty person, and could stick to something. Oh well, I have a tendency to come and go. Sometimes it seems like a good way to be, and sometimes not. Life is full of those sorts of things.

Apparently I've forgotten how to write anything sensible, if I ever knew that at all.

Oh well. I've got lots of new photographs to post, anyway. This isn't one of them, it's from my cell phone. I have to go searching for my new ones; I put them on a new external drive. My husband had to buy it because I'd used up all the space on the computer's hard drive with photos and videos, imagine that.

Working on murals and overalls-related things, muckwork and - of course - the ever-present laundry.

2010-02-03T23:08:00.000-08:00

But I expect I'll be posting something more substantial than this, one of these days.

I'm going to have to get myself a nice little stepladder.

2009-12-26T20:48:00.000-08:00

I've pretty much painted on all the walls in the house, some rooms more than others and some walls in greater detail, and some portions of some walls in layers of brushstrokes and colors.

For the most part I just transfer paint to the wall with the brush, using whatever sorts of strokes appeal to me in that moment, and usually without stopping much except to reload the brush. My brushes get ground down, because I work the paint into the texture of the wall, and fuss with it as it dries, and then scrub it off sometimes, either by painting over it and making a layer lift up or using the brush like a scraper.

And then things that look sort of like landscapes show up on the wall. I'm surprised, but not really, I mean I don't find it odd that my mind, left to its own devices would paint things that look like the world outside the house. I'm always staring off at the trees or the clouds or the birds strung on the lines waiting for someone to be brave enough to be the first one to swoop down for the breadcrumbs scattered on the still-frosted lawn.

One wall, though, I painted with more deliberate effort to create a scene. It's causing me the most trouble, because I keep wanting to abandon it, paint it all white and start over, and paint the way I usually do, like dreaming rather than telling a sensible story. But now that I've made the trees on that wall I feel responsible to them somehow, and so I keep fussing with them, and they're beginning to look more like trees, or at least more like the kind of trees you'd see as the backdrop in a puppet show, a retelling of some old fable.

Pardon the swooping camerawork. It was my left hand's doing.

2009-12-18T21:39:00.000-08:00

“These are days when no one should rely unduly on his competence. Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.”

Walter Benjamin

Well I didn't meet my first, second, or third deadlines.

2009-12-16T18:06:00.000-08:00

But. I did manage to finish the things I was working on - or if not finish (what's ever finished?) at least get them to point where I could pack them up and ship them off. It didn't cost as much as I thought, and the box was bigger than I'd realized, and I have no idea what sort of reception it's going to get when it gets to where it's going. (A puzzled one, is my guess.) Next time will be easier.

It occurs to me that this is the first time I've sent work off to stand on its own without me there to fuss with it. I expect that was some of the difficulty.

I really have trouble shutting out distractions.

2009-12-06T15:52:00.000-08:00

Not all the time, mind you. Sometimes I can be so focused on something that I can't quite bring myself to believe life itself doesn't stop for the moments that the paint stops being paint and just becomes color, and then beyond color, just thick slickness and the brush not making strokes but only pushing or pulling the color, and making waves in the wet yellow or red or whatever it is. Red and black lately, and then both, to make a deep, satisfying brown. And then I get lost doing that, and forget everything else, and then the world comes back and the connection to something other than everyday life gets thinner and is finally pulled apart altogether. Or not, I suppose, the connection goes on in the background. But love and laundry and sandwiches intrude sometimes, and yes, intrude sounds so harsh, and I don't mean it be harsh. It's just that sometimes I wish I could only please myself. But I come back to my senses after a while. It's the same connection, just expressed another way, and whether it's paint or lunch, if it's done with care and dedication I suppose it's all pretty much the same thing.

So I have this deadline tomorrow.

2009-12-04T23:42:00.000-08:00

And I suppose I should be running around in a panicked sort of way, but I'm not. I'm not sure if this is progress or self-delusion and denial, but I've considered and rejected several plans as far as this deadline goes, and then they all were swept aside by a new plan tonight, and so now I'm thinking, well I don't have to mail this until tomorrow by the time the post office closes. If I get up in the morning, put on my fancy new overalls, knock some of the dirt off my sensible shoes and wear those sort of fishscale blue-green dangly earrings, and go to town, I can busy some good-sized sheets of fat luscious white paper and some sharpies and draw the whole thing, fold it up in intricate and eccentric ways, and put it in a box, bind that box with wire and tighten the wire with little bamboo pegs and be satisfied. And satisfy the commitment. So there's no sense running around trying to do a million things and worrying none will be good enough.

In any case, it's almost midnight and I've still got things to clean up because some of my works of art are in the way of tomorrow's breakfast. I'm hoping it's pancakes and sausages. I just wish we hadn't eaten all the strawberries. If it's me cooking we'll probably just have oatmeal, or scrambled eggs. But my husband likes to fuss over breakfasts, and we all enjoy that.

I tend to fret too much about things, and that makes me cranky. I'm making progress, but it's slow going, I must say. And then add the whole artistic temperament and a family history of eccentricities and so on and honestly. I think I'm doing quite well, all things considered.

At last. A day celebrating my most favorite clothing.

2009-11-19T17:54:00.000-08:00

Because when I wear them (as opposed to my other favorite clothing item, a long skirt) I can carry everything I need in my pockets (purses are not my thing, really) and I can muck out the creek, paint a picture, sweep the floor, sit on the grass. I love standing out in the fresh air, hands in pockets, listening to the birds. I walk differently in my overalls. I don't feel only feminine, or masculine, but both, or neither. I feel like a whole, comfortable self. I feel capable, and strong.

I wear them to the hardware store, the grocery store, and have danced the night away in them at our favorite little blues bar. My husband calls me "Farmer Girl".

No, they're not a high-fashion item. No, they're not particularly kind to a figure with more than a little extra around the middle (except they do give that middle room!) but I've had smiles and compliments from both women and men, and more importantly, I like the way I feel when I wear them.

If I need to fancy them up, I put on a gauzy hippie shirt and some earrings, and I'm ready to go. I've had people (younger women, or stylish younger men) look askance at them, but it doesn't bother me at all. I wear them with white or black tank tops summer and winter (I like to have my arms bare, because I'm vain about them, and I get overheated with sleeves now, actually) and usually have a few pens in one bib pocket, and my ever-present camera in the other, with the camera strap around my neck for jewelry.

And every time I see someone else wearing them I feel a sort of kinship. So I smile, and say, "Nice overalls!" and invariably get a happy, relaxed smile in return.

Happy Overalls Day! Be sure to stop over here to meet someone who loves them even more than I do.

I'm getting quite fond of painting directly on the wall.

2009-11-09T23:17:00.000-08:00

Especially with the texture these walls have on them. I like to paint and paint over, and scrub some of it off, and put on more and so on, in what you might not be at all surprised to find out is a very obsessive, unplanned and meandering process. My husband says well, it livens up the walls and it makes you happy, so I don't mind the painting all over the walls. He's not much for art, my husband, but he did buy me a very nice Van Gogh print of The Starry Night, and it hangs over the fireplace, and one night it started sort of drifting out onto the walls, and that part of the painting is definitely a love song to my mother, who also loved the picture. I gave her a print of it once. And my aunt gave me a nice big plate with the picture on it, and we use it to serve fancy bits and pieces when company comes by.

This isn't that part of the wall. This is in the kitchen. It's a cold room, with dull beige (well. mushroom soup) coloured tiles on the floor and countertops and for a backsplash, but it feels much warmer now, even with the chilly and unforgiving floor. The painting's not at all completed, but I just wander around with a colour and then put it wherever I feel like, with no particular plan in mind other than putting paint on the walls, and sometimes I go into what I suppose could be called dissociative states, but it's not as if I'm gone somewhere, it's just that I can't quite experience the world the same way when I'm part of the wall, if that makes any sense, and I suppose it may or may not.

And I'm not even fifty yet! This late blooming is highly under-rated, I think.

As is not at all unusual, I don't have anything in particular of importance to relate.

2009-11-07T21:13:00.000-08:00

But then again, what's of importance and what isn't? I don't really consider myself qualified to judge that, at least not at the moment.

Sometimes I have an idea that I've caught the tail of the point of things. Like it's something slinking off around an existential corner, either drawing me along or leaving me behind.

Of course it's hard to think at all with three girls in the house. So I won't bother, for the moment.

It rained and rained all day; it was lovely.

2009-10-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

So soccer practice was canceled, and instead we had a nice evening at home.

Now the girls are in bed, finishing up quiet reading time, and once I post this little snippet I'm going to go do some painting. The dishwasher's going, the laundry's mostly caught up, the house is tidy enough and tomorrow I've promised myself (and informed others!) that I'll take the whole day to gather up stuff for the art event on Sunday. I'm very happy and excited about it. I'm even going to get my face painted and everything. And there'll be a parade, and tamales, and we get to dance - possibly in the rain again, like last year - through the gates of Chinatown with a band and banners and there'll be hot chocolate too.

Remind me how sweet life is when I go back into woe-is-me mode.

So much for posting more often.

2009-10-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

But between soccer games and building altars in the shed, painting murals on the walls in the house and in a shed across town, thinking deep thoughts and listening to the birds, the days just go by, the way days will.

Yesterday my mother would have been 72 years old. She was the god of my childhood, and her moods were the weather, her face the sky. I regret she didn't live long enough to see me happy. I wish I'd seen her happy more often, and knew her better as a person and not just "mother", but wishing doesn't accomplish much, and so long after the fact it's even more of a misdirection of energy.

Does she look down on me from some great height, does she fly past me in the shape of a dragonfly, did I gather her into me in the hospital room when she died and "Don't Fence Me In" played in the background, just before six o'clock, with the oxygen gurgling and me trying to understand how my grandmother's face had eclipsed my mother's, like a mask had been slipped on. Will my mother's face be mine when I die? I know one thing. My children will know me better, and worse, and much more fully.

I wish you didn't have to die, said my eight year old daughter. I know, I said. I wish no one had to die, said my nine year old daughter. I know, I said. But think of it this way. Imagine the confusion and crowding if no one ever died. Imagine all the new ideas that would never come to be. Oh well, says one of them in reply, it's all just part of the cycle of life. And I promised not to die for many, many years. And I told them stories about how it would be when I was old and calling them to do things for me, and how they'd come home from college and tell me things, and they got up on a stool and we played at them being grownups and me being white-haired and sweet-tempered, or not.

I bet you miss your Mom, they said.

I do, I said.

A friend of mine has lovely hydrangeas.

2009-10-03T21:39:00.000-07:00

I asked if I could cut some, to display as part of an art-thing I did a couple of weeks ago. She graciously agreed. These hydrangeas are not those ones (I left them there, I don't know where they went to when the booth was taken down) but some others, from the same bush, and a piece of the timber bamboo my husband dragged home one day from the side of the road.

My mind's blank.

2009-10-01T22:47:00.000-07:00

But I haven't posted anything in a while, and I'd like to get back into the habit of it. I haven't been at the computer much lately. I've been painting a lot, on the walls in the house, a bit on the shed, and I made seven dollars painting the eyes and whiskers back on a tea-kettle-cat. (I didn't do a very good job on the whiskers.)

Today at soccer practice my daughter absconded with my sketchbook and four of my pens, to go draw and giggle with her friends while her sister ran around the field. I held some loose papers on my lap and drew on that, nothing in particular, just whatever came to mind. My daughter's friends came over and oohed over my picture and my daughter proudly told them I'd begun painting their room like a jungle. One of the girls complimented me and told me I should be an artist. I thanked her and said I just happened to be an artist, which impressed her to no end.

The days are cooler and shorter and the afternoon light when it comes is even more beautiful than it was in summer, when it became oppressive and I longed for rain. Yesterday the sun shone while the rain fell and the birds sang and I enjoyed it from the house looking out at the shed and the shed looking back at the house.

I came to epiphanies about control and illusion. It was a full day. I made meals, beds, apologies, progress.

Now if I could just grit my teeth and sit down at the computer and sort out my pictures. There are just so many.

In my dreams I have two weeks alone by the ocean to write, draw and paint.

2009-09-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

Or just to walk aimlessly along the beach, or not walk at all but just sit and listen to the water. Drape kelp in odd patterns. Build bonfires from driftwood. Carve the damp, firm sand.

I haven't been taking many pictures lately.

2009-09-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

I'm not certain why. It doesn't seem to pull at me, the camera, so I don't pick it up, and the days go by and of course now that I'm thinking about this I wonder: am I reminding myself to charge the battery and light some candles tonight in the shed and take some pictures after I maybe paint a bit more on the walls.

I'm making slow but steady progress, though of course the work would go along faster if I had a plan and didn't just paint ecstatically, without stopping, and without intention other than dipping the brush and seeing what happens when I push the brush this way or that way, or mix this with that, or scrub with the brush almost dry, or scrape with the edge of the metal part, and uncover something, and cover it again, and of course as I'm writing this there's the part of me that sits back and says oh yes, obsession, a classic case, but don't we all have our crosses to bear, I suppose we do, and apparently this sort of pre-occupation is mine, and some days what a delight that burden is to carry, or to set aside for a moment or two, and choose to pick up again, and see in an unfamiliar and clarifying light.

I sang for my sister by the fire.

2009-09-03T22:21:00.000-07:00

No accompaniment, spontaneous, as natural as speaking. Hoarse, from too much speaking, and tears given into and tears held back, some of joy and some of a deep and unrelenting sorrow, for all the wasted days and misunderstandings.

But it was a true moment, and we both cried, and hugged each other, and promised to keep in better touch.

Doing laundry today, packing bags, considering what to take.

2009-08-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

My overalls, of course, the neatest pair, with the least amount of paint on them. And some long gypsy skirts and tank tops, to be comfortable in, and a nice dress for the ceremony - I hope to find one today that suits me, but if not, I've got one that will do. I don't expect my wardrobe will be the concern of anyone but me, really, and when I think of all the time I've spent in my life worrying about what to wear, honestly. It vexes me often, my fretting over inconsequentialities.

I've gotten the house ready, am going to try and leave it as clean and happy as possible. My nine year old is all full of preteen melancholy about our upcoming separation; my eight year old will miss me too, but more importantly, she's looking forward to a suitcase full of surprises when I come home. My husband says he and the girls will probably spend much of time relaxing and making messes, and then they'll be tidying up and preparing in a hurry the last day, to be ready for my return.

I don't expect there'll be much of any time for quiet reflection while I'm there. But then I've got my shed to come back to, and the fall still ahead, with cooler weather to fill up with all sorts of projects, as I've come to realize I need the structure and deadlines and challenges posed by projects in order to feel a sense of progress and purpose and accomplishment.

What am I going to wear to my father's wedding?

2009-08-26T14:06:00.001-07:00

I take it as quite a good sign that the most important question still to be answered about my upcoming trip has to do with my wardrobe. My father is getting married again, and I'm very happy for him. It'll be an adjustment, that's for certain, but I consider it another layer of love added onto his life, and not in any way a replacement of the love he had with my mother. I was immediately happy when he told me (happy for him) and then after I spoke to him I was hit with a wave of emotion, and cried, and it seemed as if it brought my mother's loss into a finer, closer focus. Or maybe made it new again, fresh hurt. But since then it's been much gentler than I thought it would be, and I'll be there for five days, seeing family I haven't seen in years, and I'll be on my own with my husband and the girls here waiting for me to come home, and I can't wear my overalls to the ceremony, so I suppose I'll have to find some kind of dress.

A rusty old truck, broken glass and a birdhouse. What more could I ask for?

2009-08-19T16:07:00.000-07:00

I could have quite happily taken pictures of this old truck for - well. Hours is what I was going to say. Days is probably more accurate. Or years, even. If only I had a rusty old truck of my own to put stuff on, decorate with leaves and spiderwebs and moss, and take pictures of, year after year, in the rain, in the snow, in that almost perfect light in the late afternoon, just after it's rained and everything goes the colour of toffee, but only briefly. I love that light.

Only in America would anyone drive through a tree.

2009-08-12T20:25:00.000-07:00

The girls loved it, of course, and my husband thought it was quite cool to be able to drive through a living redwood. I laughed at them (not unkindly) but no-one took offense. And the lady who took our money at the entrance booth was sweet and very welcoming, and you just know we must have been the millionth family to come through and ask the same questions.

This isn't a picture of that tree, of course. It's the side of the car, and the road. The oddest things catch my eye.

We're off to see the redwoods tomorrow, and watch the sun set over the ocean.

2009-08-07T09:47:00.000-07:00

The road trip snacks (and some sensible food) have been purchased, the route planned out, the hotel chosen. The girls are excited, my husband's beside himself with excitement (he even bought himself a new wild road trip shirt, a tradition we established years ago) and I'm pleased but mostly consumed with making sure nothing's forgotten, the house is clean, and all batteries, literal and metaphorical, are charged.

So. Tea's made, dishwasher's going, camera and phone are charging, girls are happily reading and playing, and I'm off to the shed to go listen to birds, breathe in the smell of last night's rain, paint a bit, sing a bit, and then it's back inside to boss everyone around and make sure we leave the house smelling sweet and clean and ready to come home to.

So this new camera is pretty slick, I must say.

2009-07-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

And I was briefly setting my heart against loving it, because it's a Sony and not a Fuji like the last two. (The HP was first. 1.3 megapixels, and no video. I still have it, though I suppose I should recycle it or something.)

But. This one can shoot video in sepia or black and white. It doesn't (sadly) have a Kodachrome setting for photographs, though. I do miss that.

The new camera has a slideshow option for reviewing pictures. The sound for video playback isn't good at all, the Fuji was better for that. Overall, though, I'd have to say it was a good idea to buy it.

But the memory card, oh my goodness. Eight gigabytes of picture and video storage. What in the world was my husband thinking? Now how am I supposed to get anything done besides documenting the way the light falls differently on wet gravel than it does on dry, or, oh yes! burst picture taking mode. Like stop motion animation, I love it. So now I'm taking way too many pictures of the cross-eyed Siamese cat who deigns to live with us. I watch him stalking things, the way cats do, and I take pictures of him for long moments a time, in black and white, against the bamboo.

I can't imagine that I've got much of any consequence to say.

2009-07-25T21:55:00.001-07:00

(This could preface many blog posts, couldn't it? Mine included, of course.)

It's not the

connection is the word that comes to mind when I try to hold the idea of what it is I think is best about the way I can sit here nattering on about everything/nothing and

dishwasher's going. sounds companionable. There was a helicopter (I think it was a helicopter. At least I think I remember thinking that at the time, I've forgotten now what it sounded like exactly but I do know it was a sound I haven't heard before. I pay attention to things like the difference in the sound of the mailtruck and the UPS truck and the way our neighbor's truck next door starts up is a distinct signature, or not, not a signature but a song, I suppose, as much as a bird's noise is its song.

Whatever. I don't know where the words come from, and often now I don't bother worrying about why I don't know that, or what it might mean or how it might be interpreted or misinterpreted or completely ignored, not even noticed, what was that over there, did you see it? No, it wasn't there, it was only the shadow of the thought of it that appeared there briefly.

We had dragonflies today in the just-watered garden, sunning themselves and thrilling their wings as they sat on the tops of sticks cut from the little ornamental cherry tree that's grown all crooked. It's been badly pruned, but it wasn't done out of anything other than a lack of something, foresight, patience, something like that.

Tired all of a sudden. Didn't do so much today but did get some things done, and was nice part of the time and kind of grumpy the other part but it was pretty much not such a bad day. Hot though.

I had several very good ideas today.

2009-07-21T22:13:00.000-07:00

But that was hours ago, and all sorts of things and events have transpired; conspired to cause me to forget those particular shed epiphanies.

But. The idea is energy, and energy cannot be lost, only momentarily transformed, transmitted, transubstantiated.

I'm tired. I unloaded a pickup truck full of gravel yesterday, and spread it out by the shed, swept and brushed and washed out the truck bed (next time, a clever blue tarp before the gravel goes in) and the day before that we had a garden party with a live and very cool band who are friends of ours, and before that it was getting ready for that, and now it's getting ready for the next thing, and the days go by and it's hot, blue skies, popsicles, and don't I wish I could travel back in time and give this whole happy relaxed loving joyful me to the child who suffered the despondent and confused mother. I didn't have any joy of my own then, and now I do. That feels like betrayal some days, and just the way it goes on other days; life teaches, and some of us learn faster than others and some of us

us, me, you. Pronouns are such tricky things.

Anyway, enough of that nonsense. Here's the latest picture of the shed.

The shed as I found it not quite three years ago.

2009-07-14T22:58:00.000-07:00

Today I started painting the concrete wall in front of our house.

2009-07-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

This is, of course, after I started painting the living room, kitchen and bathroom walls, the back door, one of the shed doors (they're currently detached from the shed and awaiting an opportunity to go to town) and of course inside and outside the shed here and there, the shed floor, a length of PVC pipe and a few other things I'm sure. I like to paint.

I'm curious to see his reaction when he sees the living room wall. I'll let you know how it goes. I expect a sigh, a smile and a comment like "Honey, you're an artist. There's no denying it."

The shed's getting to more of a finished state, the garage is in the beginning stages, but oh the house and all those white textured walls, and the way the cheap craft paint goes on like cream and dries like chalk, but no, more like velveteen.

According to Wikipedia, this is what autodyne means.

2009-07-10T22:56:00.001-07:00

The autodyne circuit was an improvement to radio signal amplification using the De Forest Audion light bulb type amplifier.

It goes on for a paragraph or so like that, but you can look it up yourself if you're interested. So how that definition affects the understanding of the phrase mentioned in the next post, in which autodyne plays a part (oscillating?) I just don't know.

I'm aware it's a glitch in the translation, the transmission, or intended transmission.

I just found it interesting enough to waste some time amusing myself, and I thought it might amuse you as well or at least just puzzle you for a moment, or cause you to smile and say well, autodyne. Now there's a word you don't see everyday. I wonder what the hell it means.

Please be aware this post contains suggestive language.

2009-07-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

I posted that last post, with the blue jug in the shed window, and immediately, a comment. A whole block of text that looked to be Chinese (like I could tell, but it looked boxier, and isn't Japanese more flowing? I don't know. Anyway) so I copied the text (each phrase was a link, by the way) and Babelfish says the comment was this:

Love apartment, the sentiment color, the sentiment color pastes the chart, the pornographic website, love pair, the sentiment color a piece, the sensation novel, the sentiment color literature, the sentiment color novel, the pornography, the sentiment color video, expresses feelings builds the garden small game, aio makes friends love hall, the pornographic game, the sentiment color makes friends, toot toot the sweetheart color network, the love story, the sentiment color forum, the pornographic movie, love, the erotic literature, the sentiment color network, Li's sentiment color small game, the pornographic cartoon, a night of sentiment, the sentiment color game, the pornography pastes the chart, the pornographic picture, the breeze adult, the adult website, the adult disc, toot toot adult net, adult, the adult cinema city, 18 adults, the adult chatroom, the 85cct adult piece, the adult movie, the adult picture, the adult paste the chart, the adult picture area, the adult movie, the adult article, the adult novel, the breeze adult area, the adult make friends, the adult pastes the chart station, the adult cartoon, the adult plays, free adult movie, adult forum, a piece, AIO, Japanese a piece, a piece of downloading, av, av piece, av female superior, a inundates, the free A piece, the av beautiful woman, the appeal thing, the appeal, the appeal commodity, the native place autodyne, the autodyne, the sexual affection, the video makes the love, makes the love, the beautiful woman makes friends, beautiful woman, beautiful womanThe game, the beautiful woman portrait, the ut chatroom, the chatroom, the bean bean chatroom, the chatroom, seeks the dream garden chatroom, the video chatroom, the adult chatroom, 080 chatrooms, 080 Miaoli person chatroom, the video chats, the free video, the free video chats, the video makes friends the net, the video beautiful woman, is exposed, the great breast, photographs surreptitiously, the sexy movie, does not have the code, the movie.

So I disallowed comments on that post, in case anyone innocently clicked on any of the links. Thank goodness I'm somewhat cautious about those kinds of things. I've just glanced through the list and I think my favourite comment is either the native place autodyne (whatever that means) or toot toot the sweetheart color network.

I have a fancy new camera. An early birthday gift from my husband.

2009-07-10T22:30:00.000-07:00

So now I can see again, what I'm taking a picture of. Mind you, by this point I know when the camera is pointed a certain way what I'll see when I take the picture, because I've taken I don't know how many thousands of pictures with it.

My old camera, that is. My new one I don't have to know that, it knows that for me.

If I ever was so inclined, and could bear the indulgence of the expense, I could easily find enough photographs to make a show, about almost anything.

2009-07-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

Maybe next year.

Sometimes I wonder what the point of all this is.

2009-07-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

The blogging, in particular, and just everything, in general.

Today's not one of those days though, thank goodness.

I don't imagine that's because I've discovered any sort of mysterious clue to the heart of the universe, if one exists, if the universe exists, and it's not all some figment of the collective imagination. I expect it's more along the lines of a kind of relaxation into the understanding that mystery not only defies understanding, but laughs at the effrontery of it. I like to imagine the laugh as a kindly one, firm but not malicious in any sort of way. Indifferent, perhaps, to the confusion of the ones debating point and pointlessness and the many variations of variations of possibility.

No I don't understand any of that. But I've been reading Deleuze and Guattari again. So I'm a little confused, and prone to using many words and comprehending none of them.

Well. I say reading. But really what I mean is that I open the book and stare at the letters and sometimes I catch a glimpse of the shadow of an idea. And then I look again, and no, it's all gibberish, like it's written in languages I can't even begin to hope to half-understand. I don't know why I torment myself this way; sometimes I read things that hurt, they're so intricate and beyond me. But it's soothing in an odd way. The words aren't much different than the bamboo that held me up that afternoon. Uncomfortable, as long as you resist the boldness of trusting something you know may very well bend and break and let you fall.

Another old drawing. I was in the "Sad-Eyed Queens & Virgins" phase, apparently.

2009-07-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

I blame it on the time spent reading the Lives of the Saints in grade five library period. When I went back to my old school many years later I found a book in the library with my name there, in my girl-handwriting, on the library card.

Then the Andrew Lang fairy tale books started, all the colours (even the secondary ones) and tales from faraway and exotic places, but all of them pretty much boiled down to one thing and that was love. The fear of never finding it, of finding it and losing it, and having to bear that loss through all the rest of the long days after, and all those mornings of waking up and picking up the grief again.

2009-06-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

So Adam and Eve were sitting around the table one night playing dice and Adam says to Eve,

or Eve to Adam, or Adam to Steve; it depends who's telling the story on this particular night, and what brand of snake oil is being offered for sale, but in any case some someone says to some other someone else:

"What's that over there, sliding through the tall grass?"

And then the someone being asked looks away, and says, "Oh yes, that. I thought I told you about that, didn't I tell you about that?" and then he or she smiles and asks if the someone asking about the snake would like to try a piece of pie.

I don't know how the world was made. But I have theories about all sorts of things.

It's one of those days when I think I should get something really productive done.

2009-06-26T13:16:00.000-07:00

But I don't suppose it's necessary, really. It occurred to me the other day as I was raking the grass that it's the raking, and not the temporary pattern the rake leaves, that's important. And maybe the raking's not all that important either.

In any case, I'm kind of excited today because I'm going to submit an application to an upcoming art show. And even if I don't get to show anything, or I do and it isn't a wild success, or it is and I can buy all the gravel and drainage rock and bags of fast-setting concrete my heart desires, it's not any of that that's the happiness. The happiness is the purpose, and the sense of motion, wherever it might take me.

At the moment, the motion is taking me to the shed, and then the garden, and then the garage. Laundry's piling up, and I've got thinking to do. Laundry's great for that.

I'm sure the raccoons got most of the fish, but where did the little slice of wood go?

2009-06-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

I can't imagine a raccoon tucking it under an arm and wandering off with it.

In any case, there are maybe four, maybe five fish left. I hope they enjoyed their freedom before they became a snack for someone. What else might have gotten them, I wonder? Do frogs eat little fish? I don't think so, but then again I don't know much about frogs.

Netting, maybe. We'll see.

Fifteen or sixteen went in; most days we can see ten.

2009-06-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

But they seem to be happy enough, the kids in the neighborhood love having fish in the creek (such lucky kids, to have a creek in their childhood) and although we might have provided a few treats for the raccoons (where are those other five or six fish?) it seems to have been a good idea, or at least an entertaining and relatively inexpensive one. I imagine it's got to be better than being in a brightly lit fishtank at Wal-mart, with kids tapping constantly on the glass with their smudgy little fingers.

If I didn't know better, I'd think I was two people trapped in one body.

2009-06-12T08:41:00.000-07:00

But it's not that; just one complicated me, trying to grow into a coherent and functioning whole, happy creature.

It's late. I've been using capitals lately. I feel smarter when I do.

2009-06-05T23:34:00.000-07:00

I think that not using them is like sleeping in your clothes on the couch on a Friday night. Sort of comfortable, and there's all that pesky time spent changing into pajamas saved, not to mention the soft thrill of rebellion. Anyway. I let my nine year old sleep on the couch last night (at her request) and so now tonight it's my eight year old's turn. They figure I'm a (briefly, pre-teens are fickle that way) cool mom, and seeing as how I'm making the whiteboard into a chore list this weekend, I'll take the points. (Though I'd argue vociferously - and have, on occasion, for various reasons at various times, vociferocity suits me - that I am cooler indeed than even they are privileged to know and experience, and deserve to be treated pretty nicely even without the whole lazy Friday night party thing.)

managed to make it through some difficult days.

2009-06-03T22:18:00.000-07:00

so now that I'm feeling cheerful and buoyed by a sense of purpose, I've been quite happily productive in the yard.

no, that's not my house. it's a seafood market beside the bar we go to for the blues jam on some sundays, when we can get babysitting. next to that is a chinese restaurant; we've eaten there and the food is good, with big portions, but my goodness, the bathroom was awful when I went in. I don't think we'll eat there again. it's too bad, too, because the carved fish and dragons by the front door are gorgeous.

bits & pieces of shed/yard video.

2009-05-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

I enjoy playing around with moviemaker, cutting and pasting the bits of video and then dragging them back and forth across each other, seeing what happens. I expect if I spent some time being precise and planning how images might interact with each other I might be able to make some interesting things with a little more polish. but I've got rocks to move and bamboo to cut and all that toxic muck to drag up out of the creek. so I'll just be contented with a more haphazard approach to video-editing, and get my husband's big rubber boots on and go play in the mud, like a contented and blissful child.

all of the blossoms have fallen from the cherry trees.

2009-05-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

and now that the leaves are full and green, the trees give gracefully moving pieces of shade. the branches have been released from all that pink heaviness, so the wind moves through them more easily.

there seem to be robins everywhere and even a little yellow canary yesterday in the bamboo, for a sunlit moment by the creek. it's coming along.

I'm fond of the phrase "coming along", I've decided. it sounds like progress, but an unhurried kind, in tune with natural processes and principles. I allow myself to imagine a partnership between me and the water, the muck I drag up out of it, the stones I throw into it.

it's not especially late, but I'm tired and think going to bed is the most sensible thing to do.

2009-05-20T21:50:00.000-07:00

and, seeing as how I'm in a relatively sensible mood, I think I'll follow my own good advice for a change and get a good sleep. tomorrow's supposed to be even more beautiful than today. the yard is coming along. I've rearranged the living/dining room again (still hoping for the perfect solution to present itself) and shuffled furniture from room to room. if I could just go buy what I wanted it would be easy; I've paid enough attention to the possibilities and difficulties of the room and thought long and hard about the smartest and most comfortable way to make everything work together. but I'm working with furniture brought from a much larger house in texas, and then bits and pieces picked up here and there, and so it's slower going. but more exciting, I suppose, making what I have into what I want.

there are wild white morning glories that grow like weeds (the way morning glories do) up the bamboo.

2009-05-17T22:55:00.000-07:00

and I've decided to plant heavenly blue morning glories there, to twine in the tall stems with the white ones. and sweet peas, and maybe scarlet runner beans.

how beautiful that would be, to have the flowers dripping out of the bamboo like that, all that hot and cool colour and then the green on top like the roof of the world, and then the smell of the sweet peas in the afternoon when the sun hits hot there, that would be worth the digging and the few dollars for seeds, don't you think? I'm working hard making paths and flowerbeds, shallow ramp-like steps and all sorts of nice places to sit and look at things, or past them.

this is the mango jar upside down, lit up inside the shed.

2009-05-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

and I took far too many pictures of it, by itself and in combination with lights in other jars. I put the camera on the fireworks setting and drew with the different coloured lights for many blissful moments during which nothing existed but the hush-click of the camera, and sometimes not even that.

this is the tulip moon.

2009-05-13T10:49:00.001-07:00

as it rested on the window-ledge the other night. the jar makes the most beautiful wavery patterns, and I'm always happy to see a jar of mango slices in the fridge because I love the taste of mangoes and when the beautiful taste is all gone, I get the jar.

if you set the light on the bottom and the jar on the top of it, the pattern of light on the shed roof is so delicately lovely, so liquid and silvery-blue. sometimes it feels very cool and shimmering in the shed, and on those nights I dream about fishes and mermaids and things like that.

today I climbed into the middle of the bamboo and made myself a nest, and almost fell asleep there.

2009-05-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

it was the most at peace and comforted I've felt since I don't know when. hidden, trusting the bamboo to hold me up, listening to the creek behind me. watching the birds and the sky from inside the bamboo, snugged down inside it like a mouse in the tall grass.

the inquisitive cat vists the shed.

2009-05-07T23:34:00.000-07:00

he had to come in through the window because the doors were shut, and so he just hopped up on the ledge and came in, as calm and self-possessed as you please.

he sniffed at the piled up stones and the candle (no singed whiskers) and then sat in my lap, his muddy paws all over, not caring that I was in the midst of a particularly deep thought. he was insistent that I pet him, and bumped his head forcefully against my chin over and over, demanding affection, claws dug in, purring as he nuzzled.

this is the last of the tulips.

2009-05-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed every single bloom. they graced the front and back yard, the house and the shed. this one is resting in a glass jar on the shed window. I set it right-side up before I came in for the evening, when it was still dusk outside, and put a solar powered LED to shine on top of it.

if I lean over and peek out the back door I can see the the light filling the jar, and the jar resting on the window-ledge, shining like a plump, satisfied moon.

half of the blossoms have fallen from our two ornamental cherry trees.

2009-05-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

and the rain and wind the last few days (with beautiful, sparkling, sunny breaks now and then) has hastened the falling. my camera has two splotches on the lens now, and I have gotten quite adept at hiding those with light or colour on photographs, but video is trickier. at some point, a new camera. but there's no money in the budget now for necessary luxuries like that. and if at some point I print something, there's always photoshop to smooth the spots out, I suppose, if I was inclined to that sort of time spent at the computer fixing up pictures - and I'm not. but you can't always do only what you're inclined to do, even if you are a selfish sort, as I am.

"be happy" is the message I've set for myself on my cell phone. before that it was "be kind" and before that, "relax" and I must say, I've got the relaxing part down. being happy and kind takes much more effort, especially on days when I feel weighted down with responsibilities. but I think I'm a better person now than I have ever been, it's a slow and halting progress, but I'm happy with it, or at least I am on those days when I'm inclined to be happy about things. I intend to be inclined that way today, and the sun's out, which helps. (though I have to confess, I have come to quite love the rain.)

the cat's gotten two moles now, a fair number of mice and seems especially fond of catching garter snakes.

2009-05-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

and I'm sorry about all of them, even as I'm impressed with his hunting ability. the moles are a nuisance, of course, but my husband was quite happy with the cat and gave him extra love after the moles turned up, with their funny little faces and strong, delicate feet.

the yard's coming along, I'm reclaiming land back along the sluggish creek and making the mud and bamboo leaves into a raised path through the bamboo, which needs attention quite desperately. it's got all sort of dead, dry bits that need cutting out but I haven't even done much of anything with the pieces that were cut last fall. I have fences in mind, and trellises, and things of that nature.

blossoms in various stages of bloom and decay.

2009-05-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

My tulips were quite nice this year.

2009-04-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

Mind you, I can't take credit for them. I didn't put the bulbs in, they were here when we bought the house. They had done some work to the foundation and then were left with a bunch of bare dirt under the living room window, so they threw in some bulbs and now that we've been here two and a half years and I've pretty much let things spread how they felt like, the pattern is establishing itself and all I have to do is sit back and observe, and edit. I enjoy editing.

So almost as soon as the tulips bloomed they were plucked and taken to the shed. Flowers last a long time there, even without water. On days when I'm prone to fanciful notions I attribute this to magic; on days dominated by reason I come up with other answers. The real answer isn't of much concern to me, for the most part. I expect it's a mix of magic and science.

Been taking lots of pictures.

2009-04-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

Pictures, video, yard work - and, of course, the ever-present laundry.

Sometimes, I must admit, I fling the wet clothes into the dryer so enthusiastically they bang the drum like a bell. This is usually when I'm a little irritated at someone for doing something or other. The reasons for irritation vary. It's me, of course, and my reaction, and not so much the events that transpire that are the problem. I realize this, even as I'm gritting my teeth against the sharp words and throwing wet socks like baseballs.

But I have such transcendent moments sometimes. And then even the mundane acts of duty are elevated by love into gifts, given and received. It all balances out. I just tend to cling to the extremes, but I believe I've got as much of the middle as I'm entitled to, if anyone's entitled to anything.

Inside the shed a night or two ago.

2009-04-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

I've stopped painting on the shed for the moment. Actually, I haven't painted for days now. I've been taking lots of pictures, singing, recording bits of birdsong, hail, train whistles, things like that. The place I live is rich with them, church bells, lawnmowers, ship's horns/whistles, big dogs barking, planes, jets, frogs, wind chimes, and so on. It's been a dream of mine for some time to incorporate all these sounds into music of some sort, with images projected through/onto various things as accompaniment, some random and some planned juxtapositions.

Which has nothing to do with painting the shed, I suppose. But anyway. This is part of the wall I painted white in a video posted quite some time ago. It's nowhere near done, but what ever is?

Instantiation: a representation of an idea in the form of an instance of it.

2009-04-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

This is the bottom piece of a cupcake display rack, re-purposed, though not in any sort of necessary or important way; it just seemed like an interesting diversion. It was fine as a display rack except for the fact that I don't make cupcakes often enough to need one. Maybe at your house baked goods are around long enough to be objects requiring that kind of care and attention. At my house it's pretty much: Hey, where did all the cupcakes go?

Anyway. I took it to the shed and disassembled it (and I hope the friend who gave it to me won't mind) and wound a thick piece of wire (some kind of Christmas lawn ornament hanger I got at a yard sale) around the bolt that sticks up on the right side of the workbench (the one I saved one hot trash day back in Texas) and stuck the bottom piece on there pretty good and now it's a Kinetic Sculpture, or so I've taken to calling it. I'll title it Boingy Metal Sculpture #1 or something arty like Impromptu #1: Extemporaneous Instantiation with Smoke.

Tired from the day's work. A good feeling.

2009-04-17T20:06:00.000-07:00

So it's early to bed. Happy, working. Epiphanies.

I knew, when I was seventeen, what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but I got busy with other things.

2009-04-16T21:21:00.000-07:00

I became afraid. Some of those fears were valid, but some have done little more than hold me back from accomplishing what I knew I wanted to devote my life to. I lost myself on the sand around the fire the summer of my seventeenth birthday, listening to those so much older and worldweary talk about the inconsequentialities of existence, and art; now I see myself off in the distance. I look older than I remember, but I'm pretty sure it's me I'm looking at.

I think I'll go to the beach tomorrow. Don't expect I'll start a fire, as there are signs posted prohibiting such an action, and I'm mostly law-abiding. Mind you, by the charred wood here and there, it's obvious the rule hasn't been strictly adhered to. Maybe some late afternoon, a dusk fire. Might even be worth the fine, if it comes to that. (Though I expect my husband would think otherwise. He recalls the graffiti on the fence back in Texas.)

If I could, I'd run off and join the circus, but I've committed myself here so I suppose I'll just have to go to the beach in the meantime and wait for the circus train to roll into town. I hope there's a parade. It would be an ethical circus, of course, no rigged games at the carnival and the animals and the workers all happy and content.

Yes, the circus would be nice, but the beach is only ten minutes away, just past the thrift store and yesterday was payday. And I came into a few dollars of my own this week, for moving some boxes around, so I'm feeling flush. I'll see if there's anything interesting since the last time I rifled through the shelves and racks and listened to the ladies chatter kindly to the customers, and offer them free bread. They're sweet, and helpful, and unfailingly polite. Ladies, definitely. And then I'll pick myself up something for a little picnic and go play in the sand, take way too many pictures of fascinating waves, drag home some driftwood for the firepit or to lean up against the shed with the others leaning there.

And then it will be time to welcome the girls home from school and make supper and get my husband off to work and then go paint or do some yardwork, it's been good weather for both those activities lately. It's Spring.

battling pointlessness.

2009-04-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

things seem to be getting brighter. painting helps. and sweet little notes like this.

the beginning of a mural in the garage.

2009-04-05T22:35:00.000-07:00

I've started on the garage even though I haven't finished the shed yet. the shed's about two-thirds painted inside and out, except for the roof, though I did start on one corner of that (it's brown) to make it look mossy. I've done most of the ceiling, it's sort of like sky and flowers (roses and wisteria so far) and feathers, or leaves, I have no idea. could be fish scales. I just paint and don't worry about what it is I'm painting, I just enjoy the brush, and the stretch in my neck and back when I'm looking up. oil paint stays on the brush better; when I was using the latex enamel and the cheap craft acrylic paints I ended up getting speckled here and there.

eventually, all the places I've started painting will collide, and then I'll be done, and then I'll have to find another space, a real studio maybe, or maybe not. the bathroom needs some cheering up. I think it needs a mural, or maybe just a nice soft leafy dappled sort of effect on the walls. (my husband just shakes his head. I don't understand art, he says, but I'm happy you're so happy doing it.)

Well. This one has some odd colouring effects, as well.

2009-04-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

I think my digital devices are in revolt.

I'm not, actually.

2009-04-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

But now it would appear I'll have to plan my pictures around not just the spot on my lens (the camera's fingerprint) but also this garbling when I upload to my blog. It's not such a bad thing, really, learning to work within seemingly restrictive parameters.

my first sculpture.

2009-04-01T15:17:00.000-07:00

no time for the rules of punctuation today - day five of spring break and things are going well - making lots of things.

this is the top piece of a mold for a bowl, it was a pretty hefty circle. I made short work of it with the pruning saw, and enthusiastically reduced it to about a third of its original bulk.

(I believe the memory card this was on has gone bad, as pictures from it seem to be garbled - not on the computer, but once uploaded. the camera's almost exhausted, poor thing. I don't take very good care of it, despite the fact that I love it dearly. then again, I expect a fair bit from myself, and the camera has no feelings that I am aware of, so I suppose I'm not doing a terrible harm by asking it to endure all it does. I don't carry it around my neck anymore, it was making my neck ache. so most of the time now it's in my pocket, the long loop of the cord hung out to catch on things.)

in any case, I'm pleased with the sculpture, and feel I've strayed enough from the original shape to call it my own. and I believe I could easily make a plaster circle, so I don't feel so bad about wrecking this one.

it's sort of like reinventing the wheel, I suppose. but I don't mind that so much.

So what did I learn from the show at the University?

2009-03-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

Plaster is heavy.

(Yes, I'm using capitals and everything. I even did some yoga when I was there. My body walked differently all day long and I didn't even bother changing out of my overalls; the good clothes I'd so carefully packed sat in the suitcase all day - sit there now, in fact.)

So, I'm concentrating now on taking the bulk of it out. With a pruning saw, mostly, but sometimes the glazier's knife. I treated myself at the hardware store, with a guilty, thrilled bold post-refund spree. This meant I had to ask for and give myself something, which is a difficult thing for me to do sometimes. Anyway. the saw is nice, I can hack off bits or do fine carving with it, and the blade bends some, which is handy now and then - and the glazier's knife I'm enjoying learning how to use, or misuse - but at the store the other day I saw the sweetest little serrated (double!) drywall knife and oh, the lust that sprang into my heart then.

But no one bought anything (I'd hoped, this time, but I wasn't crushed. I just wished I hadn't made such heavy things - or so many of them) and at some point I'm going to have to start making my own money. Not that my husband doesn't support my art, he most definitely does. I think it pleases his masculine pride to do so, but I think I provide a good home, and even as much as I'm battling my own inadequacies I work hard to be a good mother. So I contribute enough to say yes, for the next year - or until the changing economic circumstances make it necessary, whichever comes sooner - I will devote myself to becoming a working artist.

Though I might only consider shows of paper-related art, for the time being. Even better if I can roll it around bamboo, bind it in odd and impromptu designs with wire sure to rust, soak it, wax it, glaze it, and let it paint itself. I've done some preliminary work, models of paintings, in the shed.

alas, the mud pear stayed out in the rain once too often.

2009-03-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

but while it lasted, it was quite appreciated. I took photos of it in all sorts of light, here and there, with different things poked in at the top, sticks and incense and stems of various plants, some with leaves and some without.

painting, lately. too cold and damp outside for plaster.

2009-03-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

but. I splurged and bought myself two brand new tools from the hardware store: a notched trowel for working cement and a glazier's knife. with the glazier's knife, the plaster chips fly, and the sound is almost like a bell ringing.

(not sure why my pictures are garbled when they upload. have tried a couple of times now. oh well. consider it an incidental sort of collage.)

an experiment in plaster, paint and paper.

2009-03-05T07:55:00.000-08:00

it didn't turn out exactly as I thought (hoped) it would. what I was wanting was to make a paper bowl.

instead, it looks (to me, at least) as if something (perhaps I might carve the something, or find it somewhere) burst out of the plaster and the paper, as if it were a cocoon or an egg.

in any case, it was an interesting experience making it, and making it kept me from bleakness and despair, or at least let me stand back from it a bit.

I still have a desire to make objects from paper, using the molds. I have visions of light beautiful things hanging. many of them, a dozen, a hundred - who knows. but they're filling a space, moving in space. holding little secrets inside. I'm not sure if this particular vision will ever come to pass. I suppose it quite easily could. it all depends on how much energy I choose to attach to the idea. and sometimes just the idea and the vision in my head is enough.

sometimes it's not. so I make something. I've given up (for the most part) trying to justify why all I seem to want to do is make things that are completely - well. maybe not completely. but mostly useless. in some cases (as with the molds) taking something useful and making it into something else, with no apparent purpose or destination in mind other than the experience of making it.

don't worry about the money, says my husband. I just want you to be happy. you're an artist. make some art. if it sells, fine, we can use the money. if it doesn't, fine. we'll manage, we are now.

at some point in your life don't you have to stop resisting who you are and be yourself? the other option is to continue to resist. I'm tired of resisting. it doesn't seem to have served me very well.

I'm working mostly in the garage these days. but at some point I know a studio will become a necessary luxury. there's no room in the budget for it at the moment, so the shed, the back porch and the garage is my studio for now.

experiencing moments of doubt.

2009-03-04T12:13:00.000-08:00

but persisting, nevertheless.

if nothing else, this showing of work is providing opportunities for me to develop better work habits.

and yesterday I broke two of the molds, by dropping them on a nice sharp-edged rock by the shed. I'm carving the bits with a pruning saw, the little saw on my multi-tool, a rusty dull woodcarving knife and a copper wire brush.

then glazing them with latex enamel paint and rainwater. then rubbing them with a sponge and some cloth from the ragbag.

a productive enough day, by my account.

working. sun shining. house tidy enough, laundry half caught up.

2009-03-02T11:50:00.001-08:00

and nachos for supper, and a movie after that, once homework's done.

this is the possibility I wish I could contain somehow and then bring out, like oliver, on a day when I'm in need of it.

no one can buy this beautiful morning, but it exists, nonetheless. I have no idea why or how I've been given this moment of balance but I'm very grateful.

sugar, have you seen that nice curved fold-up pruning saw?

2009-02-27T08:59:00.000-08:00

(shhh. it's in the shed. it carves damp plaster like nobody's business.)

and: plaster left outside under the shed windowledge with rain dripping off the roof makes the plaster look like coral. so I could set some of the molds out and let the rain carve them, and manipulate that with moving them, covering parts, carving, staining. waxing some parts, maybe. what would leaves from the cherry tree do if they were left inside one? (they stain things the loveliest lushest pink-rust-red.)

I've packed some with moss harvested from the bottom of the alder tree. I wonder if the dirt and moss will stain the plaster. and if I brought the molds inside, with the moss, would it dry and keep its shape. or I suppose I could keep it moist and have a nice indoor moss garden. how cool would that be?

last night I almost couldn't sleep thinking, oh what if I set some of the molds in the creek. with the water rushing over them and let the water carve them that way.

life is so good some days. it's days like this that I think the bleakness and despair is an illusion, a delusion. but of course in the middle of sorrow and anxiety the possibility of possibility seems unreal. I don't know why I have such an either-or personality. it's certainly a challenge to learn to live with.

but enough about that.

the sun is shining on the shed, wet and sparkling from last night's frost. the moss is everywhere, soft and gorgeous. little violets are blooming at the feet of the cherry tree. and the whole sky is blue.

my camera's back!

2009-02-20T18:28:00.000-08:00

it's been away for two weeks. hence the uncharacteristic exclamation point.

and I have candles. lots of jam and pickle and various other sorts of jars. so I'm going to make some tea, go light some candles, and take some pictures. and next month some of the molds will be on display in portland at an international women's day event; I got the confirmation email today.

(and last night I lay in bed and couldn't get to sleep thinking about - knowing, in advance of the act - how it would feel to cut into a piece of plaster the size of a refrigerator, how the chainsaw, or the hedge trimmer, or the pruning saw would feel in my hand. and then stain made from the rust of something or other, to glaze it, and then wax. and to polish it, silk pulled and pulled again through the cut out holes.)

but at the moment I have supper dishes to attend to. so I'd best go and do that, because if I don't get up and get moving and get it done now I won't be able to laze around in bed tonight. the magdalene sisters is tonight's movie. the last one in my netflix queue was rabbit-proof fence, it was very good. king of masks I liked as well, turned out I'd seen it before.

oh yes! ( it's a two-exclamation mark day. I might break out into initial capitals at some point.) another exciting thing. I've decided I'm going to take some classes this fall. haven't decided what yet. no sense rushing. I'm sure something interesting will present itself. the important thing is that I know I want to do it. so what it turns out to be - painting, tai chi, flower arranging, budgeting, square dancing, what does it matter. welding, carpentry, how to tile a floor, how to make chocolates.

the plaster isn't content to be scratched at anymore.

2009-02-13T17:35:00.000-08:00

it wants to be hacked at, with a piece of metal bent like a bow, the sharp edges wrapped in a piece of an old skirt.

I have resolved the question I have been wrestling with in relation to the ethics of rendering the molds unusable as molds. there are more than enough paint-your-own ceramic bowls resting on shelves all over the world. the loss of the bowls this particular mold might have made is balanced by the joy I am taking in making the mold into something I haven't yet decided, driven by impulses I don't stop to question as long as the chips of plaster are falling, are flying.

so I've decided this year to call myself a sculptor. and I have dreams of summer days, plaster I've mixed and molded myself, and handmade tools with handles of bamboo, or wood gleaned from the beach. of faces dug in the damp, firm sand along the river, and plaster mixed with riverwater poured in, and whatever messes might result from that.

and then the faces, left to weather.

I've decided to think of myself as prolific rather than obsessive, as far as making things goes.

2009-02-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

it seems more positive.

at the moment, I'm in love with plaster. the molds are coming along. I've made prints off some of them, given some of the carved painted waxed molds away as gifts, or in exchange for things, but most of them are still pale and patient, in the garage.

the plaster carves nicely. especially when it's damp, on a foggy morning, just after the school bus has gone down the hill and the birds are promising sun later on in the day. I was doing more scratching at first, learning the tools. so a lot of the first ones are very complicated, all sorts of confusing mishmashes of strokes, but I'm teaching myself so it's mostly trial and error.

and there are fine differences I'm enjoying learning about. that, for instance, damp plaster rubbed with a dry cloth gives a different effect than dry plaster rubbed with a damp cloth. and who could have predicted - well. someone could have, I suppose. but I didn't. the lovely surprise when the black food colouring turned the white plaster verdigris and the most luscious shade of peach, or salmon maybe.

(that reminds me of the time my husband called from the hardware store to say the only light mis-tinted - and therefore cheap - paint they had was a salmon colour. cooked or raw, I asked him. he and the paint guy had a fine laugh at my expense, but I was quite serious. and just so you know, they were both wrong, it was definitely cooked and not raw.)

for the carving I'm using my craft store niji wood carving knives, the ones I dulled carving the old bedframes that still haven't been turned into something. a cabinet, that was the original plan, or maybe not the original one, but the last of the original ones, that was months ago. I still have the pieces, and the sketches and notes I made. all I need to do is drill the holes and combine the pieces, like a puzzle. and then put the little shelves in, and set the jars on it. the jars are waiting, in the shed and on the windowsill, full of various and sundry things.

(twisted electrical cord cut into pieces looks like black licorice whips. there's your useless art tip for the day.)

well of course I'm still fixated on barbara allen.

2009-01-24T19:33:00.001-08:00

she's one of the antagonists to the sorrowful dreaming maidens, I suppose, or no, because then she does sorrow. after the tripping lightly down the stairs. I was going to say she was the counterbalance to the maidens in the castle, because of her self-determination, her sureness of purpose, however mean-spirited and misguided. but then again, the story has different versions, everyone's got their own sequence of events and has cast and re-cast, as desired, as necessary, all the important parts.

young man, I think you're dying, she says, and trips, light as feathers, down the stairs and out into the sunshine, greedy in her haste to be away from the pale face and the demands, the protestations of love. if I had you, he said, I'd be happy, without you I'm nothing, and she said no thank you, I can't bear the extra weight, I have my own soul to carry around and that heavy as can be with all the world pushing down on it all the time.

barbara allen hated gravity.

(I have no idea. of what this was going to be, I mean, or say. I guess this is that wild writing thing, huh. it's fun, I must admit. very freeing.)

I had originally intended to post a bit of singing. but first I have to figure out how to do that. I miss the blogger options I used to see, before this hand me down mac. but I am thankful for it. I just wish it did what I wanted it to do. you'd think the thing had a mind of its own, the way it frustrates me some days. I still haven't figured out why imovie cropped my photos.)

and a different night, with the lantern lit.

2009-01-16T22:40:00.001-08:00

a picture from the other night, outside the shed.

2009-01-16T22:38:00.000-08:00

I just took some cool self-portraits on the outside of the shed.

2009-01-12T21:27:00.000-08:00

silhouettes, very low light.

this isn't one of those, it's just a cameraphone picture from some other day in the shed, can't remember which exactly.

the pictures tonight are on my digital camera, the poor beat-up thing. I still haven't printed them. I keep deleting some, taking more, deleting again. I don't want to put the files on the computer, I'll never do anything with them. I want to go in somewhere and just print off all the files, even just regular photo size. though I do think some would be nice blown up (if grainy) and even big on paper I could add details to with pen, that would be fun, doesn't have to be serious glossy photo paper. (plus it's probably cheaper. I hate spending money. at least not until I sell something. I realize people will say well, you have to spend money to make money. I don't care for that argument. I'd like to make money and then spend money, thanks very much. I'm aware this is probably somewhat unrealistic. again, oh dear. I'm stubborn, it's true. sometimes persistent to the point of near-ridiculousness. but I figure at some point in our continuing discussion, the universe and I will come to some sort of understanding as far as art and money are concerned, and I'm hopeful that the universe will see reason at some point and realize that, when I'm a determined woman, I generally get my way, either through charm or through sheer -

oh shut up already, the universe will say at that point. fine, whatever, you win.

just stop talking, okay?

(ha. just like a woman. always wanting the last word.)

yes, I know, it's just isolated bits of nonsense. I comfort myself with the knowledge (the belief? the hope, maybe, yes, the hope, definitely.) that I'm only seemingly incoherent because I'm speaking not only in tongues but in several of them at once.

I still have that novel to write, about the middle-aged woman who leaves everything to live over a bar and sing blues at night and sleep until noon, and the big ruckus between the pentecostal church and the strippers. or not. whatever. ah, the bliss, just the release of the ideas, as they come, as they go, and not a care at all for the sense of them. or the sensibilities that might be so delicately, so pruriently offended.

I did sit down to write something sensible. but this was more fun. I'm too lazy to spellcheck and since I switched to safari and this mac (which I'm growing more fond of, by the day) I don't get the same spellchecking window come up, and I don't like that, so I'm just not using it. so it won't be until later, if at all, that I notice the errors and inconsistencies.

so these are the things I keep forgetting.

2009-01-07T21:47:00.000-08:00

that when I don't talk, when I keep all of myself inside myself, I end up sad or angry or hopeless or - oh god, the misery - all three at once.

that when I stop making things, however pointless or temporary, I shrivel my heart up and start to eat it, the bitter, unforgiving taste of it so meanspirited in my mouth that everything I say comes out hard and dry and unloving.

that I'm not alone in any of this, even when I'm completely by myself. that I don't have to bear it alone.

I've just looked up both intention and resolution and am pleased to report it was, indeed, intention that best suited the meaning I was reaching for.

2009-01-01T23:30:00.000-08:00

in the response to mark's comment on the previous post.

I love when that happens.

is that very odd? do you ever experience similar word-related thrills? it was the same sort of thing as when the bamboo piece this evening slid perfectly into the rolled painted construction paper I had wired to the box I was making. things moving into place, seemingly without effort or intention.

my bold new year's resolution last year hasn't yet been accomplished, so I've decided to try again this year.

2008-12-31T17:33:00.000-08:00

a solo show. perhaps everything I make in a year, or a month, or up until now, or about a particular theme.

no sense getting too detailed at this point of the plan.

at the moment, I'm deciding between green tea and earl grey.

but, if it comes to that, I've got shows ready to hang. this isn't a difficult thing to do, when you make things out of whatever you happen to come across, for whatever odd and solitary particular reasons.

and then there's that whole conversation to be had about what constitutes a show, exactly. or solo. I'm not a rock nor an island, however hard and isolated I feel at times. and communication brushes distance and time aside, learning takes place when the teacher or the student isn't even aware of the passing back and forth of possibility.

anyway. a to-do list, then. or a might-do, could-do list.

waiting.

2008-12-29T16:30:00.000-08:00

for snow, for christmas, for grandpa and big sister, caught in the storm. one of the last rooms at the holiday inn, a half hour and yet three long days away.

chains! two sets the right size! and a break in the weather. and my husband, the christmas hero, bringing home the best gift.

snowmen, a melting fort in the shape of a heart, icicles, seemingly endless wet boots and snowpants draped over heat registers or hung over curtain rods. decorated gingerbread from a kit. lavishly, lovingly sprinkled sugar cookies made from scratch and a nice madagascar bourbon vanilla, a tablespoon where a teaspoon was called for.

friends over, lights, candles, more baking, an unexpected parcel from faraway, and underneath it all the sweet pine sighing scent of the tree cut to fit the corner.

small house and six people plus two cats, cold nights with cheerful fires and then rain, melting the snow, and happysad goodbyes, and waiting now, again.

so tonight I didn't tell my daughter the story of persephone.

2008-12-18T22:44:00.000-08:00

but as she was asking once again (she loves fruit) for some pomegranate seeds, I mentioned the story, as if in passing, and she said, oh is there a story about pomegranates, how interesting.

the other day my smallest daughter passed the phone (she was talking to her oldest faraway sister) to her middle sister, saying, my sister will be speaking next. very much like an adult, in her tone, though the words made the older sister (my once only daughter) and me laugh.

I had two wire holders a friend gave me. meant to hold the lids from plastic food containers. one holds our saucepan lids and the other holds the boots upside down over the heat register, we've had a few days of snow and melting and today the girls took it into their heads to be snow cheetahs, or that's the story I got, and go barefoot in the snow. they won't do that again. I hate my feet! (screamed the younger of the bootless, sockless, silly creatures) I want them tooken off!

god help me, I laughed. but not openly until later. I expect they've learned their lesson now, and they still have all their toes. so it was a pretty full day. and now bread's been baked (not my own dough, just thawed white bread dough left to rise on the counter and bake while the grinch stole christmas again) and the house is tidy. no school again tomorrow, no school until the first week of january.

it was too cold today and tonight to spend much time in the shed.

2008-12-15T22:59:00.001-08:00

so I didn't get to work on the coffee shrine as I'd hoped to. oh well. it's good to have projects.

my mother, quoting someone (I think), said that in order to be happy you needed to have three things: someone to love, something to do and something to look forward to.

she was often unhappy. I wish that hadn't been the case. I'd say it's to blame for a large part of my own sadness. the part I'm not responsible for, of course. because once I recognize it as a tendency, however much the getting of it was not my choice, the continuing of it certainly is.

but then again, it occurred to me earlier tonight that as I allow myself to be made uncomfortable (depair or giddiness) by the extremes, the middle becomes broader somehow, like a hammocking sort of effect. perhaps it's the wild swinging back and forth, wearing a groove in the soft middle like path, or a nest.

anyway. I took some cameraphone pictures of the coffee shrine last night. so I've posted those, in case it amuses you to see them.

so I looked up behooved. it was sort of what I had meant.

2008-12-13T18:51:00.000-08:00

I mean, at the time I wrote it, I thought it, so I meant it in that sense.

(though the dictionary definition - and granted I didn't dig too far for alternate definitions and did only the minimum as far as etymological research. so what I mean I suppose, or mean I thought I meant, or-

uh huh. pardon the confusion, I'm beside myself, waiting to catch another glimpse of the raccoons that showed up beside the shed around eleven or so last night. sneaky buggers, but fat with whatever croaking creatures they had stuffed themselves with, coming to top off an almost-midnight snack with a dessert of dried then rain-softened brown bread, thrown out two days ago to rest obliquely on the hunks of dirt slowly sculpting or being sculpted, the ones I had plans for but no energy to move the plans towards any sort of fruition.)

the way the word has been defined in the past didn't completely suit my use of it in the present, that's what I might have been meaning to say a paragraph ago. I choose to call that art rather than error, or impulse rather than affectation of metaphor, or simile, no, metaphor. simile uses like or as.

so anyway, I got lost in the first bit, but whatever. raccoons came last night, behooved is a cool word, I made up a poem in the shed that begins

he behooved me.

there's more, but it's not ready to type yet. phrases have been coming to me for some time, years now, I've got notebooks full. lately I've been keeping better track, writing down more, remembering more. though other times my memory is hazy. I blame that on having to do not only my own remembering, but the reminding for three other people.

so I'll probably write more poems in bits and pieces, and then when there's quiet and a need to write, or cut and glue, or rip and turn over and paint through with food colouring mixed with water and glue, and tell stories inside my head, I'll make books. seems like a good occupation for winter nights. and if I start printing (and maybe drawing/painting on) some of my photographs, and cutting and ripping up my drawings and paintings, I'll have plenty of illustrations.

so what if it takes forever, or a week and then it's on to the next thing. at the moment, I see it, this possible bookmaking future, and it seems appropriate and sensible, a good use of my time, as much as any other, unless any other becomes necessary.

tonight I lit a candle in that three legged (now no-legged) lantern a friend gave me, and hung it in the window of the shed, because the screen another friend gave me, the screen that was hung with clothespins in the window keeping out some of the wind and rain was dusty and is currently being washed by the rain that softened the bread the raccoons started to eat last night before I gently clicked and shuffled to let them know I was there, and then, when all they did was look at me and wonder what sort of odd, lumpy lumbering creature was suddenly and erroneously in their restaurant, then I shuffled louder and chucked at them, and they chose to let me walk back to the house in some privacy, while they waited almost patiently in the bamboo.

two of the houses on my quiet

(ish. there are kids all over, of course. and leafblowers and heat pumps.)

dead-end street are for sale. the one across the street that the bank is selling, and the one beside us that the man is selling, his (ex?) wife gone, the foundations on the new house barely dug.

now is the time to be who I am. I want, after all, to attract new people as good as the people I am currently blessed with. I love my little neighbourhood. I'm so glad we found it, the girls are growing up as closely as I can imagine possible to the way I did, except for the sad distance of my own family, and my husband's.

so I have to work harder to keep those connections this year. there's a family history wanting to be written, that's another thing.

but anyway. I'd love to have kind, well-mannered, free-thinking

(and my definition of free-thinking includes belief in whatever, if the belief is considered and practiced, and not just inherited and spoken)

new neighbours in the new year. in case my wants are being taken into consideration, you know.

(and if they're not, oh well. there's always bamboo. grows like lightning, except it's much more subtly invasive. subversive, you could say, if you wanted to. a subversion of bamboo. my collective noun of the day.)

and another. (prototype, I mean.)

2008-12-12T14:49:00.000-08:00

I figure seeing as how I bought the thing, and used it until it was no longer functioning the way it was intended to

(though I could have managed the low-tech way we've been making coffee, my husband wanted a new coffeemaker, and I must admit that though he got one too tall to fit under the cupboard and I had to move it to another counter, it's a nice machine, very slick but easy to use and pretty, as coffeemakers go.)

and of course it'll never decompose, or at least not in my lifetime

(how long does it take metal and plastic to do that? does it ever? it must. I mean, metal will rust, and maybe the plastic will get brittle and break and turn into powder but seriously, that's got to take some time.)

it behooves me.

(I think. I'm not clear on behooving.)

it behooves me to make something out of it and what better thing to do than use the filter basket as a basket

(with some modifications, sandpaper, paint, wire or at least that's what came to mind, I haven't started it yet, might never, but I'm pretty sure I will)

and the rest of it

(for the time being. it's got parts. I love things with parts. and I have one of those little starry screwdrivers. I'm curious to see what's inside the machine.)

will become a shrine to coffee, which someone in some little coffeeshop might fall in love with. maybe I'll get free coffee out of the deal. anything's possible, in theory, even impossibility, I suppose.

just a cameraphone picture for now. the carafe part of the coffemaker is gone, I didn't act quickly enough to save it, which is a shame. I would have liked to fill it with various things and take pictures of it. oh well. so there's just a little clay bowl and candle sitting on the hotplate, a very simple sort of shrine. and the basket's still attached, that'll change, and free up some space. there are holes, of course, where the hot water used to drip through. I expect wire will go there, with something or some things hung on it. melted pieces of plastic, possibly.

dave, I hope you don't mind, but I've melted some of the light filter samples. they're quite pretty. something in between butterflies and autumn leaves. pictures of those to come at some point.

consider it a prototype.

2008-12-11T12:08:00.000-08:00

lightpainted alphabet on bliptv

easy to upload, anyway, and it plays, though it's giving me some sort of error message about metadata. persnickety.

tonight I might read the imovie manual and find out why my pictures were cropped. too big? some odd setting I have to adjust? no matter. I'm out of new things to read, "the week" and "the nation" won't be here for a few days, and it's either the imovie manual or the manual for the new coffeemaker.

did I mention that, that the old one stopped working? we waited until this payday to replace it, so we've been boiling water and pouring it through the swung out filter basket, with the pot sitting on the tile counter beside the non-functioning unit, the coffee cooling quickly. which has been fine, not as easy as filling the thing and flipping the switch and waiting for that throaty cheery gurgle, but still. it's not chopping wood and hauling water. and without the pot sitting on the hotplate there's not that awful (to me) old coffee smell. I turn the coffeemaker off as soon as I can, preferring to drink the stuff cold or reheated rather than cooked. but my husband has a less sensitive nose and palate for some things.

and now a nice relatively simple new white general electric digital coffeemaker sits on the counter, and the old one has been rescued from the trash bin. I don't care what he says, a shrine is what it's going to become. he just doesn't share my particular vision, and that's fine. otherwise there'd be the two of us, saving pieces of junk from the landfill as if me turning it into something else is anything other than buying it a little more time.

the light-painted alphabet. my first imovie.

2008-12-10T23:04:00.000-08:00

and I haven't worked out exactly how to use it. I have two manuals. it's possible I may consult them at some point. I've looked at a few help files, but I'd rather figure it out and occasionally dip into the manual and have the two kinds of learning intersect than click on links, I try to limit my computer time, it hurts me to type too much but oh I love seeing the words come up, I won't deny it. I wonder if a typewriter might be better? handwriting is good but not as easily shared, though I suppose I could write and take cameraphone pictures and send right to my email or right to the blog I suppose, can I do that? I must be able to do that.

not that it matters.

anyway. so some of the pictures got cropped by some other authority than my own, I don't know what happened. most of these looked more like letters. but like I said, the next batch is better. I'm really enjoying this whole experiment.

Oh! my eight year old is all excited because her class is doing a section on native american culture and today she did some weaving, and had tips for me if I ever wanted to consider trying it, and also that she learned to say a phrase that meant thank you for letting me be here.

it was a sweet mothering moment, so I'm surprising everyone with cinnamon buns in the morning. my seven year old's been rumpelstiltskin lately. but we had a good talk today (I've been rumpelstiltskin's mother, apparently, and where do you think he learned his rude and selfish behaviour from?) and I think the talk will sink in both ways and do some good. the house smells wonderful, the cinnamon buns (frozen bread dough, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins, rising in the bundt pan a friend gave me) are perfuming the whole house, and in the morning I'll make a cream cheese glaze, and tomorrow's payday and I'm going to buy a bag of gravel and a can of paint and a new paintbrush, so I get to go to the hardware store and check to see if the cat is sleeping on top of the sandpaper. and they have candy, chewy sugary spearmint leaves. and it's thursday, the best day of the week, situated just perfectly between the industry of monday and the relaxation of sunday.

===

the movie will have to be a link in the next post. for some reason since switching to this mac, I don't get an add video option on my posts, just spelling and image and preview. it's inconvenient. so I'll have to figure that out, or post it elsewhere and then post that link.

(teacher, can I hand it in tomorrow?)

so I've got six pieces of art made of reclaimed materials in a show & sale in a very cool little gallery.

2008-12-05T08:44:00.000-08:00

and even though this sounds hopelessly goofy and over-dramatic (me? histrionic? never!) I must admit that the night before I took them in, I held one of them and broke helplessly into tears, and rocked it like it was a child, which of course it is.

the broken vessel saved for anything, everything, the potter's child, his joy, his burden.

so I packed them all up carefully in a painted fruit crate, along with a couple of little gifts for the bundle of energy that curates the space, and drove them into portland.

I'd been to this space once before to volunteer as a greeter for an open studio time. I joked that I did more gritting my teeth than greeting, but I'd also brought one of my daughters with me and when I'm mother I have a hard time being myself, or no, that's not it exactly. I have a hard time not being my mother-self. which is different than my shara-self or my artist-self or whatever. so between the drive that first time (I got slightly lost, had to call my husband for alternate directions once I figured out where I was exactly, and this made me anxious) and then the fact that I was feeling my way around a new place and this always gives me some moments of having to make accommodations in my brain-map for how I fit into it, and not knowing exactly what was expected of me, and being somewhat naturally shy (except when I'm naturally social) and keeping an eye on my daughter to make sure she didn't make unplanned alterations to anyone's art, well. it was a good experience, but wearying. even though the space is lovely, the people are amazing, and I was doing it whole-heartedly because I wanted to help out, it depleted me. this was because, while my heart was fully engaged, my brain was split between self and mother. and mother almost always wins. or when it doesn't, it makes for disjointed thinking/action just by diverting energy.

does any of this make sense? I suspect not. no matter.

anyway.

so this time I went alone. and got lost. and called for directions. and got lost again. and was driving, panicking, and talked myself out of that panic, telling myself (out loud) that it wouldn't do any good to panic, what I needed to do was breathe and calm down, and find a place to stop where I wouldn't get myself any more turned around, and figure out on my own where I was and how to get back across the river and find the place I needed to be.

and so I did.

and I hauled my fruit crate up a few flights of stairs and then magic happened, the pieces flew out of my arms and onto the walls and onto the white pillars or plinths (plinths was the name in my head when I saw them, however incorrect it may be, I don't know at the moment and don't feel inclined to stop now to check) that the curator brought out, and then there they were, my found and cosseted darlings, all cardboard and cheap paint and wire. and I felt free of them, and longing for them, and proud of them and then I swept the floors and straightened other people's art and helped adjust lighting and chatted and took a few pictures and hugged the curator goodbye and walked lightly and surely down the stairs, smiling, and stood by the car in the parking lot eating a crisp sweet pink lady apple and a piece of gouda cheese with my arms bare in the cool afternoon and a seagull crying overhead and then I went home, with no getting lost at all.

and made supper, and helped with homework, and sent an email saying thank you, and now here I am, the girls gone to school, my night-shift husband sleeping, breakfast dishes waiting and the sun shining on the shed, two cats lazing around, the laundry caught up and the whole day gleaming, mine to make anything that comes to visit.

so for a good part of the day I was sweet, kind and patient.

2008-12-03T20:04:00.001-08:00

but finally, in the home stretch I snapped, and yelled.

sigh.

wednesday. my least favourite day of the week, for various reasons too persnickety to go into.

but it was a minor outburst, more frustration than anger, and all it says is I let myself get too low, and so it's early to bed for me tonight. a busy end of the week and weekend ahead.

first, though, a cup of green tea with honey. and some time and quiet to make something, or unmake it, whichever best works through whatever it is that's troubling me. sometimes that doesn't become clear until I forget that I'm bothered at all, which I suppose is perspective working its magic, or magic working its perspective, I don't know which. it could, of course, be both.

and no-one seems in the slightest bit put out by my childish display (I stamped my foot, like a petulant, pouting child) so I suppose it's not that big a deal. I do tend to give things more weight than is necessary sometimes.

I feel old today, and tired, heavy with possibilities curled and fluid, pushing everything else out of the way in their unthinking need to grow bigger than the confines of a temporary and insufficient home.

I've decided that in 2009 I will find myself a studio.

2008-11-30T09:27:00.000-08:00

even if that means I have to rent a storage space somewhere, or gather materials to build something closer to home. I suppose if I was digging and drilling holes in the yard and in some nice 4x4s my husband at some point would say oh no, honey, you're doing that all wrong, and maybe a new shed would appear, with no holes in the roof and no rotting plywood floor, someplace with light and space to work. because I keep bumping into things, and twice now the sleeve of my shed coat has gotten singed by candles. I don't need a fancy space to work, but safe and warm would be nice.

I love my shed, there's no question about that. and I work outside of it, as often as I can, on the bigger pieces of plywood and so on. at the moment I'm painting a bamboo screen, it's coming along nicely, it's the cut-off bottom of the bamboo blind that's in our bedroom.

so I think I need to open my own bank account, and start selling some of the things I've made and don't need anymore now that I've learned whatever I needed to learn from the making/unmaking/remaking of them, unless of course I can give them away as gifts. I much prefer that. but I've been invited to put up some art for sale next week and who knows, someone might take a shine to something I've made and the more I let things go, the more room I make for something new.

my mind's a blank at the moment. but I suppose if that were true I wouldn't be posting.

2008-11-27T13:42:00.000-08:00

so perhaps it's more accurate to say my mind's a blur rather than a blank. I attribute this to the macy's thanksgiving day parade, or the little we managed to watch of it, the bloated shiny spectacle, the idle chatter, the endless stream of interchangeable overwrought singers.

bleh. it all leaves a bad taste in the mouth, or mine anyway. and a corresponding dullness in the brain. this is why I only watch tv three or four times a year. I'd much rather go paint something.

the cat smiles, not because his belly is full of food, but because his mouth is full of song.

2008-11-19T21:24:00.000-08:00

what does this have to do with anything? I have no idea. it just popped into my head.

and whatever it has to do with something, it certainly has nothing to do with this poor dog.

though it did make us smile, the costume. and the dog suffered the delight of the crowd with calm disregard. and perhaps he even enjoyed the whole charade, the obvious pun, the clowning.

after all, who even vaguely recalls the man leading him down the street? but the dog is immortal now, as far as I'm concerned. anonymous as he is, as we all are.

I got a thing or two accomplished today.

2008-11-17T20:22:00.000-08:00

as much as anything's ever accomplished. made some prints from carved/waxed/painted pieces of salvaged plywood. my husband says one of them looks like a cardinal's head, or an eye and a beak anyway. I didn't have a cardinal (or even a bird) in mind when I was carving them, but then again I do most things in a trance half the time anyway, lulled by the soothing repetive motions of the carving knife scooping out long curls of wood, or the sandpaper rasping away, smoothing the edges, the leftover bits of dollar store candles scraping softly back and forth aross the wood, and then a soft rag or the sleeve of my poor tattered spattered shed coat polishing.

power tools and faster, more efficient ways of doing things have a particular appeal. but you can't really lose yourself in birdsong when you're plugged in to something and you've got sharp loud machines going.

anyway. some groups of threes, stacked up in the basement the spools are still hanging in. these have nothing to do with birds either. (though the little niches in the bricks make me think of nests. or that hole in the concrete wall on ivy street with the moss coming out of it, the one I put that egg-shaped rock in one time.)

the whole day I thought in black and white. well, with occasional flashes of colour.

2008-11-14T20:14:00.000-08:00

and it was a quiet, noisy day. I strung film spools on wire and hung it on a pillar in a basement and called it an installation of art. I went to two new places, met four new people and a very nice dog. didn't get lost, or flustered by exits or traffic. followed through on promises made, made more. came home, sat with a cup of coffee for twenty minutes and then made roast beef and mashed potatoes and diced carrots and gravy for supper, and chocolate chip cookies for a bedtime snack.

the girls are sleeping on the futon in the living room, a friday night tradition that's been going on for a few months now. they're watching a movie, in their pink pajamas, happy on blue sky flannel sheets with clouds and smiling suns on them. two cats are purring, there are crayons and playdoh all over the table and a basket of laundry to fold. and the weekend to look forward to, and next week, and all the days past that to whenever the days stop.

it was a good day. I'm thankful for it.

I've been told on many occasions that I think too much.

2008-11-13T21:20:00.000-08:00

but then again, I berate myself for thoughtlessness and cluelessness often. so I suppose it all balances out. what must it be like to think just enough, I wonder.

you think too much. you worry too much. you feel too much.

you get the picture. it's the excess, and then the veering back madly (blissfully, regretfully) to the not enough, the feast a famine of moderation, the plenty stretched thin and transparent.

oh blah blah blah. the words, always, waiting, tumbling over each other. pick me, pick me! the ideas, jostling for attention, all elbows and promises.

she's a bright and creative child, but I wish she'd work harder, apply herself, she shows such potential, she daydreams too much. she's too shy. she talks too much.

never enough, or too loud, feelings like ripe bright nerves, glistening, electric.

a cartoon I saw once and wish I'd kept. or kept and lost. or still have, but where? an artist, stereotypically french beret-wearing mustached man about to sit on a chair with a big obvious nail poking up on it.

the wife (?) and the horrified child, no pierre, don't sit. (seet, they say, in that cartoon text french.)

but I must, he says.

of course he must. I'd much rather have this purpose and clarity burning than the other, colder kind of away.

dr. jones is hanging on the screen door, cross-eyed with concentration.

2008-11-13T09:16:00.000-08:00

so I suppose I should stop searching in vain for something interesting or so dull it fascinates and just let him in, go to the store, and buy something or other for supper. it's a beautiful day, for november. the fallen leaves are wet from the rain of the last few days, and bright, especially the cherry leaves. I've started gathering them in bowls to perfume the shed, and the other night we had a nice fire outside and at the end when it was down to glowing coals, I piled wet cherry leaves on top and oh the sweet scent that floated up, in clouds, like the souls of leaves.

well I had to leave that last post, it made me laugh.

2008-11-08T11:32:00.002-08:00

apparently my fingers, cold and clumsy from painting in and on the shed, decided to hit some keys without letting me know about it and there you go, post done just like that, mid-sentence. mid-title even.

my fingers are clever editors.

it's cool and rainy. but it

2008-11-08T11:32:00.001-08:00