the rusted bed spring

I am itchy to create something.

I go to the rusted bed spring, thinking surely there is something in this swirling steel that will transform itself into a sculpture. I've already worked on this piece with incense sticks woven in and out the curves... then, seeing the fragility of that, I took off the incense, and studied it bare again. In part, it is a mermaid swirling up in the way mermaids swirl. In part, it is a dragon, or a child's toy. Of course, it is a rusted bed spring, and may well look its best beneath a little mattress. It may just remain a spring... the unfathomable piece that must bounce me in other directions.

I may soon get the sewing machine from my sister, since neither her nor my mom want it. It needs repair, but once that's done, it'll be mine to try my hand on again. I can't remember the last time I used that machine. My hands will remember how to thread the bobbin, I'm sure.

I used to make a few things... skirts and blazers, I remember. A dress here and there. I would like to try my hand at making raggy frocks for trolls, and dainty outfits for a fairy.... an old fashioned long coat for Santa, and curly toed boots for the elves. Of course, Fabri-Tac may be easier!

Here are 3 pendants I made one morning, not too long ago. Sort of an faux aged bone (or at least it's supposed to be) with etchings. Someone likened the look to bacillus and cocci under a microscope, and I have to agree with that. The round black one has slices of a poinsettia cane (millefiori) on it. Thanks to claychicks, at etsy, for the canes.

before dawn

I wake up at 5am, after four and half hours sleep, which is not so bad for me. I don't remember dreaming, though it may have been a dream that woke me.

In this dark hour of morning, I wish there was someone to talk to. Someone to share coffee with... Someone to share this hour between the long night, and the day.
I'm in no hurry for the sun to rise, as I sit here in this in-between time, when there are no worries lingering from the daylight hours.

The streets are quiet. The wind is blowing; the temperture, frigid at 24°. Winter comes early, as if this is Canada.

I like to read about the weather affecting my online friends... at least 90% of them living in Canada, from Nova Scotia to Vancouver, and many places in between.

Forty years ago it was a place where young men would flee, in order to avoid the draft. I remember hearing that they would never be able to return to America once they did that. It seemed to be such a drastic thing at the time. Not so any more. Maybe it is just age that makes it seem less important. Maybe it's the apathy left over from eight years of the Bush administration, and more war, albeit without a draft.

The coffee gets cold so fast. I drink it black with lemon zest, having running out of milk and sugar.

The morning sky is still dark.

magnificent dullness

When I start writing, the critic sits on my shoulder, correcting my grammar, and whispering about how uncreative I'm being. In the workshop I took with Emily Hanlon, she called the critic, the Ick... and icky it is! She also spoke of the Muse, which can conquer that Ick any ol' day.

This is just a blog, though, and like a journal, it is where the everyday gets dumped out, and I'd like the critic can suffocate beneath that dump.

I started this blog, in part, because I want to speak of the creative, and how it resides within the mundane. To quote myself, it is a "magnificent dullness".

Learning to read the sky, on an ordinary day, is a most extraordinary thing to do.

a propensity for madness

I remember my father impersonating his crazy grandmother; the one with one eye. He's in super 8 film reels, donned in mommy's faux fur coat with the real mink collar. On his head a velvet hat of mine.. a fancy riding cap, from Easter. He picks up Susie, our cat, and you can read his lips, looking into the camera ... "atsa my cat."

I don't whether she was mad or what, but family history, as it is, leans strongly towards the likeliness. People speak in circles and make light of such skeletons, until one day all the skeletons come out and walk among the living.

In my youngest years I remember seeing my uncle with cotton in his ears and nose one day. At the age of 4 or 5, this seemed perfectly clever. Later that night, between my parents, in bed, though I knew my parents might not like the idea so much, I quietly ripped off pieces of my dad's racing form, and pushed the pieces in my nose. I didn't have any cotton. My mother, in her motherly way, knew I was being far too quiet. After that, it was all tweezers and "sit still" as my mother undertook the delicate task of getting paper out of of young nose. Till this day she still says "You really stuck it up there!"

Sometimes my uncle was scary, and my father (one of the sanest people I've ever known) would tell us to stay back, and he'd go off to rescue whatever madness was swirling round my uncle's mind at that time. Was he even here, I wondered... and was this a different man? He was never scary enough to stop loving, and as I child I knew him at a soul level, as he knew me. We had wonderful conversations when he was lucid. He had a most magnificent mind.

("Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream
This is not dying
This is not dying ")*

And the generations made a line... albeit, zigzagged.

One relative has those eyes... looking too far inside of people, like she wants to climb inside there, too. A close talker, who you want to keep at arms length.So many skeletons dancing in those eyes.
These were the more psychotic of the family line. More mundane maladies and addictions would follow... alcohol, gambling, food, depression, anxiety.... Addiction of one's dis-ease.

("please don't wake me,
no don't shake me
leave me where I am
I'm only sleeping")*


*john lennon

sunday afternoon

It's a beautiful day. The sky is filled with myriad clouds, with the sun shining through every now and then. The wind is strong, and its sound muffles some of the traffic below.

It's Sunday, and a good day for coffee, and making things with clay. Today it will be Christmas decorations. Little angels, and little Christmas carolers. I also have a nice poinsettia polymer clay millifiori cane which a I may use on a black background to make some pendants.

(this is not) haiku

rain falls steady

upon the window sill

the cat seems to be dreaming

*******

because I listened

and stopped a moment

earth stood on edge and opened

can't win for losin'

It's another very damp Autumn here in the city. Just like the past couple of years.
Today is gray, with a dampness that goes right to the bones. Temps are supposed to be above normal (it's already 56°), but with all the rain and dampness, those temps don't count for much.

I woke from a tumble of dreams. Tumbled me right out of bed, they did. They've all flitted away now. I think there were school desks, but that's all I can remember.

There's a craft sale at South Beach Hospital next week, so me and my friend made a couple of things last night. Covered some small picture frames with clay. They turned out pretty cute, except that the plastic backing on them curled and melted while curing in the oven. It didn't seem like the kind of plastic that would melt... it's usually the clear plastics that are trouble to work with. Oh well... we have 4 frames without the inner lining that will hold the backing. What a bust.

Also... since that card reader I bought was defective, the company sent another one. This one was compatible with the operating system, and had a working power light, so I don't think anything is wrong with it at all. It just doesn't read my card. I give up.

Must find something to do today that doesn't get botched up in the process.

Last week I made an art doll for the Icon Doll Challenge that I'm part of with an online group. I'm happy with the doll, but I'm not supposed to write about it or post it on my blog until after the challenge is over, which won't be till next year. I have pictures of it, too!

Well, I'm finished with my first cup of coffee today. I'll go peruse a few online forums, and then get started with my day, whatever that may be.

that's the insomnia talkin'

I hold hard to dreams. It's only after reaching them, that I'm not sure what to do.
The problem with dreams coming true, is that, in reality, they are shaped so differently. .. less ethereal, more brick and mortar, flesh and blood.

something comes true
naked in all its expression
its realness less appealing

But sometimes

something comes true
naked in all its expression
and the dream is so insignificant
in the light of one real moment

This is just me, remembering dreams come true. :)

thursday afternoon (conversations w/a friend)

It all goes back to now
the winding road of A to B
and back again
we travel the maze
to get to the labyrinth

smooth curves of your
mother self
taking off the many veils that
hid your light

shift in power

The next president of the United States is Barack Obama.

change

Went to bed around 3:30 am, and woke at 5:30. Not exactly a good night's sleep. Aches and pains this morning, and I do believe it is colder in the apartment than it is outside. This doesn't help my often creaking limbs. That my knees can produce sounds similar to Rice Krispies in milk is not so unusual, really. They've crackled for many years.... now they complete the melody with an occassional snap! and pop! I've got rhythm.

It looks like another gray day today. Autumn is having a hard time presenting itself. A few crisp days would sure be nice. There are few trees that have changed color down this way. I wondered if being so close to saltwater had some impact on the lack of change... but that would discount all the years when there was brilliant color.

Maybe the sun will peek out today, but for now the view from my window is monochrome, in shades of gray.

Quite an eventful election day today.

To be continued.

November

I just want to say hello to November. Today the weather felt as balmy as a summer's night. Something tells me it will snow before the month is out, though. Of course, it's just like me to wish for snow.