words: old school

I have been keeping a journal since I can remember. Keeping implies a certain responsibility with "keeping up", and there have been times when a year could pass with the turn of a page. There were also fat pages filled with a scant number of months, so full of every day. I have filled my fair share, and then some. To me, a journal is words, and mainly words... sketches and doodles on the side, yes, and pressed flowers and movie tickets.

But today, journaling has taken on a whole new face. It is a mixed media event on every page. The movie tickets become a theatre, the sketches are the words. I know little about it, but I'm following another blogger's entry into the realm, and it has inspired me to try and create in this different way.

I don't know if I will share my new fangled pages.. So far they are as private as my more wholely worded journal entries. However creative, not always meant for revealing.
It's fun, but requires a whole slew of crafting material, so calling it "journaling" just seems crazy to me! I guess I'm just old school.

My art is not in all the things I make with my hands. These are simply diversions, sometimes even little meditations of made things. My art ultimately falls to the written word, however mundane. This is my truth, here, in the word, plain as day.

If it were in my hands to make paint lament, and make sculpture leap in dance, then so it would be. But my paint and sculpture are journies made on the way to here. They do not land of their own accord, but stay adrift, somewhat unfinished, waiting to land in the bed of my imagination, and come out on the page in a story or poem.

Ah, but even that is too much pressure for the creative psyche.. thinking in terms of one thing necessarily leading to another. Sometimes a thing is just what it is.... even if it's hanging adrift.

Photography doesn't fall into the catagory of "leading towards"... photography is a thing in itself, and encompasses that moment you click the shutter... ah, it can be so sweet. A capture in time. It makes my heart beat faster when I'm feeling it with the camera. I love it.

If art were my clothes, I'd probably be dressed in words and photographs. :)

more flowers

Some other flower designs that may be matted and framed. Click to view larger image.

 

 

 

whistling wind

What a fine lustre the moon draws in the sky. The wind is swift with winter moving. Sometimes I can't discern the sound of wind from the sound of a fast car going by. Is it that so many things sound like the wind, or that the wind sounds like so many things?

say it with flowers

My friend, evie, and I, have been making spring-time greeting cards, using handmade papers and pressed flowers.
Here are some closer pics of ones I've done...

leaving

leaning against your wide yield of freedom
I lost my balance/fell back
to four walls/my books/my cats and
things that I could lean on
while I sleep

you can never hold back spring

lucky!

I was one of the lucky winners in the OWOH giveaway! I won lovely beads from glass work artist, Suzanne, from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (say a prayer for the people and wildlife threatened and devastated by the bushfires in Victoria). Please visit her blog to see some beautiful glass creations.

the OWOH winner!

I had 131 slips of paper, cut up and put in the bowl. Choosing one at random, the winner of my giveaway is Nellie's Needles, lucky #13! Hopefully I will be hearing from Nellie soon, so she can get her prize.

Thank you all for playing! It was my pleasure to be part of the giveaway this year.

final day for giveaway entries

The One Heart One World giveaway will be closing down at midnight/EST tonight. If you haven't already entered, please see my January 29th posting, and leave a comment.
Good luck to everyone!

looking forward to spring

The day is cool, nearly balmy, and the coming Spring whispers softly through the still February air. There is that expectation of March winds... the spreading of seeds... the earth renewing herself, yet again.
Now is the time to start shedding our winter selves.

It's good to do a Spring Fast about two weeks before the Spring solstice. A cleansing and retonifying fast to wash away and renew.
For a week (though even a couple of days would benefit the body), one should eat only live green foods... most especially green grapes. Also leafy greens, though one should take care not to eat an abundance of dark leafy greens if they are on anti-hypertensive meds, since it can raise potassium levels to an unsafe degree.
Drink yellow dock tea, with a pinch on ground cayanne pepper, and a teaspoon of pure maple syrup. This will help cleanse the blood, and provide energy. Also, a tablespoon or two of Blackstrap molasses, for increased energy. Drink ample amounts of water in addition to the tea. Reintroduce regular foods in a gradual manner. When the Spring Equinox is here you will enter it with more clarity and energy.

This fasting/cleanse readies our bodies and minds for Spring, when not only the earth, but you will begin anew again.

morning serenade

In the morning, seagulls come this way, heading for the harbor, where the catch is good. It seems they always go out for meals, and head home around sunset.

Nearly 8am, and traffic is busy down below. The subway trains run more frequently beneath the road... For some reason I like it when they screech to a stop. You can feel the vibration of the train up here.

People are closing the doors to their apartments, pressing the "down" button on the elevator which is right beside my door. Some people press the button four or five times, as if that will make the elevator come more quickly.

I haven't slept, and it seems like as good a time as any to write about the mundanity of morning, and how lovely that can be.

...your dreams come true

Sometimes things get quiet enough that you can see the stars.... And view the Milky Way knowing it's you're home, in the greater scheme of things. Transcend this mortal coil, and who knows what wonders lie ahead. But first you've got to see the stars, when things get quiet.

hometown

The "Creative Every Day" theme for this month, is "Words"... and so I thought I'd begin with a bit of personal history.

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I have lived in Brooklyn all my life. Except those times when I lived somewhere else. I was born in Maimonides Hospital, which no one pronouces correctly, with the probable exception of Jews. I know how to pronouce it, but I am not Jewish.

When I was in the first grade, at Public School 169, I made my father an ashtray out of clay. I carried it home, holding it in both hands, intent on keeping if safe. I walked the two long blocks from seventh to fifth avenue. The street to the left of the sidewalk, the rock wall of Sunset Park to my right.

As I stepped off the curb, I studied my hands holding the ashtray, and in that split moment it fell to the street, and broke in too many pieces to ever be put back together again. That's what happens when you study your hands.


My mother would pick me up for lunch every day. We would go to Meyer's or Holstein's. Real Ice Cream Parlours. I ate tuna on light white toast, and a bowl of cream of chicken soup. Every day. Sometimes mom would make the tuna sandwiches, and we'd sit in Sunset Park, across from the school.
The park went from 5th avenue to 7th ave, and from 44th street to 42nd street. Diagonally to the park, on the 5th avenue side, was Sunset Bakery. My mom and dad's bakery.
Mom was brilliant with her full red lips, and vibrant laughter. Sometimes she'd have a box with my Young People's Book Club selections... bringing it along because she knew how hard I'd wait for them. My mother is 81 now... ever brilliant, though her full lips are a more demure shade of frosted pink. Her laugh is still full of life... despite all odds.