Sacred Bond

These are from a piece I made earlier this year. I have always been almost magnetically drawn to madonna images. This seems a good time of year to look at this piece. Across cultures and religions the holy mother has been worshipped and honored, her importance recognized and valued. At Christmas, we are, of course, remembering the Christian story of the birth of the Christ. The mother and child bond here was deep and strong. I am surrounded this time of year by these images and meanings. It makes me think about what children are learning about themselves and the world in their first years.

After I had children this moved from concept to truth. The love from mothers before me, and the love I was passing on, was holy and sacred. As the ones who carry children, give birth to them, and are the (mostly) primary caregivers, we have the power to change the world. Do we teach and live our values? Do we love our children unconditionally? And yet establish conditions we must all live with in order for justice and peace to exist? I read once that the most important question we are asked after death is, "Did you love?" Let Christmas remind us yearly what we must ask ourselves daily.

XMAS 2009

My Xmas "card" and one from my daughter--like mother,
like daughter!

Thangka: Summer Grace

This piece is a thangka--a Buddhist image on which to meditate
and center oneself.  It is called "Thangka: Summer Grace."  It is 34 " long and 13 1/2" wide; it appeared "In The Spotlight,"

Quilting Arts Magazine, Fall 2005.  Hand pieced, embroidered,

 beaded, and quilted.

Thanks to Nellie Durand (nelliedurand.blogspot.com) for her compliments on this piece!

Deep Thoughts

We needed...to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life---daily and hourly. Our answer must consist , not in talk or meditation, but in right action and right conduct.

Victor Frankl

More Small Wall Hangings

I've been working at my job a lot lately, read a couple of books in the minutes I grabbed here and there. I started back to work on my "Leaves" piece-- and realized I need to get some more work done for an annual craft & art sale here at SIU (in a couple of weeks)! I'm getting slower and more forgetful--can't wait until the time I forget how slow I am!

Rainy Night City Lights

It's raining tonight. I can hear it hitting the roof and the top of the metal vent. When I was a child, I slept in a little daybed right by a low window over the cistern. The rain would hit and pour onto the roof, falling over and down gutters, and rush echoing and dancing into the cistern. The rain joined the water there, seeming to sing me into dreams. It's still one of my favorite sounds.

This is handpieced, embroidered, and beaded.

Downsize!

Here are some small pieces I make when I 'm too busy to get to a bigger piece, or when I've burned down to a fizzle. These are about four to five inches wide and about ten inches long. I handwove them with a variety of yarns, went up/down/all around with embroidery thread, and then added beads. They are purely fun and add a bright spot anywhere you put them---I like to make and give them for gifts.

Deep Thoughts

Hold fast to stars,

Hold fast to the elusive, the intangible,

The never to be had.

For stars fall from heaven sometimes,

And kings are born in barns,

And miracles rise out of the little things.

Anonymous

Did You Hear There's A Wedding?

Mother, Pray For Us"

One of my pieces is published in this year's SAQA Portfolio 16. For me, it is both universal and deeply personal--a cry for the nurturing and loving Feminine Divine to strongly come forth from her cell and heal and renew us. There are several detail shots since I believe that is the best way to see and feel these pieces.

Continued Saga Of The Tired Blogger

Maybe I should make this blog about computers and the internet---I found out all these computer problems were not all ME!!  Mediacom is my server and it got lost sporadically,then no service for a week and, when it was back, all settings, etc., were GONE!! I've just returned to (enough) sanity after fixing it enough to try again. I'm coming to believe, not suspect, this is a sinister plot against me--technology has been lying in wait after all my insults over the years. Today I plan to get to work on a fall piece I've had in my head for weeks, but have put off due to to my sojourn in the Techno-Zone. It will be so good to get some colors and texture in my hands again. I'll leave with a picture of one of my first pieces: "Nothing Gold Can Stay." In honor of Autumn, change, and the death of a friend's grandfather.

Some Goddess Images

Seek For Her In Moonlight Deep In The Hollow Hills

She Who Is Peace

Thinking Of Changing The World

This seems like a good time to show some of my "Goddess" pieces. In such a patriarchal world, reconnecting to the feminine is vital--to develop a balance where we can truly know and love ourselves and each other--to create loving, respectful, kind relationships with ourselves, family, partners, and rippling out into forever----uniting female and male, positive and negative, thoughts and feelings--a different world. This piece is called "She Who Sees."

Deep Thoughts

Defeat may serve as well as victory

To shake the soul and let the glory out.

When the great oak is straining in the wind,

The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk

Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.

Only the soul that knows the mighty grief

Can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come

To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

Edwin Markham

Down On My Knees Giving Thanks To The Blog Gods

My pictures have stayed in their posts and in their proper places!! If this continues, I might be able to actually do something with this blog...imagine having fun instead of doing and re-doing and undoing...Maybe I'll even be able to reveal my true identity some day---wow!

Unknown Blogger Returns!!!

OMG!! This time I've been lost in the sub-level of Hell known as Blogger/Picasa/Disappear/Limbo!  All of my blog pictures vanished--gone--wiped out! I've finally been able to get them all back in---I ended up republishing to each post (after searching and searching for other methods...evidently Picasa had an issue with this just in time for me to experience it). I hope the pics STAY.  Well, I AM back---but I'm off again (pretend I didn't say that).  I HAVE to go to bed and SLEEP--my eyes are like squinty, red, burning marbles from looking at this monitor for hours! I gotta rest up for the next adventure of the Unknown Blogger--"Hi Yo..zzzzzz

"I Am The Sum Total Of All My Experiences"

"I Am The Sum Total Of All My Experiences"

A few years ago, the question was posed, "Who am I?" ---This piece was my response.
The above quote has always seemed deeply true to me, "I am the sum total of all my experiences." This is my self-portrait which is 45" long and 37 3/4" wide. I drew a pattern for the parts of the body, cut out the leaves/ vines/ buds freehand. The pictures are of me at various times and ages and all made the same sepia tone to blend more together and with the "flesh." I transferred them onto inkjet fabric sheets, cut them out, and ironed them on. The words and phrases are all about me either in the past, present, or all through my life. I wrote and embroidered them by hand. The "body" has batting under the "parts" and are hand appliqued on, as are the vines, leaves, buds. I used yarn for the hair and hand beaded over various pieces and parts. The entire piece is hand quilted.
Making this was actually very interesting. I have always been aware of, and worked on, my spiritual and emotional life. I have experienced a lot of healing and progress over the years, but, even so, this project seemed to "settle" and calm me,also.  Following are some detail shots of this piece.

Peace For Harry

"Rest in natural great peace this exhausted mind,

 Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thoughts

 Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves

 In the infinate ocean of samsara

 Rest in natural great peace."

Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche

Good-by Harry

 

My friend, Harry, died. I always think of him around this time because his birthday is approaching. I first met Harry many years ago when I took an empathic counseling class which he taught. His feedback to me gave my confidence a real boost. He was a sad man overall, physically depressed most of his life, yet trying to do the loving thing even as he often felt unloveable. He worked a lot with grief, dying, and AIDS. Harry did much good in the world--I think he brought grace and forgiveness into many lives. It's funny how many of us who try to be "good" people have issues with low/no self worth and trouble finding real love. We have to keep remembering how important the journey is and not the destination. The world has lost a good man.

Deep Thoughts

"I don't like pain, it hurts me!"
          Daffy Duck

Stars Are The Thoughts Of The Eternal

As a child I loved to lie on the grass in the dark, seeing, feeling the stars spinning---or kneeling on my bed at night while my family was sleeping, looking up to the sky---stories in my head of the goddess who made the stars, of the Goddess who created and moved and was made of stars---the Star Keeper.

The center of this piece was sketched on a plain piece of muslin. I then filled it entirely with hand embroidery of small, repeated chain and stem stitches. It was attached to batik fabric, then more embroidery and glass beads were added over and on the stitches and fabric.

The Unknown Blogger

I got lost in TechnoWorld again---I don't know how I navigate myself into so many dead ends--and the path in disappears behind me. I'm spending hours and hours either working on or reading about this computer!   Just when I think I've got it, something else happens that everyone tells me should not occur!  I really am trying to get new stuff in an old brain, but this computer (or as I find myself calling it: the Spawn Of Satan) evidently has a mind of its own and a higher IQ than I have. I'm overwhelmed...but I guess I'll keep slogging (blogging?) along. I do plan on showing up here again--maybe these last glitches of mine are done. We'll see--I may be the Unknown Blogger who appears out of nowhere and disappears just as quickly, a champion of Truth, Justice, and Fiber for all! I'll be back again----maybe.

Use Fiber Daily!!

Leaves Of Another Year

Today is Sept 1st--the weather is cooler than normal and it's easy to think ahead to autumn, to the colors, then the fading and falling of leaves. The years fly by more and more quickly as I age--there is so much time I wished and worked away, feeling as if that time rolled on so slowly and forever. I hurried through things that ultimately didn't matter as I cared for my parents and my children, went to school, built a career, dealt with injuries, and on and on. My artwork has helped me slow down, to become increasingly conscious and aware of life and its changes. And time passes---From one of Robert Frost's poems: "I have safely trodden underfoot the leaves of another year."