HEARTS FOR LINDSEY

                                                                               The first "frozen heart" came to me today via email from my friend Kerry (she took the pic.). The Broken heart I really saw, just like that, nearly buried way in the hills of Scotland & the third is a photo Jono took in Rio En Medio on a walk one day.  I love the shape of the heart. A circle that's willing to compromise. 

Buttons...

Icollect buttons. Old buttons. They used to be made so carefully, out of glass & wood & metal and delectable plastics.

Buttons were more ornamental, not just utilitarian. They were actually designed and carefully considered unlike today's uniform plastic after-thoughts with an extra attached in a small plastic bag. I save those too of course because one day maybe the plastic will break down and become more interesting or maybe I will find a use for them I've not yet imagined. Maybe just because I don't know what else to do with them... But the old ones, with their visual  and tactile ghosts and omens do inspire me to no end. I sort them and organize them and make messes of them all over again when searching for that one or that set that I know I have somewhere and need in a hurry... There are some buttons that tell stories of wear. There are some that only suggest their histories and leave the door wide open for me to make up my own settings and situations... Old buttons embellish so well as was their original purpose.

There's also the therapeutic aspect of sorting by color or by material or by size or by subject.... It's like completing a crossword puzzle or writing and then checking thing things off a list. Making order of chaos no matter how small the upheaval feels good and is grounding and is reassuring somehow. 

Maybe that's why so many of us collect things. Because collecting implies intentional gathering and requires some kind of acknowledgement of like similar and dissimilar objects which implies order, even if collections are not kept in any kind of specific order at all.

Anyway, I like buttons and I have a lot of them and I use them frequently for all kinds of things...

What do you collect?

three years later 

and i wanted to show

how i love you with my new banjo

peeper, you're a keeper this i know!

happy anniversary!

A Scrap of Paper

I received another envelope yesterday. It looked like this on this on the outside which was nice to begin with.(look to right).

When I opened it I found that someone had written my biography in 1889.

It looks like this (look to left).

It is a play and you're all in it! I'll be having open auditions on Friday at the Cowgirl between 9:00 and 2:00 and you're all invited! 

PG-13

I have a friend who is a documentary film maker. A few years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She decided to document her entire process and has wound up with a lot of material. She's gotten to the point where she needs help with funding to be able to move forward with the project and came up with the beginnings of an idea to help make it happen. Phase 1: A group of woman got together to make breast prints which will be used for various fundraising projects... 

Phase 2: I come up with an idea for project number one...

There is no  specific phase 3 at this point, but it's a thought process well under way!

I may add more info. at a later date and call for ideas, input, contributions etc. but my friend felt like we aren't quite ready for that yet.

Lots to think about!

going away letters

When I moved back to New Mexico in 2005 I was leaving behind everything that had taken over ten years to become familiar. I left a marriage and a career and all my friends to come to a place where the only two people I knew were moving. I was excited and ready to make the move but also terrified! Before I left I had a "going away" party and asked my friends to bring sealed letters which I would open on an as needed basis should I feel sad or lonely in my new life. I opened a few of the letters shortly after I arrived but for some reason resisted them because even when I sometimes felt sad or lonely I was sure that there would be a time when I would feel more sad and more lonely and I wanted to have the letter when that day came. 

But then time started passing and I forgot about the letters until recently when a friend asked if I had opened all of them.

I found the large manilla envelope that I kept them in and decided to open them all at once. They made me feel very happy and a little nostalgic but even more than that, they made me recognize a pattern in my ways.

I have been known to buy the most beautiful, exotic, expensive piece of fruit, bring it home, display it on my table or counter in a pretty bowl or  a perfect plate and then proceed to watch it rot because I don't want to eat it because I don't want it to be gone. Or sometimes I might save my most delicious smelling bubble bath for so many years that eventually it loses it's sweet smell and turns funny, like old vegetable oil. Or similarly, I have a thing about being stocked up on toilet paper (to the tune of like, a minimum of 8 rolls) at any given time because I don't want to ever not have toilet paper when I need it....

I could go on and on with these neurosis. But I think it's pretty clear already.

So  after reading all the letters I realized that they would always be there for me to read should I ever feel sad or lonely so it was silly to have waited for so long to look at them. And then I thought about the fruit and the bath bubbles and the toilet paper and that whole absurd way of thinking about the good stuff and I decided life is just too short and that life is also so generous

with beauty that I don't need to worry about running out... 

I got mail!

     This incredible book was found in an attic.

The attic was left with treasure for more years than anyone knows. My friend went up and found it all... 

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, there was a woman who collected and pasted all the lovelies from (mostly) advertising into a special album. Something happened one day and she decided to store it among the other bunches up in the attic. Maybe with other dreams. Maybe with secrets. Maybe with junk that had no other place to be...

Eventually, along with all the other stuff it was left, perhaps forgotten as things in attics tend to become and was quite likely not remembered until a couple of years ago when the house was being cleaned out for possible rental...

Sometimes things that are beautiful initially become even more beautiful with time! This is a perfect example. All those pictures that our lady found so compelling in (what I have determined was sometime in the mid 1800's) are even more interesting now because they can tell a story that seems so exotic in the 21st century... 

All that was asked of me in return for this most amazing gift was to use it for inspiration and to use it in any way can imagine...
That's 

the 

best 

part.

Actually, maybe the surprise was the best part. Or maybe the having reconnected with a friend. A friend who knows  me well enough to know

that this gift would be truly appreciated and used for all manner of cockamamie concoctions! 

cooking in the kitchen, brought out the bowls, thought of Annie's beautiful bowls and how the colors are similar. opposite. i like the way it looks like puddles of cherry juice waiting to be slurped up on the bottom. used to have three more but i guess they broke along the way. three is good though. one for me and for you and for you...

Matt

I was thinking of you!

During phase one of "my studio" organization today I found these birds which were for the "Message From a Stone" project I started & never finished years ago. 

Maybe it's time to pick it up again...

This is my studio. I have an entire beautiful room in the house designated solely for my creativity to manifest. I have everything I could possibly need for projects that would take me well into the next lifetime. I can do whatever I want to in this room; wear my pajamas all day long, stare out at the garden all year round (the tomato is still there by the way, red and hanging on!), I can keep it neat and clean when the rest of life seems chaotic. I can let it get messy without disturbing the rest of the house... A person- I- couldn't ask for more.

And yet there are times when I can't face the space because I've got nothing in me pressing to come out. And so I find myself walking into my studio and sheepishly walking out again...

As you can see, it's in the midst of a "letting it get messy" phase. A perfect illustration of a typical cycle in my creative routine. I was so inspired and productive for awhile. Not having enough time in a day to work on the things I dreamed of. Staying up way too late to keep going. Riding the wave of life, unable to conceive of the quiet tide that always follows. I thought, "this time it'll go on forever"!

And then, as always happens it just stops.

All that remains is the aftermath. The mess which must be cleaned up and rearranged before the next wave has room to build...

This is where the "studio avoidance" begins.

In order to start again there must be closure in the form of cleaning up and making space.

So now that I've procrastinated in every  possible way, from laundry to blogging to eating handful after handful of delicious salted nuts, I think I must go in and start clearing the way...

Okay, here I go.

Really.

Hey- did you hear about the...

No, no 

bye

I must start with a little bit of background information. 

I love getting mail. Letters, postcards, packages...

Every day I go to the mailbox with great expectations. Even when I'm not expecting anything specific (which is most days). But like the mailman, I'm there at my box no matter the weather, no matter my state of mind, no matter what. Just in case something, a special thing should be there... Don't tell anyone but I've been known to send things to myself on rare occasions just to cheer myself up.

I used to get a lot more mail. Because I used to write letters. I was obsessed with sending postcards for the longest time and I love making packages for people and surprising them because I assume I'm not the only one who enjoys being thought of...

But lately, with the convenience of the internet, I haven't been writing or sending or getting much via the usps. It started with email and has neatly wound up here, with blogs and facebook and instant/always/moment by moment correspondence. I find that on the rare occasion when I think to sit and write a letter, there is nothing left to say.

Yesterday I got a package. A surprise package from a friend. Filled with lots and lots of little treasures. Ephemera for use in projects and to add to my collection of very cool old things. As I went through the box, one thing at a time I was brought back by post cards and invitations and greeting cards... to a time when people communicated largely by mail. Back to a time when handwriting, spelling and punctuation still mattered. Remember those days?!

And as I considered these things with waves of nostalgia biting my conscience I decided that my new years resolution would be this;

To write letters again. To surprise the people who I care about with easy little gifts all year round.

Maybe the pages will be blank because I will have already said it all here or in an email or on the facebook, or maybe you'll all have to hear the same news repeatedly, but bear with me please. The old fashioned letter cannot be lost so easily to the world of technology!

if you ever feel sad

here is the antidote!

v is for voo doo

a is for angel b is for banjo c is for chocolate  d is for dandelion e is for elephant f is for forgetting g is for getting h is for hearts i is for imagination j is for jono k is for kisses l is for love m is for movement n is for nothing o is for opportunities p is for paint q is for quiet r is for romance s is for sunshine t is for timing u is for underwear v is for voo-doo w is for wandering x is for illiterates y is for yearning z is for zippers