Category: ART

As I work on my plans for BEAR (Bay End Art Retreats), I get scared at the enormity of it as I’ve never done something like this before, only dreamed of it. As I ride with my vision, it is evolving in small steps for me. For example, I am going to try a smaller retreat first (hopefully March 2010), with about 18-20 participants. I now have the theme and what the general art focus will be. We will all stay in Overbrook House, which includes the use of the dance hall. Instead of Wednesday through Sunday, it will be Thursday afternoon through Sunday morning.

Art, nature and the goddess have been my three muses when times have been tough for me. Art frees my mind, nature restores my spirit and the goddess reminds me of how strong I really am.

Pixie’s in a different time zone or I would have asked her for permission for a couple of her images. So, I had to take my own of Agnes, who soars in the entryway of our old house. Like me, she’s still working on her wings.

“Longfellow believed that situations that call forth our coping abilities are “celestial benedictions” in dark disguises, sent not to try our souls, but to enlarge them.”
~SBB, Simple Abundance

My sister gave me SBB’s book Simple Abundance many holidays ago, and it really helped me through a soul wrenching year in my life. I don’t like to think back to that time because I have many regrets associated with it. Occasionally, I’ll revisit Sarah’s book, but this past year, I have been reading it daily again. Some of it’s trite and I roll my eyes, but much of each day’s writings speak to me in a timely fashion, e.g., on a day I need that particular wisdom the most.

Yesterday was a day of doubts, perhaps because I was cold and tired. But overall my past week was a blessed one, full of hope. My daughter sent me Halloween photos (Ky*ko check out the green man), I checked out a magical place on the wrong side of the bridge, and the gorgeous Miriam and I met at one of my favorite cafes in Harwich. That is a post in and of itself as that was another bit of magic in my week — how generous in spirit the world is if we stay open to it. That’s the hardest.

My girl and her sweetie pie roommate — my kids smiling always makes me smile.

I am going to run with this retreat idea as far as I can go with it.

So yesterday, I met my friend Miriam at the park and ride in Harwich for tea. We went from there to this lovely little spot I found while on the bike path this summer called the Harwich Central Cafe.

The owners are the sweetest, most gracious couple I have encountered in a business. I met Blaise this past summer (she works as a social worker outside of the cafe), and Chris one of the last couple of times I was there. She was there today, but they were closed! Miriam and I walked in, and after chatting with Chris for a while, she fixed us coffee and tea, a plate of treats and left us to close the space ourselves as she had an errand to run in Hyannis! How cool is that?

“You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.”

This quote popped into my head this morning as I was thinking about how much I love history, heritage, people’s stories. Maybe I made it up, but I don’t think so. Feeling incredibly inspired lately and even though doubts creep in, I am going to go as far as I can to create a particular dream. (Self-doubt being, “who do I think I am? I’m with Emily, I’m nobody, who are you?”)

The dream is an event for late fall 2010, something I’ve dreamed of for years, and as I watch other people doing this, I think why not me?

The food would all be sourced locally and when possible organic, including dairy, produce, coffee and the fabulous Iggy’s breads and such.

The place is amazing, having been in the same family for generations and borders a wildlife preserve. The property is on both sides of the street and you can walk down to Buttermilk Bay from the main house, Overbrook. Kofi and Erin’s organic farm, called Bay End is across the street. Kofi’s grandmother used to host artists there (Kahlil Gibran for one), and the dance hall was built for his aunt (Kofi’s) who was a ballet dancer.

It will be a small retreat (about 30 on-site attendees, 10 off-site nearby), and will be a different kind of art retreat. Many of the beds are doubles, but by the time this all comes together I expect the people drawn to this will be okay with that. I hope to share the development process here in all its bits and pieces as I manifest it, with back-story, more photos and so on. In the meantime, I leave you with a few pictures of the location, the southeastern Massachusetts woodlands on the shores of Buzzards Bay, known as the wrong side of the bridge, the land of King Philip and Hockamock Swamp.

To more photos (my camera battery was dying, my battery was dying — I saved as .gif files instead of .jpg and my editing skills are minimal, but you’ll get the idea of it anyway): 4 bed room, hallway, another view, great room, library, butler’s pantry, pantry, to the dance hall, dance hall, red room, blue room, aqua room, another 4 bed room, dining room, with my travel mug, king, queen, space

For some reason, every year I look forward to Halloween (maybe it’s the magic of the season), want to dress up (this year I actually got as far as a costume), reminisce about returning to the Ted Williams Haunted House in Lakeville, and end up feeling disappointed at another Halloween gone by that I haven’t seized a new memory for; one I want to save for the archives. And I end up thinking the same thing — next year. I do this with a lot of things and the hard thing about it for me is that the years keep going by, I don’t get the moments back, and I have this thing about wanting to live full throttle, with no regrets, yet I allow things (people, opinions) to hold me back. After reading a Shutter Sisters post this morning, I was reminded of how often I have been able to say yes — to others; it’s time to say yes to me.

Today is All Soul’s Day, or Dia de Los Muertos, so I haven’t entirely missed the boat for this year’s Samhain celebrations, but I do have to create my own. Here in the northeast, we don’t have big celebrations today — as a Catholic, it is a Holy Day of Obligation I have long neglected. But today I will celebrate it in my own way. Lighting candles for my loved ones on the other side, taking a dance class tonight, and exploring ancient cemeteries here on the cape with a friend.

** I think my son’s makeup in the above photo is pretty cool for a Day of the Dead look, but I don’t think I’ll go quite that far today.

I’ve been revisiting the Portfolio Project over at Jen Lee’s blog lately. Last winter when she and Jen Lemen were doing it, I didn’t have an IPOD and didn’t realize I didn’t need one to listen to the podcast. That’s neither the here nor there of it at this point. I am having fun exploring her archives now and think I’m gonna hit up my sister-in-law and anyone else who may want to play along for another round of this game. Fast and Dirty. Yeah! The Portfolio Project credo. I’d love it if Jen, Stef, and a few others would play along too.

“We do not see things how they are, we see things how we are.”
— paraphrased from many sources but the original source I saw was the Talmud so I’ll stick with that (plus it’s easier for me to remember).

As I work on my writing, good or bad, just getting it done (think Portfolio Project), what I write does not always reflect my true feelings. Sometimes what I write is more in the interest of the flow, and how the piece will read — will it be halting and stumble over just — the — right — words, or will it flow and move over the words lightly, not worrying too much. Will the easy words be the ones that cut those who read too deeply? I hope not — in the interests of the story, I tend to write lightly, very tongue-in-cheek, and pretty much how I talk (not always good — I am the queen of foot in mouth syndrome, still learning to think before I speak) . It’s kind of like sharing our parenting “horror” stories to lighten them up a bit (considering how scared or angry or embarrassed we were at the time), or our war between the sexes stories (Nick and Nora, Spencer and Hepburn, Ralph and Alice).

That’s where the Talmud quote comes in . I could tread very softly, and measure every word or I could recognize this kind of seeing in myself, accept it in others, and not take so much to heart.

** polaroid from my hotel at UMass in September

I’d just finished writing a little thank you in my journal this morning — for my shift today. A few minutes later it was canceled. My patient died. Canceled. Needless to say I’m actually more bummed out at his loss than the loss of my shift. I was really hoping he’d rally — he was such a sweetie, an ex-Marine truck driving Korean war vet — the tattoo (smudgy dark green) always gives those vets away — a sign of seeing the South Pacific, let’s say.

So, what I’d planned on doing tomorrow I’m doing today. Haven’t written descriptions for Little Pink Dress in a long time, but if I want to get away from here this Halloween weekend I have to help my man out with his business. Gonna bite the bullet, be a trooper and write about vintage dresses.

Sophie, of the bodacious booty-luscious behind modeled for us Friday. She was great — totally down with it like I’ve never seen her before. For an actress she can be shy, but I think California’s opened her up in a good way. Now if I can ever learn photoshop beyond cropping and adjusting brightness levels, I’d love to use her pic to develop a logo for Brabarella.

Went to see Christine Rathbun’s play tonight — it was last night. I knew that, just had forgotten it. Oh well. Was disappointed but checked out this steampunk music/video/alt art sort of show that wasn’t really happening either. Is anyone inspired around here? Drawn towards light and positivity? Excited about what they’re creating? They had the right idea with this — it — just — was — not — happening.

People, few that there were, orbiting each other, no mingling. I think BC had the right idea tonight, going in the right direction, and who knows maybe by 9:30 they’ll be someplace. I know I shouldn’t knock local efforts, I must give people credit for trying. Isn’t that all any of us can really do? Try? And it’s better to try and fail than fail to try. I think I was just disappointed at having missed Christine because I do love steampunk.