Category: ART

In spite of myself, I started liking them — virtually, because that’s the only way I “know” them. Not another group blog (as she rolls eyes), with more of the popular names and a smattering of ones I didn’t recognize. I resisted from the beginning but periodically was drawn back to the point where now it’s a daily click. I have less than a few hundred dollars left until my cash runs out (unemployed pending employment this month). Nevertheless, I did this with this. I know it’s crazy perhaps, but this community made me do it — yesterday as a matter-of-fact. Because of this and this.

I read a quote by Willem de Kooning this morning. “When you see the bandwagon, it’s already gone.” to which I say, if I still see it, it’s not gone and if I hope hard enough I’ll catch up.

Personally, I like Demerara Sugar lumps. This video is via Stef’s recent post. I love her brief words, astounding photographs, and raw honesty. “Brevity is the soul of wit” as Shakespeare says and so it is with Stefanie Renee. Use the choicest language to express what you want to say with utter simplicity — the meaning is much more powerful. Small packages can pack a big punch. Her photos do, too.

(That brevity thing is something I aspire to — you’d never know it in my last post.)

Avoiding negatives is more of a challenge than you’d think. Think about it — one of the first words we learn as we start moving independently of our parents is “No” — to protect us from harms we know nothing about — yet — but also to limit what we can and can’t do as in “don’t touch.” I have found that it continues throughout life though as a self-limiting rather than a self-protecting word. I am trying to change that for myself. I can’t grow if I hear no.

I have been trying to avoid negatives in my personal writing lately — using positives instead. It is difficult (originally I wrote “it is not easy” — takes much conscious effort on my part but I am trying). “I am not a photographer” becomes “I am a writer learning a bit of photography.” The bells and whistles intimidate me though. Technique, technical, all of that intimidates me. I am a point and shoot kind of girl so have been playing with a couple of polaroids I picked up. The learning curves always slllloooowwww me wwwaaayyy down. I have four pictures so far after trying out different exposure settings on the polaroids. I tried batteries in the flash and tested it to see if it still works (it needs some help even with new batteries — it may have finished its work for this lifetime).

Where am I going with all this? It’s a personal exercise in accentuating positive talk. “I am not an artist” becomes “I am a conceptual artist and a writer” who has yet to be discovered as I am just emerging. I would like to find my voice. What is my voice? My one true voice — I am very Renaissance in that I am all over the place with so many interests, primarily in the humanities, but also domestic arts and spirituality. Besides being a mom, mate, sister, daughter, aunt, cousin, niece, friend and so on, who am I? What defines me? Where I’m going or where I’ve been? Who am I? What do I do? How am I expressing my creative voice?

Denise does it with her camera and her blog. Starting out with jewelry and a journey. What about Em? Her voice besides her blog writing voice is sewing, scrapbooking, teaching. For Andrea, jewelry, painting and scarves led to jewelry, photography and coaching. They all write as I do. But they also have a vocation that earns them money. Ironic that I worked for almost 7 years helping others find direction and meaning in their work, however humble. I think it makes a difference when “it’s just a job though,” and you’re content with just a job.

I want more. I want to know my one (or two) creative voices amongst my many creative voices. I want to nurture that voice like the runt of a litter — grow, baby, grow. You know you can. Yes, you can.

Sometimes if you want a relationship with someone badly enough, perhaps you have to settle for it on their terms, so long as it doesn’t mean allowing yourself to get beat up. This is how it is with my mother. I can’t totally shut her out of my life and yet her toxicity has had a huge affect on my life. I don’t want to blame, but I do want to break free and live a life of joy and wonder. But how do I find that life? I am still searching. In the meantime, I think I do not want to have regrets when my mother is gone — regrets that I could have done more, visited her more, called her more. I’ve tried at one time or another, and I have had some good memories with my mom, but there is also a lingering melancholy that persists and sometimes it drowns me. I want joy and wonder. I am not sure where to look for it. But this is how I feel today. Tomorrow I meet my childhood girlfriend and the sun is supposed to shine. And that is one place I will find that joy.

These are all highly creative projects/ideas/ways to connect that speak to me through words and images more than an object ever could. They involve people connection which is so sorely lacking at times in our everyday lives. We really have to work at it. I am a fan of many NPR writers from my cousin Sean Hurley to Carol Wasserman (Swimming at Suppertime — a memoir about life on “the wrong side of the bridge”) and Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I recently reread her memoir, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. I totally got that book because that is how I tend to live and write and create — in bursts, synopses, catching the quick wave of inspiration before it drowns me. Here is Amy’s latest work and you can read more about her here and here.

I have been wanting to clear out my art and crafts supplies — I feel so unfocused when I have too many interests. Marty uses football as an analogy to share bits of insight with me. In this instance, he compares me to the football team with two quarterbacks. For example, Tom Brady is the quarterback for the New England Patriots, and that helps the team pull focus. But some teams have two quarterbacks, essentially meaning they have none.

I have been trying to express this sentiment to him for years in my own language.
It’s why I want to clear out what I consider an over-abundance of supplies. As McCabe says in her classes, too many choices is confusing.

Physical clutter becomes emotional and mental clutter for me. I recently received an email from a local Catholic Church. A group of kids and adults are going to Guatemala the end of June and are seeking art and sewing supplies. I have been wanting to donate my stuff to a group working with children, and voila! It has manifested. Yay!

Shutter Sisters Dream Assignment: Picture Hope v.2 from LittlePurpleCow Productions on Vimeo.

This just blows me away — and gives me…well, hope.

As my blogging evolves, I am thinking it will drift in and out of the different stories of my life. Today’s is sublime. I inhaled the salty ocean on our morning walk to the beach, the hint of summer heat to come overwhelming me with the scent. It was divine. Remember when you were a kid how after a day at the ocean you could taste the salt on your lips and skin? Diane Ackerman writes that our scent sense is our most evocative memory sense. It is so tied in to our sense of taste. I didn’t want to lose the power of the ocean’s scent, so waited as long as I could before popping a candy in my mouth to soothe my parched throat. I am looking forward to fresh oysters at the farmer’s markets this summer, so pure and cold, tender morsels of the sea sliding down my throat. Heaven!

** another favorite book, along with Diane Ackerman’s Natural History of the Senses (and The Zookeeper’s Wife, her last one I read).

My marriage, on the other hand, was not like Amanda’s. If it was, I’d have 3 children instead of two. I miss that third child every day. As it was, Molly almost wasn’t. Although I was married, I felt like I had no business being pregnant when the marriage was unhappy and volatile.

I loved my little boy fiercely, with all my heart, he was the light of my life, the apple of my eye, in an otherwise soul-killing marriage. I loved being pregnant with him, the childbirth experience, everything about it. I remember his first movement in utero. We were on a hill on Cheese Factory Road in Hinesburg — a country drive like so many we did, that was when we were happiest as a couple, when we were on the road.

I imagined working right up until he was born the way so many women the world over have — working in fields, squatting and having their baby, and then returning to work. I did work right up until he was born — not in a field, but in a convent kitchen. I began labor before my shift that morning, but only told Brian, the main cook and Leitha, the housekeeper and my neighbor. I didn’t want to worry the nuns, because I knew I could handle it. And I knew they’d be all worried and possibly send me home (or to the hospital) if they knew. They were very good to me, the Sisters of Mercy. They are not departed or gone., experience

So much for commitment. My laptop crashed last week and until Marty has time to reload the software I am stuck on the “upstairs” computer. I hadn’t used the laptop for almost two years, partly because I was hooked on reading blogs. But then in January I started another etsy shop so figured, what the heck do a blog, too.

My problem is that I love names and I can never decide on a name. I didn’t name my daughter for a few days after her birth much to the displeasure of her 5 year old brother, Anthony, who thought Mary Anthony would be a lovely name for the little sister he was hoping for the day before he witnessed her birth.

He would answer the question “what’s her name?” with a disgruntled “she doesn’t got a name.” I so love that boy. He is an amazing musician and person. When I read Amanda’s blog about her boys all I can think of is Anthony’s childhood and how much like them he was. Role play and “cross dressing” (Mr. Dress-up, Fred Penner’s Place, Canadian children’s shows, and Mr. Rogers were favorites of his), creating Tiger Force helicopters out of cardboard boxes, oblong plastic tomato boxes, tape and paper. Which is why I avoid her blog a lot these days. It’s bittersweet to relive my past through someone else’s life. It distracts me from moving on with where I am now.

So what does this all have to do with writing practice? I’m not sure — that was just my starting point for the post which has kind of gotten away from me as I didn’t plan to write this much. Only that until the laptop’s fixed, I won’t be keeping up much with this blog. I am going to try to get some more goodies in my Etsy shop though — some crafty ephemera packs.

After spending a good part of the morning on the pictures for this post, tomorrow will be the etsy day. In the meantime, here’s shots of my sweet boy (today’s his half birthday, does anyone else celebrate half birthdays?).

In the first he’s Elvis “Grisley” singing in front of Mom and his newborn no-name sister,

the second he’s all set for his KISS reunion concert when he was about 17, and the last is from a couple of weeks ago playing at Harry’s, a local blues bar.

P.S. Is there a trick to editing pictures so they’ll be bigger, besides clicking on them?