Key To Winter – Cut Paper Art
8 x 10 inch paper cutting. SOLD.
Brrrrr….
What does it mean when you wake up to a strong burning dusty smell and find that the motor on your furnace in your rental house has stopped functioning on the coldest night thus far this season? It means that you (I) take no chances, turn off power to the furnace, and bundle up in a down comforter with a laptop for warmth (and for venting frustrations), listen to the wind, and wait for maintenance to arrive in the morning, while anticipating a delayed start to a very busy workday. Can’t cut paper with frozen fingers.. Grumble, grumble, grumble…
Good Things
The Wakarusa River, Nov. 10, 2013.
A great weekend was had. I’ve realized that I’ve allowed stress to overtake me more often than not this year. It has been my busiest year yet as far as my art career goes, with lots more traveling, more wholesale accounts, and more work overall. This is a great thing of course, but I suppose I have to figure out how to better harness it and balance it with home life which includes maintaining a home and home workspace, as well as being a present (single) parent. Nothing is easy – not matter what shape or size and we all carry our own loads, and I often repeat to myself, sometimes to no avail, “JUST DO IT”. It often seems like there’s little time for other things, but weekends like these make me realize I can combine them all (well, maybe not the work-work, but inspiration for new work is certainly to be found). Friends, family, cooking, hiking, nature, music, cleaning and organizing and simplifying. It was all there. Something as simple as swinging on a log tied with rope to a tree on a warm autumn day makes you forget all the worries and fears and pasts and futures. (It doesn’t help that I’ve been reading C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy which deals with the struggles of these very things). And I’m refreshed and smiling on a Monday morning. More pictures to come from my nature walks. Happy start to your week.
Happy Friday
It’s been years since I’ve made or eaten one of my favorite foods… Coconut Bake. It’s a Trinidadian breakfast dish (commonplace in my Brooklyn days). I’ve got salted cod soaking, and tomorrow morning I’ll be feasting on this bread paired with a mixture of sautéed cod, onions, sweet peppers, and tomatoes. Out in the country. Where there’s no phone service or internet. Have a great weekend.
Feeling the Love
The orders keep rolling in and I’ve been rolling ’em out.. Thanks to all you folks who have been shopping in my Etsy store!
Thanks to Mark Murtha for photographing Crafts & Drafts last weekend. You can check out his photos of the event online HERE! (There’s even one of my cheesy mug bundled up in my coat..).
I rarely follow politics (because they frustrate me), but a big congratulations to New York City — I’m excited about their new mayor. I lived there when it was the end of Giuliani’s run, and for many years during the Bloomberg period. It was amazing how I could feel the difference between the two just by the way the city was operating. I think de Blasio will be a breath of fresh air and a step in the right direction for having an internal structure that is accessible and relatable to the majority of the citizens.. Now if the country as a whole could get on the right track..
I’m devoting the rest of my week to commissioned work. I’ve got about 10 things on my plate here, and I’ve been behind on them all. Stepping up now… til next time.
Music: Jackson C. Frank – Just Like Anything
Monday, Monday Things
I drove home this morning to a great sunrise. November is proving to be a great month visually.
Thank you to all you folks who came to Crafts and Drafts on Saturday in Kansas City. It turned out to be a great show!!
Thank you, Cynthia, for the nice postcard. I found it in my mailbox this morning when I arrived back home. Totally made my day!!
This morning I went for a run on the river levee and crossed paths with a deer. I also saw a female red tailed hawk fly from a field with its furry breakfast dangling from its talons. It seemingly went into its nest as 3 crows followed behind cawing their beaks off. The male hawk then swooped in and chased them away and was duking it out in the sky with one as I ran on. Awesome!
Autumn Morning
Atchison, KS, Country Roads, November 3, 2013
“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love — that makes life and nature harmonize. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one’s very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a pefect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” ~George Eliot, letter to Miss Lewis, 1st October 1841
Happy November
Tonight’s sunset, Atchison, KS.
“Have you ever noticed a tree standing naked against the sky,
How beautiful it is?
All its branches are outlined, and in its nakedness
There is a poem, there is a song.
Every leaf is gone and it is waiting for the spring.
When the spring comes, it again fills the tree with
The music of many leaves,
Which in due season fall and are blown away.
And this is the way of life.”
– Krishnamurti
Happy All Hallows’ Eve
Grimm Brothers: The Moon, 2011