One Frigid Oktoberfest

by | Oct 6, 2012 | Art Fairs & Art Travels

Much thanks to all you friends, folks & family who came out to the Oktoberfest in Atchison, KS, (my hometown) today.

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I gotta admit, as much as I love autumn and cooler temps, I’m a pretty big wimp when it comes down to being out in it when the temps drop to coat-requirement levels. And it was that and even more today (unseasonably frigid).. so I spent most of it looking like this:

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Thankfully, I had a warm home to look forward to once the festival was over.. and a really good pal to hang with.

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And then I found this, ’cause you know.. sometimes you just gotta drop out:

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Strategic Preparation, Zzzzz, etc.

by | Oct 5, 2012 | Art Fairs & Art Travels

coffeetablework

I’ll be heading to Atchison tomorrow for the Oktoberfest on Saturday.. and in my usual down to the last minute fare, I’ve still got lots of matting & bagging to do.. Prints & cards waiting on my coffee table for the dark morning hours to roll around and tea drinking, matting & bagging to resume. Pressed leaf collection searching for a purpose..

FYI, I received word from Collector Art Shop in Berkeley, CA, that they received my “large shipment” and much of it is already on the floor. So, if you happen to be in that area, drop by – I sent lots of new prints and cards that have just recently made their debut around here. 2950 College Ave.

Philosophical Ramble Jamble: Self-Adjustment

by | Oct 4, 2012 | Inspiration

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I’ve been having a continuous dialog with one of my oldest friends, who, in a nutshell, is beginning down a new path of self-discovery. I picked up a book sitting on my coffee table this morning and opened it to a random page to see what would jump out at me, and this is what I read and ended up sending to her. I think it’s worth sharing. From “Practical Mysticism” by Evelyn Underhill (read the full book online here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/underhill/practical).

So, in a measure, you have found yourself: have retreated behind all that flowing appearance, that busy, unstable consciousness with its moods and obsessions, its feverish alternations of interest and apathy, its conflicts and irrational impulses, which even the psychologists mistake for You. Thanks to this recollective act, you have discovered in your inmost sanctuary a being not wholly practical, who refuses to be satisfied by your busy life of correspondences with the world of normal men, and hungers for communion with a spiritual universe. And this thing so foreign to your surface consciousness, yet familiar to it and continuous with it, you recognise as the true Self whose existence you always took for granted, but whom you have only known hitherto in its scattered manifestations. “That art thou.”
This climb up the mountain of self-knowledge, said the Victorine mystics, is the necessary prelude to all illumination. Only at its summit do we discover, as Dante did, the beginning of the pathway to Reality. It is a lonely and an arduous excursion, a sufficient test of courage and sincerity: for most men prefer to dwell in comfortable ignorance upon the lower slopes, and there to make of their more obvious characteristics a drapery which shall veil the naked truth. True and complete self-knowledge, indeed, is the privilege of the strongest alone. Few can bear to contemplate themselves face to face; for the vision is strange and terrible, and brings awe and contrition in its wake. The life of the seer is changed by it for ever. He is converted, in the deepest and most drastic sense; is forced to take up a new attitude towards himself and all other things. Likely enough, if you really knew yourself—saw your own dim character, perpetually at the mercy of its environment; your true motives, stripped for inspection and measured against eternal values; your unacknowledged self-indulgences; your irrational loves and hates—you would be compelled to remodel your whole existence, and become for the first time a practical man.
But you have done what you can in this direction; have at last discovered your own deeper being, your eternal spark, the agent of all your contacts with Reality. You have often read about it. Now you have met it; know for a fact that it is there. What next? What changes, what readjustments will this self-revelation involve for you?

Squirrel Silhouette

by | Oct 4, 2012 | Inspiration, Photos

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I took a break from work last evening and sipped some hot tea on my deck while watching my local squirrels skitter around. I’m making a point to take full advantage of these autumn evenings before it’s too cold.. And of course, there’s a poem to go with everything:

To A Squirrel At Kyle-Na-No
by William Butler Yeats

Come play with me;
Why should you run
Through the shaking tree
As though I’d a gun
To strike you dead?
When all I would do
Is to scratch your head
And let you go.

Today’s Ramble

by | Oct 3, 2012 | Cut Paper, Inspiration

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I’m almost finished cutting this out.. I just need to rework the central design since I’ve been changing things as I go. I’ve got the colors picked out and will start on that soon (that’s the most time consuming part).

This Saturday, I’ll be exhibiting at the Oktoberfest in my hometown of Atchison, KS. It’s always a nice little show. I’ll be doing a quick run of new prints and cards for that shortly. I’m looking forward to getting out with my camera afterwards to try to catch some of the fall colors. I’ve been watching leaves fall from the trees to the ground as I sit at my desk.

This morning I went for my usual run on the river levy. The sun was bright (almost blindingly so), and there was a mist sitting about 6 feet off the ground in the grassy areas, and together, the sun and the mist illuminated an amazing network of cobwebs, appearing as if the entire field was woven together. The dew on everything was sparkling bright which brought lots of my attention to all different kinds of plants growing alongside the trail.. The entire scene inspired my next paper cutting idea. Can’t wait to start on it.