On Years and Time and Stuff

With a birthday between Christmas and New Year and then the turning of the new year - my mind drifts these days.  Drifting to the past -- all those many years behind me -- all the love I've had in my life, the joy and the pain, the laughter and the tears and just think, here I am - beginning a new year all over again.

Each year I write in a journal.  Earlier on I did it on the computer, just for ease and probably readability too - since my handwriting is awful.  For the past few years I have written each year's journal.  These aren't the 'art journals' that some of you create and that are so beautiful.  These are just no nonsense writings, usually of ideas for future projects or what I worked on that day.  Interjections of something good happening or something bad happening.  

At the end of each year I go back and read the current year's entries.  But then sometimes during this quiet lull at the beginning of the a new year I'll go back and read past years too.  Sort of fun to see where my art journey has taken me over the years.

But now, today, this moment, its time to look ahead.   I hope for all of us its a magical, mystical, marvelous year.

"The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time." - Abraham Lincoln

Sarah's Give Away

I know that Christmas is over but its not too late to sign up for Sarah's giveaway over at  Sarah Fincham's blog 

She is graciously giving away this original drawing shown in her December 16th posting.  The drawing will be at the end of this month.

Loving Sarah's work as I do -- of course I just had to pass this along.

"In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.  For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed." - Khalil Gibran

Merry Misfits

Being minimalists for forever, my hubby and I continue our 'low maintenance' holiday decorating.  Except for Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas music (from many, many years ago) and a bit of table top frivolity there is not much going on around here during 'the season'. 

 For those who create beautiful trees each year, my paper tree might be a sad imitation  but I love it.  It was handmade by someone and it seems somehow to put the holiday into delightful perspective.

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." - Charles Dickens

Winter Solstice

I'm not sure why I am always drawn to this season change.  Is it the silence and solitude that it represents for me?  Is it the slowing down of everything, even my heart?  Is it the nesting feeling that I always have as days and nights get colder and seemingly darker?

I'll let William Carlos Williams speak for me as we greet this year's winter solstice.

Winter Trees

by William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

Prudence Pennyworth

'Tis the season when all of the Lickety-Split Savings and Loan customers will be coming in to redeem their Christmas Club savings.   Ms. Pennyworth, owner and president of the L.S. Savings and Loan loves to hand the money out personally.

Ms. Pennyworth inherited the bank from a long line of Pennyworth's and manages it in the very same way her father, grandfather and great grandfather did.  Please don't plan on using the ATM because there isn't one.  No credit cards either.  The L.S. Savings and Loan is strictly cash and carry with a strong emphasis on savings.

For each birth announcement made in the local newspaper Ms. Pennyworth sends a piggy bank (with $5 in pennies inside) to the lucky newborn.  With this she hopes to establish a long life of savings.  She carries pennies from her first bank in her pocket, just to remind herself from whence she came.

The Bank offers very personal service -- as Ms. Pennyworth knows everyone's name and more important exactly how you handle your money. We love her though - as we know she just has our financial interests at heart.


"Pennies do not come from heaven.   They have to be earned here on earth." - Margaret Thatcher

Diary of a Mad Stitcher

Anyone walking into my studio these days would think I'd gone mad - especially given my usual reputation for organization.  Indeed - I've felt a bit 'mad' - not in the angry way, but in the crazy way.

In working on a new group of 'people' my ideas and thoughts have been in overdrive.  Trying to accommodate the style to the fabric that I have on hand wasn't working.  While  this pile of clothes might look like laundry to be done it is really men's shirts in wonderful fabrics that I found at the Goodwill Shop.  Buttons removed they are awaiting their washing, then staining and then who knows what.

Meanwhile, I suspect I'm going to have to tackle my work table as it seems to have a mind of its own lately or else its reflecting my insecurities and craziness.  

"To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now." - Samuel Beckett

Mother Murphy

I've been remiss in not introducing the owner and manager of Muddle House. She goes by 'Mother' 'Murphy because she raised eleven children of her own and was the neighborhood mother who let everyone play at her house.  So it was natural that after Mr. Murphy passed on (probably from shear exhaustion) she should open a boarding house.  A perfect place to take in dreamers and misfits. 

Of course it also helped that she finally, after 25 years of playing, won the Lottery!!  It gave her enough to remodel the Muddle House, settle in and wait for her tenants to appear on her doorstep. 

Fortunately, those who aren't so proficient at looking after themselves now have a happy, warm place to go.  Couldn't we all, at various times, use a Mother Murphy?

"A woman is the full circle.  Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform." - Diane Mariechild

All around me...

...I see the colors of rust and tea dyed cloth and hot apple cider.

Our Birch tree looks like the leaves have clung to its trunk - or it has been decoupaged by a somewhat incompetent 'paster'.  This is actually the layers of the trunk slowly changing color and releasing themselves from the bark.

I see all of the leaves which sheltered us during the summer now laying on the ground, ready to decay into the earth beneath them.

Some would look at this 'weedy mess' and see just that.  But you and I see the colors and the textures and its all quite beautiful isn't it.

"Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt." - William Allingham

"Bugsy" E. Wilsonette

If you're wandering around Lickety-Split on a sunny day, you'll probably see this mysterious person kneeling in the grass, or peering into a bush.  What is he doing, what is he looking for?  Well he is a recently arrived entomologist.  Yes, we have our very own 'bugologist' here in Lickety-Split.  

Bugsy is on a quest to study any and all insects that come his way.  Trapped in a world of bug spray and fly swatters he tries to educate anyone who will listen, that bugs are 'people' too'.  He has answered many a panicked call from housewives who have encountered a spider or grasshopper inside their house and he is happy to respond. All to save the life of the poor creatures.  

He has also collected quite a few insects for study before he releases them.  This brings a troubled frown to Mother  Murphy, his landlady.  She has made him a deal that he can rent a room at the boarding house but he must clean it himself. As she says "You aren't getting me close to those jars and bottles of his".  Perhaps, as his stay at the boarding house lengthens he'll make a convert of Mother Murphy.

"One thing I did was grow up as an ardent naturalist.  I never grew out of my bug period." - E. O. Wilson