Celebrating Winter

What fun I'm having 'building' snowmen without getting cold and wet.



 I'm celebrating Winter a bit early this year.  But sharing my studio with snowmen seems to be a high priority for me.

 Here are a few Teresa Kogut designs that I'm working (or playing) with. I highly recommend her designs.

The above designs are created by Teresa Kogut. Oh how I love 'working' these designs and seeing them appear beneath my fingers.

I promise to show you my version in frames later this month.  Meanwhile here are 'good' thoughts of Winter.

* Turning our gas fireplace on for the first time in the year.

* Spending more time in my studio because its 'too cold' outside. (good excuse huh?)

*Bundling up with coat, hat and gloves and taking a walk on the first sunny day after a week of grey, cold days.

A good excuse for hot chocolate and/or hot tea morning, noon and night.

 

" Snowmen fall from heaven one flake at a time."

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.

Frost Flowers

In the midst of any season - even though we are tired of it and wish with all our hearts for the next season to appear - there is always beauty.  These 'frost flower' pictures show just how truly beautiful cold weather can be.

Ice sculptures like this make me shiver when I look at them, but they also make me thankful that there is beauty even when comfort itself is hard to find.  Its sometimes difficult to value the moment, the day, the season while it is here - but soon it will be gone and new sights, sounds and temperatures will be here.  Meanwhile, these visions are saved for posterity.

Dust of Snow

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued

Robert Frost

{I thank my friend Dot for sending these images to me - she too received them from a friend and I'm following the tradition by passing them along to you.}

I Ask Once Again...

... where is Spring?

 

The very first day of spring we awoke to snow on the ground.

 

 

Puffy, light snow that looked like miniature snow balls on the bushes and leaves.

 

Or perhaps it was like powdered sugar, leaving designs on the walkway.

It was very early in the morning and bitterly cold as I took these photo's and I kept thinking that this was Nature's trick on us -- telling us "you just think its spring".

"If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Rockin' On

I am definitely a 'rock' lover.  You know the geological kind -- the kind created by eons of heat, cold, water, ice and pressure.  The kind that make me sense how very small my presence on this planet really is.

Large rocks washed constantly by stream water -- tumbling to and fro when the water is high, warming in the sun when the water is low becoming smaller and smaller.

I like to imagine the huge rocks slowly (very slowly) being reduced to small rocks that can be held in my hand.

"Water is the driver of nature". - Leonardo da Vinci

At a snail's pace

That's me, working at a snail's pace these early winter days.  The holiday with a wonderful whirlwind trip to Nevada has left me feeling tired.  It hasn't helped that I developed a cold and am working with ears, nose and head stuffed.

There are year-end administrative things to do around here and yesterday we received the tax-man's questionaire so that is one more paper to pile upon the other seemingly endless pieces of paper.

It is cold and damp outside which makes me want to just curl up and sip a hot cup of tea.  If I were truly a snail I believe I'd be pulled into my shell right now.  I do know however, that the very best medicine for this type of lethargy would be punching designs on fabric.  So perhaps, just for today, I'll try to ignore winter, my not-going-away cold and all those papers sitting there.  After all isn't stitching the very best medicine.

"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, throught the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened." - Albert Camus

Winter Solstice Figure

She walks through winter.  Silver reflecting the light of the winter moon; shades of grey match the branches of trees, early morning light, fog filling the valley, cold river water; pale blue like the sky before the sun finally comes through. 

She walks through winter as snow falls and piles up against downed trees and boulders strewn along the way.

She walks through winter in the footsteps of the deer who passed by earlier and she passes as silently as the elusive fox and bobcat.

She walks through winter reveling in the icy cold - where each breath makes a puff of steam.

"There is nothing in the world more beautiful than the forest clothed to its very hollows in snow.  It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray, every blade of grass, every spire of reed, every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance." - William Sharp

Wandering Through Winter

A winter snow has once again graced our spot here in western North Carolina.  The snow fell quickly last Friday afternoon.  Big flakes coming down in record speed and covering everything with a soft blanket of white.  Unfortunately not a 'warm' blanket for then it wouldn't be snow.

See the metal dragonfly (above) touched with snow and leaning precariously?  He is a reminder that spring will be here before we know it. As for the cupcake snow frosting on the planter pots they speak for themselves.

And it will be awhile before these back deck stairs will be used.  Meanwhile I love the pattern of the darker wood and the white snow.

The pond outside my studio window never fails to draw me.  In the summer the frogs keep me entertained - jumping into the water everytime I walk out the door and then when they feel safe soaking in the sunshine around the edges of the pond.  But at this time of the year, when the ice forms there are patterns that make me shiver because they represent winter so well. 

This winter has been colder and snowier than usual here in my place in the world -- but what a wonderful excuse it gives me to stay inside my warm nest and bead with absolutely not one bit of a guilty conscience.  Yes, snow can be good!!

"Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart." - Victor Hugo

Snowy, Snowy Day

What a wonderful sight this morning - snow lightly covering everything.  We don't get much snow here in Western North Carolina so it is alway a treat to see its softness covering the ground, making everything look magical and wonderous.  As the day went on it continued snowing -- eventually making a record for this day of 7" - 9".  A perfect day to stay inside and bead - and occasionally pop out to take a picture or two.  Of course for the shoveler in the family it was not such a leisurely day -- for a walk was no sooner cleared off than it was covered again.  It is supposed to snow a bit more tomorrow and then start clearing.  I can hardly wait until the sun shines on the snow whereupon I'll take my camera in hand and take bunches of pictures. 

"When there's snow on the ground, I like to pretend I'm walking on clouds." Takayuki Ikkaku