Quietude

This is the quiet time.  Only a slight tune from the chimes by the front door will break the silence.

The croaking frogs are gone, or burrowed into the mud for the winter.  They didn't leave a forwarding address so I hope they find their way back to their pond this coming spring.

The trees are bare although they still stand tall and straight in the midst of the worst storms.

The only noise I hear on this back path is the sound of acorns crunching underneath -- which of course tells all the creatures in the woods that I am wandering around.

"You do not need to leave your room.  Remain sitting at your table and listen.  Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked,  it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet." - Franz Kafka

A Path Often Taken

What draws me back and back to figure/doll making?  For my path always seem to take me that way - or perhaps it is not back as much as sideways.  Like forks in the road, I work on one type of craft for awhile and then take the turn and head back into the realm of figure work.

I am most attracted to work that tells a story of one kind or another.  It can be a story-story or it can be the tale of the artist and the thought of seeing the world through the artist's eye.  For some reason using the figure as my medium always allows me to tell a story -- it forms in my mind as my hands are working.

Perhaps it is the 'personality' that develops as the work progresses.  Perhaps it is the 'mother' in me that wants to shape and create a new 'life'.  Whatever it is - when it hits it is best for me to go along for the ride.

"To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday." - John Burroughs