I’ve been thinking about sharing with you two bigger than my usual very short projects. It might help me to get started on them if I tell you about them. But being the last of the big time procrastinators, I’m going to wait another day or two before launching into those.

Speaking of procrastinations, I was chatting (via email) with one of the other MAM artists and she was talking about cleaning out her studio. GULP! Another one of my great procrastinations.

So glad to know that I’m not alone with my studio glut problem, though I have yet to start the clearing process myself.

Here’s an inventory as far as I can make out:

Faded moths, and butterfly wings, shredded bits of birch bark.

Dragonflies, some with wings still on their bodies, others just the wings, no body to be found.

Pods of poppy flowers that have long since shed their tiny seeds all over my drawing table.

Milkweed pods, some dried and empty, others with their silky seed parachutes floating through the room.

Desiccated amphibian road kill (frogs and salamanders).

Molted garter snake skins (often found in my woodpile).

Buds, branches and leaves of shrubs and trees, dried, some with insect holes, some a bit crumbly.

Various fungi.

Mouse skulls, deer teeth, pieces of crushed turtle shell.

Stones and shells of different colors, shapes and sizes.

Shards of broken glass and pottery.

Starfish and seahorses.

Paper wasp nests.

Egg shells and one whole egg that I don’t know where it came from and don’t dare open and hope it doesn’t ever break.

Cecropia and Promethea moth cocoons and their pupae.

A slice of dried kiwi.

Abandoned nuts and bolts, pieces of rusted car parts.

Feathers of course.

Not to mention bits of cloth, ribbon, paper, plastic, beads, buttons, empty toilet paper rolls, tissue boxes, mint tins, chewing tobacco tins (found on the road, not mine) and boxes boxes, boxes.

🎵“These are a few of my favorite things.”🎵

All waiting patiently (or not) to be made into…something – an assemblage? A puppet? A crankie? Or thrown into trash or recycling. (Yes, some of it Ruth you need to throw out.)

Luckily it hasn’t spilled out into the rest of the house yet…Well, some of it has, but in fairly orderly fashion.

Some day I’ll get organized. Until then…

Wish me luck!

Well this one took me all day. Today I’m doing Shakespeare. My father loved to quote Shakespeare to my brother and me – mostly advice: “Never a lender nor a borrower be…” Polonius in Hamlet. Or an opinion: “How much sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.” Poor King Lear. Or an order: “Stand not upon the order of your going but go at once.” Lady Macbeth.

So when I designed my parents’ gravestone I put a quote from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on it:

Many years ago I visited the Cloisters in New York. I loved the unicorn tapestries but what fascinated me most was a walnut shell with an exquisite tiny sculpture inside it. I’ve never forgotten it.

Awhile back I acquired a perfect walnut shell and I’ve been meaning to put something beautiful inside it. Well I still haven’t, but the shell reminded me of another Shakespeare quote. It is one that I don’t remember my father ever declaiming but it’s one of my favorites. So here it is in three photo montages. Oh, it’s from Hamlet.

Sweet dreams everyone!

Some days are like this. I feel for all the lost souls…and for myself.

I found ‘em one day on a street corner in the rain. Knocked on the door of a house nearby that had children’s toys in their front yard. A man opened the door and gave me a puzzled look. Nope, not theirs. So I took ‘em home. That was months ago. We get along just fine but thought there must be the perfect home waiting for ‘em somewhere.

Meant to post this a long time ago, but well, here it is now.

Á demain…

Back home. SNOW SNOW SNOW! Well it is still winter…not that Spring deters the snow gods here in VT.

Today’s theme is “Zen and the Art of Wildlife Tracking”. Some of us older folks (that’s most of us here I fear) may remember “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert M. Persig ? Or the movie “Karate Kid” – the Zen of car washing? So many things can be “Zen” though some activities do seem to lend themselves to it more easily than others.

I have been taking a Wildlife Tracking workshop through the North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier. Tracking requires a slow pace, attention to detail and an open mind that I find to be incredibly restorative. Like hunting, fishing, wildlife photography or plein air art, one needs to be quiet and observant; willing to just be and be open to whatever may arise. Maybe something awesome will come your way. Or maybe you will experience awe just being there in the woods and fields. A Zen practice indeed.

Until tomorrow.

Well here I am again, participating in the March Arts Marathon, color coordinated as always…

My March “Book of Days” starts with a visit to my hometown- NYC

At a vintage clothing store on the lower east side – The owner had the same last name as me and went to the same elementary school and Jr. High. Small town New York!

Nothing I love more than trying on hats.

Waiting for the ferry on a cloudy day –

I’ve been having fun experimenting with photo collage/montage. Here’s one from the above photos –

Gal in a gull’s gullet. Photographers beware! You never know when you might get swallowed up. Well luckily he spat me out and now I’m on the train on my way back home.

See ya tomorrow!

Sometimes I feel ungrounded…like parts of me are missing.

It’s been so long I bet you’ve forgotten all about my blog but I haven’t. By the grace of G-d…Hineni. I am here. Went to a sounding improvisation by Evan Premo. The theme was “I am me”. I was inspired by the session to make a photo montage on that theme. Here it is:

From my mother I learned to color coordinate my clothes and accessories. She was always perfectly color coordinated; head to toe, hat to socks.

This morning as I was taking a sip of the blueberry smoothie I had just made I noticed something that tickled my funny bone – my smoothie perfectly matched my shock of magenta hair and my batiked tee shirt. Oh my! Would my mother be proud? Not sure about that but I definitely qualified for over the top color coordination. So here I am, smoothie in hand –

In the midst of frantically attending to my Spring vegetable garden and yard which seem to have exploded with unruly vegetation in the last few days, I took a break to check out how the phoebes nesting in my woodshed were doing. While there I noticed a glass jar with a Cecropia moth cocoon in it that I had carefully placed on a shelf in the shed in the fall…and forgotten while it overwintered.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move. It was the moth in the jar, just moments ago eclosed (hatched) from it’s cocoon. I let it out and it clung to my finger. As I watched, it trembled, pumped its wings and readied himself ( I knew it was a he because of the size of his antennae) for flight. Then in a split second off he went. I gasped. Such a dramatic departure. (I’d been known to do the same in my youth.)

And there was the phoebe on the phone wire ready to devour my (forgive my possessiveness) moth. Luckily he evaded her (in feinting moves worthy of a pro soccer player) and flew away to find his perfect mate.

So blessed to be in the right place at the right time. (How often does that happen?) Not to mention if it had been a moment later that moth would have died in the jar never knowing the pleasures of finding a mate and fulfilling his purpose in life, and I responsible for his untimely demise.