Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
No Comments

Jackson and Bartholomew have adventures


2010
11.08

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Art, General | No Comments »

Week two of Art Every Day Month.  Still being in Colorado helping with the new baby and the other grandkids, how to make art? Well, photos are art – sometimes even if they aren’t good photos, sometimes if they’re photos taken on the fly.  You know the kind? The ones involving squirming kids when “OK, everyone hold still” doesn’t mean at the same time or even in the same place?  That’s the story of much of this week.  But bravely, I pushed on.

I asked my daughter if I could pick the kids up from school and take them shopping with me at City Market, perhaps stopping somewhere for a treat.  The idea was to give Karen as much time as possible with the baby and keep the house quieter for just a little longer.

I went to get Jackson and Annabelle at school and Jacks emerged with an additional backpack.  He had Bartholonew, the puppet that goes home with a different child every day to share adventures and have an essay written about the experience. (I’m pretty sure Bartholomew is a bear, but he’s rather bedraggled by now.)  I don’t think Jackson’s teacher was thinking that perhaps there would be a better time than this week, what with a new baby in the household and all.  But here it was, so we took Bartholomew to City Market with us.  Thank God I had the wits to take a few photos for Jackson’s essay.

He got to ride in the shopping cart.  Jackson, with that cute little face, pushed, but Annabelle validated the “hold still but not necessarily in the same time or place” principle.

The kids love City Market because they get a free cookie.  It used to be a mad dash – hold on, we’ll get the cookie in a minute, hold still, wait!  Now they are more patient and we navigated the entire store before getting to the cookies.  Jack shared his with Bartholomew.

No place in Paonia or Hotchkiss that would have ice cream, cookies, etc. – some place you could sit down and enjoy a treat -  is open past 3.  So I told the kids they could each pick out some ice cream, and that worked.

Later on, Bartholomew watched TV with Jack.

Bartholomew doesn’t seem focused.  He must be waiting for a lick of Jack’s sucker.  Like a dummy, I brought See’s Candy Halloween boxes for the kids, not thinking about how much candy they would get trick-or-treating.  Oh well.  Grandma’s prerogative.

I took over with Sam, Karen helped Jack write his report (he’s only in kindergarten!) and all was well in the household.

4 comments

Glitter glue, paper napkins, and a greeting card – can I turn those into art?


2010
11.07

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Art, General | 4 Comments »

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Grand Junction, CO, and I need to do something for Art Every Day Month.  Tomorrow I fly home to Bakersfield.  Leaving this time really hurts.  I don’t think I stayed long enough – it’s always sad to say goodbye, even temporarily, but leaving Sam, my new grandson, was extra hard.  I want to help out my daughter more, but home beckons also.

So I’m in the Hampton Inn (which is terrific, by the way) and was itching to do a journal page.  It’s been SO LONG since I’ve done anything – good, bad or indifferent.  This one I’ll classify in the indifferent category.  My materials were limited -I had glitter glue.  I walked up and down Main Street but it’s Sunday and hardly anything was open.  I managed napkins and two greeting cards. But dang it, I was going to get something out of those things.  I probably wouldn’t even post it but I need something for Art Every Day Month today!

So for what it’s worth, here it is.

2 comments

Fall lingers in Colorado


2010
11.06

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Art, General | 2 Comments »

I’m still in Colorado so my art every day month posts are photo essays.  When I get home, I may be able to produce some art – I am itching to get some journal pages done.  Art Every Day Month is so fantastic for a jump-start and for ideas.

Sam update

Before I move on to fall in Colorado, let’s have a Sam update.  They change so fast.  Day three of life and he’s already using the computer!

Seriously, he is more alert every day.  I wish I could see a real smile before I go, but that might be wanting too much.

Fall lingers as we take a ride

My daughter said if I’d been here just a week earlier, all the trees would be splendiferous (not the word she used).  But it was really up to her – she should have planned the baby a week earlier!  Nonetheless, my SIL Steve wanted to take me for a drive and show me a canyon he recently discovered.  He said I would do fine.  But when I saw this sign, I wasn’t so sure.

Before I had to contemplate that sign, we set off on a long straight road.  I LOVE taking photos of roads and wish I could think of something to do with them all.  Ideas anyone?

Picture’s not too bad considering the state of the front window.  This next one was not bad, either, for a photo taken from the car zooming along.

The countryside right by Karen and Steve’s home is beautiful in any season.  On the ride, we saw two interesting “homes.” One is obviously not habitable but the colors of the roof are wonderful.

Anybody out there read The Boxcar Children series?  In reality of course they had a scary and dangerous life (no parents, living in a train car) but who thought about things like that? We were young and it seemed so romantic and adventurous to live in a train car.  Someone out here does.

Bambi, sort of

We saw the loveliest deer.  They’ve come down from the higher elevations to winter down here at a low 6,000 foot elevation.

Baaaaa

Yes, we saw sheep.  Lots of sheep.

We didn’t see a sheep dog, but there was one sheep who was surveying the scene.  Maybe he was the “dog.”

Finally, the canyon

I didn’t get out of the car to take pictures of the steep, scary parts.  But one end had a road that went down to this farm.  It was beautiful.

Today I hope to get more photos like the final one for tomorrow’s post.  Some trees still have autumn leaves, and I want to capture them in the late afternoon light.

No Comments

I want some seafood, baby – from Mama’s Fish House


2010
11.05

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Art, General, Photography | No Comments »

November 5th – Day 5 of Art Every Day Month.  That’s a web challenge to produce a piece of art every day in November and anyone can join.  Art is loosely defined.  For example, yesterday I posted photos of dinosaur muffins I made; today, it’s going to be a travel journal with photos.

So – Maui.  This is the last entry in the Maui journal.  Anyone who missed the others, I urge you to look if only for the photos of the gorgeous ocean and beaches.  If you’re a foodie, I urge you to look at The Feast at Lele.  Just start here and go through the entries one by one to find the beaches and the Feast at Lele, and excuse me for the intervening photos of my grandchildren.

Maui – October 15-16; Last two days.

The wedding

Our vacation was ending – with the event that brought us here in the first place.  We attended a wedding at the Ritz-Carlton which, as you might imagine, is a beautiful resort on the north-west coast.

The pool area of the Ritz-Carlton

Wedding venue

Of course, the wedding was perfection as was the luncheon. The Ritz makes food catererd for luncheons just as exquisite as you would expect from the restaurant.

The eating continues

The only flaw in the entire plan was that some of us were meeting for dinner at The Banyan Tree, a restaurant on the grounds of the Ritz-Carlton, just a few hours from the luncheon.  Well, let it not be said that we shied away from an opportunity to eat delicious food – because we didn’t .

Most of us, except my husband who is good at moderation, ordered as we would have on an empty stomach.  The food was top-notch.  Not as good as The Feast at Lele – but what would be? We enjoyed our dinner and felt the need for martinis and port afterwards – with dessert.  I hesitate to say we ordered dessert, but we did.  And we knew we had a big meal coming the next day, too.

Mama’s Fish House

Our last day.  We spent it relaxing at the pool and the ocean and packing up.

The endless variety of colors in the water mesmerize me.

It’s fun watching the water splash against the sea wall.  This is the sea wall outside our resort.  The beach can be narrow (This is not a hign-end resort) but it was great for us.  I walked down there in high and low tide.

Sea wall and beach

We had one activity planned: dinner at Mama’s Fish House.

Everyone who knew we were going to Maui said we must eat at Mama’s Fish House.  I  concluded that myself from reading the guide book; thus, I made reservations in advance.  I must have told them it was my birthday also…because after dinner, a dessert with a candle arrived.

To get an idea of the restaurant, look here.  It’s a review from a magazine that named it best restaurant in the US 2010!

Mama’s is outside Pa’ia which is near the airport which means it was an hour drive or so.  But by then we were so used to that road (we put 700 miles on the rental car on that little island) that is seemed like nothing.

The Setting

Wow.  Is that enough said? To get to the entrance you follow a very long path that winds around the restaurant – right on the beach.  Palm trees, an old outrigger canoe, sidewalks made with gecko-shaped concrete molds – this atmosphere prepped you favorably for what was to come inside.

Which was outside.  We sat in an area that had a roof, but I don’t know if there was any way to drop walls so that the restaurant would be closed up.

I know the photo doesn’t look like it was “outside”, but if I’d taken the photo from where Mark is sitting, you’d just see outside, no wall.

The Food

Another exquisite meal.  Another expensive meal. The Feast at Lele, The Banyan Tree, and now Mama’s Fish House.  The menu was so exciting that it took a martini to assist me in my decision.

For Mark, it took a Mai Tai. I, of course, wanted to try everything, but the best I could manage was two starters and a main dish. Well, and dessert of course. Mama’s is known for their mahi-mahi stuffed with lobster and crab so I ordered that.  What can I say except the reputation is deserved.  Again, I was savoring every bite, oohing and ahhing, and Mark was again bewildered at how one could be so excited by food – especially after eating so much the day before.

If you are interested in the menu, you can enlarge this next.  Does everyone know that if you want to see a photo larger, you just click on it? Then when you’re done, hit the back arrow.

It did make the perfect last night, or the last night perfect, however you prefer to see it.

We were nostalgic as we settled in at the condo for our last night, listening to the ocean and the frogs in the lily pond near our unit.

Looking out the door, this is what I see.

Here today, gone to Maui

This time it was true.  We were here today, but gone tomaui.  The last day consisted of driving to the airport, returning the rental car, and boarding the plane. It was an amazing vacation.  To think that were it not for the wedding, we would never have gone to Maui – it sounded too tame compared to Italy and China and Costa Rica and the other places we have gone. Not only did it turn out to be worth the trip, it’s worth going again.  And I think we will.  We’ll stay again in Papakea J-104. Why change when you’ve got a good thing going?  And we will outwit the rental car agency. (see this post)

Next trip? Not planned yet. In January, maybe we’ll talk.

No Comments

Muffins are art, especially when they are dinosaur muffins


2010
11.04

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Art, General | No Comments »

Today’s Art Every Day Month’s entry is…..food!  One of my former students posted a photo of a plate of muffins shaped like dinosaurs.  I asked her – how did you do that? I must be able to do that for my grandkids when I go to Colorado.  She said I could borrow her muffin tin anytime and she’d even bring it over to me – and she also sent me a link to purchase one.  So I have my very own dinosaur muffin tin.

The tin is shaped like a dinosaur foot.

I got the dino cups too full for these apple muffins.  I did better with the chocolate chip muffins below.

I may love my muffin tin more than the grandkids do! The next batch I will put less batter in the cups and see if I can get the forms defined better.

Meanwhile, muffins are art!

1 Comment

Art Every Day Month is Back: November 1 – Halloween


2010
11.01

Posted in Art, Photography | 1 Comment »

November 1st and that means Art Every Day Month is back.  Can we do it? Can we produce something creative for every day in November? We’ll see.  If you want more information about what AEDM is, go to Creative Every Day.

So this November I again find myself in Colorado visiting my daughter and her family – AND the new baby, Sam. Since my medium is mainly photography, I will start with Halloween.  Last night was trick-or-treat, and a group of young kids and their parents gathered to do just that.  I saw them off, took a photo, and returned to Karen’s house.

Here’s the group.  Trying to take a photo was like herding cats, but it’s more interesting to see what each child is doing than to have a perfect lineup of smiling kids.  This is what they looked like.

With the energy exuded and the promise of CANDY, this is more what it felt like to the grownups.

Cooper walked along with her trick-or-treat bag.  This is what she looked like.

And this is what it felt like to the grownups.

Everything was a blur. It’s all too much for me.

3 comments

As long as there’s duct tape, we’re good…


2010
10.02

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Art, General | 3 Comments »

The Creative Every Day theme for October is earth.  Leah, who runs this blog challenge, has a theme every month and tells us all to feel free to ignore it and do what we want.  So far this year, I’ve been outstanding at ignoring the theme.  For October, I wanted to get back into it because my creative life has been stalled for so long now.  We moved in March? Yes.  And that was the end.  So I want to get working again regularly.

Get ready for November when we are supposed to post every single day!  That’s when I joined in last year, and I did it – somehow – in spite of being in Colorado for almost two weeks.  I’ll be there again this November while my daughter has the new baby.  But I WILL do Creative Every Day in spite of taking care of three kids six and under.  Fair warning.  You will be inundated!

For now, however, I am going to try hard to stick to the October theme of earth.  Except that this post is about duct tape.  I suppose there must be a petroleum product somewhere in duct tape and that comes from the earth.  Let’s go with that.

As everyone in the world must be aware of now, our duct tape is not our parent’s duct tape.  One of the things my granddaughter Sophie wanted last year for Christmas was duct tape in bright colors, and as usual I overdid it.  I gave her rolls of duct tape from neon brights to tie-dyed.  And plaids.  Last week, I gave her a couple of rolls of animal print duct tape.  The duct tape people must be overjoyed as their tape moves into dimensions as yet unknown.  It seems to have no limits.

The bunk beds at the cabin now have bright blue duct tape cell phone holders.  Sophie’s made all types of wallets and such, but now she’s into clothing.  I understand there are patterns on the web, but Sophie says they’re too hard to follow, so she does her own.

The dress and belt.  Notice the hair ornament.

The shoes.  She wore them to school.

And the hat.

I can’t wait to see what she makes next.  I should be able to exploit this somehow, but being the most un-entrepreneurial person on the planet, Sophie is safe.  Except I want to talk to her about Christmas…or Thanksgiving.  I’m seeing placemats.

No Comments

The Story of my Father and the Bird: Carving the Turkey


2010
09.28

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Art, General | No Comments »

It’s almost Thanksgiving again.  Which means, if you are going to have a turkey, that it must be carved.  My dad, who is 92, is already reflecting on the art of carving a turkey.  The older he gets, the more like a bulldog he is.  He gets a hold of an idea and hangs on to it, shaking it back and forth, up and down, while the idea gets bigger and bigger.  Usually, the idea holds imperfections of some sort which are magnified.

The turkey-carving idea started years ago.  My husband carves the turkey, or his nephew Kent, or maybe our son-in-law Matt.  In my dad’s mind, they are all one person and the carving job they do gets worse with each telling.  During today’s visit we (he, really) talked about it again.

The conversation was precipitated by my sister asking Dad if he’d carve the turkey at her house this year.  Bless her heart.  Something he takes great pride in.  But Cris, if you are reading this – do NOT let anyone take anything from the platter until Dad is completely finished and the platter has made it to the table in the grand old tradition of the Thanksgivings no one had.  Because last year, someone started eating before the dark meat had been properly arranged.

The Thanksgiving no one had

Seriously, look at Grandma in that picture.  She’s just placing that turkey in front of Gramp so he can do the manly job of carving, but who’s got the real strength? Grandma isn’t even breaking a sweat as she lightly places that 30-pounder in front of gramps.

George Bush had it right when he served turkey to the troops in Iraq.

Is it real, or is it Memorex?

That’s right, this was not a real turkey – it’s a cardboard picture of a turkey platter with a convincing curve in the middle.  Because, really, who can stand there holding a turkey like that?  It’s hard enough getting it out of the oven.

Because my father is an artist, carving a turkey is an art.  Everything must be aesthetically pleasing.  The white meat should be sliced in big, but thin, slices and fanned around the outside of the platter, which should be oval for the best impression.  In a smaller inner circle, slices of dark meat taken from the thigh should be fanned out.  I think a drumstick may go somewhere in this presentation, but I was not told and I did not ask.  Perhaps I did not listen. But the platter must be just so, even if no one special is there to view it.  It might look like this.  Something similar anyhow.

To tell the truth, I’m a little tired of hearing about slicing a turkey.  Carving a turkey.  We’ve all been hearing about it for several years but it seems to have taken on the ferver of a crusade.  Today, Mark/Kent/Matt – this person that has morphed together -  got ripped to shreds for their turkey-carving skills.  Their past efforts have been magnified to the point that they are larger-than-life.  I don’t think the word “skills” figured into it because they don’t carve a turkey – they rip it to shreds.  The description my dad was giving, and the ferver with which he told it, belonged in a horror movie.  You got the impression of chunks of turkey being flung about the room as they were pulled from the carcass by some monster of devastation.  My mind saw fangs shredding this meat as it landed on the platter.  The dark meat never stood a chance. It’s a wonder the turkey wasn’t raw, such was the description of  the melee that ensued when this morphed monster approached with the knife.

It may have ended up something like this.

Somehow, we survived this doomsday turkey carving and found the bird tasty and yummy.  I don’t believe a one of us was lamenting the presentation of the meat.  Take it back – there was one.

So today I listened – and believe me – I am not exaggerating.  I AM wondering, trying to parse out this whole thing as if it were parts of a sentence that could be ordered.  How to make order of an aging mind? Why are certain things rising to the surface over and over again, seemingly meaningless things like carving a turkey?  What does it really mean? I don’t think that near the end of life, carving a turkey could be a big concern.  What could it symbolize? Maybe being the best could be a concern.  Had you been the best?  Would others realize you had been the best? Have you appreciated the finer points in life?  Fulfilled your duties as a family man adequately?  Or better than adequately?  Who the heck knows what carving the dang turkey really means.  Dad probably doesn’t know.

But we listen.  Again and again. Telling ourselves that we will be equally insufferable at times should we made it to 92.  That our kids will go home saying, “I can’t believe she talked about that again.  Why can’t she just let go of it? It’s not important anyhow.”  And then they may contemplate the symbolism of a seemingly trivial matter.

Because we would really like carving the turkey, or whatever it is we are going to talk about over and over, to be symbolic of some deeper meaning and larger idea, not just the complaints of an old used-up person.  Sometimes it’s better to live the fantasy than know the truth.  Because a turkey, after all, is probably only a turkey.

No Comments

Poetry and Photography, a preview: Little Girl with a Baseball


2010
09.27

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Art, General, Photography | No Comments »

The Arts Council of Kern will be mounting a show toward the end of October.  The working title is Poetry and Photography, and it’s a really cool concept.  Three poets and three photographers were asked to collaborate, matching poems to photos or vice versa.  I’m honored to be asked to participate.  The other two photographers are amazing, and the poets are knock-your-socks-off fabulous.  I have been needing an infusion of new ideas and ways of thinking so this came at just the right time.  I’ll have two poems in the show as well as photos, and I wanted to share one collaboration that is close to my heart.

My granddaughter Annabelle is six now, but  I took a photo of her at her second (or was it her third?) birthday party that I’ve always wanted to do something with.  I loved the way she was looking at the little boy, and he was looking back at her,  as if it were a stand-off of sorts.  Or a dare.  Abbo had his baseball.

I love baseball.  I love the poetry and the ballet of baseball.  I love watching the diamond just as the batter steps up, the pitcher winds up, lets go of the ball, the batter swings, and the infield and outfield move as if choreographed, one way or the other, like a corps de ballet.  It’s just so beautiful to see it all happen.  Besides Star Trek, baseball is one of the things I love best.

I put the photo out there, and one of the poets, an honest-to-goodness published author (look him up on Amazon and buy his books), Nick Belardes, snapped it up.  The poem is so romantic and wistful, so full of hope and heartbreak, and so full of promise that it captured me immediately.

I don’t want to ruin the show so this is just a teaser, one little teeny part.  It’s nice to put it out before baseball season is over.  The boys of October are but days away, the Padres are six games away from the wild card, and since the Dodgers are bums this year, I’d like to see the Padres win something, finally.  Giants fans, sorry, can’t do anything for you.  You’re still the enemy to those of us who bleed Dodger blue.

LITTLE GIRL WITH A BASEBALL  by Nick Belardes

She will taunt you

When you’re ten years old,

And she’s three.

She’ll hold your baseball

Like it’s a mystery orb

And won’t give it to you

When you want it back.

When she’s fifteen,

And you’re twenty-two,

She’ll only watch you

If you’re winning.

“It’s just a game,” you say.

You know that isn’t true.

And she never believes you anyway.

When she’s twenty-three

And you pitch your first game in the majors,

She’ll finally say you were meant to be

a ballplayer.

But she still won’t write you letters.

Or tell you you’re the best she ever saw.

When you start coaching AAA,

She’ll remember all those games

You once played.

You will call her up,

And she’ll say what you looked like

From the stands.

When she’s fifty,

She will hang photos

you didn’t know she had.

Like the time she had that magic orb

When she was three.

1 Comment

You know? July was a hell of a month. Plus, Earth is a Mighty Vessel. Art!


2010
08.09

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Art, General | 1 Comment »

Gotta say it.  Ever have those months that when you look back, it seems completely surreal?  I just have to get it off my chest, and of course I know everyone wants to know about MY month – so here it is.  For a preview – this is what I felt like at the end of the month.

I felt like this chopped up pile of wood I found by our cabin. I was broken down, fragmented, and needed to be put together again.

It started with me going to L.A. for a couple of days to help my friend Michael. He’s in India now and was in the process of getting ready.  Sort of like closing out one life and starting another.  He now has no apartment and no job in the United States.  I’ve got his financial stuff to take care of, so he is free and clear to step through the looking glass.  Michael is a sign-language interpreter, and he’s interpreting for a recent grad school grad (grad school grad?) who’s Indian.  He’ll be there for at least six months.

Buying a computer with Michael

I remember back in 1971, Mark and I did the same thing.  We joined the Peace Corps. Put all our stuff in storage and set out for Morocco.  Took two-year-old Jennifer with us. Both sets of parents were horrified – how could we do such a thing? How unsafe it would be.  What about Jennifer? Could we get jobs after being out of the country two years? Looking back, it was pretty brave – walking into Oujda, Morocco, with only basic language skills and having to find a house to rent and furnish it with a PC volunteer salary, but it wasn’t foolhardy. We were young, when, of course, you do things you’d think two or three times about now.

So Michael is taking a big risk – stepping into his new life in India.  I’m happy for him to have this adventure because after living in a foreign country, life is never the same.  It’s fuller, richer, and everything around you takes on more relativity.  If we didn’t have nine grandkids with number ten on the way, we’d be right back in the Peace Corps.

Anyhow – I was in L.A. helping Michael and he woke up one day with strep throat. Not good. So I zoomed back to Bako and left for Florida on July 5.  I’ve written lots of posts about that – I’m sure no one wants to hear the words “heat” and “humidity” once more!  But it was all that and more.  Nothing has ever tired me out as much as that trip, but had I known in advance, I would have still gone. I was simply unable to pass up the chance to visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Would I go back in July? Given the choice, no.  Never.  But I wouldn’t have to – I’ve been.

Frazzled parents on the soccer field in Palm Beach

Breakfast at Three Broomsticks at Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Then came the pathetic 24-hour return trip to California. One day home. Off to the cabin with all nine grandkids and two daughters.

Grandkids at the cabin

Now, would you like a laugh? Because you are going to get one. I was so frazzled that I made the absolute most pathetic cake in the universe for Jen and Karen’s birthdays at the cabin.  It was all I had so I had to use it.  Get ready for a ROFL moment.

The most pathetic birthday cake in the history of mankind

Two days home.  More stuff with Michael including a mad-dash day right before his flight replacing everything in his lost wallet! This is not a good idea, losing your wallet the day before you embark on a new life.  Yet maybe it was symbolic – starting again.

Straight to Costa Mesa for the Adam Lambert concert, which I also wrote about.

Then up to Pismo for some days with my friend Pat.

Me with Patty Cake

Then the road home.

If I was home 5 days in July I’d be surprised.  But I can’t check my calender definitively because my computer, and therefore outlook, is kaput.

First week of August: the air conditioner broke in our house, my computer crashed and is still absent (working on the macbook), lots of running around to get the cabin ready for renting. New bank accounts, web site, ad infinitum.  Fasting lab work.  I’m happy to report that my lipid panel and my cholesterol levels are on the low side.  One victory for August!

Did I mention the dead bird and the frog in my closet? That the cats – I suspect Tiger, really – have/has been urinating in the closet and my room? That’s solved now, but I think it was too much for me to be gone such a long time.  I got pherenomes from the vet to spray on the spots, and I have happy cats now.  Calm cats.  I am giving them both plenty of attention.  Maybe Tiger will stop being so crabby.

Oh my, there is more. But I can hardly remember. My parents of course.  Yesterday I wrote the story about the keys.

Ah – I forgot the mammoth trip to IKEA (1 1/2 hours away) and putting together bookcases, beds, mounting televisions, etc.  And worse than almost anything was a horrible phone call to Direct TV to get it installed at the cabin.  My head was spinning – it was the highest pressure sell I’ve ever experienced, and when I was hanging up after probably  ONE HOUR, the sales guy still wouldn’t stop selling.  I had to say, “Thank you. I’m not ordering your product. I am hanging up now. Goodbye.”

But I did order it because it’s the only service available in Alta Sierra.  HOWEVER I ordered it in a bundle though Verizon and it was a very civilized procedure.  Have to zip up there Thursday for installation.  And on Friday my sister, her husband, and my two nephews from Juneau are coming for the annual summer visit.

OK, it’s off my chest. It’s a wonder I’m still sane. I do not want to go anywhere for a long time.

SO finally I had time to produce some art this weekend.  In fact, I had to because the deadline for the museum show this year was today! The theme is Vessels.  I worked on a collage for two days.   I decided to meet the theme head-on and wrote a poem about vessels which  I’ll put it in here because the words probably won’t show on the screen, and then I’ll put in the picture.  There is a lot of intentional symbolism in this collage.  I wonder what people will see, since they can’t see inside my mind.

Earth is a Mighty Vessel

Earth is a mighty vessel, bountiful,

Impersonal, arid.

We rise with this vessel, higher.

We leave this vessel when we can swim.

Except those who sink.

We laugh with riches from vessel Earth.

Our bodies become vessels,

Adorned as Earth adorns herself.

Earth is a bumpy vessel with which

We float, rise, paddle, dive.

Earth’s buoyancy brings us back.

Except those who sink.

Accept those who sink.

Earth is a Mighty Vessel

And now we move forward.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »