Just checking....

...to see if blogger can upload images...and post words at the same time.
It appears to be in synch today.

I send well wishes to you in hopes for a warm and fulfilling time to be experienced by all.

Another day before me with which to experiment, and savor the time spent in the studio.

So, what is up with blogger? It won't let me import pictures and won't let me post verbage with pictures? It has co-mingled my post from last week with this week. sheesh.

Suffice it to say that I tried, these 3 pictures are what have had me thoroughly enjoying myself, reveling in the contrast between matte black, and high chroma. The 'glowing lotus' will house my fathers 'ash capsules'. The candlesticks to light my way.

Life IS good.

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So I was grounded. My trip to Japan did not happen, tooth trouble kept me close to home. It is now a couple of weeks later, all is well in toothland (and otherwise).

I am reveling in new found time. I made a decision to postpone my thumb surgery after my acceptance into the Smithsonian Craft Show, which occurs in April, and would have left me only a month of production time had I gone through with plans. So, I am giddy with the options in front of me, time to explore, to work up so many new ideas. Basically I have been given two months, months that I had set aside to recover. My next 'gig' is Tucson, early February. Until then I am in the studio!

I have been feeling so connected to my world and grateful for the many wonderful people, places and things that are in it. Maybe that is a luxury that people that work in a deliberate way consider. Instead of my usual 'which fire do I stomp out first' response that I am usually caught up in, I can take some time to evaluate. Ahh, the gift of time, and the luxury of choice.

Pictures as promised, Amsterdam mostly, Rembrandt's home, watched a transaction go down in the Red Light district, chilly birds on bicycles, David Bowie in a gallery, boat photo taken in the sweetest thatched village in Sletten, Denmark. Such a wonderful trip, I am still savoring the experience.

Dancing on hot coals......

'Arrived home last night after a wonderful time at BABE in sunny Oakland, CA. Just in time to whip stuff out of suitcases and re-whip them into others. I'm pretending that I am ready to drive the loaded rental van down to D.C. to participate in The Washington Craft Show, truth be told, I am probably as ready as I'll be with the exception of the washer full of clothes, which isn't really very ready given my travel schedule for the past month and a half. I hear my old friend Anne Gainey saying, "you can sleep when you die". Yes.

I have been busy, which is an understatement. After arriving home from Holland I had a few days to prepare for BABE, get myself out there, meet up with my pals, visit the MOMA, an incredible couple of photo exhibits currently shown; go to General Bead on Thursday and teach a wonderful Foldforming class on Friday. The class was great, it is always challenging to introduce something new. I am pleased with how the class worked out, I believe everyone enjoyed themselves, including me, thanks students!

The show was great, saw many of my friends, new and old. California always makes me happy.

I was finally able to download some photos from my 3 day Amsterdam adventure, I think that these should wait for a next posting as I just reached my max for this round.

This week brings the craft show, visits with my mom and sister and brother and sister in law, hopefully some nephews thrown in and then I'm off to California again next Monday in order to get me closer to my Tuesday flight to Japan. After that I get to rest...and have my other hand operated on.

This urchin fountain is situated in Jack London Square in Oakland, so cool. A cute picture of my friend Anne, a canal photo of boats on boats and a ceramic pod from my friends garden in Leende, also a typical cheese section in a grocery store in Holland...Snapshot hodgePodge.

Our dear dad left this world yesterday. Hospice lovingly saw him through the transition from this world to the next.

The image that pervaded my vision upon awakening today was a collaboration of time, impermanence and the delicacy of a soap bubble, each of us inhabiting our own.

I am on a journey, as we all are. My physical self is here in Holland, many miles from home, but feeling at home as I have been lovingly cared for by my new family of friends here in Leende.

I will miss my dad.

Copenhagen is Beautiful.

As always the doorways intrigue me.
The luxury of time to walk and observe and reflect, what a joy.
The architecture, colors and smells, the perfectly tasteful presentation of food, clothing, storefronts.
I have the best job and meet the best people!

A wonderful time.....

This beautiful farm just to the north of Stockholm was the setting for a fabulous gathering of students from Sweden and Finland, with Tove and Jette as co-hosts, responsible for organizing and making happen a very special weekend.

We drove back to Denmark today with a much more welcoming weather pattern than our trip last week. It was a beautiful day, chilly and sunny with the fall colors transforming the countryside. Tomorrow I'll take a day trip into Copenhagen, I look forward to juxtaposing the country experience with a trip into the city!

Be here now.

This is the challenge, my own personal challenge that is. My work calls for me to 'be here now' as well as WAY out in front of myself. The pictures of these new Assemblage/Bronze pieces are examples of upcoming workshops at Crystal Creations/Beads Gone Wild in W. Palm beach Dec. 10-12 and The Bead House in Bristol, RI, February 19-20. I am loving the thought of pulling together all of these ideas, FastFire BronzeClay, new and old Brass findings, color and personal objects.

I leave today for my trip and my focus feels like the autofocus on my camera only spanning time, from here, NOW, to way ahead, to here again.

This favorite photo taken in Oregon last year at this time while Meesh and I pranced around the pumpkin patch, look at that sky.

Manhole Covers and Ovaries

My personal and current mission is to marry these two things, along with preparing for a month long journey. I leave next Sunday for Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands....did I say for a MONTH? Daunting facts given my life here, caring sometimes via satellite for my sick dad who lives 3 hours away. This life offers us so many challenges. I am amazed, perplexed and touched by lifes many permutations and so grateful for the generosity of spirit that prevails, if you let it.

I don't know how to put my Big Cartel Shop site on hold for the month. I guess I will deactivate it so that people aren't left wanting, but I don't want you to think that I have abandoned it or gone out of business, it's just until the first week in November.

I will try to post occasionally from the open road, I find as I travel a more urgent need to stay in touch emerges.

I hope that this fine Autumn weather is stirring all souls to create and love and carry on the best you can!

ultimate design

Fridays trip into Boston satisfied a long held desire, to photograph the glass flowers at Harvard. In all of the documentation of these incredible specimens there just isn't a collection of the ovaries, my favorite parts! I have so many images now, I can see a whole new world of work waiting for me. After this time in the museum and filling my photo card I DROPPED my camera. Luckily it only shattered the UV filter, got a new one AND a case, duh.

This weekend was lovely, I saw several friends, some that I haven't seen in years. This connection to the ones we love is so important, the 'too busy' sentiment just doesn't cut it anymore. This is what is important.

Time Travel

Yesterday I took a trip to the Brimfield Antique Market, what a visual feast! The weather is changing, Falls nearness brings with it a bittersweet essence. This calls for a schedule evaluation and update, Thanks Meesh.

September brings a return to school for some, a laying in of wood and harvesting for others.

For me this first week brings appointments, lots of them; physicals, mammograms, x-rays, scheduling of the next hand surgery.....visits to old friends, time at the Glass Flowers Museum and time with my dad will fill up the next few days as I head into Boston and down to Cape Cod.

Naples and The Amalfi Coast, come on, share the experience!

Pictures of the fountain and the coast by none other than Maggie Meister of her favorite place on earth, Naples and the Amalfi Coast.......we need a couple more takers to make this trip a reality!

Beadventures knows how to do it right and make any trip special but this one I have a special interest in....I want to see these Trulli houses, and record their finials...and soak in the mosaics and look at water that color, and meet Aldo and look at Mt. Vesuvius and the Pompeii Museum. How about you? I look forward to shopping for old stampings that Maggie has found available along with a treasure trove of found objects that we will turn into art. I want to see Southern Italy through Maggies' eyes, and develop some of my own, I look forward to my time with a group discovering treasure that has personal meaning and reconstructing the intended purpose to make us gaze upon the new juxtaposition with a fresh eye.

September is a great time of year to visit as temperatures are moderating and the tourist load gets lighter. Come join us.

I leave for Madison, WI in the morning, I am packed and looking forward to a weeks worth of felting and frivolities with the Midwest Felting Symposium, I will be vending to the public on Thursday night and teaching 4 classes. There are classes for all skill levels. Come on by if you are in the area.

So many factions of my life are calling for my attention, wish I could divide and conquer. 'Have to settle for one thing at a time, I guess.

chaos and calm....

As I prepare for yet another jury gathering (as the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen requires a re-jurying everytime you add a new material to your repertoire) I find myself resenting rules. This is nothing new for me, I like to think that every one will do their best and trust them to do that, probably naive of me. Instead, I need to travel 3 hours each way, present a body of work, and wait for the 'yay' or 'nay'.

I have used this as an opportunity to focus in and consider my motivations for my ever changing need to entertain different materials. This is the third time I have met with the jury; glass, fiber and today I present metal. I bore easily. I am always seeking to use a new material that offers a complementary surface or edge or texture or context that lets me incorporate these many tools to my working vocabulary. My need is to become proficient in any material that calls to me so that I can incorporate it when that particular facet of a design or idea requires it. It is not that I am presenting a new 'body of work', it is the same body of work, just hopefully using a larger 'vocabulary'.

Incommunicado.

Turn this...

into this!


In my time away from this blog I have been 'around the block'. From manic jewelry construction, reveling in the nuance of production, to traveling to California where the NORCAL customers and friends came out in droves, and showered me with friendship and support.... onto Bead and Button where I nearly drove myself crazy burning the candle at both ends in order to create the volume necessary for a lovely presentation, home for 3 days and off to Damascus, MD where I taught a wonderful group of women all sorts of things to returning home, bankrupt. Bankrupt of spirit and energy and positive thinking.

I am trying to regroup. I never thought of myself as particularly manic, go like hell, yes, for long periods. I would count on a requisite time period to refuel and off I would go again. The 'go again' is elusive this time. This is where I count on my past and the knowledge that all things change....and not always in 'my' time frame.

Patience, trying to be kind (to myself, mostly) as I still always think of how my bitter moods might affect others, and try to engage in meaningful tasks to pass the time until my world looks brighter, more generous, more optimistic. I'm sure that part of my lowly attitude has to do with physical limitations and the fact that I was rolling along so nicely, performing the tasks I was choosing to do leading up to all of those commitments. Here, in the world where my parameters aren't so closely defined and I am wanting to expand my work I am running into limitations and discomfort.

As I try to reenter the world of positive thinking I look ahead towards my next few ventures out into the world. The Midwest Felting Symposium is happening in Madison, WI from July 21-25 where I will be teaching 4 felting classes. Come, submerge yourself in the land of wool, and encrust the surfaces with beads! No previous experience necessary.

On August 21-22 I will be in Maine to teach 'The Felted Lariat' at the studio of Stephanie Sersich. A spot has just opened up, won't you come and play with us? Her home and studio and baby and sweetie, Tom, are the bomb.

Maybe it won't take me 6 weeks to decide to share again? I hope that your world is feeling kind and generous and that you are urged to notice the goodness that abounds.

a new world......

This post comes with it a new and refreshing outlook and an ability to manipulate some materials, yes!

Every day I am more able to use my hands, (now if I could only keep BOTH hands in working order, I drilled through the thumb on my 'good hand' last week).

I am gearing up for a trip this coming weekend to Oakland and the NORCAL Bead Society Show. I am showing off some new work that I am excited about! I am home for two days and then off to Chicago and The Fine Line, where I will be teaching a glass and a Felted Brooch class.

Generally I am looking at the next few months and the excitement that is to follow, I have many shows, classes and travels to prepare for.

Several felting classes take me from Maine, at Stephanie Sersich's Studio, to the Pacific Northwest Art School, with an option in the midwest,at the Midwest Felting Symposium.

Plans for my big trip to Europe are coming together nicely. Jette from Bifrost Studio in Copenhagen is adding another class in Stockholm for the weekend of October 9-10! She is the 'can do' gal, amazing!!!!

Time flies...and I apologize!

The auction has finished, as of a week ago! It was a resounding success. Unfortunately I have been on the road, I am home now and all auction objects that were in my care are packaged and ready to be posted.

My heartfelt thanks go out to all of you, contributers and bidders alike. This has been a lovely coming together of a generosity of spirit and a desire to help out one of 'our own'.

While on my recent hiatus I was asking for movie referrals. Larry Scott recommended I watch 'Son of Rambow' I entered it into my Netflix queue and it was here waiting for me upon returning from my wonderful week with the Baltimore Bead Society. I enjoyed myself and want to thank all of you who came out to listen and learn and participate in the workshops and watch me fumble with my first Powerpoint presentation, it was high time I joined this century. I was tiring of being laughed at for my slide carousel!

Back to the movie, though. It's delightful, if you haven't seen it, do!

I am looking forward to time in the studio, spring is here, weather is conducive to carefree, non heated days out there.

I can't believe....

Backside of the Mascot

This sculpture delights me, and it could be yours!

Hard to believe that 10 days have come and gone since we started this auction. I write this from the road. I am in Maryland spending a lovely overnight with my nephew and his adorable family en route to my week ahead with the
Baltimore Bead Society.

The auction starts to terminate the middle of this afternoon, won't you give it a last visit? I want to thank you all for your participation, this is a lovely gathering of objects with the goal of offering just a bit of relief to our dear friend, Meesh!