Waiting for to go ( as opposed to Godot)

We are stuck in Denver for a day (at least) waiting for the Boston airport to open so we can go there. I am wasting time in a Panera, as they have WiFi. Here is a sketch of my husband, as he also kills time on his iPhone. I did the sketch on my iPad, on an app called Brushes. You are basically drawing with your finger. Very fun!


- Posted from my iPad

Ode to January...when things curl up to rest

We will be going to the Boston area in a few days. Our oldest son and wife and two of our precious grandchildren live there. While there, we will attend the opening of the American Tapestry Biennial 8 in Lowell, MA. I am really looking forward to it! It will be wonderful to go to one of the receptions when I am just one of the artists, and not someone who has to worry about exhibit management details. My calendar tapestry, "January," shown above, is the piece that is in the exhibit. It was woven from the view from my sitting room window, last winter. The view is pretty much the same now, in fact.

The amaryllis that I have been enjoying for the past few months has spent it's bloom. The wilted blossoms are still so appealing to me, that they were the subject of my daily sketch this morning, one more time. I have cut it from the plant now, but will try to keep the plant going. I used to be able to do that; keep an amaryllis and have it bloom several years in a row. But it's been a long time since I've done that successfully, so I have in recent years pitched the plant once the bloom is spent, and have started a fresh bulb the next fall. This year, though, I am going to try again to keep this bulb going. I discovered a link at the Better Homes and Gardens site that tells how to do it differently, and hopefully more reliably successful, than I have done it in the past. I don't like to throw the spent bulbs away. It's not just that it feels wasteful, to such a frugal person as I am, but I always feel like I have killed a living thing, that just needed to rest for awhile before it created beauty once again, like we all sometimes need to do, especially in January.



I guess this post is not really much of an 'ode to January,' so I will leave you with a haiku:

The freezing winter
Leads us inside where we can
Curl up and keep warm.

Trust? I'm just not sure...

I do not always trust my own vision. For instance, I took this photo from my sitting room window yesterday morning, and have been a bit obsessed with it. In fact, before I took the photo, I looked out and thought, 'wow, that is a Charles Burchfield sky!' so I ran and got the camera.

I am thinking about what to do with the image, which, though actually quite grey and dismal, is still speaking buckets to me! Is it telling me to paint it? To weave it? (Oh, please, I hope not! Look at the fiddley work those curtains would require!) Or just to let it be what it is? Or am I seeing something that is not even really there, and it is not worth the second thoughts I have been giving it?

See what I mean? Sometimes it is not easy to look at everything with an artist's eye. Especially when I am not necessarily trusting that the eye sees things that will appeal to others, or even to myself if it is transferred to a new medium. And is there even anything 'worth saying' in this image.

But I do love the greyness of it, and the subtle layers in the sky do so appeal to me! As I have been weaving 'water and dog' today, this sky has been calling to me. Shall I trust it's siren call, or is it just trying to lure me away from the work I am doing?

Well, for now, I will just share it with you and get back to the dog and the water that are growing on the loom.

New Technology...

Yesterday I boasted to my husband that this year I was not starting the New Year with a cold, for a change. Last night, my throat started tickling, and the cough began. Hello, winter cold! So today I have been taking it easy, drinking lots of hot water and tea, and learning to use the new toy Santa brought me. I got an iPad, with the hope that it would be a new tool for my design work, both at home, and more especially, when I travel. I have been getting the apps I think I will want to use - Adobe has a nice small version of Photoshop I'm pretty happy with, for instance. And I also have been figuring out how to post both to Facebook and to this blog. So this post is really an experiment. If you are reading it, it must have worked! The photo was also a part of getting the iPad ready. I took the photo of my wilting amaryllis with my camera, and was able to import it directly from the camera into the iPad, with a connector that Santa considerately included. I am pretty impressed with the capabilities of this little thing, and especially love it when something actually does what you want it to do!

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Winter has finally come...

In total contrast to a year ago, we have had a mild season, until today. This is the view a few minutes ago from the sitting room window, which is my perch overlooking the world. Snow has been coming down most of the day, and it has gotten bitterly cold. A good evening to be inside where it is safe and warm.


The fifth bloom on the amaryllis opened completely today. A profusion of bright color against the curtains keeping out the grey day.


Gus also keeps his eye on the world from his perch at the sitting room window, as well as keeping a close eye on me!

My resolve, as this time for resolutions creeps upon those of us silly enough to do such things, is to be more attentive to the things that matter to me in the coming year. And to not only attend to them, but to capture them in some way. I will sometimes post those things here, sometimes they may be posted on the Grace and Wonder blog, sometimes they will be posted elsewhere, sometimes they will only show up in my personal journal or sketchbook, but I do intend to put them altogether in a tangible way as I go, so by the end of the year they will make up one volume. It will be a daily practice, and I suspect that it will employ many mediums, though mostly sketches, as I want this to be a small addition to my day, and not to detract from my studio work, but to enhance it. That is, at least my resolve. And my determination. I am quite excited about it. Time, do not diminish my resolve, determination and excitement! Do you hear me, Time?

Amaryllises? Amarylli?

I love amaryllises, or is the plural of amaryllis 'amaryli?' Anyway, my this-year's bulb is the kind with red on the outer edges and a yellow-white inside. "Apple Blossom," I think. The first bloom opened Christmas eve, and the next on Christmas day, then two more opened the next day. This one will also have a 'bonus' bloom, smack in the center! A five-blossom one! It is very pretty.


I have been enjoying sketching it's growth. This is today's sketch. I did a more complex one, and decided I liked the simpler, quick sketch better. That is a good thing to know about my preferences, as I plan to undertake a fairly large sketching project with the onset of the New Year - but more about that later.


Over the years, I have captured a lot of Amaryllis images. The one above is a photograph, that I have used for card images.


This one is a fairly large watercolor sketch, from back in the days when I was painting in watercolor. I wasn't impressed with it at the time, so it is somewhere in a cupboard, but I am finding that I like it's graphic simplicity now.



And this is a 9x12" oil painting I did.


On a completely different topic, I painted with the Alzheimer's patients yesterday, for the last time this year. I didn't take them any source material to work from, and just suggested they paint a winter scene. Several of them actually were able to do something that was recognizable as snow, etc. This man's work always is a wonder to me. He paints with a great deal of intent and attention. He worked on this little painting for quite some time, and is almost finished with it in the photo. He cannot verbalize anything to me, though he sometimes tries. But when he was done, I told the activity director that it looked to me very much like a snow shovel, leaning against a workbench. She told me he had worked in construction most of his life, and then in a construction maintenance supervisory position. So he would be very familiar with both snow shovels and workbenches. The mind is a wonderful and mysterious thing. When my little art time manages to reach into a damaged memory bank and pull out a few familiar images that cannot otherwise be expressed, I feel very blessed indeed.

Christmas Eve, 2010

My amaryllis bloomed today! At least the first of the four blooms opened. I grow an amaryllis every winter, so I am posting this sketch of it for the IF topic of 'winter' this week. It gives me some living color to look at, when everything outside is brown and grey.

Happy Christmas to you all, and may you also find bright spots in your winter!