forward momentum

Small, achingly bittersweet and delicious moments of supreme clarity give me pause as a smile brushes my lips in hopeful laughter of what may come next.

A freeing feeling, it is, to let my soul believe, just for a moment or two longer, that there really is something powerful and awesome about life. That there really is something magnificent about just breathing in and out.

Oh, so much did I ache for this recent opportunity, and it was beautiful and fulfilling and awesome just to visit and be in their creative space for awhile. I learned from just that afternoon that anything truly is possible, there are no rules, no matter who tells you so.

And so, a breaking rules I will go. I will continue to create art that makes people smile while giving others pause. I will design my world of wood and canvas and nature and make it my home. I will pour out the words that affect my sense of balance until everything fits just right again. I will leap into the air and take flight as my dreams will let me.

It's these still, small, delightful moments that let me believe I can do anything. Let me believe.

grin

You know what makes me happy?
Power tools.
You know what makes me even happier?
Using them!

It's a fascinating blend of destruction and creation when I heft that saw or drill and make the wood change shapes. The sawdust flies, chips popping me in the arm, the high buzz resonating through my body as I lean into give some balance.

Wood has a distinct scent, wet and dry, and all the variations of trees they come from. The grains shift under my fingertips, the hard and soft levels playing fast and loose with the blades as I go across. It's a beautiful and appealing feel, drawing me in and asking for more.

painting zen - 1, 2, 3 - black, orange, pink

We'll see if the viddler video upload works, because youtube tells me I can't upload a video over 10 minutes, which I think is bollocks. Whatever.

I'll do actual explaining about the pieces when the paint is dry & I've released the tape and gotten them ready for hanging.

It's two pieces - with 1 layer of black, 2 layers of oranges, and 3 layers of pinks on top.

this title is yet to be determined

Here I go again, trying to type in a title for a post I'm barely beginning to formulate.

I don't work that way. I should know this by now. Really. I should.

It's one of those things, that my brain starts somewhere in the middle, or the end, and works backwards or outwards or whatever, filling in the puzzle gaps along the way. All those writing assignments in school where we had to turn in a title and outline and synopsis like weeks before the actual writing thingy was due - well, that sucked for me, because I never had a title until I was done. More often, after the reprimands & bad grades for "not completing work on time", I just made shit up. Whatever, it worked to appease the teacher who wanted a title & outline on her desk by a certain day. I figured out it didn't really matter if I changed it later after the real stuff was written.

That's how I do things. It's how I roll, baby.

That has very little to do with what I want to write about, though.

Today is the day the world holds a collective breath to see who is going to be head stormtrooper, puppet, poombah of these United States. Lots o' hype leading up to this circus, we're all tired of it.

I voted for Obama/Biden. Do I need to explain? No. I don't need to. I'll spare the stuff that you don't need to know about me or care about anyway and just say that I want to be able to look forward, not backward. I believe every person on this earth has a right to love and be loved, no matter their skin color or sexuality. I believe that women deserve far better in so many situations and am thankful a man like Joe Biden has stood up for those rights. I believe the man that Barack Obama is shines through in the way he treats his wife and family over the rest of the political dancing. The things like taxes and the war and the 'promises' do not matter as much to me as the ability to keep calm, make decisions based on how they will affect his own family as well as others instead of the quick-temper reaction that does more harm than good, a quick-temper reaction that I know all too well in my family.

I'm ready for the hope to move forward and make changes.

Personally.

Not just as a nation.

Personally.

So I bought (at least I think I did, it takes '24 hours to process') a domain name. But it's not the name we wanted, because the one we wanted is already taken by someone else. grumble. We're creating ideas & developing these lil' guys and their stories and having fun, and we want to share this with others.

But I know enough basic html to make a mess, and I'm good at picking and gleaning from other codes to figure a few things out, now I'm freaking out over the "How the hell do other people do this web building stuff?". Because I'm hard-headed (no kidding, really?) and I want to figure it out and do it on my own. Because I figure I'm capable and should know how to do this, so why don't I?

I also jumped on the NaNoWriMo bandwagon again this year after not doing it last year (something about driving back & forth from Florida & no regular internet connection & job hunting being a priority at the time, but whatever. excuses, excuses). I have maybe 600 words towards that 80k total by the end of November, and I'm using it as a chance to push myself and develop a few things.

One is the bunnyflies stories with Rob. One is the command of customer service stuff with Amber. One is an article on the boot camps that daddy & Papa Earl do for the museum. One is a piece of fiction that has been rolling around for awhile.

The best advice for NaNoWriMo is to just write - clean it up and edit later, like in December. So what if I'm using four different things to gain that word count, I'm trying to make it happen and learn about myself as a writer along the way.

There will always be some level of crazy going on. Election or not. Economy or not. Seasonal or not. Relationship or not. But I still have words to put to paper, I still have things I jump into the middle of and feel my way out of. And I'm looking forward to the day I can show off my stuff and be proud of it, because I learned something along the way to making it happen.

reminders

trying to figure out the words but tonight I'm not finding them the way I want to. so instead I'm giving you pictures of things I find pretty. or inspiring. or fascinating.



it's been crazy stressful. I'm looking for bright spots and highlights and the good stuff. somewhere. anywhere.



thankfully I've been stumbling across a few things that make me smile. I pick up a project in progress to look it over or flip through a magazine to see something shiny & nice. or the bonus is finding a friend blogging again and seeing his post with something that reminds me I was there for friends before, that things can be ok, and that I am not alone.



working on some wings tomorrow... maybe I can fly too.



(thank you James)

I've changed my fingerprints by making art*

So that canvas I stretched myself, that five foot by three foot one, the one where I didn't quite measure the corner cuts right and it looked a little, well, 'off'?

I did something with it today.



In a couple of hours I threw the paint down and sang along to the music in my ipod. I started out with a paintbrush, but after about, oh, say two minutes, the paintbrush was shoved into my ponytail and forgotten until about an hour ago.

Finger painting is what I went with. Dipped my fingers in the light pink and the wine red and the cream white and the magenta and the ocean blue and the peach and the apple red. Dipped and scooped paint and smeared across the canvas. Blending colors and smooshing edges.

I was in the zone. Grooving. I was making colors move and I love it. I love that zone. Totally in the groove. *happy sigh* That is a feeling I want to hug and squeeze and love and adore forever.

As for the painting... anyone have a 5x3ish space on their wall they want to fill with a giant heart? Let me know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Umm, since I was fingerpainting approximately 15 square feet of canvas with my bare fingers, I, umm, abraded several layers of skin off my first two fingers by rubbing them across the canvas. Crazy. Thankfully I already love Burt's Bees Res-Q Ointment, so I've smeared the green stuff on and am learning to type with my pinky!

6 feet of beat up wood

He told me it originally came from Denver, he bought it from a lady selling off stuff up there a good number of years ago. He used it for several projects, repairing or putting together his own stuff. Now he & his wife are moving to a smaller place and getting rid of lots of stuff (awesome old stove, but I didn't have the $995 to pay for it...)



It has this musty oil & dirt smell that I'm hoping to work out a bit, maybe sand it down as my brother suggested, maybe work in some orange oil or beeswax to help the wood. Yes, I know, it'll just get messy again. But now it's mine & I want to clean it up a bit before going to work on it.

It's sturdy. Thank you to Momma, Daddy, Lawrence & The Gina for helping with the loading, wrist twisting, unloading, and general maneuvering of this thing today!

It was a price I was willing to pay for something with history and something that will handle what may get thrown at it. It has a grinder, a vise grip, six drawers, and a wood grip. The backboard (seen leaning against the wall in the photo above) has hooks for tools like saws and hammers, and three rows of metal screw on lids for the box full of jars - meant for screws or nuts or bolts or small nick nack things. Since I have jars full of art stuff on my bookshelves already - things like beads, copper pieces, cloth strips, brightly colored condoms, confetti, my great-grandmothers knitting needles, necklace charms, and mini-nail polish bottles - I figure this will be a good place for them all!

This work bench is not made of mdf board or a kit. This is heavy, thick, sturdy wood. I am in awe at the find and everything fell into place for me to get it. And! When we went to pick it up, there were about a dozen small blue & grey butterflies flitting about where we parked in their yard. To me, that is a good sign.

Now, well, now I have to figure out where to put it, get the wiring fixed (cause it's severely old and shredded and looks like it was made before the light bulb was invented), and then actually start using it. (hmm, I almost typed 'losing it', but that makes as much sense because I do tend to pile things on top of things and never see them again... let's try not to do that with this...)

Oh! I also have this little round thing, almost like a stool, no more than a foot across and maybe five or six inches high, with three little feet on the bottom, that I picked up at an antique store last year for 3 bucks - turns out it was an ice cream blending board from Blue Bell. Crazy. Can perch this on the work bench too!

Ok, so I like the wood. (totally not meant to be an innuendo... seriously. really. but if you actually know me, well, then... you know...)

Enough. Have also been clearing things here and there, and am now to the moving of things around part. Sorta. It's getting there. But I'm giddy at having a new (to me) work bench, and the ideas and thoughts that come from the creative freedom to think of what I want to do next!

the problem with 'organizing' is...

In the process of moving things around, pushing stuff out of the way and boxing things up to store, well, I can't find where I put my wire cutters and wire and hooks.

The hand held blue cutters/pliers are not where I thought they were. Nor are they where I thought they weren't.

They are not under my bed. Nor is the roll of wire.

They are not on the futon by the door. Nor under it.

They are not on the cd bookshelf. Because I'd notice them standing out against all those cd cases.

They are not in my tool bag. There are books, drill bits, a flip razor box cutter, a bag of m&m's, a bottle of lotion, and a sharpie in that tool bag, but no wire piler/cutters. Shut-up, the m&m's and lotion totally count as tools. Um, so do the books. The sharpie is for drawing on random things like walls and Rob's legs... oh, distracted from the hunting...

They are not in the closet where I was also looking for a shirt to wear that did not involve sleeves.

They are not in that box of paints and brushes, but I did find the pink I was looking for last week.

They are not in my backpack, on the bookshelf with the ducks, or under the shoes by the door.

I'm taking this as a sign that these three pieces are not ready to be wired or hung yet, and so will leave them alone for now. Move onto another project... where I'm sure they'll show up eventually anyway.

are the lines moving?

Basic white wood - usually pre-treated white wood found at the local wood- and- tools- and- paint- and- general- building- of- things- stuff store. Picked up a few of these cut off remainders for like 50 cents each.

This piece is roughly 2 feet long. It's a 1x6 board. It's a softer wood than some, so in between the veins is a soft and fairly malleable stretch of white wood.

I picked up a lattice stencil and drew it on in pencil. Am using gouges in #1 and #2 size to cut the wood out with. The drawback to the soft wood is that the gouges will tear more than cut in some places. This leaves a final cut that may go off in another direction completely. It happens.



This is a long work- in- progress. Each leaf, each line.
It's kinda zen like to be doing it this way.
Each line is drawn on, each line is cut out, one at a time.

Sure, I could look down the stretch of the piece and see how many I have yet to go, and see what I have yet to paint, or stain, and edge, and seal... It can be overwhelming...

But the part of me that is holding that very sharp gouge in one hand and holding the wood in another is just there. In that cut. In that moment.

Like I said, very zen like.