sweet weekends and work

here's the plastered canvas all finished and looking quite nice i think.  there were some bits of plaster flaking off but i think that only adds texture.  and i can never have enough texture.  i finished it off by sewing a scrap of handmade paper and some partially strung vintage pearls from my dad onto the canvas. it's part of the inner constellations series i've been working on for a while now.  i'm calling this one joy.

some weekend pictures.  i had all 3 of my kids home at once on saturday.  we played an old board game we hadn't played since they were little, had lots of good food, enjoyed the beautiful blue sky...  very sweet day for this mom.

and here's some new work in the shop

hope you all had a lovely weekend too.

smile

i've been sick with a stupid cold (again!) for over a week now and i've just about had enough of it (she said with a stamp of her foot).  i mean i've really had enough of it.  so i thought i'd find some things to make me smile and hopefully you too.

this video of lisa hannigan makes me very happy.  i just love her voice.

art in red wagon's tutorial for making garden markers.  i think i might actually be able to make these!  and she takes some amazing sky photographs.

rose and honey marshmallows by sweetniks.  softly sweet pink smiles...

doesn't everybody need a pocket manfriend?  meet kenneth by MsSpanner

shabby chic summer pjs or french knickers by PeriDotbyDuni

and this, this is just the biggest smile for me.  a treasury with forgiveness from my inner constellations series made it to the etsy front page!  that's thrilling to me.  thanks so much to StoneTreeJewelry for making a treasury with just the right magic to make it to the front page and for including me in it!  

and here's some of StoneTreeJewelry's work

smile-worthy, right?

worth

here's the third in the inner constellation series.  worth.  what is our worth and how do we measure it?  who determines it?

the penciled in words on the inside of this vintage book cover read - the circumstances under which these lines are given and what they mean.  these words evoked some deeper meaning for me and so i used the cover as the canvas for this one.   again, i'm using vintage faux pearls given to me by my father.  i now realize he may not have completely understood my way of creating but he was always there with anything from rusted old keys to books and maps to help me do it.  boy do i miss him.

please read here and here about courage and forgiveness, the first two in this series.

you can find it in my shop

a gloucester, ma. sunset and shell art

new work new studio

a while back i started a series i called inner constellations.  these pearl constellations looked like stars that would guide and show the way to things that need to be learned or found again.  this second piece is called forgiveness.  to forgive ourselves seems to be so hard.

some photos behind the scenes, pearls from my father.

heavy thoughts

i'm thinking about my dad more than usual because in just a few days it will be a year since he died.  my intention is not to be sad but to try to really realize that for his sake he is in a better place - not tied to his body that caused him so much pain.  it's been almost a year and i should be able to just feel that right?  know it in my heart?  but we who are left behind can't help but miss him.

last night one of my brother's dogs died.  two golden retriever puppies, brothers, that he got last summer, shortly after my dad died.  we went to help my brother dig a grave in the middle of this heat wave, in the dark.  it's so hard to make sense of this.  our animals are like people to us aren't they? 

my father, who was an oil burner repairman as i was growing up, fixed everything.  when i was looking for my first house, it was understood that it had to have oil heat so that he could fix it if need be.  this was his identity for me, a kind of protector who took care of the mechanics of life.  the day after he died, my oil burner did too.  eventually i had to call a repairman.  it was one of the hardest things i've ever done.  the ultimate reality for me, that i couldn't call my dad, that i was on my own.  i often think about that and try to make sense of it.  was my dad trying to tell me something?  show me that i could survive without him?  on good days that's what i believe.

with these thoughts, i've been working on some mixed media pieces.  i'm using old faux pearls that my dad gave me. some are still strung and these, when layed out, looked like constellations to me.  i imagine them as beacons that show the way in an inner landscape.  sort of like a guide to things that need to be learned or remembered.  this is the first inner constellation called courage.

thanks for listening.