Winter Solstice

I hope you're all having a lovely solstice...we had a bit of welcome clearing this afternoon and tonight we're having a small gathering at our house...and now we're heading back toward the light.

January Bead Journal Project

I have the patterns (my right hand in two sizes) and the fabric, but I'm going to hold off on assembling the beads and other embellishments until january, otherwise I couldn't hold back my momentum!

I'm thinking I may frame these like I did with the two practice hands I did while trying to figure out what size and shape I'd go with...

Or...I may do something entirely different with the hands...but it's definitely going to be HANDS!

Homage to Hands, in fact...

Last Reminder

Today's the final day to sign up for the Bead Journal Project and I thought I would mention that this will work for mixed media/fiber artists as well since beads do not have to be the main media in your pieces....if you add beads as embellishments to your piece, it will fit within the rules of the BJP...so if beads aren't your primary medium...no problem!
Robin Atkins, who originated the BJP a couple of years ago, has shown a nice range of the kind of work done by this year's participants on her blog, HERE....take a look; you'll see it's not ALL beads, lol!

And it looks like the final number of participants is 287!

Whoo Hoo!

2010 Bead Journal Project Deadline

Just wanted to mention one more time that the deadline to sign up for the 2010 BJP is next Tuesday, the 15th, so if you want to be a part of this incredibly fun and inspiring project just go HERE and sign up!

No bead police will be sent (not even any fingers wagged) if you don't finish your pieces by the end of the year...in fact, all I've ever heard is encouragement and understanding if the (very flexible) deadlines aren't met.

It's not about finishing...it's all about doing and sharing and inspiring each other...and I'm delighted to be doing it for this third year!

I think I've pretty much decided on the hand shape (patterned after my own right hand), but not quite sure yet what to do with them....my latest favorite idea is to bead the hand, applique it to a 4x4 background and sew on a back before putting it into a clear DVD sleeve to hang from a 4 inch bamboo spacer (similar to how I hung my Basho set.)

And a couple of photos of the last two hands I've been working on finished and framed (the one with 4 pushpins is the one I ended up putting in our local open exhibit...) these were my practice pieces to see if I wanted to do another hand series.

Brrrrr

Occasionally around this time of year we get some colder temps than we're used to, here at the beach, and we're having a short string of that now. I know the midwest folks will laugh but temps in the 20's and lower are rare here but they almost always give us clear skies and wonderful sunsets.

The new header is last night's sunset and I snapped it just before heading inside to our local pushpin exhibit reception. This year we had just over 200 entries which is quite down from last year, and I think the major difference is that fewer children and young people participated. I'm wondering if we need to do a better job of letting the schools know about the event or if it's just a reflection of our shrinking school budgets which lead to fewer (if any) art teachers.

We just had our "civil war game" between two oregon colleges and I understand that both the losing and winning team have brought millions of dollars to their schools because of these results.

I sure wish they could spare a little bit of those millions for the arts.

For some light relief.... a couple of sea anemones from the aquarium friday night. Reminds me that it's our 38th anniversary today...we have another art reception to go to this afternoon - this one for a friend of ours who is a photographer...and then we'll probably go out for dinner if it's not too cold or wet. We don't usually fuss a lot on our anniversary...we took a trip to mexico before we got married and the anniversary of that trip means a lot more to us than the actual day we stood before a justice of the peace. We were together 24/7 for six weeks, traveling in a VW van with our siamese cat, chi sai, and we figured surviving that trip (and even having fun!) probably meant we could navigate a marriage as well....and so we have.

Festival of Lights

Sure feels like christmas around here...lots of light shows, holiday shows, gallery shows and cold nights!
I have to work tonight so will miss the lighted boat show, but we did make it to the light show at the aquarium last night...quite lovely...and I got a few photos of the lights and the huge tree they have up in the entry way...

New Month, New Holiday

Here we are at a new month and it seems like it will be a long time until christmas, but I know the time will just fly by! I think that's one of the most surprising things about getting older for me...how fast the time goes by, even while practicing being in the moment!
I didn't get up early on friday but I managed to get to the stores in time to pick up a couple of 4 gig SDHC cards for the new camera and a sweet little Canon selphy photo printer that does dye sublimation prints that are water resistant like "real" photographs. I'm having fun with the printer and thinking about putting some photo cards in my etsy shop or maybe in a local gift shop or two. But then the photography would be "work" and might stop being fun, so I'm not decided yet.

Giving Thanks

This is my 700th post and I saved it for today...so I can give thanks for all of the years I've been able to do this and all of the wonderful people who have visited and continue to visit...


A small photo montage of just a few of the things in my life I'm thankful for...family and friends, including our cat family...our lovely little home and garden in one of the most beautiful places on earth...my work...flowers that bloom throughout the year...and at last, to life...living it moment by moment and practicing being grateful for each and every one of them.


Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Stormy Weather

We've had some pretty wet and windy days this week but the compensation is some interesting cloud formations and sunsets...here's last night's sunset.

Photo Friday

I've been taking photos all week and getting to know my camera better...also working on a 3-D collage piece for our local community show, Push Pin. It's open to everyone, but you can only bring in one piece and you must be able to hang it with 4 or fewer push pins. This show gets better each year as more and more people hear about it...
This is my photo friday photo where the theme is "vehicle".... I chose to photograph a tiny ricshaw given to me by a friend which reminds me of him every time I look at it. It's part of an assemblage of small things sitting by my computer/beading desk and I look at it first thing in the morning and last thing at night and many times in between.

Numbers

I'm thinking about numbers this morning....this is my 697th post and the first photo is my 999th photo on my new camera (that I've only had 10 days) and this morning is my 10th monthly infusion of zometa (the medication that is rebuilding the bone mass that the tumors are destroying)...a lot of significant numbers for me today!
I feel so lucky to still be here...and so blessed in my family, friends, and the amazing people who visit here and send me their kind thoughts and wishes and actually come back and do it again and again!
And pat asked me about my fascination with the hand as a motif that I come back to again and again and wondered if there was a story behind it? I got to thinking about it and realized there were many answers to that question....for one thing I've "always" made things with my hands...I can remember being 4 or 5 and sewing doll clothes with my cousin helping and being 6 and visiting my oma and opa in germany and playing with some nails and corks in one of their kitchen drawers, and then drawing and drawing and drawing in my teens and again in my 30's before finding beads in my early 40's.....so that's a big part of it. I also found the hamsa hand was a perfect vehicle for the guardian spirits I've been making for years now and here I am, back to my own hand again. Also the hand has been a model for artists from the earliest days, sometimes the only "model" they could afford to pose for them again and again, lol! But, I think, finally, what it comes down to is that I just like the shape...it's recognizable at many sizes, so I can make a pair of earrings at 2" that are just as obviously hands as the fullsized 6.5" ones.
So now I have to go sit in a clean, well-lighted place for an hour or two...and when I come home I have a small hand to work on...;)

Finito

Finished on the beading anyway...still not sure of the final finish...jewelry, or book insert or part of a wall hanging...I'll look at it until it tells me what it has to be...you know how that goes!

I spent yesterday in the valley with friends, visiting art galleries, museums and holiday shows! We had such a good time, we are planning to do it again. There's nothing quite as wonderful as doing something you love to do with dear friends! AND we had some blue sky and sunshine!

The Beach Today

Wow, even for an area that has very changeable weather patterns this time of year, today was a surprise. Early this morning we had blue sky and sun, then the storm clouds started gathering on the horizon, it rained heavily, but then the clouds passed through and we had a warm sunny calm afternoon...the stormy one was taken around 11am...the sunny ones around 1pm down on nye beach...
I'm sure enjoying my cameras!

Heart

Unless you fill the space with sand, you can't see the heart...must be a metaphor in there somewhere, don't you think?

(if you click on the photo it will be easier to see)

Memories

This morning the sun came up in a blue sky, so I put some sweats on and took both my lumix's up to yaquina head to take some photos. The older one has a 12x zoom so I took a photo of nye beach from way north of it in memory of our friend, darrell, who died last year on november 10. A few months later, a group of his friends gathered at our house and we all drove over to nye beach to scatter his ashes in the surf (below the bluff where the condo he once owned sits). It was a sunny day last year too.

No Dramatics

The weather seems to have calmed down (so to speak) to it's usual november grey skies and rain, minus the dramatic winds we've had for the last week or so. The good part of that is we can go to the grocery store, library, etc. without being blown off our feet! The downside is that it's not a lot of fun for landscape photography unless you're a big fan of medium grey, lol!
That means it's time to get cozy on the loveseat with my beadwork and ott-light.
I'm almost finished (really!) with the first hand and am looking at a smaller one I'd like to start this afternoon.

You Say It's Your Birthday...

yes...and the weather was just amazing...took my new little lumix out and shot photos all day - 276 in all - including the lighthouse on my banner for this month...here's just a few of them.

(and a special thanks for the birthday wishes from my friends here who are also on facebook who got a slightly larger slice of my shots today...)

(added more to my flickr page this morning of the 7th)

Just a bit more

to finish this hand...still haven't decided how it will work or where but there's no big rush as we have almost 2 months before the next bead journal project starts.

Day of the Dead

I spent this beautiful sunny day thinking about dear friends and family who have passed on...and giving thanks for their presence in my life.

Colors

This month I'm going to focus even more on putting together colors that are out of my "comfort zone" in all my pieces...
My "palette" for this week and one of the first experiments in colors...