A piece of a nice piece. Thank you Mr. Bloch.
It’s a form of window shopping which requires no discussion of,
“whether or not we can afford it.”
If you can, your name is below it and we thank you.
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May 20 2012
Baaa…when he speaks to me, He calls me Paula.
by admin
I am attaching a link for a wonderful sermon that I missed hearing last week on Mother’s Day at Second Pres. It is very powerful and I enjoyed hearing this one in particular at home, as I am prone to crying in church. Click on Reverend Paul Rock: The Voice, the top sermon, delivered on May 13th.
Listen to him, but he is talking about how God speaks to us and how to find that voice.
The value of feeling really low and 12 steps to go up.
I first had to feel pretty low about other things and to realize that I had to give into the fact that I couldn’t run the show of my life. I will say a little because I believe the 12 step process that one particular anonymous group identified in 1939 as instrumental for so many should be at least peripherally mentioned. It worked for many people to give up alcohol and more importantly to take responsibility for whatever else about oneself that wasn’t working in life. And addictions can be many things in people besides chemicals. I know because I am an addictive person and you can see it in part when I write. It’s often those things that worked so well for so long to keep us going, working, doing, running, thinking but for some reason yet to be uncovered it just wasn’t working anymore.
Starting over Each Day.
And, it has been said in meetings that it is a bit of a bait and switch. This is because so many do have a problem with organized religion and a higher power, religion is separate and apart from this process. But at the end of the day, it finally does come around to finding a God within oneself. And, because it focuses on just each day, it is really what brought me back to understanding why people chose Christianity as a religion. That idea that each day, sins are forgiven, and to be good, feel good. To move on doing good things it is important to forgive oneself to be rid of resentments that can keep us stuck, lazy and in the past in a negative way. Focusing too much on not forgiving oneself diverts from taking responsibility for past actions with amends as well as doing important work in life in the future.
So, after all of that and really several months of just going through the motions, I came to Believe. After practicing and saying and repeating, something finally happened. It was not like this, though this picture kept going through my head.
Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa
It did involve sunlight, though. I think this is in part because the sun is so warming and relaxing. It also so changes the way that everything looks at different times of the day. Everything is grayed and light blued in the morning, golden in the afternoon, and reveals every color possible throughout the day, all in the same still-life setup.
I knew the hard work had paid off when I felt I really now saw
Great Beauty. Masterpieces.
Not all of the time, just when I am conscious.
But in these moments, all of a sudden the
yellow was buttery,
the green was a meadow,
the blue was indigo and
my reds were tame and quiet.
I have studied art and been around beautiful paintings, sculpture, buildings all of my life. I’ve visited complex cities that were both planned and evolved with people, time and place. Some were places that others may not have thought of as beautiful like junkyards, but I’ve always been open to thinking there was something to see and learn in any place, any person. I never associated this with God.
Still my most beautiful picture, place, moment captured. Trash sack and School Bus. Colorado Line, summer 2011.
Even when I made things, my meditation, I never really thought of this as God.
And later when I so relied on my mind to remember, there and in my dreams, I have always seen vivid color and detail. It does not always matter if something is in front of me, I can still see it, taste it, smell and touch it in my head.
When I lived in southwest Kansas,
I lived in the past when I studied stone buildings and read Webb’s the Great Plains.
I was in the future when I studied Rem Koolhaus and read Metropolis.
I was with my friends when I was lonely,
and I was in Paris when wanted to explore, see, draw and be alone to experience.
And I was in the present,
when I was cooking, driving, raising a family, doing my work,
but being connected to all of that and feeling important about what I chose to do.
Paul Rock also speaks to that in his sermon. That is, pretending. Some people call it daydreaming, but when it shows up in what we do on earth it is more than that. This is the idea hat there are crowds cheering, people watching, and that what we do matters, civic responsibility and hard work. And for all that organized religion gets knocked around, that the belief in good through religion is something that at one time and still does unite Americans in values and in large part helped us to build a great country. If one doesn’t like the word religion, just call if faith, faith in building something that is good or in large part tries to be.
With faith, suddenly Life is electrified through everything on earth and it is all connected.
The Work of it, the Practice, to hear Voice.
Within Paul Rock’s sermon he also talks about Voice, real voice and hearing. I actually have practiced this, not often enough, when I really work at setting aside a time and place to have a conversation. The pauses, the questions.
I’m not so great at conversation with others in general. I talk way way too much about self, answer questions with too much detail, explain, random and tangential and wonder why I’m always the one talking and having to offer, often way more than I really want or need to say. It comes off as unhealthy narcissism when I am often just engaging in a nervous habit that in part was necessary to share about my unorthodox life but no longer has value.
I am working at the Art of Listen, being still. (though professionally here this translates to just baby steps with partial “edit”).
And of staying in the moment.
Maybe actually trying non-verbal connecting, even with other women and we are so verbal!
I have to say, the last place I found was just happening to sit upon a little padded bench in my foyer at The Illinois in one of these conversations I knew had to happen at that moment. When I looked down, terrazzo and border tile and when I looked up, there was a beautiful plaster ceiling of white.
My little Borromini Chapel at The Illinois. How on earth did God help us do decorative plaster?
So, at the end of the day, it is work and practice and I could be doing a whole lot more, though out each day. But, I am getting pretty good at it. In fact, the birds awakened me this morning earlier than usual to get this sermon of Paul’s out there before church this morning.
So, both the seeing and the hearing are working pretty well.
Off to shower. I think instead of running this morning,
I will have to let God treat me to a some tasting before church with a chocolate mocha decaf.
And I’ll get to church early,
to take time to smell the lilacs by the fence
of the house along Oak where I park.
Have a happy Sunday.
May 3 2012
Covering Balzac’s Bottom.
by admin
Nude Study of Balzac. Auguste Rodin, 1892.
Rodin.
Last night.
THREE TIMES it had to be said,
“Ma’m, we ask that you
PLEASE not touch BALZAC’S @$$.”
May 3 2012
Reservoirs and Foreshortening Skills. Finals Week. Carry on. your first student, mom.
by admin
Drawing of Bob Burnquist. by Jack Adams, age 11.
I really shouldn’t talk about my family too much. But, I had the privilege of living with a man that would leave drawings like this on his bedroom floor. He was eleven. Look at the right hand…
Here are some things to know about Bob Burnquist.
- He was the Brazilian professional skateboarder who was the first to land a fake to fake 900, the 5th person in history to have ever landed the 900. I have no idea what this means.
- He has a signature trick called “one-footed smith grind”.
- He started the Bob Burnquist Foundation to bring knowledge about organic farming and gardening to schools.
But back to this man with whom I had the privilege of living.
We only had about 120′ of concrete on the ranch, a curving 3′ wide sidewalk from the freestanding garage to the house. You can see on this site plan underneath these words. Note that the larger curving drives between the buildings are NOT concrete but packed dirt. In fact, this sidewalk was about the only concrete within a 6-10 mile radius of our home depending on the direction. [concrete inside of stock tanks does not count, not big enough for skateboarding even in a small circle.] But the point is, it was enough for this man I lived with to master many moves on the board he bought for himself.
Determination knows no dirt boundaries.
This man is likely both dee-jaying and studying engineering stuff like formations and reservoirs this weekend. And I hope, dancing in-between all of the work and play…to keep it fluid…to keep it loose. He taught me all of my best moves.
Thanks for showing me how to rein it in and check both sides of the gray in life. Dance hard, dance on.
Apr 19 2012
First Post: Curly-Haired Girls & “Hair in Art” discussion of the two Marys.
by admin
I have been meaning to start this category for quite a while, and today is the day!
There is so much to say, but I’m trying to learn “edit” to essence. Baby steps.
So I’ll start.
Dedication Page
This was inspired by the sisterhood of:
Gina Graves Lloyd
Lisa Revare Hickok
Lenise Rudnick Ward
Lacy Amelia Adams
Janet Rosel Willimon
The Bijin Curly Haired Girl Consultant
and all of the other curly-haired women
in life with whom I’ve discussed hair.
So, this is the reason why today was the day.
I have tried to capture my head in this picture to illustrate my morning.
Attempting front and back view of hair breaking into freedom.
[This picture was trying to give you both a front view with the cowlicks at the side, and the back with the super tight curl at nape but frizzy fluff on top. My genre of au natural(ly) curly hair takes a bit of work & product to look good. I have done nothing + wind. ]
I woke up early, so started the day at 6:30 yoga fix, armed with every possible makeup and toiletry item to hit the ground running in this part of town after my bakery pickup. But of course, there is always the one forgotten item. In this case, two.
Now I can handle the day perfectly fine without one or the other (and we all can admit to goin’ cowboy a time or two by necessity, can’t we?). But both the up under and the down under is just a bit too risqué. My dress was floaty, there was a slight wind, and I get my pain au chocolat at Hi Hat* right by yoga.
[*Which, by the way, in the summer is so intimidating on the front brickyard that I now wait inside and chat with Jamie].
Main idea here: at 52, no one wants to witness a dress that (as Shirley MacLaine said to her daughter Meryl Streep) “just twirled up!” or a Courtney Love stray mamelon, even through fabric.
So, I was left without the blow-dry to pick up my baked goods, clutching my jean jacket at the waist and anchoring my chiffonade-ish fabric.
But I was thinking as I was driving back to The Illinois where I live in Hyde Park….
what if, just today,
I first put as much energy,
at the beginning of the day,
on a conscious focus
of controlling self: thoughts, words, actions, deeds
instead of
controlling the true integrity of my hair?
[and actually, I have to confess that upon downloading the picture, I noticed my Grandmother’s Zorach Madonna and Child that are on the demi-lune under the mirror. So of course, I had to look up some pictures in Gardner’s Art Through the Ages to see pictures of both the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen to see if they had curly hair. This is not to compare myself with their thoughts, words, actions and deeds, though I wonder if subconciously I may have been doing so (so, ego check, though it is always good to aspire to great women).
Mainly, I just wanted to check out their hair. For the record, Mary Magdalen usually has just a bit of a wave which is pretty low maintenance. She is most often portrayed as a bit weary which is of course her sorrow at finding Jesus’ body removed, but also understandable given her early life. The Virgin Mary always has that veil over her head. I bet she realized early on that the Son of God was going to be a bit of an unruly-handful-of-a-boy to the point of going missing that day he ran off to his Father’s house, which scares any parent silly. By the way, the storyteller Reverend Paul Rock at Second Pres gives me all this great material. Check him out.]
So here in my confession of the meaning
of that tangent, or lack? of focus…
I am not sure sometimes
when I do try to control what I can,
my thoughts, words, actions, deeds
if I am doing so,
or if I am going on some other path?
And so this reminder again.
When I direct my gaze,
I should pause so often
to recognize
that I am only
a soldier.
Apr 2 2012
Bastille Day with the KU Thetas! Running through Paris barefoot with heels in hand for dinner at La Tour d’Eiffel! Naked men at the Lido!
by admin
Pont d'Iena. Vous ne pouvez pas passer, mademoiselle!
Monday July 14, 1980. raining.
Woke at 9:00. Susan Keck and Cindy Brown were at train station. Gave them directions to my hotel, headed to run 3 miles, breakfast, and waited for their arrival. They weren’t here until noon. They walked from Place de la Concorde!!!
Cindy Bean [Cindy was with KU French, the group I traveled with before Parsons] came over and we talked all afternoon. They, they headed to walk to the Eiffel Tower.
I went to le St. Germain Café for un café and letter writing. The sun did peep its head out for about 15 minutes. Yea!!
While running, I was able to see the military parade for Bastille Day. It was exciting, all blue coats, french flags and military music. The people that actually were in crowd at the parade got caught in the flow and were almost swept away! They said you have to move with the crowd or be trampled. Lots of grabbing hands that “wanted American Girls Bottoms,” they told me.
[darn, I missed it! No, honestly, the French men terrified me. I was just dying to see a good, wholesome & safe, midwestern boy in t-shirt & bermudas with crew socks that summer, but there were none to be found in Paris. They were probably over in Amsterdam going going for the hard-core! :)].
Mom called back and I loved talking to her. [I had called my mother. Back in that day, one didn’t speak with their parents all summer if they were abroad. This was an emotional emergency after a stressful day with grand-mère.].
Dinner at 7:30-was supposed to be at the Hotel Regina to meet Granda at 6:30. Mom and I finished talking (I’m in jeans) and it’s 6:45.
[later, after the evening’s events]I’m writing again with a report of mon soir de souvenir. After my earlier report, I tore into a dress and headed out on this evening of adventure. Late. took off heels & put in my hand and ran! Running through the streets of Paris, barefoot w/ shoes & purse in hand. Arrived at 7:00, seeing my destination.
Thought I had PLENTY of time to get to Tour d’Eiffel. Our reservation, we were told, would be given away at 7:40.
but….the 5-10 minute was was not to happen ON BASTILLE DAY!!??
Métro stop Trocadero is across Seine. No big deal, except that all three bridges (one directly across & one on either side) to the tower were closed for fireworks.
I said, “Granda! It’s the second floor of the Eiffel Tower! I just ran it and I’ll do it again. WE ARE NOT going to lose this reservation!” So off go the heels and I sprint away.
Of course, the gendarmes found it very cute and amusing and American that I was all dressed up & jogging along the Seine again, but NOT cute enough to allow “passage speciale.” They were setting up for the fireworks.
Arrived at 7:45 at the le tour d’Eiffel, pushed some money at the elevator operator man to get me to the front of the line and headed up.
Maitre d’ very nice and amused. “Mais, où est Grandmere?” I waited, knowing it had been a fifteen minute jog and thus a 30 minute walk. I knew very well that I’d likely do dishes all night to pay for the “set menu” if she did not appear avec l’argent pour payer. Voila, elle arrive! The waiter could see my relief, and we had beaucoup d’attention après ça.
It was a nice dinner.
Poulet
Crudites
Poisson
dessert, etc.
Mais, un problème. The Lido reservation at 10:30 (and it’s 10:00). The taxi driver says,”aahh, noonnn… there eez no way to go down le Champs-Elysées ce soir!” So, I ask a man at the Sheraton-en francais-and tell him mon problème. Voila! I slip him 2 francs, we’re off, and arrive with 15 minutes to spare.
[while the Franc has changed quite a bit, especially since it’s now a Euro, I have to say that I was a bit scotch that summer with my money. I think this was like 50 cents so I don’t know that that translates to now. Being a woman from the era when it was an assumption that women were poor tippers though this is no longer valid or verified, I just wanted to get it on record that I now am an excellent tipper.]
The Lido was great. I could take the women, but the men were a bit much. [I sure wish I’d added more details here, or at least a good sketch as I cannot remember anything. They may have just be flamboyant in their dress. I’m sure if it were anything more it would have been embedded in my mind. I was with my Grandmother, Millie, but that being said I’m sure if it were racy we would have discussed it! 🙂]
There was a “Steal the Mona Lisa” Dance Act, a Japanese Act, a Broadway musical act, Atlantis act, and this gymnastic/dancer couple. And, a magic show, juggler, dog trick show, and the kind that throws their voice.
30 minute trip to get home due to traffic, but the city was kicking!
Our going out to the Champs-Elysees & Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day in Paris is like going out in downtown Washington, D.C. on the 4th of July, 1976! Très-stupide!!
We can survive anything.
To Bed.
Susan & Cindy, poor things, were wrapped in our bedspreads on the floor!!
And so, for your entertainment, the beautiful women (and their French Girl Bottoms) at the Lido in Paris. The Rockettes in thongs and with bare (pick your words, boys!)….
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNn9SS9Fzbo[/youtube]
Mar 5 2012
And what will my ghost be like?
by admin
I will quit talking and telling stories. Here are more Springer pictures.
Beautiful old buildings in use.
Magistrate Court. Springer, New Mexico.
Zia Theater.
Hmm…I think the Zia Theater might be Clayton, NM. Someone correct me.
Worth a stop. It may only be open in summer or possibly moved to storefront down the street, but off and on it has been a flea/antiques market of sorts. I bought some tiny wooden carved cowboy boots here.
This is the R. H. Cowan Livery Stable, a beautiful building.
I cannot read the date.
Brown Hotel just north of the livery stable. Springer, New Mexico.
For me, here is where the fascination begins…
There is nothing more special and interesting than a town that is in some stage of much much later mid-life but is still very much alive…
And when things are left untouched, with no one coming in to perfect, re-work, clean-up or tear out.
To not try to make young again or worry if others see their antique and patina as trash or think it is depressing….it is not.
Simply content to accept…
Just like a person might be….could be….
So honest.
The places I love to ponder. Can you imagine being a small child in this town and playing around these old buildings? And hearing stories and making up stories about what happened in them? What a life!
Here, I’m going to take you on an adventure….
This is where I saw the first anomaly….the red corrugated tin was fine, but the asian manner in which the side columns were arranged seemed out-of-place….
Yes, something doesn't look cowboy here...
So I ventured beyond and yes, Tonto, it does not look like we are in Indian Country…
Here is a clue around on the north side of the property...
There is some kind of old hotel here. Not the era of the Brown Hotel, of course, but perhaps when Raton had horse racing. Which, by the way, is sorely needed and desperately wanted in rural northern New Mexico. I heard it got caught into politics with horse racing around Albuquerque which is a loss. Nothing can be as interesting or exciting as traveling in places where people have not ventured for some time.
The office wasn't open, but their neon still looks good. Maybe Luminous Sign can bring it back to life!
I climbed up as best I could and this is the view over the stucco wall...
I don’t know if you can see, but there is a pathway that heads in with a bramble arbor that arcs overhead which a person must walk under…It’s like the artist that does those kind of boyscout lashing architectural structures (KU Campus by the Chapel) but in a time before it was art…
this dangles over the wall.
I just really could not scale a stucco wall, but I did see this on a rope over the wall.
A Key?
A clue?
What story to tell…
And what will my ghost be like?
Feb 6 2012
le sketch du jour. Sunday July 13, 1980. Every Day, Good and Bad, is a Lucky Day.
by admin
Paula walking the Streets of Paris losing her umbrella and carte d'orange in the rain.
Like a lot of people, there are things that I block immediately from my thoughts, but they sit there dark and unexplored until he thinks I can face up, grow up, move on, and feel grateful for everything in life that happens on the journey. But in the middle, on the way, I sometimes lose, or think I have lost my compass.
It was a Sunday which should be a day of rest and peace. And in hindsight, it was. My Grandmother and I had been to Giverny the day before, and I went to the Hotel Regina the next morning. From my journal, I had written:
-Went to Granda’s. Long story, not worth writing.
Why could I be wise, but at times, so unwise now? For in the outpouring of words, there is a multitude of sin.
Mothers, Daughters, Grandmothers, Great-Grandmothers, women, sisters. We have the same stories, different players different roles but same love which is all that matters.
So…(from my journal notes)
-Home. Lunch at 4:00 at Café on south side of Pont Royale. Lost umbrella. walked around alot.
-Dinner with Robb Barnes [this was Gina’s older boyfriend by at least a year who was so nice that Dean and Ginny allowed her to break rule of only dating boys in her grade who I guess was traveling abroad?].
-Very nice. Good Dinner at Restaurant with sort of Neo-Classical dude’d-up [is this a French word, Paula? must have been homesick for Kansas] interior, Le Mobillard or Mollard in le Place du Havre by Gare D’Austerlitz. He is at the Hotel Atlantic on Rue de Londres-small but clean.
Dinner menu: (It was taken care of by R.B.-nice treat!)
crudités
fillet of sole
green beans and
Baked Alaska! – Fun!
[and can you imagine how?? the big brother I never had]
Lost carte d’orange.
[this is the pass pour le métro which was to get me through my time in Paris. As I was on my self-induced budget with goal to bring home money to my mother for this great experience to which she had treated me, I was dismayed, mostly with myself. I still am unhappy with myself when I lose things because it happens when I do not focus. And when I am sometimes upset by things which are just a part of life, plus a major case of ADD unless I am hyperfocused on work. And of course the talking….need to listen.]Home at 12:00. Bed.
P.S. Got to talk to mom-made my day & helped 100%.
I know now as a mother what angst this must have caused her for me to dump all these emotions I always seem to feel so deeply which went from generation to generation but no one seeing through each other’s glasses because it is always different. But at the time, her listening was just the soothing that homesick Paula needed. I need to do better about this. It is my time to listen to Lacy who so often has been my mom. To grow up.
All I really have to say is this: Paris was the best preparation for life on the High Plains that I could have ever had.
Places, People, Pictures
Boulevards, dirt roads,
Seine, Cimarron,
le café and the cafe,
au lait or black,
du vin or Jack,
it don’t matter, de rien
home is where your heart is
and back again.
And with this loss of my carte d’orange, I only really then began to meet Paris of the street.
Walking alone, seeing, thinking, processing alone.
I so need people and so like to be alone.
Alone is good, but needy is not.
Love God, love others as myself. That is my compass.
Jan 8 2012
le sketch du jour: July 12, 1980. Dressing for Claude Monet….
by admin
My mother Ginny Graves found these and called them our “Monet Water Lily Dresses.”
Above: My sister Gina, my cousin Laura Ward McCrary, and I are pictured above, dressed for the wedding of my mother’s cousin, Christie Lee Triplett, in St. Louis. Christie Lee was my Grandmother Millie Ward’s niece as Christie’s father, Floyd Lee is the brother of my grandmother, Mildred Lee Ward.
When Claude and I met.
I knew Claude when I was in pre-school. That is because my mother taught art lessons at the Nelson Art Gallery, so this was my pre-school. But that’s another post.
Anyway, if you have been to the Nelson-Atkins Museum, as it is now called, you have seen the triptych of Monet’s Water Lilies. It used to be in the large room just to the left of the Nelson Bookstore and Giftshop which are to the left as you enter the gallery turnstiles. Or do they still have the turnstiles? Anyway, they were and still are mesmerizing to me.
So to visit this real place and the ponds and gardens where Monet painted 16 years after this picture was taken was like being in a dream. The paintings are actually more real than the place, but they are equally beautiful.
Monet Triptych at the Nelson.
Claude in his Gardens.
Saturday July 12, 1980. (from my journal and sketchbook)
Woke. Ran 3. Went to Breakfast.
Met Granda & we took Métro to Gare St. Lazare. From there we took a train to Vernon and from Vernon a taxi to Giverny, the Gardens where Monet painted. They just re-opened this spring and everything is beautiful.
See the bachelor buttons...
The house is pink stucco with green trim and the gardens were full of bachelor buttons, thistles, and all sorts of little yellow, red, pink & orange blossoms.
Monet's House with Tile workshop at left. Arbors are along pathways throughout the Gardens. colored marker sketch by Paula, summer 1980.
We saw the curved bridges and lily ponds and willows that are in all the paintings.
There was a room of paintings in his house. Off the entrance were some of his later works which are really dark, but interesting and beautiful but in a different way.
We stayed until 3:30 and took the taxi back to Vernon. Sat in café with Granda and had a sandwich de jambon (ham sam) & a croque monsieur.
Our train leaves at 6:00 and we are waiting at the station. Dinner tonight is at Grandamolie’s hotel, the Regina, at 7:30. This is the hotel on right bank on the corner just across from the street from the wing of the Louvre where le museé des arts décoratifs is located (where I am going to school).
Seed pearl earring surrounded by suspended bezel of baby seed pearls on French Wires from the Hotel Regina Bijoux & Joaillier Anciens & Antiquaires
Granda gave me a very beautiful pair of antique gold earrings with baby seed pearls in the bezel from the hotel jewelry shop. Teensy tintsy intricate construction, they are about 1/4″ diameter drop on French wires.
(end of journal entry)
Monet's Pink Stucco house with Green Trim at Giverny. I used little sponges to do the trees. This was one of my first painting classes and I'll have to tell you, it identified early on why anal people aren't (initially or ever?) very good painters. Way too tedious and don't take enough artistic license. I'm still trying to get past this stage...oil on canvas by Paula, winter 1983.
The painting above was done later from a photograph in my album from that summer. It’s not an exciting painting, but the colors do capture the place.
So Claude, it was a pleasure to visit your home, and with my Grandmother Millie, which made it even more special. And if only I could paint like you, I would paint a picture of the crossing at the Cimarron River on the XIT Ranch, for it is as beautiful a place as any in your pictures. And, I may still do this. It is clearer in my mind each day.
Jan 3 2012
Linking it all together…friends, jewelry, and some Neil Young.
by admin
I have been making some bracelets for very special friends in Wichita in the holiday months. I will be moving this next month to Kansas City. I keep my friends, eternally, in one place or form or another and in my heart, just like the Neil Young song.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWFpf6MdcQo&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL6AFC73137838208D[/youtube](We are all painters in his workshop in different ways, our lives the landscape. I like this song.)
(Scene)
I was meeting with a life coach of sorts, working on my inventory over breakfast last week before the New Year. I gave her a bracelet for her new-mommy-daughter-in-law-Lisa, whom I had just met and for her, my friend Anne.
When I commented on Lisa’s wristlet, I mentioned that the multi-colored rings were of a different gauge. My concern was with the strength of the bracelet to resist a strong end-to-end stress test. How this might happen in the strenuous activity of jewelry-wearing, I do not know. But, I like to cover all my bases for problems in my homemade gifts.
note: gauge is the weight and circumference of metal.
Jump rings. Different resulting chains.
Paula to Anne in comparing their two bracelets:
“Yours has the heavier jump rings, but Lisa’s colored rings are very weak .” (Weak here meaning very easy to bend open. That is, fingers instead of jewelry pliers).
“But, I think when they are all linked together, the structural integrity of the whole is very, very strong.”
Of course after this statement, I was then intensely into pulling on this colored chain to illustrate un-wearer-tested potential flaws in construction. But then I looked up, finally realizing consciousness of words and actions, in so many ways around this trusted servant.
Anne, a schoolteacher said, “and isn’t this always the truth.”
by Anne Mitchell & Paula Graves Adams.
The Good Egg, Bradley Fair Wichita. Dec. 30th, 2011.
Nothing’s really original or unique but the moment.
This is for the famous Cathy Faber of Cathy Faber's Swingin' Country Band in Santa Fe. I met through our SME friend who is, I think, consistently her drummer of late. She has a new CD, look for it!
legend
skull: Day of the Dead, history, ancestors, Mexico
cow: We are both cowgirls of sorts.
boots: what girl doesn’t love a good pair of riding boots?
cross: don’t know if fit, but regardless, important to Santa Fe.
This is for another Santa Fe Band with whom our SME friend plays, Bus Tapes. I met Heather through him but also then connected with our common interests in the arts and her degree. Her day job is with the International Folk Art Museum. She is beautiful, young and wise, newly married to hot husband, and Bus Tapes' lead singer and a songwriter.
legend
see the hippie bus? love it, ebay.
roll of tape+ “s”. wish I knew origin. last 1.
skull: same a.a.
silver oblong bead: some Ginny Graves finds.
This is for my friend Genevieve. You know Genevieve...my thoughts and clothes coach. Her family history in fine men's suiting-tailoring for generations. She carries on with her father for both genders. She just had her baby, and she's right back on her horse at Brick's in the afternoons with Rory sidesaddle. A bit wild-eyed, but stable.
legend
baby shoe
hand with dangling heart: Shaker handcraft motif
vintage enamel monkey: kids.
(this is interesting…I found in my drawer on old broken Susan Nichols-Lopez necklace. Susan is some descendant or connection with Nichols of K.C., J.C., and was/is jewelry designer, I think in Santa Fe? Don’t know relation to Wayne Nichols, the architect-developer there or quote me on this, I don’t have time to call Ginny. She (my mom) had this made for me in high school. She used wire wrap and old stuff. Recycle, recycle, recycle again!
copper heart with anodized coloring: old cut up thing.
crosses: Kapaun. A good catholic KU Pi Phi girl.
cow: URGENT…”KC cowgirl to Gen! S.O.S.! send out stylish duds”
round frame: will have tiny rory pic.
note: this more intricately patterned chain came about because the heavy gauge jump rings were smaller and way-to-tight for the plainer box link.
And back to Neil’s words in the songs about dreams which give me pause.
I do get confused sometimes with all the places, people, and reasons why, when and where I, or actually someone higher up, placed my paint. Maybe everyone does. But when I have faith and love, I am never lost.
The Never Really End.