Tag Archives: ecclectic

Dec31

Happy New Year!

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For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” ~

I recently came upon an expression called “Oblique Motion.”   “Oblique Motion” occurs when one voice (or more) in written music, remains on the same pitch while the other ascends or descends.   This seemed to me as if it could be applied to art as well.  We have our consistent or usual voice in each piece that we produce, but there is also another voice, one just emerging… new and unknown, or sometimes one that is finished but still resonating… and they each have their own harmony to follow.  This may be far too vague a definition for music majors, but please allow me my simple and poetic viewpoint, and my apologies to written music! 

My 2012 art journal(s) will be called “Imaginary Conversations ~ Oblique Motion”

The new year arrives and my door is open and waiting for whatever the future may bring.  It looks dark inside my open door – but that’s because this is only a cookie house – and I didn’t think to put a tea light inside before I snapped the photo.  

I have lots of plans for art projects in this new year ahead  – I always have lots of plans for the new year, but I don’t make resolutions.    Resolutions seem too rigid, especially for artists – we need to be able to change course in a split second; ever aware of the serendipitous moment, free of spirit, and forever reverent.

Happy New Year to each of you!

I’ve been thinking a lot about horizon lines – the line that divides

the earth and the sky, that magic place only the birds really know…

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Sep25

Furniture for the Stack!

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Top of the bookcase a few hand carved farm animals from (eastern) Germany, standing on a glass box of trinkets.

First shelf with smaller journals, and a few vintage ink pens.

Second shelf with some small paintings, which will probably be removed to make space for more journals!

Bottom shelf with stacked journals too tall to stand up right.

Open top drawer – nice and neat and room for more!

Open second drawer – paper stack – room for more!

Bottom drawer – filled – but I know where all the sketch books and  blank paper is now!

Oct26

Button, Button …Buttons on Tuesday

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I have just recently discovered the amount of stuff available on ebay, new to this phenomenon, at first I was overwhelmed, but I am an old hand now.  This prolific amount of stuff is an amazement to me – all I have to do is say, gee I wish I had “some,”  insert whatever desire comes to mind, and I am immediately rewarded with hundreds, or even thousands of choices!  A few days ago while I was stitching on my Tattered Gatsby(s) I wished for buttons and voila!  A big bag of buttons arrived today.  But these are no ordinary buttons! 

Very old mother-of-pearl, still attached to bits of cloth, as if someone just cut the buttons off with a hunk of the garment still attached!  Which, of course, that is just what they did!  I love it when I find buttons with thread still in them, but with a scrap of fabric, oh my, its wonderful!  These do not require “aging,”  they are already quite aged, and actually dirty, which makes them even better to me.

Strung together for safe keeping.  All of these are mother of pearl except the very large white ones.  I love to imagine who strung them together, what garment were they taken from, and how many times were they used since their original removal?

 

Very large (1.5 inch) still attached to their original cards.  These probably aren’t so old, but they are really big and heavy mother of pearl.

They said it was about 500 buttons, but they didn’t say how old and neat they were – and  its way more than 500! Sometimes I am surprised that no one else wants what I want – no one else saw anything special in these!  No rhinestones, no fancy shapes, and it wasn’t mentioned that so many of them were the sought after mop!  A new term I have recently learned in the button world.

The yellowish ones are very old underwear buttons, either bone or “vegetable ivory,” another new term to me, and the little black and white one is a painted china – looks like a zebra, another new term in the button world!  The black faceted ones are glass.  The little greyish two holed one feels like its made out of rubber?

I will be able to fill up my glass bottle-shaped like a hand with tiny pearl buttons now.   Its taken me a long time to collect enough small buttons that will drop through the bottle top, but this found treasure  is filled with tiny pearl buttons!