Soul Humming

The Third Day of Christmas - Joanna Pierotti

2011-12-07T09:05:53-08:00

Today I was yet again a lucky girl. I have this teeny little treasure before me from my loving breast friend, Joanna Pierotti. She is so clever! I love how she put her ornament in this tiny old envelope.

When I first met Joanna she was going through treatment for breast cancer.

And within a few months, I had found out that I also had breast cancer. We were already art friends and soon we were breast friends, as she called us.

She helped me in so many ways by walking that road a few steps ahead of me but always being right beside me.

Not only is she a super talented artist but she is a beautiful Christian girl with a heart as big as the moon.

And look at this beautiful soldered ornament she has made for me!

Joanna makes gorgeous dolls so it is only fitting that she put an image of a little doll with a K for Kelly under this faceted glass for me to hang on my tree.

And it is all finished up with this sweet bundle of antique lace and ribbon. Perfect! I love it so, Joanna, and I love you! Thank you, friend!

The 12 Days of Christmas - Day Two - My Day

2011-12-06T11:03:45-08:00

Today is my day. As usual I have a long story to tell and little time to write it all down. Youngest son is home with a sore throat today. So I am running to catch up on what was already so overdue. Still, I love how things come together and hope my other artist friends do, too. So I will tell you about my ornies and how I came to make them.

For the last couple years now (whew, that long!) I have been in a funk. I've let my art making dwindle to almost extinction. This is a terrible thing to do when you actually have a task at hand. At least for me, it is so difficult to get back into the rhythm because my hands feel clumsy, I am easily discouraged, and I am critical in ways I never am when I am working in a regular routine.

So as I began way back in early fall to work on ideas for my ornament, I was having a terrible time. I decided I would start early because I so hate feeling overwhelmed against the deadline as I have the past couple years. And I did start early. But none of my ideas worked out. I went through at least three designs. All were deemed unfit for one reason or another. I tend to come up with a labor intensive idea. And, after felting all those little dogs last year I knew I couldn't do it again. My wrist is so easily injured I was afraid to work metal, which is to what I am always pulled. I hate sewing but I love sewn and stitched things. But I knew my frustration would be so high it wasn't worth it. I tried and I tried and eventually even thought about dropping out for this year.

Then, quite randomly, I came across this tiny picture one day.

Look at them. Their wistful faces. Their beautiful hands and detailed dresses. It is easy to see from their faces that they are sisters. I think about my own sister all the time. She is on the other side of the country from me. And as our father died this summer, I think of her even more. I miss her. She is my very first friend. And that was what I thought when I found this picture. I thought Sister Friends. And, in that thought, I knew I wanted to work with this image and build a little house for them to hang on the tree of all my artist friends, my soul sisters, for this year's exchange. So I aged their image and built little houses for these Sister Friends.

In past years I have gone out and bought all new materials to work in a medium previously unknown to me. This year, I knew it was time to use what I have and do what I love. I have plenty of materials here. It is silly to always be adding more, more, more. I wanted to keep the little house in the style I love, colorful and whimsical but with a bit more white and sparkle.I wanted them to be simple like something I would have made when I was girl.

Also, I wanted the ornaments to look old, to feel loved and worn, but, again, simple. I'm not sure I accomplished all that, but it was my purpose.

Anytime I have to make 13 of the same thing, I struggle.

While my intention is for them to be similar I cannot bear to make them identical.

It's too boring. So I pulled out my treasures, like these very, very old white ceramic letters, 60 year old stamps, subway tokens,

acorns I collected from my Mama's tree many years ago, and magic threads from my husband's Grandmother.

I tore into the cardboard on the back layer. I wanted them to look like a worn out house that is still standing through years of a well-lived life.

That's sort of how I am feeling these days. And gilded and loved. And I wrote some of the lyrics to one of my VERY favorite Christmas carols on each one. Also, I added a beautiful stamp from the 1950's given to me by my sweet sister friend, Mija.

For this house, amid the golden mica lives a little bunny.

So those are my ornies this year. I hope the girls do love them and I hope you all enjoyed them, too. I'll try to get a tutorial up this week for you. And, please leave a comment if you have one. I adore hearing from you all!

The First Day of Christmas - Ruth Rae

2011-12-05T13:50:49-08:00

So finally, today begins the Adorn Artist Group's 12 Days of Christmas ornament exchange! And we open up with a bang brought to us by my old friend, Ruth Rae. As you may know, Ruth and I wrote the book A Charming Exchange together a few years back. And she always brings a piece of her heart to her work. This time it is both a literal and figurative description as you will see...

Underneath the lovely wrapping is...

Ruth's Sacred Heart.

I believe she plastered a little box to create a home for the heart, which is molded in polymer clay, painted and then covered with wax before giving it a crown of thorns. The symbolism is beautiful. I love the contrast of the delicate crystals,the barbed wire and nails.

Along the bottom is a chain of sorts with "beads" of fabric, buttons, and book pages strung and glittered with mica. These details give so much texture, curiosity, and added interest to the piece. It's really lovely! Thank you, Ruth! Be sure to pop over to Ruth's blog to see more details about her ornament.

Tomorrow the girls will open my ornament so stay tuned for that.

Happy Christmas, everyone!

Guttersnipe

2011-12-02T05:00:00-08:00

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act III
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet (1854 - 1900)

Here's an ornament I made last year for my sweet friend, Nancy. I hammered in this awesome Oscar Wilde quote and added on a slew of bright green beetle wings. I do believe I need to make some more of these this year. I've still got a huge stash of wings and piles of copper. Sounds like a good project for a windy Friday.

Did you make any ornaments yet?

The Twelve Days of Christmas Adorn Ornament Exchange 2012...

2011-12-01T05:00:00-08:00

has sadly been postponed until December 5th! A couple of our lovely members have had serious health and life problems. We needed a few extra days in the preparatory phase to relieve some stress for our friends. Even our fearless leader had to call in a surrogate to fill in on her day while she is healing. She will hopefully still get her ornaments out before Christmas but that girl needs to take good care of herself. So we have an extra (and extra-talented) new player this go around. And come Monday we will be on like Donkey Kong!

In the meantime I am re-posting my felted ornament tutorial from last year. I loved these little guys. The hardest part for me every year is when I am all finished and I have a whole dozen ornies all together. I so don't want to send them off! I want to keep them and hang them on my tree! LOL! But I also want to share them with my sweet friends. And I am always so, so happy to receive their beautiful gifts that I soon am over the small sadness of sending my creations away.

Here's the step-by-step. I hope you give it a try and if you do please let me know! I'd love to see your creations!

If you've never needle felted before, I'm here to tell you it takes a long time to needle felt one dog with one needle. At least it took me a terribly long time.

And the needle is VERY SHARP. Out of twelve ornaments there were maybe two that I didn't drive the needle into my finger until it bled. Even when you think you are being careful it is easy to be lulled by the repitious quality of pounding the needle into the wool. And then, POW! You're bleeding.

There are also multi-needle tools that can be used. But because my dogs are fairly small (most are three or four inches long) a six-needle punch seemed like overkill. I don't think I could shape them easily with that big tool. So this one tiny needle and thousands of stabbings into the wool produced each little doggie.

I didn't read a book or take a class. I just made it up as I went along. So, here's the gist of how I made the pups...

First, I created a small armature with a single piece of 20 gauge annealed wire.

And then I wrapped it, bit by bit, with wool roving. Wool roving is wool that has been combed but not spun. It's pretty much like cotton candy.

One thing about that...All wool is not created equally. I learned this the hard way. The off-white wool was great for felting. It would matt up fairly readily. But this grey wool! And the black! Oh my! They were so soft and beautiful that they resisted felting at every punch. These took at least twice as long to felt as the off-white.It was very frustrating to realize this well into an animal.

So that's why I have so few gray or black dogs. Most ended up being white with spots of gray and black. So if you are getting roving, don't get an especially soft, silky kind for felting.

Then I placed the wrapped armature onto a block of foam (the kind you might find inside a cushion). It was on this that I felted the wool by driving the needle repeatedly through the fibers to wrap them into one another creating felt. First I did the body, then each leg and tail. Lastly I would do the head. Sometimes I would start felting the piece of wool before I added it to the armature. And I would felt layers as I went along so it wasn't one big puffy piece that had to be felted down. Finally, I created the ears individually on the foam, leaving a fluffy bit at the base to connect it onto the head. Then I added the eyes, nose, collar and a hanger.

Speaking of the hanger, each is made from the same 20 gauge wire as the armature. I made a loop at the top and hammered it.

Then I filed the end into a sharp point so it would work more easily through the dog's body.

After all that felting I didn't want to have to mangle the shape of the body in order to get the hanger through.

Lastly, I coiled the end of the hanger and bent it to act as a stopper and hold it in place. It's kind of like a belly button now. :0)

My little dogs aren't perfect. The legs on most aren't exactly the same size. But, I'm not a freak about that sort of thing. I like it when a piece has its own life. I'm the guide to bring it about. Besides, I think I'd go crazy if I were such a perfectionist.

So that's it. That's the basics of how I made my pups. I hope you enjoyed the how-to. And I hope I didn't frighten you away from needle felting. It was fun to make all the dogs for each of the girls. I really wanted to make each one to look like their own dogs. But that got a little nutty. And, I don't recommend starting at the last minute when you aren't sure how to go about what you are doing. lol!

Happy Christmas! I hope you'll be inspired to make some ornaments this year!

inside

2011-11-30T11:34:37-08:00

i am a person who feels too much.

sometimes i am a leaf on the water.

it is a blessing

and a curse.

i have spent my life trying to figure out what is going on inside myself

how the tides change so quickly

and to find ways to navigate it all.

early on i thought everyone felt so strongly,

so freely,

so over-the-top

it took me many years and a variety of relationships to realize

quite assuredly

that not everyone feels deeply,

some feel very little at all,

which can also be a blessing and a curse.

Going Postal

2011-11-22T12:01:11-08:00

After working eight hours a day for the last few days, my ornaments are finally heading to the post office to reach the artists in the Adorn 12 Days of Christmas Exchange! Stay tuned over the next couple weeks as I revisit past ornaments and new ideas. Then, on December first the 12 Days begins.

Thursday

2011-11-17T09:11:30-08:00

this day is chaotic. this is the usual state of my desk.

i have a six foot long desk but only

a six inch square to work upon.

i am in overdrive as i work

on my ornaments for the 12 Days of Christmas exchange

this day promises more work, work, work.

my fingers are flying to get ready. i'll keep you posted!

Carving

2011-11-16T15:29:56-08:00

I think I must have ADD. I opened a drawer to find something and the next thing I knew I had carved two stamps. And I had to open the brand new carving set I bought an age ago to do it. I think it is important to listen when the muse finally shows up and starts talking, even if what she is saying doesn't make a lot of sense at the time.

I don't think I've carved a stamp since high school. And then I wasn't carving stamps but linoleum. These were fast and to serve a purpose. Not expecially neat work but that usually isn't something I am striving for when carving in the half light of dusk while squatting in the floor on my knees in front of a pulled open drawer.

flotsam and jetsam

2011-11-06T10:21:52-08:00

painted muslin

oh yes mister cat

rainy doodling

what are you doing out there?

Busy Life Happy Life

2011-10-24T21:07:16-07:00

faelan was naughty as usual on his second birthday.

be happy. it's up to you to pick joy.

i know sometimes you don't want to but i'm just sayin'...

the boy was especially sweet on his birthday, which included his baptism. so blessed!

faelan was also naughty on the boy's birthday.

the end.

Bad

2011-10-21T05:30:00-07:00

beware the bad bunny on halloween night

School Picture Day

2011-10-20T10:21:26-07:00

Remember school picture day? I remember hating school picture day. I have the photos to prove it, too. I remember one in particular from either freshman or sophomore year. I had recently discovered tweezers and plucked my eyebrows to a thin and very unattractive shape. I looked perpetually surprised. And, I do believe there was some horrific blue eyeliner involved along with a pair of denim overalls and little red bell earrings. Make it stop! LOL! My youngest son had one of those days for his third grade school photo this week. He's the most easy going of my two boys. So when he told me he didn't even want to show Me his photo I knew it was going to be bad. He looked like a deer in the headlights, and the deer had Jiffy Pop hair and was wearing braces with his mouth squeezed tightly around them in a painful half-smile half-grimace. Luckily there is a do-over picture day for him.

Here's my oldest son's sixth grade picture. I love his happy smiling face. This Sunday he turns 12. Every year I expect him to still be a laughing four-year-old boy. And of course he is not. But this year, in addition to turning 12, he is going to be baptized on his birthday.

Gotta tweak his pic a little, right?

We are so happy for him. He is growing up and learning so much about life, God, and himself. He is a wonderful little man-in-the-making. We are so proud of him. And while you all may stop by here to see and hear about my artwork and such, right now my family and these boys rise above everything else so I wanted to share this with you all. Soon enough I'll be back to posting what I am making and cajoling you with what inspires and excites my artistic sensibilities.Until then, please join me in celebrating all the milestones in life, whether you are 12 or just feel 12 in your heart. Seize Life and Live Joyfully!

You Are Loved

2011-10-02T18:39:20-07:00

larger copper heart earrings

I worked for days on the patina of these earrings. I added layer upon layer of different effects with varied and sundry methods to get just the look for which I was searching. They were hammered and beaten, filed and sanded before being hung from these sterling earwires I made just for them.

Now they are hanging in my Etsy store. Go and buy them, will you? ;0)

Heart-shaped leaf

And now I've just returned from a walk with my oldest son. He broke his finger on Friday and is feeling a bit punky. His finger hurts and he's a little down. So I convinced him to walk with me and the pups. Almost as soon as we left the house I found this bright, striped, dark spotted, heart-shaped leaf, which reminded me so much of the earrings I worked on so long. Even though I know it is just a leaf that I found on the sidewalk, I believe in synchronicity. I believe in the power of love, magic, and the oneness of us all. Yes, I'm wild like that. Finding the leaf made me feel seen and loved. I picked it up and put it onto my son's chest and made it thump, thump, thump, which made him laugh out loud. Which made me smile. Which was all good in the most simple of ways.

Wherever you may find yourself this day, I hope you will embrace the small miracles, the simple joys, and the magic that is your own life. Remember that you are seen and recognized by all that is good and glorious. You are Loved.

Paper Dreams

2011-09-21T09:00:30-07:00

Seth is posting stacks of paper today for all the stackaholics out there. And he is encouraging others to make their piles as well.

When he first made his call I got out my favorite 12" x 12" sheets of thin deli wrap

and started painting six big sheets at once.

It's a fun way to make background papers for mixed media and collage projects.

It was a little windy outside so I taped them all down to the patio and set to work with my brayer to roll on color after color.

They are bright, lively bits of my day, ready to go into something bigger and more.

I thought that was all I would include. But then, this morning as I was gathering the bits to photograph, I remembered another stack of papers, a precious one, that I keep in an old curio cabinet in my hall.

When I got married almost fifteen years ago, I decided I not only wanted to make my own invitations but I wanted to make the paper for them as well. I made so much paper pulp I could have wallpapered the world with it. I have a few bits of that paper left. It is full of seeds, leaves, and flowers from the garden of my house at the time. I love that special paper. It calls me back to the memories of that girl who finally decided being married was magical when the right man was asking. Those papers make me happy because they hold so many dreams in them.

Gossamer hin unryu paper like wispy webs.

As the wedding guests grew in number I finally had to give in and buy some handmade paper from my favorite paper shop. I have a precious few sheets of the most gorgeous Japanese kimono papers and unryu from Hiromi. Her shop in Bergamot Station was always an adventurous treasure hunt. She was the sweetest, funny girl. She had a German Shepherd named...hmmm....I think it was Psycho. He had an unusal name like that. He lived there in the daytime with her among the enormous stacks upon stacks of amazing papers that reached to the ceiling. There were papers with whole pieces of fruit embedded within. Oh how I miss going there!

Also, in the old wooden cabinet I came across an autograph book that belonged to me when I was in elementary school in the 70s. The picture on the front is classic 70-something.

And inside I have folded all the pastel pages into little accordion fans which hide the silly rhymes written by all my friends. It's a great keepsake from a time I do not remember much about.

And my most favorite of all the things I ran across deep in the back of the cupboard were three letters. One was written by my dear, dear grandmother, another was from her brother, my sweet Uncle Arnold, and yet another from my precious Mom.

My mom used to own an antique mall and my grandmother, a couple of my great-uncles, my aunt, and more family had booths there. These letters were written during a big sale on the day that she was closing the doors.

My grandmother and great uncle have since passed away. It was like a hug and a hello again from them to me. It made me smile deep in my heart to find them here this gray morning. These stacks of papers were new and old but all dear to me. I love finding the unexpected which surely was meant to be right here in my hallway. Thanks Seth. You always come up with such inspiring, fun adventures.

she refused to be led

2011-09-19T12:42:10-07:00

i spent most of yesterday working in metal. and now my wrist remembers what that feels like. so i spent the last few minutes flinging out this little sheeplet who does not follow anyone whatsoever. and who could blame her for the?

happy monday to you!

Halloween is Coming...

2011-09-17T18:23:25-07:00

We headed up to Roger's Gardens this afternoon to check out the Blackstone Theater, their rooms filled with Halloween treasures. They always have the most amazing pumpkins, gourds, decorations, and accessories.

Blackstone Theater: Roger's Gardens Halloween 2011 from Elora Lyda on Vimeo.

Here are some of the wonderful things we saw...

Huge bumpy pumpkins in the brightest orange.

These striped pumpkins were very small and very cool.

So many awesome things to decorate your own creepy castle.

They sell kits to make this fun haunted gingerbread house.

The portraits were especially eerie with this frightening couch overflowing with rats.

Pumpkins in every color including bright white and gray.

They have some fab black hats for the gentry.

These big pumpkins are awesome.

There's a whole room of these terrifying

holgraphic images.

They are SO scary!

Even the big Santos was wearing black today.

And when you are finished with all things Halloween,

there are so many other beautiful things

to enjoy!

...it rhymes with puke

2011-09-15T16:24:24-07:00

Bluebird by Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that he's in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay down, do you want to mess me up?
you want to screw up the works?
you want to blow my book sales in Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there, so don't be sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little in there, I haven't quite let him die
and we sleep together like that with our secret pact
and it's nice enough to make a man weep,

but I don't weep, do you?

years ago, when i first lived in hollywood, when i was still the sort of girl who was half southern baptist ruffles and half rock and roll trouble-maker, i read a Lot of charles bukowski. if you don't know who that is, i'm not gonna tell you. it gets my skin up when someone doesn't know who he is. it hurts my feelings a little bit, when someone says Who is That? like his name is dirty. two of my friends at my book club this week didn't know who he was. it makes me laugh now but at the time i took it a little personal. like how the hell could these girls, these smart girls who read All the Time, not know hank? seriously? bukowski helped me through a crazy ride down a hellish time of my life. he's like an old friend. i think everybody should know him.

and just to be clear, that is Not me in the picture above

back then, i was about 24 years old, one day during lunch, when i was at work, i was sitting at my desk reading the days run away like wild horses over the hills or some other excellent book of his poetry. my boss came in and sat down in the chair next to my desk. he was an extremely smart fellow. an intellectual head and shoulders above the rest. i hadn't been working for him for all that long but i admired his quiet intelligence. he was big time to me.

he looked over at me and saw my book and said, What are You doing reading bukowski? i looked right back at him and said, why wouldn't i read bukowski? and then i realized he only knew me as the southern baptist sweet young girl in a skirt. he didn't know about the rotten, dark, black-hearted girl underneath the pink dimples and eyelash flutters. i still remember sitting there and talking to him about bukowski and going on from there to talk about other writers and movies and such. that was a lovely job just for that reason alone. the people there were not only interested in art but they lived artful lives. i miss that about that place. the crazy, the stress, i don't miss it so much. but the smart interesting people are much missed.

once i saw a documentary on bukowski way back before barfly came out. someone at that same office loaned it to me. it was fabulous. i remember a scene where hank is in a 7-11 or a liquor store, some such place. and someone wants to know who he is. he tells them his name. the person doesn't get it. he says, bukowski. buke, it rhymes with puke...he's perfect, that guy.

for me, living in l.a. and finding someone so soulful, so depraved, so lost, but found, who had lived in l.a. and wrote about the streets i loved, the madness and insanity, it helped me. it inspired me, it scared me, it shocked me, and it entertained me. i will always love charles bukowski. and if you don't know who he is then look him up already. read many of his poems before you give up. some of them are nasty and crazy. some of them are so deeply moving they will make you feel better. so keep trying different ones because if one isn't your sort you are sure to find one that is. he had a lot to say and there's a little bit of you in one of them.

Alone with Everyone

by Charles Bukowski

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

this day

2011-09-14T14:36:29-07:00

this day began at 4 a.m. with our second collie, Kai, who came to us from the collie rescue. we believe she must have spent a lot of time in a pen because when we walk her on the leash, she always pees right in the middle of the sidewalk. and if she doesn't feel well in the middle of the night, she doesn't know what she should do to let me know i need to come help her. she sleeps downstairs because she chases the cats, who sleep upstairs.

margo polo

popkin, aka poppy

and as i am a light sleeper, if her nails are clicking on the wooden floor, i wake up. and last night that is what happened. she doesn't bark to let me know she would like to go outside so i'm not quite sure if she is just finding a different place to lie down. but i kept hearing her clicking around and then she made one small noise so i got up, in the dark, and felt my way down the stairs and over the baby gate that keeps her on the first floor. poor old her. a new canned food had messed up her stomach and it was not pretty down there. i know, this all probably way more information than you care to hear. but this is my life and the gritty details create it so that's that.

i put her outside and knew, based on this happening before, that it was probably best to let her spend the next 2.5 hours out there. i cleaned up and headed back to bed. but i could hear her whining at the door, then she would bark. and by now it was a little after 4:30 a.m. and i didn't want her to wake up the neighbors or the kids, so i made the journey, in the dark, back downstairs and over the gate to let her in. i put her in the kennel so she would not be out and about experiencing her stomach ailment all over again. she was not so keen to be put in the kennel and that made me feel sorry for her even more. she's the sweetest, sweetest dog ever and i didn't want to make her feel like she was in trouble. i also didn't want to get back up to such a disaster and knew she would lie down and sleep and be fine. so she stayed in the kennel.

i never did go back to sleep. after that my mind kept picking at ideas and tumbling them over and over like they were beautiful, old coins. everything is so interesting at 5 a.m. the traffic was moving outside. i could hear it coming on stronger by the minute. people were in their cars heading off to important places and not so important places with cups of coffee of in their hands and their own daydreams flipping through their heads.

with only four hours of sleep i felt like the inside of my head was a sandbox. it was going to be next to impossible to get the kids up, fed, lunches made and out the door. but, lucky, lucky me. my husband got up and took care of everything. i did get up for a minute to help my oldest then went back to bed with a pillow over my head to the morning sounds. still, sleep was running away from me. i stayed in that bed until 11 o'clock! and here i sit now just getting out of the shower still needing to be dressed and moving. it's like time is frozen and i am hanging on to an icicle of the frozen night. i hear my phone dinging at me down the hall as someone is texting me.i see the sunshine on the house outside. but i am lingering between.

i am in here thinking of painting after painting after painting. i'm also concocting my idea for my Christmas ornament for the upcoming adorn holiday exchange. it is always best to get busy on that early but i never seem to manage it. maybe this year...

i'm hoping to get my studio picked up this week. to get to work and fill my etsy shop once again with all sorts of things. i'm also hoping to finally stock some prints in there. they're just as lovely as the original paintings but so much more affordable.

now to step into the world of those awake! i hope your day is productive and filled with joy. make sure to smile today, work at your happiness, and share it with others. be blessed!

Inspiration

2011-09-07T15:25:04-07:00

About four or five years ago, my kids were still relatively young. And I was certainly younger than I am now. For whatever reason, back then, inspiration was something that came to me like oxygen. It was always available in overflowing vats of powerful creativity. I didn't know that it wasn't always going to be this way.

It doesn't worry me that it isn't here as much. I am not working at my creativity as I was back then. That part bothers me. Life changes. The way people need me has changed. Two little boys, a husband, a house full of animals, and they all depend on me. It is a joy but it is also taxing to my mind, to my sense of self which feed my desire to create. I don't turn to paint as I once did because it is messy, it is time consuming, it is a bother.

As soon as I begin a project I have to move on to make a lunch, drive a carpool, help with homework. I am not a person who is good at being divided in the process of creativity. When I work and my mind gets to soaring, if I stop, the rhythm is is not easily recovered. So, instead, I do not begin at all.

I confess, I miss the magic of inspiration. Before, when I would see a fat, red, ruby, I would immediately build something around it in my head. When I would shower, the words would pour out of my mouth just as the water rained from the nozzle. I could write a story in fifteen minutes in my liquid sanctuary.

My kids are going back to school tomorrow. Before my computer died I had three different book outlines cooking along on my computer. I have piles of sketches for projects and articles and bits and pieces of things begun and left behind all over the place. Much cleaning and organizing is in order but the ideas are percolating again.

For the first time in a long time I am yearning anew for inspiration fed hours of creating. I am looking forward to a revival of myself, my spirit, my creative animal, and to reconnecting with all my blog friends.