Category Archives: Friends

The Birth of a Blog

Today a kindred art spirit and friend of mine, Dora, has written her very first post on her brand new blog, Dora’s Explorations. Dora is a polymer clay artist extraordinaire and a fellow guild member in the Rhode Island Polymer Clay Guild. Her passion is canework and the photo above illustrates her fabulous talent. She is also our demo coordinator and always brings the most delicious coffee and on special occasion her decadent to-die-for Palm Beach brownies. If you get a chance, please do pay her a visit.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Dora!

I’ve been Tagged

It’s wonderful when friends come for a visit. In that spirit, I’ve been tagged by Vivage for an internet meme. It’s a fun game where someone tags you to, in this case, answer some questions about yourself. It gives your friends, new and old, the opportunity to learn some things about you.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

10 years ago my children were 17, 14 and 10 so, depending upon the time of year, I was very much involved in their ice hockey, field hockey, baseball, band practice and various other activities. I was also working part-time at the tea company and creating jewelry and selling it at arts and crafts shows in my area.

2. 5 things on today’s to-do list:

*Work in my studio (yay!)
*Work on my April BJP page.
*Help my son take care of some things before he leaves for Air Force basic training next week.
*Take Jack (our dog) for a walk.
*Do some more unpacking (ugh).

3. Snacks I enjoy:

Haagen daz vanilla frozen yogurt with fresh raspberries (Yum!)
Any kind of fruit
Anything chocolate

4. Things I’d do if I were a billionnaire!

Wow, I’m such a frugal person who has always lived on a limited budget so this is a hard one to contemplate. Anyway, here goes.

Quit my job.

Travel all over the world, first to Hawaii, and bring my family and friends, too.

Pay off all the debt that my family owes like mortgages and student and car loans.

Build a beach house with a fabulous studio with lots of windows overlooking the ocean and have workshops and retreats there.

Donate a lot of money to help all types of living beings.

Play in my studio a lot more

5. Places I have lived:

New Jersey
Ohio
Illinois
Massachusetts
Kansas

6. Peeps I want to know more about

Anyone who would like to play along!

March Beaded Journal Page

Well, after 3 months, my March page is finally finished. I’ve gone through a lot of changes since my original idea and beading start, the biggest change being a physical move to a new home.

I’ve named this page “Looking Out from my Healing Place”. The tree represents a journey of healing that I took after my divorce 4 years ago. There were a lot of twists and turns in this journey but I was always reaching for the sky and growing. My tree has grown in strength and wisdom and now it is time to look out upon the world with awakened eyes and find out where this person that I have become will fit. I don’t have one face because there are 3 aspects of me, who I was, who I am now and who I will be. My past, my present and my future self. Which face is which? The tree roots are not yet firmly in the ground but I have hope that they will find their place, too.

Many thanks to Robin for her inspiration with this twisted tree branch stitch. The timing of receiving her new book, “Heart to Hands Bead Embroidery” was perfect for what I needed to express with this piece. I wrote about that here.

I have just begun my April page. The colors are much more vibrant than my March piece. Right now the title that has come to me is “Home is Where my Heart Grows”. Stay tuned for photos of this work in progress. I started this piece watching “Ethics and the World Crisis – a Dialogue with the Dalai Lama”. What an amazing human being he is.

Saturday Morning Tea

I think I mentioned this before but one of the experiences I love the most about springtime besides all of the colorful blooms, is the arrival of the first flush Darjeelings. This morning I am sipping a cup of Arya estate Aroma Darjeeling. The Arya tea garden is located in the Darjeeling district in northeast India. I wrote a little about its history in a former post. To me, its name even conjures up images of a fairytale kingdom high in the misty mountains.

I was so excited to find this intact large leaf in my cup. The color and quality of the leaf is outstanding. The amber colored liquor smells like delicate fruit and flowers and its taste fills my mouth with a slight hint of sweet bananas and other tropical fruits. A heavenly treat to start out the long holiday weekend.

Today I am attending my polymer clay guild meeting where I will try and get some work done on my March journal page. “Try” is the key word here as I will probably be visiting and sharing with my fellow guild members for the first few hours! A veritable gab fest, if you know what I mean. I’ll post a photo soon of the progress I make today on my page.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Today is a day to celebrate and honor all women – daughters, sisters, aunts, mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers – who have given birth. Given birth to a baby or a piece of art or a book or an idea or whatever their deepest passions have manifested. We are all connected in our fertile bodies and imaginations.

About 3 years ago I presented this plant to my S.O. because I know how much he loves lilies. Called Clivia Miniata or its common name Bush Lily, it is native to South Africa where rooibos and honeybush tea come from. In the wild, it grows in the shade of trees because it doesn’t like full sun. We have it in a northwestern exposure to the side of a sliding glass door. This is the first time it has flowered. I’d like to think that it is welcoming me to my new home.

Today I am spending the first part of the day by going to a bead show with my daughter. I haven’t been to a bead show since last year so I’m very excited to go and share my “beadie” passion with her. In the afternoon, my sons will come over for a visit and we’ll play Blokus, a new board game I discovered while visiting my brother and his family in Michigan last March. Each player gets a bunch of brightly colored semi-transparent tiles in different shapes. Starting from a corner, each player takes turns placing their tiles down so that only the corners are touching with the object being to lay down as many tiles as you can. So, of course, there is opportunity to strategize and block your opponents while also trying to fit your pieces onto the board. I like it because it really taps into your right brain’s spacial ability. Currently, my son Brendan is the champ but we will see what today brings.