bead sketches : month five

Bead sketching in May was like wrestling a dragon.

But then, most everything in May felt like a wrestling match.

Here, all of nature seems to "wake up" at this time of year ... spring  positively explodes ...

and most afternoons I find myself wondering just how I'm going to fit in a nap between 

all the items on my long list of tasks.

Bone weary might be an apt description.

Those are the moments when the strong commitment I made to this project

becomes its own guiding force,  nudging (sometimes shoving) me to the beading table

while the other half of me feels like she should be outside accomplishing x, y, or z instead.

From assembling the base, gathering the materials, stitching layers of cloth,

solving how-to-attach-objects issues, then onto the bead embroidery itself,

each sketch requires between 6 - 8 hours to complete.

This is a relatively small amount of time in a week, all things considered.

But I've realized that if I didn't place value on the process of doing this project

- if I hadn't vowed to myself to show up and do the work no matter what -

I would be allowing a million other things to pull me away.

Excuses are easy.

So here is May.  Duly wrestled.

~ Local skies were lit with dancing lights early in the month so I wondered if I

could illustrate my own perception of them with some over-the-top bead stacks ~

~ Circles of friends; how imperfect they are with their loose threads .... 

how simply they can unravel without care & attention ~ 

~ What happens to the tons of used clothing we as consumers donate or "recycle"?  Much of it 

 makes a voyage overseas ... the somewhat disturbing afterlife of American clothes ~

~ From my collection of purposeless vintage keys (keys with unknown or missing locks),

not suited for much now except for illustrating idioms like this perhaps ~

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