Walk a mile?

First question I asked of self,

would I offer to walk a mile in someone else's shoes if I knew their shoes

were as uncomfortable as this?

Second question of self...

why do I even need to ask such a thing?

Life...so damn difficult at times.  Hard for every single one of us in one way or another, 

all these struggles that take hold.   Ages ago, while in conversation with someone,

I said that everyone bore pain in their own way and sometimes others could see it

and sometimes they could not...

that it was easy when

someone wore their wounds on the outside - obvious and hard to ignore - 

like a burn or a bad scar,

but what about the wounds that weren't visible?

They're still ever present, 

there is just no way for another person to know.

We often don't tell.   Can't tell.    But they are with us nonetheless.

So back to this shoe and the sudden avalanche of emotion...

I need to ask 

because

 I need to remind myself to never forget compassion  

and too, when compassion doesn't come when I myself might need it most,

I need to forgive what others cannot see.

********

Instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Photo credits:  Woman's slapshoe, 1625-1649 AD, England, The Greig Collection of Ladie's Shoes;  The Story Teller, mural project for Fellini Gallery, Berlin, by Michael Vincent Manalo.

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Hunters & gatherers...

While the light continues to wane, so does the harvest from the garden.

All that remains has been cooking up mighty fine...

my favorite soups, made from everything local.

If true confessions be known, these are my personal elixirs of life.

The nights are much colder now yet I don't even care...what a year for fall color!  

Such extraordinary veins on thus copper-toned ninebark...

Seed collecting is underway

for everybody who lives here.

And we are all greedy.

These chickadees are quite tame, almost TOO tame...

hard to get anything done in the garden because they will find you wherever you go.

They'll land on your shovel or the brim of your hat, your glove...and if they're not landing on you

they are scolding you incessantly, "WHERE ARE MY SEEDS???"

So I gave in and set up this impromptu feeding station on a fence post

right next to the veggie beds.

Cheeky devils.

I've resorted to some other rather drastic measures 

like covering seed heads with used dryer sheets.

Who knew that one of the beloved foods of chickadees would turn out to be my 

prized Angelica stricta 'Purpurea'?

I'm not alone in my ways...

if you want a good chuckle, go see what my blog friend, Kaite, gets up to

with little nylon sockettes in her garden Down Under.

We do what we must do.

Home is where your hair is.

(you've heard that old saying, haven't you?)

After many years of scattering my hair trimmings around the garden

finally,

I've discovered evidence that it's been put to good use.

It's the little things in life that make things homey, that can

make your day.

Doesn't take much to make her day...

best shotgun rider ever.

I wonder if she can pick up radio transmissions from Canada with those ears?

We went looking for these.

Well, I did anyway...she's not much for sticks.

Frisbees and wabbits, now that's a whole 'nuther story.

Hoping for good tannin in bundles...

...ingredients for more stories.  This time, written with

bracken, salal, red amaranth and wild blackberries.

More end-of-the-harvest cooking.

Before I forget...the dryer sheets prevailed

and I did claim my due share of that Angelica seed (quite the bounty!) 

so if you are stateside & would like to try this lovely specimen in your own garden

let me know via email.

I've plenty of seed to share.

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Transparency in many forms

I have been coming to some personal conclusions about transparency.  I started by asking, 

what else defines transparency besides the ability

to see through something?

Can transparency add another dimension to a point of view

like the turning of perception

upside down?

Since my last post about watercolor, I've been thinking a lot about this subject

so I went to various dictionaries looking for definitions of the word "transparent"
and after diving into the collection of images over on Tumblr,

finally, some thoughts are coming together...

Note:  click on the highlighted word(s) under each photo to go to the Tumblr source and photo credit.

Defined as:   allowing radiation to pass through with little or no resistance...

...so fine in texture that it can be seen through...

...open in texture, gauzy...

...sheer enough for light to pass through...

...diaphanous...

...neither opaque,

nor translucent.

With those descriptions in mind, I searched for examples of transparency

in various art forms from artists engaged in differing mediums, 

to see how they might visualize and create something transparent

in their own unique way.

Some may not have been thinking about transparency at all 

(most were probably not)

this is only my very subjective interpretation...

Photographers manipulate images with layers & textures these days, 

setting opacity levels from practically opaque to almost 

completely transparent,

combining subjects in such a way that new worlds are presented,

amazing worlds of the imagination...

For centuries, photographers have used the power of backlighting to create luminosity,

draw our attention to what is important to them,

and capture extraordinary moments that were about being in the right place, at the right time.

This piece is entitled "She Lied" by Jean Myers...

isn't this also transparency of emotion?

mixed media used to great effect...

and here in 'Essence' by Wen Redmond...

'The Night of Many Promises' painted by Joanne Williams...

Some may wonder at this one,
but in this painting/illustration of an owl by K. Mijadzava

there is so much depth in those feathers from the transparency of meticulous brush strokes,
layer upon layer...

Textile artists know the power of silk ~ so strong for something so sheer...

some strong crochet, like a spider's web.

This maker, Ryo Yamada, took their art installation outdoors...
'Vertical Landscape'
sways in the breeze, makes me think of ghosts dancing

while this makes me want to pick up needle and thread,
layer cloth, stitch something beautiful.
If I only had this skill.
I wonder if the woman who stitched this Edwardian tea apron would have
ever imagined that a hundred years later another woman
might look at her handwork with such admiration that she wished it were her own...

My transparent sincerity.


In a 'Paris Review' interview, poet Stanley Kunitz (then in his seventies) said this:

At my age, after you're done - or ruefully think you're done - with the nagging anxieties
and complications of your youth, what is there left for you to confront but the great
simplicities?  I never tire of birdsong and sky and weather.  I want to write poems that are
natural, luminous, deep, spare.  I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through
and see the world.

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Just add water...

Somewhere in the back of my mind I had been harboring the idea of

sketching again with watercolors.

Too many uncountable years ago, I attempted this painting technique in art college

 and quickly put the judgement on myself that I'd failed miserably

(why do we do that to ourselves?)

so when I learned that Jane Voorhees was coming to visit our island locale

and

was going to offer a workshop on small format watercolor painting,

I knew that's where I wanted to be...

All those technical terms I'd forgotten!

Washes, wet in wet, dry brush, lifting off, dropping in color...

back again like old friends.

Made this little sampler (above) for future reference, added some marks

and remembered what I so loved about this medium of painting...

transparency.

I mentioned to Jane that these days, while working mainly with stitching and beads, 

I'd taken to the layering of silks - sheer silk - to achieve a similar transparency with cloth.

It was a definite "ah hah" kind of moment.

Jane has a killer smile...

and a very patient teaching style.

It was challenging to work directly from photographs...

how do you make the paint express what you're trying to say?

You have all the tools:  a selection of brushes, an extensive color palette for mixing,

the texture of good paper...

and the single most important ingredient,

water...

which seems to have a mind of its own.

What didn't I do in school that I want to do now?

LET

IT

FLOW

Thank you, Jane, for the very inspiring day...come back soon!

###

To learn more about Jane and see her paintings, click here

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Last day of August...

This may not have been the summer to write home about
(did we even have summer here in the Pacific northwest?)
and it wasn't exactly a summer destined for the memoirs.
But it was bountiful, yes,
in its own way...

To say this summer had gone to the dawgs, well, that wouldn't mean what you might think...

literally, it was for my dawgs.

They'd waited out a long spring of inactivity,

they were deserving - my most loyal friends...hangin' with me through thick n' thin.

Being of four paws, they need to RUN.  It's not an understatement to say they require it

and if they don't get it, we all go a bit nutso.

 That is putting it mildly.

Our local 'Agility Gang' (do you like our name?) put on a small demonstration for the community
at the first annual Dog Promenade...
this is O, running her two year old border collie, directing him to take the tunnel.
O herself is eighty.
I hope to have one tenth of her tenacity when I am eighty...O, you're my hero!

This one went to her first 'Doggy Manners' class...

she was so fearful when she first came to live here, but now

she's learning that the world is not as scary as she thought and staying calm

feels pretty good.

I'm mighty proud of her ~ a smooch on yer sweet nose, black flash.

We fit in quite a bit of exploring...
mysterious forts had shown up on the beaches

and that perennial question, "what if?" seemed to follow us everywhere.

This is a question about possibilities...

what if you ask this question whenever you think you can't do something?

Getting around is much trickier here in the summer...especially in August

when it seems like the whole world is on vacation except us.

We spend a lot of time waiting around in

looooong lines at the ferry terminal...

so I stitched me some long lines while waiting in the car...

and was treated to a few of these while in transit.

Most nights, I headed upstairs to this gabled corner where I worked late, late, late.

Dawgs slept.  Baby great horned owls screeched.  I cursed at tiny beads.

Do not be fooled by the seeming austerity of this view

because this is what my corner table really looked like...

a huge beadiful mess!

One big beady project consumed almost every night in August...

but all fingers functioned properly,

praise doG.

So now it's on to September...I hope I'll remember to run with it, make the best use of waiting 

that I possibly can.

Make messes.

Kiss me some dawg faces.

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