I dig through the catacombs
For something to write
Who am I?
What am I?

Guidelines send me awhirl
Down the vortex and up again
The choice of words
Cutting edge?
Metered Rhyme?

Or should I keep familiar
Witty quips
Fantasy escapes
What words fit?
Which one’s work?

Something white bread soft
A choice once so easy
Now so complex
Who am I?
What am I?

I can keep it safe
Metaphors and clichés
Bedtime stories and morality plays
Who is the narrator?
What is the theme?

I can try abstract
Obscure, Obtuse
Should it make sense?
Rhyme and Shine?
Do I need to always explain?

Or I can go over the top
Madness and mayhem
Fusion and futility
Who am I?
What am I?

I need to start again
Dig deeper into the vault
Turn the box inside out
Should fire now be ice?
Should down now be up?

But in the end
I come to the surface
There never was an answer
What was the point?
What does it matter?

Mozart’s delight has turned
Sour with the morning light
It seems I will never know
Who am I?
What am I?

c2007

Carol Emarthle-Douglas considers herself a traditional and contemporary basket weaver.

Emarthle-Douglas’ training and experience came from the Basket Weaving School in Seattle along with native elders from the Northwest Native Basketweavers Association at their yearly gathering.

The artist’s inspiration is taken from her Northern Arapaho and Seminole heritage.

She bases her designs on the Plains style beadwork, ledger art, and parfleche designs from her mother’s tribe and the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma on her father’s side.“It is very important to me to pour a lot of love, respect, and careful attention to details in my work,” the artist explains.“I aim to produce strong baskets and other artwork that are able to stand the test of time.”

More of Carol Emarthle-Douglas‘ amazing hand-crafted baskets can be found at https://www.cemarthleart.com/.

Joana Vasconcelos is a French-Portuguese sculptor and multimedia artist known for her large-scale installations that demonstrate a feminist perspective and comment on cultural tradition and consumerism.Vasconcelos studied at the Centro de Arte & Comunicação Visual in Lisbon.The artist plucks basic items from reality and repeats them on an unprecedented scale to form the bones of something utterly different.She sees our belongings — everything from pots and pans to wheel rims and  fabrics to pianos and laptops  —as personal, ready-made building blocks for publicly-attuned art.Best known for her outsized, tongue-in-cheek sculptural installations, Vasconcelos often humorously takes on issues ranging from gender identity to consumerism. Her artwork assaults the senses with luxurious gigantism and operatic overtones, but they also resonate with something deeper than contemporary culture.Asked for advice for young artists, Vasconcelos says, “Never give up. Every time someone tells you to give up, just carry on.”More of Joana Vasconcelos‘ incredible installations can be found at www.joanavasconcelos.com

Watching it snow outside my front window, readjusting my snuggly grey blankie on my lap, I’m wondering where this blog entry should go.

I really DO want to write something, but it’s bleak and depressing outside, leaving very little room for ambition or creativity.

Bring in the Kitties and Puppies.

These two staples never fail to bring a smile to grumpy faces, including mine. There are plenty of other days to be creative, artistic, and cosmic — today is more of a reflective, movie, good book, pet-your-pet kinda day.

I hope you have one of these days soon. They really do recenter you.

Don’t go there.

That can be said of many things. Standing water during a flood. Desolate houses in the dark woods. Do not cross yellow warning tape.

I also use that phrase for memories that like to hang around in my head too long.

It’s not that I have not acknowledged these experiences — as a matter of fact, I think I’ve over-felt and over-thought many things in my life.

But I find that, on a day to day basis, I am better off closing those doors more often than not. 

If you have a wandering mind like I do, it’s easy to start with one thought, one emotion, then, instead of acknowledging and letting it go, you let it sit and simmer and steam and overcook in your psyche until you are sick to your stomach.

I think that’s what anxiety attacks are all about.

Thinking and over-thinking doesn’t work at all. We all know that. Past events are just that. In the past. You can’t change one damn thing.

But still, it’s like opening that big oak door just a little. Not much — just a crack. Just so you can get a little peek, hold onto just a little memory.

Some of us handle that little peek just fine. But for others, all you need to do is open the door a crack and, like a raging flood, everything comes pushing through at one time, and before you know it you’re dealing with pain and angst and confusion you already thought you’d handled.

So for me, the smart thing to do is to say Don’t Go There.

I say it in a nice way. Not a nasty, told-you-so way, but in an easy, best-friend-and-protector kind of way. I find a way to distract my thoughts and funnel them into more of a “today” moment or a “tomorrow” moment. 

The forces that be understand that. They have no problem with acceptance and distraction. They know I’ve learned. I’ve grown. I’ve survived. I don’t need a constant reminder.

My age is a constant reminder of the long path I’ve left behind.

Stones are mute teachers; they silence the observer, and the most valuable lesson we learn from them we cannot communicate.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Into the morning, I am melting
wildflower honey spread across a canvas, warming
a mind massaged by his magical toes, now rested……..

To those of you who pop in now and then, I thank you. For those of you who take moments to talk to me in comments, I double thank you.

What I wanted to do on this rainy day, though, is introduce those of you who love art (and have never visited online galleries much) to come on over and check out my sister site:  SUNDAY EVENING ART GALLERY.

If you love art — especially unique art — this is the place to wander.

The front page is one long front array of boxes filled with pictures from individual artists. Click on the picture and it takes you to at least a dozen more from the artist.

The gallery covers all sorts of artists: painters, photographers,  graphic designers, ceramics artists, jewelers, quilters, glass artists, designers — any artist that creates something different.

Something that makes you say — WOW.

The art could be centuries old (Michelangelo) to general Earthly wonders (Cloud Formations) to modern sculptures (Wenqin Chen).

Its all amazing and all free.

I’m not promoting my blog just because it’s my blog — I’m promoting my blog because there’s soooo much great art! Share the pure beauty of such incredible imaginations.

It will make you happy and your friend happy! 

The chill in the air can’t keep creativity away!   Here are some photographs I’ve taken through the years of the beautiful world I am lucky enough to call home. Have a beautiful week.

There is no beauty without some strangeness.
~ Edgar Allan Poe

I love big words.

Especially when I know what they mean.

Years ago I used to work with a woman who

always used the word “copacetic.” It always sounded out of place in daily conversation, but I loved the complexity of its intended usage.

I used to use big and big-ger words back when I was a full fledged writer. Nothing as big as copacetic, mind you— but more intricately designed words that lifted both the vernacular and the swirl of the language. I based a lot of my stories on the gap between verbal eloquence and high school level rag tag jargon, so the creative lingo actually worked.

I don’t write stories and novels much anymore. I don’t have the patience for detailing a longish plot nor an attention span for any length of time. Plus I get more pleasure reading about others’ worlds these days.

I remember the days of dreaming and writing at the same time. Of exploring while I was describing. Of knowing the entire story before I wrote the opening paragraph yet watching my story take creative turns I never initially thought of.

Yet …  (I love the dramatic pause)

My sleeping habits have changed through the years, adjusting to my hubby’s work schedule (nights), my retirement, HIS retirement, and my medications. Not being able to fall asleep quickly takes away my dream time.

You see, I have a lot of creative dreams, wild dreams, an occasional nightmare, and pure nonsensical experiences. I believe these nightly escapes are a different side of my Creativity.

And not being able to get there quickly enough bugs me.

I feel like I’m behind one of those clear, slightly wavy barriers, looking at paths and buildings and people I haven’t thought about in 20 years and those I have never forgotten, right on the other side. There are sidewalks that lead to my old high school, jobs and bosses and offices that are always distorted one way or another, never-ending warehouses, my long gone parents — all sorts of interesting scenarios that are waiting for me to explore.

If I’d only fall asleep.

My dreams are a different experience than my writing. They feel … free.. Unpredictable. Like “Hey! where are we going tonight?”

And I love that .

Yet …

Instead of relaxing and meditating or listening to sleep music or reading a book to get sleepy, here I am at 2:46 am, writing a 409-word blog.

I seem to always acerbate my problem …..

It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.

— Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

I hope you all enjoyed the past week of highlighted past Sunday Evening Art Galleries. There were, as you can imagine, way too many artists to choose from, but the tours were free and full of color and imagination.

I also hope you took time to click on the artists’ links and check out even more art in the galleries themselves. Each artist is wonderfully unique, often in more ways than one, and hopefully you got a fuller picture of their magic.

I myself was up in a cabin in northern Wisconsin for a week, acting more as background noise to a group of fishermen. In hindsight I could have/should have stayed home – at least I’d have had a car to bop around in and full-fledged internet to access. But it was fun, as I did get (again) yet another glimpse into the minds of boys and their (minimal) toys and hobbies.

(Made me appreciate the world of writing and sketching and cooking and knitting and quilting and scrapbooking all the more.)

But I digress.

In my wanderings through my WP Reader, I came across (again) some fantastic poetry. I have saved those poems and artists and hope to have a week of poetry sometime in the future.

But now it’s October.

I once dedicated a whole month of blogs to the beauty of Fall … poetry, paintings, photography, gatherings, the whole spectrum.

Hopefully it’s not too late to do that again.

So starting tomorrow I hope to spice up your autumn with a variety of Creativity that highlights autumn and the turning of the leaves and the dropping of the temperatures.

Again – please feel free to send me hints of where to go and what to publish and your feelings about the world of golden colors and extra blankets.

For those of you who are just coming into summer (Ivor) I know you are experiencing cool days and budding trees – feel free to offer your thoughts on Fall, too!

Voici l’automne! (French)

Ecco l’auatumno (Italian)

Ma’avtaHvIS naDev jlH! (Klingon)

Here’s to Autumn!

I have always loved the lightness, the inspiration, that comes from Michelle Lee’s blog, My Inspired Life. 

In this repost, she shares the magic and the melancholy of the end of summer.

Feel free to visit Michelle at My Inspired Life and become inspired yourself!

Summer’s slow farewell

This afternoon I plan to sit out on my back deck with a glass of wine and toast the end of another chapter of my life.

Today is my husband’s last day of employment.

Most relationships have the male retiring before the female; in my case, I enchanted (and married) a younger male.

But I digress.

The moment in time that I’m referring to is that this is the last evening I will have totally to myself.

Oh, my mate will be sure to keep himself busy hunting, fishing, and whatever else retired males like to do. I’ll be joining many of his activities (like grandkids, traveling, bike riding, shopping, and live music concerts), along with doing “my own thing” while he does his.

Yet I will miss the few evenings a week that I had to myself.

My husband worked nights, so three evenings a week I did all kinds of things with no one to watch or care.

Not that anyone would watch or care.

But again I digress.

I will be raising my glass of wine to evenings wasted watching TV, fine tuning my crafts to backgrounds of 40s crooners or 80s pop hits, walking through my woods to the back gate yelling at my dogs, pretending my way through H.P. Lovecraft, eating a bowl of cereal before bed, or writing in a journal or on a computer with just my thoughts for company.

I’m not saying I won’t continue any and all of the above … there’s so much more I want to explore and do.

So much more I want to dream about.

And although my husband is my love and life and soulie and all that good stuff, we are still two different people, and take two different approaches to many things.

That includes time alone. “Me” time. “Soul” time. “Dream” time.

With this glass of wine I toast to all the time I’ve spent alone dreaming and all the times yet to come that I’ll be able to dream along side someone else.

Even if we are astral traveling in two separate directions …

Elena Dmitreko is a Ukrainian  painter now living in the United States.She identifies herself as a photo-realist and impressionist painter, covering subjects such as food, animals, and landscapes.Dmitreko’s work focuses on capturing the smallest details of recognizable experiences, settings, and objects.From hyper-realistic animal paintings to serene ocean scenes, the artist retains an expert sense of light, color balance, and proportion.Her reproductions of food in particular often have the added benefit of glistening water drops or submersive fluids, adding yet another intriguing layer to her interpretation.“Our world is a huge generator of energies and vibrations. I grab hold of this living force and transfer it to the canvas with a brush,” Dmitreko shares.“Painting is a part of the living. it carries a message from the depths of the soul and we, who are touching and drowning in them, are fulfilled.”

More of Elena Dmitreko‘s realistic paintings can be found at Singular Art and on Instagram.