Life is what it is...........

Some days my perception of the world is better than others. Today .. life is just what it is .. nothing spectacular .. ordinary sleepy day .. with some work smattered through out ... enough to break a sweat and need a rest. So right now .. i'm peaceabley tired. Satiated......enough.....

It's a nice place to be. Amazingly a word read through my blue colored glasses can on occasion come acrossed as a searing bolt of whitesh blue ... like lightening striking me hard .. a blow to my heart. I never know when it will come. I never know when my minds going to think that no one cares, i never know when the world will appear only black and white .. I never know when it will feel as if the sound stops and I hear no one talking. I never know when I will feel invisible. Sometimes I know that that's what it was like for real .. for really real long ago. Long ago..

So today .. I'm just here .. thinking, feeling stuff... just passing through it. I will never be just like anybody else .. I will always be just me. Hoping that sometimes I could just take off those blue colored glasses and wear a pair of red or purple or yellow colored or just plain so the colors I see are never even slightly altered but just the colors that they are... of course I'm speaking metaphorically here. I think that things in life that happen to you cause you to see through colored glasses. I know this, but no one else does until they get to know me. But I really just wanted to talk about the pictures.

So ..yesterday .. I was thinking .. I love to take photos of all the incredible bugs in my yard. I think it's funny that I love to see the creatures that inhabit my space .. even the ones i don't like .. and even the ones that have to go.......but i also realized there are alot of other things I like .. fabric for one .. and I came from a woman that loved fabric too .. she sewed all my clothes when I was little. When I was five years old we moved from the USA to Africa... imagine that .. during the cold war........an odd but wonderful time to live over seas. For six years. Wonderfully exciting times in my life!!! without a doubt .. My mother sewed our outfits for all of our trips. My sister and I wore matching dresses .. sometimes me and my sister and my mother would all have the same fabric in our dresses. I loved that .. I so so loved that!!! . It was so exciting to be going on a plane .. and we had to look presentable. We looked spectacular!!!! My mother was a wonderful seamstress!!! She never just sewed one or two outfits but three or four ... and other pieces to complement other things .. so we always felt like we got a new wardrobe. She did also sew for holidays and special occasions. She sewed my confirmation dress, my prom dress and my wedding dress and even an extravagantly beautiful cover for a bassinet when my daughter was born. I hadn't realized that sewing is probably just in my blood. Happy memories surround fabric and sewing. So I have a love of fabric just like my mother. And I love many other things too as I'm sure my mother does. I know that I got a huge creative streak from my mother. That and dragging me out to every single museum and art gallery that she could on our yearly summer travels through Europe while traveling from Africa to the US and back. This certainly influenced my creativity. Today .. i realized I haven't shown too much about what I've been creating lately even though i think photography is another one of my creative outlets.I do enjoy doing more hands on art even though it's hot out side and even though I'm not boiling things up .. i've been making a stash of fabric .. that I've dyed or rusted or just sun streaked. Here's some of my stash .. oh and even some is thrift store bought . I never go to fabric stores and buy anything new. It's either a yard sale or a thrift shop.or a dress that has a fabric that I love, it's just the way I am. So here's some of my stash and what do you know but while I'm in the middle of the shoot of my fabric .. a beautiful butterfly lands on one of my dye pots .. and he stays there a long time .. even gets on the fabric. Then flutters up to my fabrics that are all laid out and pressed and sits there in front of them and then on them and then flies away and I am brought back again to grateful. For the butterfly is all the affirmation I need. And I feel the transformation continues ...and i see his colors plainly and they are spectacular!!! So below is my yard and all my fabric on my car .. it makes a great table in a way. Then there are the solar dye pots. The yellow is Turmeric, the brown I think is a bit of rust and some walnut and oak galls that I'd forgotten for months. The purple is the blueberry.. the green pot that the butterfly visits? That's rain water, vinegar, and a copper pot with pieces of fabric and it looks like it's developed some mold on top. I know there are a lot of photos here so .. just look or don't. The long strip of stitched cloth is my version of Jude's straps, I like it so much I may not fold it .. not sure yet. I may just put a back on it and make it that wide.. but I love the colors on it. I like the edges of things .. I like drawing on fabric and stitching on parts and not other parts.. I love dyeing fabric. I love nature. I love the sun dotting in different places. I like defused focus of sunlight. I love seeing with a camera... maybe thats how I see best!

This is the back yard. I have put up a table
out here and want to move all the dyeing
to back here. I like the quietness of this space.

Misty, she loves to survey the land from the front
porch. I think she mostly loves the cool concrete!

strips of cotton and silk eco-dyed

Turmeric glass jar dye pot, center is the walnut, rust, oak 

gall pot and the right one is empty... waiting for something. 

Cotton dyed in a walnut pot

red cotton ribbon which also

transferred to the fabric.

This is on the side, I can see this looking

out my kitchen window. I love the sun 

streaming down the path.

Eucalyptus dyed silk!

Silk shirt piece where the buttons are that I used as a strap for tieing up other silk bundles. 

I love the texture of fabric like this!

I do love to draw eyes! 

The beginnings of a beast maybe? This is discharged black cotton that was something my son had and was going to trash. I got it before he did that. I have a matching pair. He was using this fabric to tie something in his car where it got several years of exposure to the sun. I love this haha!!! 

Peace everyone .. I know this was long .. but this was just one day. Now I know why I don't do this so often. There is a lot of work in just editing photos. 

Monday Monday so hot today!!!

 It's still so freakishly hot that I found myself going back to last years posts to see if I posted about the heat .. and to see if I ever commented on when the weather changed .. and I DID haha .. funny to see that it was about the third week in August or the last week .. can't remember exactly that I posted the weather cooled off enough for me to go outside and play in the yard. So .. I'm looking forward to getting some cooler weather in a few weeks maybe sooner.

One thing I have taken to doing regularly is to get up early .. something I didnt do last year. And take the dogs out for their daily walk while it's still cool enough to walk and not break a faucet running sweat.. sheesh!!! So .. I'm up at 7 am or earlier .. feet hit the ground no later than 7:30 and the girls (my dogs) can't wait to go .. and usually try to get me up earlier!! Sometimes it works but I stay up late too so ... sometimes I just can't haha .. Then I usually sit outside while it's so nice!!! Now the other day I was outside and i've taken to walking around with my camera in my pocket ( yes its that small) and I heard something buzzing profusely !!! I looked down to see a beetle ..? no it was a metallic green june bug .. so beautiful shining iridescently in the sunlight and buzzing in a circle and fluttering it's wings .. so I started snapping photos .. got as good as I could while it moved about so quickly!!!

I just totally loved the color of greenish yellowish limesh and then that lovely tone of golden brown and all so metallic looking and yes I'd seen them before but I seem to have new eyes seeing all nature lately and yes I have always loved nature, bugs, birds, animals etc... I just seem to find so much in them these days. Then suddenly there in the sunlight the noise of buzzing just stopped. I thought maybe it stopped for a rest .. no movement and I kept snapping photos i did have this feeling that something was wrong when it was buzzing but thought perhaps it was just trying to get it's bearings again for flight.. and when the sound stopped and snapped closer shots .. then I touched it .. it was dead. For some reason the idea that I had just snapped the last moments of its life just took over my thoughts and the fluids dripping from my head weren't from sweat ... somehow I just felt overwhelmed. Then I couldn't understand why I would feel such emotion when I swat a mosquito and think nothing of it.. I want to stay far away from copperhead snakes .. I dislike very much and think nothing of killing a no-see-um. I'd like to think that those bugs and reptiles I dislike can harm me. So .. if it's between me or them .. they will have to go. But the june bug .. I guess was doing it's death dance and I was so honored somehow.. and then with me lately it seems that it doesn't just happen once .. but it seems to come in droves. I sometimes wonder if I just learn hard .. so i need an extra dose of whatever... to learn it. The next few hours I heard a noise and investigated to find an imperial moth flapping it's  wings in the brush .. i wanted to get a closer look so I excavated it to my hand. I know that they don't live long so I knew that it was going to die, just not when. And for some reason I just felt that somehow I needed to be with it as it passed and started singing it a lullaby .. i know .. seems silly .. but i just needed to do this. I snapped several photos of it too .. I'm thinking that somehow .. these creatures will hopefully end up on my cloths .. who knows .. but they are quite stunning. This one below is sitting on my blueberry dyed piece of ivory wool. It's so sadly gray but also nicely gray. This was about the last moment. I felt sad but knew that the cycle of it's life is very short. All the time from caterpillar to moth just to live about a week and find a mate and  lay eggs .. to just die. It lives to create more.. maybe I'll just think of it .. as it living to create .. thats what I want to do .. live to create.

 Ok so if you lasted this long in my post .. bravo to you!!! Sometimes I guess I have a lot to say!! and show !!! This last one I probably should have just devoted to one blog post because I just find it so fascinating. This is the Cicadas (genus Magicicada) uhhhh Magic what? I thought that was curiously familiar. Here's what I found out about them. They only live in the Southeastern part of the United States and appear once every 13 years. Because their emergence recurs at regular intervals, they are called periodical cicadas. I really liked that the number of years between them is 13 .. guess it's because I was born on the 13th. Anyway ... as an artist .. graphic designer.. I just found the whole design elements of this unique bug to be quite amazing!!! This one was already dead. I haven't seen a swarm of them here but they are here .. i can hear them every day .. loud .. and so when they are quiet .. it's almost eerily quiet. I love the shape of their wings and found the translucent film like wings over there stunning natural armature to be very beautiful. Can you tell I'm excited?? haha .. anyway .. this was the last bug .. dead .. don't know why I'm seeing bugs that are in the throws of death of or already dead but thats what I'm seeing .Maybe there is nothing so special about it .. but I am outside a lot and I don't often see this happen as much as I have in the past week. Sometimes i wonder if maybe a part of me is dying and I'm about to be transformed. It is yet to be revealed .. But I can say that the world is a wonderful place to be if only you stop .. and be still .. and listen and look at what is just under your feet .. I hope you've enjoyed the view from my perspective .. Thanks for stopping over..

The day after it didn't feel like Monday

All day yesterday I kept having to think of what day it was. Not sure why but I kept thinking that I was missing something and I had this longing that just seemed to cloud my day even though the sun was scorching hot. I don't write much about my life in the past here but I will say that I am a survivor. I suppose there are a lot of survivors in the world. It could be from anything but it is from many things. I'm grateful to be here. However some days the past just seems to flood into my day .. it never has my permission and usually its not associated with reminiscing nostalgic memories. It is generally a subtle awareness like a creeping fog after a long rain. It clouds my vision with unpleasant feelings. Sometimes I want to escape from it, most times I just have to sit through it and these times it's a blessing to have some way to creatively process this STUFF. I have many ways that I can do that and sometimes that one creative outlet just seems to make itself known. Lately I have really enjoyed stitching and dyeing. I have also been drawn to the use of silks for dyeing. I've been outside in this heat creating some solar dye pots. I have three going.

The stitching here on my blog is a small piece that I am doing as part of the magic diaries series that I am happy to participate in. I have learned some really interesting methods of stitching. This piece is my first attempt at weaving fabric and I have tried to make it a sort of nine patch. The fabric is silk that has been dyed with eucalyptus ( a gift from the blueberry man) and I have to say I just love the softeness of silk fabric. And I can't tell you why but I had a scrap of a cashmere sweater that had been washed and felted some and I have used that as the backing. Its so soft to hold and it's just the right piece to work on for comfort .. for passing through some of the tough days. It soothes me. I have no idea yet what else I may do with it. But it may be a center piece to something larger. It will be one of my pieces to arrange with something else I think. I did invisible baste it but my stitches were close together so you can sort of see where they are by the indentations of the fabric I love how the whole thing feels. I learned the stitch on the circle and the thread beads from Jude. The dyeing from India Flints book. The other dyeing that I am doing I have picked up from blogs and other stitchers that I follow. Here are some photos of whats cooking outside.

 Ok in the blueberry pot I added a few cotton pieces and some silk. The top knotted piece in my blue glove hand is silk that I knotted before throwing in. To the right of that is the unknotted silk and below that is the same piece dried. I do love the purple shade when it's wet and it appears that the color just turns to more violet or grayish purple as it dries and I did one piece that I haven't photographed that just looks straight gray. That was after a vinegar bath. The lace looks pretty here but after being in the sun a day I didn't like how it looked so I dunked it in the walnut dye. Above the lace is a small embroidered napkin or towel. Again it looks really pretty wet but it has reverted to that more dingy purple upon drying. Just below here is a large photo of a pot that I have had brewing outside for about a month. I have had a lesson in this dye process and no doubt it is written about in dye books etc, but I tend to learn things the hard way and one of my walnut dye pots sprung a leak after I put a cup of vinegar along with a copper pot. Imagine your dye pot rusting ?? Duh .... oh well .. live and learn. SO I didnt want to throw out the really interesting liquer that seemed to be there in that pot of copper. So I went outside and put it in a crock pot that I had been using for some dying. I put the contents of the rusted pot in there and just left it with the lid on and forgot about it. Below is what it looked like with the lid just off after all that time.
 I'm sure there is some scientific name for whats happened here but I don't know what that is. But it had a fabulous texture and made for some pretty exciting photographs!!! This shows the inside of the pot and that great texture! Then .. I did a what if .. I have been experimenting all my life and thought hmmmmm wonder what it would do to a piece of silk??? I ran inside and found a piece big enough to cover the dish. The following photos show the progression. First one on the left is over the pot, next touching the liquid and then I put the lid on and the next photo is one day later. I got way excited about how it's picking up colors from whats brewing in there!!! Pretty neat .. I'm going to leave it for week if i can and see what develops!! Then the last photo is of me with my golashes on sitting on a chair trying to get cool!! Have a lovely day!!