Monday morning 5 a.m.

Okay, so maybe not
5:00 a.m. but it was
Monday morning,
March 21, in front
of our house.
The first day of
Spring, right?

The ordinary, transformed.

Here's one of the pages I did for the upcoming book, The Adventurous Scrapbooker.
The photos both Corina & Silver took in Rwanda last year REALLY stand on their own, needing absolutely no embellishment; at the same time, they make incredibly strong statements on scrapbook & journal pages. True or not, I feel they transform my ordinary art into something extraordinary, by their singular beauty & pathos.

Hot Chili Lights just for you, Seppie Woo!

With many many thanks to Denise for furthering my education! Here's where you can find some, if you too want a big blue bowl of chili lights just like mine!

Yesterday's coffee

Last year my year my good friend Sylvia Luna hosted a HUGE collaborative project. So large, in fact, she had to divide us into groups of twelve. My group actually ended up with only 11 artists as one had to drop out unexpectedly.
At the end of the project we were all s'posed to document what we got back & make copies for everyone. I wasn't able to do so then, but am going to do it belatedly & send along.
This was my piece as it looked when it returned to me.
We each began with a 22" x 28" (or was it 30"?) sheet of watercolor paper. It was a bit of a challenge as they traveled through the postal system rolled, in tubes.
The artists who worked on mine were:
(me), Sylvia, Rae Trujillo, Lisa Engelbrecht, Dorit Elisha, Vicki Sun, Kimberly Sirak, Sheila Rodriguez, Jeri Wilkinson, Maureen Blackman and Debi Scott.
Yesterday I got a totally unexpected heartfelt surprise in the mail from the fabulous Ms. Luna. She had bound a gorgeous book as documentation, with copies of all the art - minus mine & 3 others who couldn't participate in that portion of the project - she had originally made it for herself, but ended up sending it to me! Thanks Sylvia, you're a true friend.

Gifts of the Season

Yesterday while I was at work, Tiffini came by with the nicest gift, in a month which sadly has no real gift giving Red Letter days.
She used some favorites of my own art & created the gorgeous lightbox you see here.

Late last night, when I had the house to myself, snow was falling & I turned on the chili lights in the big blue bowl, along with the little lights I put in the front window in February. I lit a few candles, too & finally turned the light on in the lightbox. Ohhh, it was lovely!

The little angel kid collage you see above is by
my friend Erika Tysse.
Photos just visible on the corner shelf are of Sierra-Marie, Dante & September.

Sometimes I surprise even myself.

Well whaddya know! Now I'm thinking I should go back & edit all those posts where I (lamely) included cut 'n' paste!
Damn. Is this just my evil twin, thinking up new ways for me to procrastinate?
Or the fatal "let's rewrite history" syndrome?
While we ponder, shhhhhh, let's listen to the quiet sound of Snowfall on this mid-March morning.
Okay, now as you can see, I really AM procrastinating big time. 'Cuz, wow, look what I just did
there, with the colors & the size of my font & the linkages!!! And look at my subtle play on words. (Snow, yellow, get it?) Take that September Gerety, have I not proven myself worthy of your left-handed challenge?

Never too late. Or is it?

I'm trying to learn how to make my links so they're clickable, not cut & paste only.
September basically said I'm lame for not having done it before now. Okay, okay, not like I have nothing else on the list for today!
Just for fun, let's try this one (& if it doesn't work, I'll just have to be lame a bit longer):
The Creative Underground

Through a Glass Darkly

The inside portion of the page I did for LK's book in a +lengthy+ self-portrait round robin.

How I fixed my broken strap &, I hope, saved my dignity.

Last Saturday at the shop, it was my turn to do a demo. I always feel at a loss;
what can I tell anyone they couldn't figure out for themselves? The answer to that turned out to be: they couldn't figure out MY PROCESS OF COLLAGE.
(Phew - thank heavens I still had that ONE trick up my sleeve, she thought to herself, tongue in cheek.)
So, I did the Sarah thing, talked for awhile about the bits I *DO* know about composition, design, lay-out - on the off chance some of THAT might be new to someone.
But the time sped & finally I was forced to put my money where my mouth was, or more precisely, the gluestick to the paper. The patient & good-spirited women (yup, all women, baby, I eagerly await the day I command an all-male audience!) gave me a multiple challenge of (in less than half an hour) creating a collage which conveyed the themes of dog, punk & female. (There were also more obscure themes offered, but I politely (I hope!) declined those until further notice - though there was one really kind fabric artist up from Longmont who insisted I covered all of them including one she called "Forced Memory"! Wow, am I good or what?)
So what you see above, with the exception of the spray paint & the little flying birdie tattoo on the girl's shoulder which I added on once I had finished with the official "demo", is my 30 minute or less homage (more or less) to the dogs, punks & females amongst us. Oh, one last thing, the vertical strips? I thought they kind of resembled a fence & YAY! me! - being "fenced in" just happened to be another one of their wacky themes!

Gitamara Province Kids

The photo below is one Silver took when he was living in Rwanda last year.
In trying to learn as much as I can about the handcrafts and arts of Rwanda,
this was a brief, yet to me, packed with interest, article I came across.

In memory

Today I learned my friends' mom is gone. Most of you probably don't know Edie, but many of you do know of my friend Monica Riffe, from Alphabetica, True Colors & more.
Mon & Edie are loving sisters & such fun friends & though I only met their mom just once, I want to say my heart goes out to them -