My website which I've been shepherding along over many months now is officially launched! And it is quite beautiful, thoroughly personal, and a tad brainy (lots of information on beads and bead history).
The artist profile casts me as an eternal traveler, one who has been shaped in every way by all the faraway places I've visited. To me beads are in and of themselves carriers of human history, uniting all peoples because of trade, and because of the commonality of human vision and imagination....
Take a look and see what you think! And, I must confess I have crossed over that line that I once refused to tread: I have created a website that actually sells the art. I am an internet merchant!
You can find my treasures at: www.magpiesbeads@yahoo.com
My Elephant Friends
Amboseli elephants
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
Giving Up House Decorating
How long does it really take to feather your nest, before it's ready to live in?
Woke up this morning remembering a line in a conversation with a good friend yesterday, and it went like this: it's time to stop decorating my house and start living in it. We were driving along the sunny Sonoma coast on our way to lunch, and the statement seemed picture perfect -- metaphoric and quite true to life at the same time.
I have been hauling all kinds of beautiful and useful things up to the beach house each time I make the journey, and then lovingly arranging them once I get there. Then I sit back and smile happily at my ability to adorn my environment with some pizzazz! Turns out I haven't been really LIVING in the Bodega Bay house, as much as dressing it up. With a new laptop sitting on a brand new cherry wood desk in front of a window that opens to the creek and the magnificent wildlife, I have my working set up all ready. And do I sit down to write, or work on my photos? No. Not yet.....
I have been also helping to decorate my new website - to be launched in the near future - and watching as this virtual space becomes more and more interesting, and lovely to look at. The perky, very smart web designer is responsible for teasing out some of my quirky uniqueness, and it has been a fun journey doing this collaboration with her, and feeling inspired by the creative work I have done with beads over the years. But, I am still decorating the house, as opposed to working in it. I am not actively working on new pieces, claiming that I have no proper work space. Is this a cop out? When will I stop worrying about the particulars of the website's "look" and get down to business of making art?
Getting out to the beach with two dear friends this weekend opened up the door to DOING rather than planning and envisioning. We sat about and knitted and talked and worked and talked, and I felt that wonderful satisfaction of creating some THING in the world -- in this instance a kooky colorful baby hat for a friend's newborn. And as the conversations unfolded, and the life stories popped up, I realized I want to tell stories. It is an integral part of who I am, and I want to offer this to the world in some tangible form. And then there's always that romantic notion of handing down one's own peculiar wisdom to future generations who might easily forget they had a remarkable great great grandmother who dared to cut her hair and smoke in the 20's, who studied classical piano, and became a liberal thinker and intellectual though she had been raised in the deep south. Yes, stories are good. Not only are they a gift to those who don't know, but to ourselves who find ourselves in them at every turn.
Decorating the house is like creating the beginning of a story, laying out the landscape for the narrative, and it is pretty easy to do. If you keep returning to this, you are not moving your story forward, but you're like the writer friend of mine who when trying his hand at book reviewing spent all of one long night perfecting the first paragraph of his piece on Hunter Thompson, because in his view getting this paragraph to be "right" was essential to launch the work. I saw that as wheel spinning then, and now I fully understand that as I continually rearrange art, place rugs, move objects in my sweet little house, trying to get the project perfectly completed. And let's not forget the security and comfort in all this spinning... The catch is that I believe perfection and "just right" to be illusory. Just as I believe in the wonderful mysteries revealed through doing the work!
There are so many stories to tell and beautiful necklaces to make and photographs to print, and it is time. Summon up some trust and faith, breathe, and begin...
Woke up this morning remembering a line in a conversation with a good friend yesterday, and it went like this: it's time to stop decorating my house and start living in it. We were driving along the sunny Sonoma coast on our way to lunch, and the statement seemed picture perfect -- metaphoric and quite true to life at the same time.
I have been hauling all kinds of beautiful and useful things up to the beach house each time I make the journey, and then lovingly arranging them once I get there. Then I sit back and smile happily at my ability to adorn my environment with some pizzazz! Turns out I haven't been really LIVING in the Bodega Bay house, as much as dressing it up. With a new laptop sitting on a brand new cherry wood desk in front of a window that opens to the creek and the magnificent wildlife, I have my working set up all ready. And do I sit down to write, or work on my photos? No. Not yet.....
I have been also helping to decorate my new website - to be launched in the near future - and watching as this virtual space becomes more and more interesting, and lovely to look at. The perky, very smart web designer is responsible for teasing out some of my quirky uniqueness, and it has been a fun journey doing this collaboration with her, and feeling inspired by the creative work I have done with beads over the years. But, I am still decorating the house, as opposed to working in it. I am not actively working on new pieces, claiming that I have no proper work space. Is this a cop out? When will I stop worrying about the particulars of the website's "look" and get down to business of making art?
Getting out to the beach with two dear friends this weekend opened up the door to DOING rather than planning and envisioning. We sat about and knitted and talked and worked and talked, and I felt that wonderful satisfaction of creating some THING in the world -- in this instance a kooky colorful baby hat for a friend's newborn. And as the conversations unfolded, and the life stories popped up, I realized I want to tell stories. It is an integral part of who I am, and I want to offer this to the world in some tangible form. And then there's always that romantic notion of handing down one's own peculiar wisdom to future generations who might easily forget they had a remarkable great great grandmother who dared to cut her hair and smoke in the 20's, who studied classical piano, and became a liberal thinker and intellectual though she had been raised in the deep south. Yes, stories are good. Not only are they a gift to those who don't know, but to ourselves who find ourselves in them at every turn.
Decorating the house is like creating the beginning of a story, laying out the landscape for the narrative, and it is pretty easy to do. If you keep returning to this, you are not moving your story forward, but you're like the writer friend of mine who when trying his hand at book reviewing spent all of one long night perfecting the first paragraph of his piece on Hunter Thompson, because in his view getting this paragraph to be "right" was essential to launch the work. I saw that as wheel spinning then, and now I fully understand that as I continually rearrange art, place rugs, move objects in my sweet little house, trying to get the project perfectly completed. And let's not forget the security and comfort in all this spinning... The catch is that I believe perfection and "just right" to be illusory. Just as I believe in the wonderful mysteries revealed through doing the work!
There are so many stories to tell and beautiful necklaces to make and photographs to print, and it is time. Summon up some trust and faith, breathe, and begin...
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