coming back

My SAQA group is doing an exchange in which we each create a set of small pieces (4"x4") to swap. I was fooling with the idea of mandala a little while ago and thought it might make a good foundation for this exchange. In one of my art books, there is the suggestion that, when sketching mandala, you could draw in one area, then turn the page a quarter turn and draw in the next area. This is proving fruitful -- sometimes the smallest thing gives the best result.

I've been carrying around one of those top-spiral bound steno books with grid paper. I like symmetry, so I like having the grid underlaying the sketching. My Blogger "skills" -- which were minimal to begin with -- are rusty, but here are some of what I have so far, rendered in smudgy pencil. I think they may be stitched on a white ground, with shades of white and extremely pastel colors and some silver. I may have mentioned before that white is my favorite color. . .

encouragement...

is happily accepted from any quarter. My newspaper horoscope today reads:
"Leave the past behind, Leo. So much good is coming up that you should not dwell on what has come to pass. Look toward the future, don't look back. You are entering a new phase."

Indeed.
And, yes, I am looking forward, as Mom wanted me to do.
"I want you to be calm and happy" is one of the last things she said to me.
There is an interesting group project afoot in my SAQA group, so there will be art soon and postings soon(ish) thereafter.

Thanks so much to everyone who has posted or emailed. I was hesitant to share this news in this way, but the kindness of your responses has been greatly appreciated.

entered into rest

distracted

Only two deaths in the past three weeks, and only one that involved going back and forth and back forth half a dozen times to the police. (Not a criminal death, just a solitary one and that always provokes a maddening bureaucracy.) And -- on an unrelated note -- I have begun to fear that my 83-year-old mother, who has a variety of physical limitations, is now also losing her mind. This is not a metaphor. And my favorite aunt's cancer is back. Whoever said that life is "nasty, brutish, and short" got it mostly right. Only sometimes it's not short enough.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to post again -- which I suppose is a mercy to y'all considering that I have little to say that isn't limned with despair. I've been thinking of closing down the blog entirely, but I'm going to wait to decide.

at long last

Art. Of a kind. Some of you may recall that I'm participating in a sketchbook exchange -- two actually. The first was so much fun, most of us have re-upped for another round despite not been completely done with round one. So this is a page from another of the Round 1 books. (I'm only months behind getting this done and out of the house -- head's up, Katie Jane)

watercolor paper, pastel, mulberry paper,
advert postcard, advert magazine page, gel medium

Now I can start on my book for Round 2 and on my page in the so-lovely-it's scary book that arrived yesterday.

Excelsior.

provocation

There's been a death in my extended surrogate family and I've also been down for a while with that nasty virus that's been making the rounds and so have been preoccupied and not doing much other than brooding.

Coincidentally, and for the first time (I know, I know), I recently have seen the film Rocky. I've been avoiding it for decades because I cannot -- can NOT -- begin to imagine the attraction of watching two men brutalize each other for money, or even to pretend to do so. But it was on one of the cable stations that shows films without commercials and since it was free I thought I'd see what all the fuss is about. And now I am haunted by Burgess Meredith as the trainer Mickey saying: "It's not a living -- it's a waste of a life." Not haunted so much by the words as by the spontaneous fury with which he delivered them.

Death and loss makes you think about life. I have nothing either profound or platitudinous to say about it, just that I've been preoccupied and therefore absent.

good questions

So.
March came in like a lion bearing gifts of freelance work and a virus. The kind of virus that provokes fever and interferes with both day jobs and freelance work, however short the deadline. So, I've been preoccupied -- when awake, that is, which has been rare. But I think I've turned the corner toward robustiousness [< btw: that's not a real word].

Also.
Recently a friend has been meditating on the condition of longing. Today the mail brought the spring catalog for Omega in Rhinebeck NY. And the book fell open to a weekend workshop in August called: Something to Live For, Repacking Your Bags for the Second Half of Life. The course description includes these questions:

-How do we find renewed meaning and how does this express itself in our life's work?

-How do we discover new maps, provisions, and travel partners?

-What is calling us and how do we discern our calling?

This sounds like a tall order for a weekend workshop -- even given (as we are in the catalog) that Forbes magazine rated the workshop leader as "one of the top five coaches in the nation." But these are good questions at any time and it seems that, maybe, there's something in the air other than mischievous microbes.