FALL FEATHERS

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul... (Emily Dickinson)

Fall is the time for finding time again.  Time to chase the muse.  Time to walk on the beach.  Time to take pictures.  Time to dream.  Time to sit with a friend at sunset over a glass of wine.  Time to hope...for more of these special moments.  Time to hope for...so many things.

On this gorgeous autumn day, I grabbed my camera and headed for the shoreline.  The plethora of bird life was amazing.  There were whimbrels and brown boobies and pelicans.  Sanderlings scurried and arctic terns circled and dived.  Long-legged sandpipers meandered alongside plovers.  The air filled with strange birdsong to accompany the song in my heart on this wonderful, hope-filled day.

There is a longing to pay it all forward as I wander among the gulls and the willet and avocet and the pelican armada floats along just offshore while a group of turnstones pluck through the kelp. 
Go.  Find the time. Scatter joy!! 

Glorious!

What an absolutely gorgeous and glorious day!  Just pre-dawn, the local owl hooted me awake.  It was as if it were telling me that in spite of the deep cold and the previous day's storm, the day would be wonderful.  And it surely is.  All is right...and, as the quote goes, "the sun shines not on us but in us."  Today, it is both.

NORTHERN EXPOSURE



Empty Northern California sky



 Empty blue sky and the wild sea each served to soothe and calm.  Five days enough to satisfy and leave enough unseen to want to return in the near future.  Good food--stinging nettles and potato pizza...yum.   Good lodgings--even the wonderful Inverness Inn where we were five minutes too late.  Tunnels of trees.  Rugged coastline.  Quaint towns.  Art.  Blue expanse of a tule-edged bay.  A whoop of joyful discovery at Glass Beach. What's not to like?

FOR THE BIRDS

Not at all sure how it has come to pass, but I seem to have birds on the brain since late spring.  Is it because I have spent far too little time in the great outdoors or if the birds are simply sending out some sort of call to me?  At any rate, even the raucous neighborhood crows have had their way with me, making their way into my art in myriad small ways.  A "Fun Bird" of packing paper is making its steadfast way around the Sawdust Festival, spreading good cheer.  The air-dry clay birdies continue to titillate and excite me and prod me to, for some unfathomable reason, enlarge their feet and lengthen their legs on each go-around.  Stay tuned.  Who knows what crazy bird stuff lurks...

The real deal

THE BIG TEASE



A little birdie told me...

 This week my muse is just a big tease.  We had Preview Nite at the Sawdust Art Festival on Tuesday night and somehow my muse and I managed to get new work completed and up for that.  Then I crashed, sick with a bad cold that had me down and out.  The only problem is my muse is not finished with me.  Feverish, hacking, runny nose and all, the muse expects me to listen to its persistent urgings.  I am trying, but only able to follow in short bursts.  Hopefully, my scanty note-taking will help me recall some of what seem like really cool ideas.  But...maybe it's only the fever.  I wonder.  Meanwhile, I'm sure having fun with these new "Little Birdie" sculptural pieces.

WHAT JUNE GLOOM?



The McNamara Family really enlivened David's class

 This Saturday is a sun-filled, breezy beauty of a day.  I am sitting at the Sawdust Studio Art Classes venue listening to the lively chatter of our two fun classes scheduled for the afternoon.  David Farris's pendant making class has a family who bought three spots to celebrate Fathers' Day together.  Full of lively stories and conversation, they have perked up all of us tired artists within earshot.  The other class--Maggie Spencer's fused glass class is full and the glass glistens in the afternoon sun as they industriously make Origami Bowls.  Beautiful!  Never a dull day and never a moment of gloom.

MAY AND MOTHERS

Daughter Kendall and her three boys--tired but happy!

In this crazy chase after the muse, sometimes the very sweetness of life wins out.  This has been one of those weeks.  First, there was a delightful day of creating in our Sunday Studio Workshop.  Then, grandson #3 arrived on the same day as grandson #1--age 6--was in his school's talent show.  What a treat!  And the week is not even half over.  As mother, grandmother, creative spirit...these are the best of "creations."

ATTRACTION

"Fall in, Fall in!"  life shouts.

In this mad chase after the muse, life attracts me in its endless variation.  Color, sound, sensation, touch, fragrance...the thrill of it all moves me toward MORE.  Promised joy lingers in the twitter of small wrens just outside in the trees.  It titillates in the irridescent throat of the hummingbird.  It shimmers in the dancing light on the sea.  It seduces in the sweet smell of jasmine.  In all its infinite pleasures, I am attracted by life to the very center of things.

THE NATURAL WORLD

Wall Art

For me, there is nothing quite like time in nature to waken the stirrings of the muse.  These sunny days, with dappled brilliance on the ocean and cool breezes wafting across my skin, are just the best and I cannot get enough of it.  Even while I know that there is much to be done in the studio, it is difficult not to be outside gathering the delights of nature.  These wonders will be stored as images in my mind for future use.

FLEETING

Spring is always poignant because nothing stays.  It must be caught and appreciated on the wing, for soon it will be gone. (May Sarton) 

It seems really a shame that the glory that is spring is so fleeting.  The weekend was sunny and warm, with birds singing in loud chorus extolling the virtues of just being alive.  Today dawns gray and cool and I find myself already missing what I know will return soon.  So I took my camera and went hunting for the things that will remind me.  Such fun!  And now I can settle in again for a while.

A DAY OF PLAY AT LAST

Proving art can be fun...by a student in one of
our Mixed Media Playtime workshops.

How glorious!  A full day in the studio yesterday.  Very productive, but the big surprise was not with any attachment to outcome, but rather to attachment to the progress already attained.  Perhaps this is just a strange twist on the evil attachment to outcome that I don't quite recognize.  All I know is it creates pause in the flow.  Still, if this is the only 'downer' to a day...well, Hallelujah!!!

Thrive

May Sarton writes of "the long ripple that opens out beyond the duck as he swims down the tranquil pond" in On Being Given Time.  That is what happens to me when caught up in the act of creating.  It is an endless process with an abundance of rewards that do not always have anything to do with success or failure.  It is a place where time has no beginning and no end, like the ripple behind the duck simply going on and on or clouds moving across the sky.  It is to be lost and to be found.  I am grateful.

SOFT SPRING SOUNDS

Mixed Media Collage
"In the Dead Of Night"

Last night the soft hooting of the two owls in the tall eucalyptus trees caught my attention.  This morning the beckoning rattle of a crow just outside called to me.  Then, as the twitterings and cheeps of other birds joined in, I heard one of my favorite sounds--the soft cooing of mourning doves.  Another day, another week, begins.  My own call--not quite so soft--is woo-hoo!  Another Sunday Studio Workshop is now in the past and I see a stretch of possibility for my own work.  Double woo-hoo! I can hardly wait to see what beckons to me on this wild chase after my own muse.

Spring is a time for new leaves

It is springtime and as good a time as any for a re-birth of this blog.  "Too busy" just doesn't cut it any longer.  Life is full and rich.  The new job with Sawdust Studio Art Classes is going well.  The Mixed Media Playtime workshop this past weekend was phenomenal once again. click here to link to this week's Coastline Pilot column on same.  Sunday Studio Workshops continue this weekend. That new grandson will be here very soon.  The summer Sawdust Festival will begin all too soon.  Still, I hereby commit to more frequent posts!