draped villas ( canopies)

Been looking for canopies to raku under, and I have found some surprisingly exotic villas.
I want one of each!

found this charming illustration it just takes me heart!

Illustration friday," ALONE," plus...Spring and Summer Calendar for arts workshops

Madame Butterfly is what happened when I was ,"ALONE", Ever been alone playing, and wondering if anyone was looking? That is what she is wondering....is anybody looking? my 2nd Illustrator attempt...

I have been compiling lists and calendars for the upcoming raku workshops, kids camps, and private students I am taking on beginning May.
I have a 3-month calendar ready, and it looks full. Wow, is it ever easier to make a calendar than what you are proposing, but I would prefer to be in the thick of it.
In May I begin with adult raku workshops, ( 2 evenings a week) and semi private classes of a 9 week duration, ( twice a week). In mid June I add kids camp, twice a day, three days a week to that schedule, for a month extending into July. After that I will be going to Alaska on the ferry for up to 3 weeks, then back for more classes I have not yet scheduled. Last 2 weeks of August I will take on new students again for fall, begin raku again, and do more of my reiki work. And, of course, my art work will be something I will make sometime….during those busy days.
I am looking for a really nice canopy for the back yard for over the raku kiln (since it ”might rain.”) You think?
Am also considering family backpack trips so that people will know hw to take their kids to places that really count this year, and teaching them skills to be out in nature together appreciating nature, and each other. I really look forward to these weekends this summer.
All in all, it appears that it will be a busy summertime, gearing up to fall, and winter when I will have more time to work with students and make lots of art work to sell come spring.

Transformations

Have you ever watched a flower fade? My tulips are fading. I watch them everyday to see the beautiful colorful changes as they become the loveliest colors I could ever behold. I watch the dull pink flower make it’s transformation to a multi colored bloom, becoming shiny, and soft, light and dark, streaked and lovely, all at once, and I imagine a room painted just that color, but it isn’t one color, or one sheen, but many, so exquisite I cannot tell you, but I have photographed them most everyday.


The petals twist and turn, and the once tulip is then transformed into another plant completely. The petals fall, and small black and yellow seeds are left studding the piston. I collect the seeds carefully. In three years they will each become a bulb, the ones that make it, that is, and each bulb a unique variety that has never been seen before.




It brings to mind the small ivory hand of my grandmother as she lay dying, Skin so exquisitely thin it looked like some delicate almost sheer cloth laid over her small bones, draped there, revealing an uncommon beauty.
Beauty comes in so many ways, and we don’t see it most of the time, we are too busy trying to preserve what we have decided is beautiful to allow maturity to manifest itself, in beauty, and look upon it for the wonder it is.

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft, and to thy slender store, two loaves alone to thee are left. Sell one, and with the dole, buy hycinths, to feed they soul! ( unknown poet)

Aboriginal Art Show in Seattle soon

will include work by Mangkaja artist JANANGOO BUTCHER CHEREL

Date of Birth
 c. 1920
Clan
 Homeland
 Gooniyandi
I will try to get gallery information and post it here soon from the contact Ken provided. Check back.
I have been searching Aboriginal Sites
This page has some really nice B&W works ..and you can go through other work from this page..I love Daisy Andrews work!
nice to see art work from Australia.

Anastasia

Anastasia is the first of the work I hope to continue. I love the idea of a dinner table set with porcelain plates, footed bowls, etc. decorated like Anastasia here. It is so fun, and it really does reveal my influence of Wiinblad's work, so this is my Wiinbladisque line. I guess. Or beginning of. Anastasia will be for sale for 250.00. Wouldn't she be adorable with maidenhair fern or persian violets coming out of her head?
I can't wait to get a bunch of this work under my belt. I will accept all encouragement, and opinions concerning price. Each piece will have it's own name, of course!
Merci....

Photo by Ken Ford, Australia, "Outback" Friends... love these happy smiling faces!

Beauty to me....

Daisy Andrews, Lumpu Lumpu, acrylic on canvas cotton. 1950 .00 $aud. beauty has always struck a simple chord in my heart, most of my life I have been holding one desire abover all others, to live with people who are what we refer to as primitive. Simple, spiritual people, who know things we don't because we intellectualize too much, don't trust our ability to know, to intuit.

Maybe Ken Ford is as close as I have come to being in a place that meets that dream of beauty, life. My interest in so piqued that I am that close to one who is living that way. I knew Ken was one that knew aboriginal ways, and I am facinated that he says he is so glad he came thre. I can't wait, simply cannot wait to hear what he is going to share with me about the beauty of that experience. It gives me chill bumps all over just waiting to hear his stories. What a miracle we connected again!

He has sent art work to me and I to him, and we exchanged postcards, letters, nd photos, some years ago, but mostly online writing. Always the unexpected letter or packet made my heart skip a beat. It is so good to receive letters from around the world! I am just delighted!

Old friend from Tasmania writes again!

I received a surprise from an old friend who was living in Tasmania going to art school. I lost touch with him, we met on some clay art forum years ago, and years ago. A web site he works with, I recommend it...He is now in Kimberly, or The Outback, in Austrailia, and he sent a photo that is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen of a children smiling and laughing, and it is soooo lovely. I am so happy to be in touch once again with Ken Ford. He is loving what he does in The Outback, helping artist there to show work worldwide and locally. I can't wait to hear more from him, and I will share that here!

Garma Etching by Stumpy Brown
Maybe I wil go to Austrailia and finally meet my penpal!


For Ken and his friends in The Outback, my Crater Lake shot...

It is tulip time again in Washington!

My indoor tulip garden...one of them. I support tulip growers! I fast so I might.
Here are a few more photos of mine taken at LaConner this last week. The flowers are exquisite, fields of color. I tried to bring them all home!