Tag Archives: Arts

Look for the Good

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This woman is now 109 years old and still as optimistic as ever. Please watch this video, it is well worth the full 12 minutes of your time.

Published on Dec 11, 2012

At age 108, Holocaust survivor Alice Herz Sommer still practices piano for 3 hours every day. At age 104, she had a book written about her life: “A Garden Of Eden In Hell.” At age 83, she had cancer. Alice survived the concentration camps through her music, her optimism and her gratitude for the small things that came her way – a smile, a kind word, the sun. When asked about the secret of her longevity, Alice says: “I look where it is good.”

Weekly Photo Challenge – Movement

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Everything moves. I move, I move the camera, the object moves, I move the objects on the page, the light moves, life moves. How does one ever take a still shot? The finger moves to the shutter button and the camera captures movement …

 

…but this is only the beginning, movement never ends.

Create The Day – With Passion

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This is the 6th week in my Create The Day series, and I totally forgot it was Tuesday today, all day. No I’m really not brainless, as a matter of fact I had my head stuck in bills, applications and filing all day, trying to inherit & reorganize the family bookkeeping system. This is not something I am really passionate about, but it must be done.

However, today I am meant to be writing about passion. What are you passionate about?

My husband is passionate about art & music, my daughter is passionate about theater and dance, and my younger son is passionate about becoming a great chef. I think it’s fortunate to have a single minded passion that you can direct all your energies toward and become the master of. I think perhaps I have too many passions, and therefor I spread myself too thin.

I am passionate about my family most of all I think, and then nature, and my spirituality. I also have a passion for photography and creativity. Travel and adventure are high on the list too, as well as my cats. Then there are all kinds of other things I enjoy or really like a lot, but I think of passions as the things I can not live without.

For me, a passion is something I want to actively invest in and I will never get tired of it. I long to interact with my passions and will miss them if I can’t. I think passion is the very thing that motivates us most to create the lifestyle we live. You could even say it is the most powerful force in the universe.

So then, it’s very important what people become passionate about. Passion directed wrongly or uncontrolled can be very destructive, as we have seen through out human history. However, a passionate person working toward world peace, and solutions for social ills, can create miracles.

Passion is like the engine that powers the vehicle of life, but the mind and spirit is the driver. The driver needs to be skilled, capable of making good decisions and staying in control, and know how to take good care of the engine so it will run well for a long time.

What are your passions, and how do you interact with them? Please leave a comment with your thoughts on this topic. I’m not going to use a linkey list this week but if you’d like to link up a post you are welcome to do that in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Create The Day – With Compassion

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Once again it’s time to Create The Day; this week the theme is compassion.

This reminds me of the photo challenge because the first week I jumped into it the word was regret. I wondered, “how can I photograph regret?” This is kind of similar, link up a post about compassion. I don’t even know what post I’m going to link up for this.

It can be something you’ve written, something you’ve made out of compassion for someone, a photograph of what compassion looks like to you, or even music that makes you feel compassion.

How is compassion creative you might ask? Compassion creates relationships. Your feelings of compassion for others might cause you to do something creative to ease someone else’s suffering, pain or loneliness. I would be so grateful if you would share your posts about compassion by adding your link Tuesday through Thursday this week.

(It opens in a new page and Mr. Froggy doesn’t always know how to count, so just click the froggy face & add your link. Thank You!)


Picasso Trees

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My husband teaches art classes at several places. One location is Kimbal Jenkins Estate in Concord, NH, which is a very beautiful place to have an art school. We often go there for student & faculty shows as well.

We went to a show last spring and a few days ago. Both times my husband asked me to take pictures of the trees on the grounds so he can do some studies from the photos. There are several very large old trees there and I enjoy photographing them, but one tree really catches my interest. This tree sits right in the center of the circular drive in the middle of all the buildings. I call it Picasso‘s Tree.

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Picasso Tree front

These two shots are of the same part of the trunk from different angles.

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Picasso Tree

There is another tree on the back part of the property that also struck me as being one of Picasso’s works, so I call it Picasso Tree Brother.

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Picasso Tree Brother

What do you think? Would Picasso approve?

Evolution of a Bag (or two)

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I had to get away from the computer for awhile.

I was tired, but feeling the need to make something. For a long time I have been thinking about making a bag, a tote, or a purse of some sort. I have this struggle with purses, they are either too big or too small, too many pockets or too few, never the right color with the right style, too expensive or just unappealing. I’ve been dreaming of the perfect handbag for a long time. Does it exist?

So I decided to make a bag with a pattern I’d bought in the past, and fabric I’ve collected over the years. Hmmm…. here were some of my choices. Actually, the red flowers with grey background I didn’t find until later, that was the problem I ran into, not finding a compatible lining & contrasting material.

I’m not good at following directions, not because I can’t read them, it’s just that there’s random alternate ideas running through my head. This pattern called for fusible fleece between the lining & the outer material. I didn’t have any so I thought I would use a heavy material like denim instead. The only denim I could find was too worn and the pieces wouldn’t be big enough. I was determined to make a bag though, no matter what. I just wanted to complete a sewing project.

As I looked around the room (my daughter’s bedroom which doubles as our craft room) I noticed something at the bottom of the stairs. “What is that nice, dark tan, heavy-looking material?”, I thought, “I didn’t know I had material like that.” When I picked it up I realized it was the top flap I had cut off of an old canvas sleeping bag. The sleeping bag my son won’t part with because it’s so comfy. Anyway, I had washed it and put it on the stairs to the attic (aka: craft room) and forgotten about it.

It was soft & strong. The color was perfect I thought, but that’s when I had the problem finding a lining material that would tie things together. So I started going through all my material and decided to go in a different direction, with autumn colors. Easy for now, i can make something more challenging later.

Of course I have to do things the hard way, changing ideas as I go. I decided to make upper & lower pockets instead of having all the pockets at the bottom. My lining is a little too floppy because of not using the fusible stuff. I like having a light color inside the purse though, so you can see when you look in. This kind of looks like entering a cave.

It was kind of an experiment by this time. I really wasn’t being too picky or careful about anything because I just wanted to do it. I have not done much sewing for a long time because it causes pain in my neck & shoulder. I did this project on and off for 3 days to deal with the pain.

When I finished it I felt it still needed something. I showed my husband and he said it needed some trim at the top. He was absolutely right. Ideally it would have been better to do that earlier in the process, but I made it work anyway.

As I went through this process I realized this would not be the perfect bag because it is really just a tote. A tote is good at times, but sometimes you want a zipper or flap so the top is not open for anyone to reach into. This is supposed to have a snap at the top in the middle, but I’m not sure how I feel about that. It was a good learning experience anyway, and I think it’s really cute.

What do you think? Would you buy a bag like this?

This is a small tote. It gave me ideas for a bigger tote, one that could carry a small laptop or a drawing pad or knitting stuff. I think I wont put pockets inside the bigger one, but maybe I’ll put pockets on the back. I’m sure I won’t follow the pattern exactly, so maybe I’ll even change the straps and make a flap.

I like the soft canvass and I like coordinating materials, so here we go again, I’ve already started cutting fabric for the next one.

Eventually one day I’ll design the perfect bag, maybe. I don’t like changing bags all the time, but I wonder if it’s possible even, to make one handbag that is fun & funky but versatile enough to use almost all the time? What do you think?

Genetics of the Messiness

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I was visiting my mom yesterday and realized how similar our messiness is.

I guess it runs in the family. I have to say though, that she is a lot more organized than I am, but then again, she collects a lot more stuff than I do. She packs it all away in boxes & drawers, file cabinets, shelves & closets. I could never remember where everything is if I had that much stuff (I think she is beginning to forget where it all is too).

Now every time I visit the table is covered with the most used items, the most recent projects, and the current stacks of want-to-do’s & will-get-to’s. Unfortunately it’s getting harder & harder for her to do her craft projects due to arthritis, osteoporosis, as well as memory & concentration issues, basically old age. (Oh would she be mad if she read that!)

Too many things to do and so little time. That is life, that’s my mom, that’s me, and that’s my daughter too. We have so many ideas, inspirations, plans, projects, but we just can’t get to it all. Make priorities, yes. Make lists, plan, eliminate, accomplish what’s most important. Yes, we do all that, but we still want to do more. Someday we will.

Another genetic trait that runs through the 3 generations is being a helper type of person & doing all this stuff to give gifts. If we could have been paid for all this mess we’ve created we would be rich. Oh well, we like to think of ourselves as rich in other ways. It’s what we do, we like to create even if it makes a mess. Eventually it all gets sorted out and finds it’s rightful place.