dream of flying

i think this is my favorite painting from last semester. it's about that dream you have that you can barely remember, house and memory so small, flying above it all, sky so huge and brilliant.

she's a storm

this painting is about me having the power to be a storm-maker in our house. things that i've done in the past that have hurt my family and that i'm so sorry for. the white cloud is supposed to be a tornadoe but it looks more like smoke. i suppose either interpretation works.

but there's light on the horizon! there's hope. maybe she won't destroy everything...

pills

this is what is keeping me up tonight. this morning. whatever. i've been out of my sleeping pills for about a month now. my mother has kindly been letting me use hers but they do not work as well as mine. i've been trying to get them from my doctors office but the nurse has been most unhelpful. i finally called the manufacturers this morning and was like, "what's up?". they supply my meds because i am poor. oh, the tragedy of the artist. anyway. they say they sent a six month supply, enough to last me to december 8th. excuse me? where are my drugs?

so. here's what i think. it's going to sound paranoid and deranged. but, hey, i'm crazy, right? i *am* taking crazy pills: cymbalta, geodon, and seroquel. seroquel is now the crazy pill in question. the manufacturers sent those pills to the doctors office for safe keeping. i get it. i'm crazy. don't trust the crazy people. the nurse says she gave me a big honking bottle of 380 pills. a six month supply. i was given a one month supply in august, and another in september. then the manufacturers pills ran dry. the nurse said my enrollment had expired. it had, after they sent that six month supply. so she started dolling out two week supplies from the samples, all the time blaming me for not filling out the paperwork. i know. my bad. but finally i did it and now they say they can't send me any more pills because they already did. now the lightbulb goes off. or on, as the case may be. i remember seeing a pile of six bottles in *my* folder the first time i was given that first bottle of pills. the nurse says that was everybodies pills. *cough* i *am* a crazy person. i have major depressive disorder and when i'm off my meds i hear voices. not "go kill people" voices, thank you, God. it sounds like a radio out of tune. can't hear what they're saying and sometimes they play decent music but i still don't like listening to that channel. so. i take meds and i don't hear them. i am not a paranoid person. i don't think people are out to get me.

but something isn't right here. and i'm just a crazy person being taken advantage of. what the hell do i do to get the meds the manufacturers are sending to *me*?!? what do i do about this dishonest person in authority over me? God, help me get this straightened out.

nose ring whoas

i love my nose ring. it's so happy! but my nose ring does not love me. the silly thing got *infected*. *on the inside*. hrmph. how disquieting. i changed jewelry cause this one was sticking out funny and then the next one popped out and i was like, "what the....". it's the dasterdley germs! so i haven't put the jewelry back so i'm gonna lose my hole (wa-la!) and now i've got an abcess or some such. antibiotics? drain the sucker? what to do? all of this comes from cooties, you know. they were right, on the playground. girls *do* have cooties. *nose* cooties.

growth

for this one i was thinking about that first hint of new growth when you start doing new things and you're *just starting* to change.

all my paintings are pretty much about myself. so self-centered, i know, but that's all i really know. me. so that's where i'm coming from.

here is my painting i did based on my hysterectomy. i'm so not good at painting hands. oh, well. i'm still *really* happy with how this one turned out. in class during the critique we actually started talking about the *meaning* of it, instead of just the technical aspects. yay! so i felt like it was well received.

balancing act

here's a painting i did last semester. she's got a key in one hand and her heart in the other; can she balance the key to her heart? doesn't she look off balance? i really like my concept on this one, and most of the execution. i wanted her wings to look like they're not *really* there, though, and that's not coming across. also not sure of the audience. a little flat, wouldn't you say?

yesterday was the ft wainwright bazaar. i did really well! but becca only made table, so that was disappointing. we're still thinking about doing it next year, though. all the organizing ladies were really nice and we kept getting people walking by who said, "oh, i remember you guys from farmers market!" yay! people are recognizing us! and then one of the organizing ladies (sweet, sweet dawn) bought some pieces of mine and was showing them to her friends when a lady walked up and said, "two sisters!" and dawn said, "beth is my favorite sister.", and the lady said, "the other one is my favorite." (!) is that not adorable? and wow! she recognized our jewelry! the word is getting out!

owls

i absolutely adore owls. there's something sort of mystical about them; solitary, nocturnal creatures with eerie calls, white feathers, creepy exorcist head turns. *love* them. my one time seeing them in the wild was about six or seven years ago. i was coming home from dropping my mom at work. it was mid-winter, completely black, and i was driving under the over-pass. i stopped at a red light and looked over at the fence between the road and the strip mall parking lot and there she was. perched on the fence. all white. completely huge. at first i thought she wasn't real but then she spread her wings and swooped away. oh. my. god. utterly magnificent! she was a snowy owl, on the outskirts of town. what was she doing so close to civilization? i think she had a message for me: look deeper for the answer to the question. i'm still reaping the benefits of that message. maybe even more so now than then.

so i keep an owl on my table for sale at all times. this particular necklace sold within three hours of being out on the table. i *loved* how it turned out. wish i could've gotten a photo of the whole thing, but alas. i kinda had to badger the lady into letting me take *one* photo of it.

lucite!

here is my first order from bellas on etsy. she dips the edges of the lucite flowers in dye(!), transforming these already lovely treasures into whimsical faerie-like magic. i've already sold some of the earrings i've made with these guys. they are just soooo amazing.

i love beads!

and on that note, i am planning on going to tucson this year for the shows. so exciting! i'm pretty sure i'll be able to save enough money, if i keep $400 from every paycheck between now and the end of january. we'll see how it goes. if i don't save enough, i'll just go next year, with a giant wad of cash i've saved over the entire year. but i *really* want to go this year...

classes start soon. i'll just be taking metalsmithing, i think. i'd *really* like to take pottery, too, but i'm afraid i'll be too overwhelmed with a full-time job, metalsmithing, and two sisters.

i've started checking out fall and winter bazaars. hopefully we'll do four or five. that doesn't sound too intimidating. looks like holiday marketplace is out of the question, but we might do the ft. wainwright one. i spoke with a couple ladies who are organizing this years event and i told them about our bad experience and they said the year we tried it, all the guys were deployed and the wives were with family outside... they said this year will be *much* better, 'cause all the guys are here. soooooo... i'm willing to give it a try. we'll have to see what becca thinks.

blog maakeover!

i'm getting a makeover! the same sweet lady who did becca's personal blog and our jewelry blog. yay!
so i'll going over to storiesbyindigoheart.blogspot.com. she'll switch over all my archives and do a new header and background and signature.... all kinds of good good stuff.
looking forward to it!

i love this bracelet. made it last week and sold it yesterday. isn't the clasp adorable? kinda wavey. it's amazonite and red agate.

worst. farmers. market. day. ever.

so here is a photo of our worst farmers market day ever. it started out great. then the wind storm. then the thunder and lightning and torrential rain. really, the photo doesn't do it justice. then dennis, the husband of tammy, who is becca and my first farmers market friend, fell background like a board and smacked his head on the concrete. horrible sound. i was the first to get to him. he was kind of moaning and his eyes were rolling around... at first i thought he just slipped or tripped or something. but no. he had had what the doctors are now calling a *massive* heart attack. a customer came running up, saying she was a nurse practitioner, so i yielded the floor and took over tammy, who was pretty much falling apart. see, the thing is, tammy and dennis are absolutely *adorable* together. they are just totally besotted with each other, in a really cute way. he stopped breathing many times. they did cpr. it took the ambulance *twenty* freaking minutes to get their, so he went that long without enough oxygen to his brain. he was blue by the time they got there. so they put him into a coma that night and the doctors were like, 'he's not going to make it'. then the next day he started making some purposeful movements with his legs. then the next day he woke up and knew simple things and his family's names. and then he was *laughing* and telling jokes and totally himself (!). now he's campaigning to go home even though he's still in icu... tammy thinks it's because he's afraid...

all i can think is that he wasn't supposed to survive. certainly not as himself. and he had been chopping wood all by himself up on murphy dome road all day. if it had happened then... if it had to happen, it happened perfectly. just when the right people were there. still pissed off about the ambulance.

and now tammy is never going to be able to come back to farmers market. she actually came by yesterday to say thank you to everyone and she had a panic attack in the drive way.

i'm gonna miss her and her beautiful crafts and seeing her and dennis hold hands.

the new blog

hi!
this is my new blog. i'm gonna switch all my archives from my old blog to here. and jill from sneakymomma. yay!

metalsmithing

here's the little box i made for metalsmithing this semester. i *really* don't like making boxes. i want to make *jewelry*, not boxes. but it's required, so i guess i'll just have to suffer through it. on the way home from the previous class, my sister and i were listening to the radio and a j.j. heller song came on that i absolutely love. the first line is 'i have unanswered prayers, i have trouble i wish wasn't there' and it just struck me. wow. that is soooo me. so i stamped it on the lid of my ugly rectangular box and suddenly it wasn't so ugly anymore. yay for amazing inspiration from the universe. my wierd blogging platform is centering all my stuff today and i can't get it to stop. annoyingly justified.

      

lorelei, here is the little bowl i thought you might like. it's teal with dark grey ashy drips throughout. the bowl has a matte/satin sheen to it and the birds are a shiny black over the matte teal glaze. it sits on three ball feet. i hope you like it as much as i do!

turquoise

turquoise is my favorite stone. it's just so yummy! i made this necklace over the christmas break. love it.

farmers market starts this saturday. wow! halfway through the last week of school. whoa! i'll take pictures of all the stuff i made this semester and start sharing next week. some artbooks on the way from amazon; *yay*!!!! love love love amazon.

arrrrr, matey

this is one of my favorite bracelets i've ever made. why? i'm not sure... the gothy feel to it, that happy skull and crossbones... i'm a closet skull and crossbones fan and emo-ish at heart. not sure it will ever sell, though, since my demographic for this one is so different than for the rest of my stuff....

end of semester, oh how i love thee! i got both things i entered into the student art show, which really surprised me. maybe i'll show those pieces next week, when i get them back. i'm actually pretty ready for finals... especially in painting. still got stuff to glaze and a couple things to bisque in ceramics. and a never-ending list of things i want to make in metalsmithing. i *really* missed metals over the holiday break, so i think i might go crazy this summer. so i plan to buy some copper and work on cold connections. i'll need a chasing hammer, steel bench block, letter stamps, thick copper wire... thinking about purchasing a soldering iron, so i can do a little bit of hot connections.... the project i'm having the worst luck with is my cubic box. hinges, oh how they stress me out. rrrrrrrr. i keep finding things to do *instead* of working on the stupid box. leaving it to the last minute.... stupid, stupid, stupid. so. i'll work on it first thing on wednesday.

metalsmithing: the ring issue

here are most of the rings i made this semester. from left, the stones are prehnite, larimer, labradorite, and charoite. i love all of these rings. there are little things wrong with them, but overall i'm pleased. yay! getting better!

hair trials

my hair has been a source of much consternation. i have had it down to my waist. i have shaved it completely off. i've dyed it within an inch of it's life; red, black, blonde, platinum, pink, chocolate... and the happiest i've ever been with it is this sweet purple, blue, and white striped confection. this isn't the best photo of the hair color, but it's the only one i've got. i also like the haircut here... what's really wierd about my hair right now is that it's turned black. it used to be auburn. is this the effect of too much coloring? or just a natural effect of aging? i've got a few grey hairs, which i don't mind at all. i wish there were more of them! my next hair experiment is dreadlocks. i'm going to get them in this summer. i've been doing research on them. they're an awful lot of work! you have to roll and twist them every day and wax them like once a week and wash them like every three days... geez. i thought it was like, they're in! leave them to it. wash them once a month. but no. *lots* of work. like, a prohibitive amount of work. and it'll take like eight hours to get them in. ouchie-wa-wa. but!!!!! i *still* want them done. i just think they're so beautiful. i'm nervous about the texture of them. i've never touched one before, and so i don't know how they will feel. i'm hoping they're soft.... not scratchy. we'll keep our fingers crossed.

nene's toes

here are my little one's toes, front paws crossed, as she sleeps on my lap while we watch a movie. i have to say i adore my cat. am i good about cleaning her litter? no. but boy, is she loved. i'm sure i've mentioned before how just last year god told me that animals have souls and will be in heaven with us. well, it's been interesting to see how that knowledge has changed me. i've been able to handle better the idea of eating meat and hunting for food. fur trapping and the mistreatment of animals still sends me over the deep end... well, fur trapping is abhorent but i'm not gonna go join peta. just to let you guys know i'm not rabid. mistreatment of animals, though? whoa, don't get me started. i think there's a special place in hell for those people. anyway. i look forward to heaven where i'll spend eons hanging with the animals. meerkat manor? here i come. the pridelands? can't hold me back. and my precious lost ones: midnight, socks, persephone, cassie, baby, and becca's dearest; tiger. can't hardly wait!

lorelei's mugs (maybe)

lorelei, here are the two mugs. one is a little bigger than the other. they're about the size of a regular tea cup...

memory

my first piece of jewelry that i can remember was a bear paw pendant with a turquoise stone that my father gave me. it was a beautiful work of craftsmanship, made by the navajos. i lost this gorgeous piece when i was twenty one while on the trip to take my sister to grad school in texas. these events are inextricably linked, for both events were a wrench. losing my sister, who was my very best friend, was a significantly larger pain than the loss of the necklace. but i must admit that i still feel pain over that pendant. bear is my spirit animal, and i feel very strongly that my father gave bear to me, one of the most amazing, transformational, *huge* gifts that has ever been given to me.

i went without a bear paw for about ten years, looking for one sporadically. i was still mourning my loss. but then, one day, quite out of the blue, i was ready. and i found a beautiful replacement. it isn't the same as the first; it isn't as heavy or as exquisitely made as the first, but it's turquoise (my stone) and it's about the same size. so. i made a necklace and i wear it every day and i feel close to bear, again, and thankful to my father for the gift of bear.