April Showers/Flurries

Sure, snow in Maine isn't anything new to us "natives" (and I think you really need to have some tribal blood in your background to be a real native), but the promise of spring is only a promise, as each new day of life is a gift. As I shot this photo out of my studio window I wondered about the "why" of April snow, but only briefly, before I realized that for me it is the sort of thing that keeps me alert and allows me to appreciate more all that is around me.
Snow has taken on more metaphorical meaning for me over this past winter than it ever has, and I think it is the cleanliness of the cold, something about special survival against those winter elements, about the fragility of life and more; something about living in Maine. The beautiful summers we have here are made even more so by the beautiful winters, and I think we need to experience one to appreciate the other.
Cold and what my Mom always called "raw" today, and I'm expecting rain yet again next week for my birthday. More about the meaning of rain at a later time...

Granite Resolve

So much of what is seen about us represents particles of our lives... I see symbols, metaphors and just plain old associations to what I am and how I would like to be, and as I try to interpret them I realize that these "signs" may very well be random meaningless events that have absolutely nothing to do with me. I still look for meaning in them. Without meaning, even our own interpretation of meaning, we have nothing, so I continue to try. To construct meaning for that which surrounds me and make it better is the most noble goal that I can come up with right now, but it's late, I'm really tired, I need to sleep.
The granite is resolve. Once one makes up their mind to do or go or be a particular way it is resolve that sees them through. I do not know what the next few weeks might bring, but I do know that whatever I decide to do with the direction of my professional career, it will depend on resolve in order to move forward. Wishing back and forth between two (or maybe even more) things just leads to chaos and stress. Some of us realize this better than others and do very well. I think I am in that group, a member of that tribe, but making up my own mind in my own way, regardless of those around me, is difficult. History, you know. Hard to separate from it.

The Moon Again

Already another month! The cycles of life are the things that seem to keep us involved, what with the changes that occur within those cycles and the connections among the elements of our lives. There is an awkwardness to change and maybe that is the reason so many fear it, but the awkwardness can be exciting, like your first kiss or the first public performance or speech. We are strange beasts surrounded every single day by beauty!
Photo taken over Flanders Bay at 4:30 a.m..

Silence is Golden

... and change can be a good thing! Flowers are beautiful, aren't they?

Pulled in Two Directions...

I have seen this coming, and as this was designated my "pragmatic" year, I will attempt to handle situations with aplomb and logic combined. My tenure here at MDI is, oddly enough, tenuous, and I find myself looking for signs as to what direction I should take for my sanity and my family. I remember being torn about actually coming to teach here for exactly these reasons. Fate has stepped in and opened up a teaching position in a nearby city for which I am now putting my resume back together in application... I am sorely torn!

Fit to be Tie Dyed!

I am pulled all around today... a day of new classes & new students, a day of struggles and general pushing and pulling. I just finished a bunch of term grades and am really ready for bed. My professional life may be in flux, but I have seen signs of this and as this is my "year of the pragmatist" I will simply follow where the spirits take me. Peace and love.

Rising Out of a Funk

Getting to do some work, regardless of the sort or the reason or even the subject, makes me go to a better place most of the time. I really do enjoy the flexibility of working digitally and I don't miss all the clean-up time. I can make/be anything, or at least almost anything my imagination desires, so I started working on myself this afternoon, after all I am the one I have to deal with day after day and that in itself is often a challenge. I can hear the girls outside in the smoking area laughing and having a break from the everyday, and I am glad they have one another.
I am disguised... not broken, not disfigured, but disguised by myself, with the inner workings not even completely known to me and certainly not known to anyone else, except maybe those of you who read this and piece the parts together. Thanks for trying, at least!

Breakfast in Bed...

... a change, a move back to the past, the "old days" when life was not so overburdening and the people around me all felt young. Well, maybe not that young, but at least not old. I used to do this for "hunny bunny" regularly. Every morning I would get up and do my workout, go up into the kitchen, usually just put together some coffee and oatmeal (with something on the oatmeal like fruit or such) or sometimes an omelet, like this morning. We change, all of us, but for the surroundings that remain so constant we would be like the sky, every day being a different tapestry, or at least I think I would. I like having the ability to change routine and environment constantly which I can do in the freedom of my studio and my imagination. Oh, what careless lack of understanding in wasting a moment of that time and it's ability to renew.

I am making an effort to be nicer. I realize I am surrounded by a beautiful home built by my own two hands on land held for thirty years and passed on by my mother-in-law, and the ties that form over that time and this family are strong. Why shouldn't I be nice to everyone?

Reality... whose is it?

My brain sometimes doesn't seem to work as well as it used to, yet when I ask my kids about it, they say they go through the same processes... forget keys or things to do, have a great idea and not write it down, so it leaves their head. My reality seems to be theirs as well. I've come to the conclusion through hearing them that the old brain is working as well as it ever has and that it may be working better than a few of the younger ones I find myself surrounded by every day. Whew! What a relief.

Having said that, I did have a great idea for what I wanted to say today here and lost it during my workout. However, I have replaced it with the realization that I haven't done anything with digital manipulation of photos I have posted here. This is something I have knowledge of and I enjoy working with images through a variety of programs, so today's posted picture is a digital (5 minutes or less) mock-up of a photo I took yesterday while a couple of my studio (non-credit) students decided they wanted to work outside for a bit. It was a beautiful afternoon!

Life is...

...like a pincushion, it just sits there having anything with a point stuck into it. What's my point? See what I mean. There's no self-determination, no limit to the number of "sticks", and no way to free itself of the pain of the steel shafts. Sometimes certain events in life feel like steel shafts... not always right away, because the shafts are slid in slowly, innocuously, but many times the steel shaft is plunged firmly and the hot, burning pain springs into life immediately.