The Snowfall is So Silent/Happy Winter Solstice

let a joy keep you ...

something ... (part three of three)

something ... (part II)

something ...

The Art of Timing

winter lead ...

easier said than done ...

... third in a series of sorts ....

Jane Eyre and "what i did on my summer vacation, the summer that rochester was a total jerk off to me!"

... in the wildwood for weeks and weeks ...

White Winter Hymnal ...

... make a wish ...

balance ...

freeze, freeze, freeze ...

Unwarmed ...

Uprose the merry sphinx ...

Because No One Ever Said Grieving Was Easy ...

in the bleak midwinter ...

my daughter alice sang a rendition of this poem in 2007, her freshman year and the very last time she was able to fit choir into her "electives." there have been no more holiday or other concerts since then, after years and years and years of three girls growing up and singing in our house. the year her choir sang "in the bleak midwinter," i will not lie, i had tears streaming down my face. it is so achingly beautiful, weather read or heard.

i personally hum this melody ALL THE TIME, and a lot lately since it has not snowed yet in my county in wisconsin, and i stress the words "my county" because i have seen snow on the news, been notified by text/phone/email about it falling by my friends and loved ones, and yet I HAVE SEEN NONE IN MY OWN BACKYARD!

today's collage was my last ditch effort at conjuring up some white stuff:

"... i have things in my head ... "

"... and then my heart with pleasure fills ..."

...by no means have i stopped collaging, and am still doing one a day and/or completing pieces that i've started, or pieces i've been asked to do for people. today's piece is for our master bathroom and is comprised of a 1960s daffy art print my niece-daughter brought over late last week at the start of the holiday weekend. i paired it with wordsworth and another 60s magazine tear, and there you have it ...

hope you all had a fabulous long weekend in whatever way was meaningful to you.

many thanks ...

... to all of you here, for being here.

portrait of a fabulous writer

did this for the writer john kusch ... http://www.johnkusch.com/bliss/index.php

calling this one "breakfast at tiffany's"

this is a vintage gold cocktail bag i've "tweaked." i really could have done better and photographed it better, including it's opposite side, but i'm sooooooooooooooooooo tired and a few more miles to go before i sleep tonight, so maybe we'll all see this one again, inside and out when it's truly finished:

... a love story ... front and back cover ...

... of a 3x5 photo album ...






... that is all and to all a good night!

mirror, mirror on the wall ...

"there's a fine line between love and hate ... scrutiny and adoration"

this piece involves a lot of closure, that's for sure. it involves some things i may or may not write about more fully ... you just never know with me. and/or maybe i have written about them in an incredibly full-bodied way in the past, but buried in another piece as something else. i, too, am buried in this piece, in the flesh, and yet I FUCKING LIVE!

snips, snails and puppy dog tails ...

100% Proof!

Everything Positive. Everything Fun ...

because everyone loves a good "fairy tale tranformation" and such ...

"grace"

"grace" is what i wish to call this piece. my torn images, another man's incredible words which also come with music, but for that you can only imagine.

either way, i'm enjoying this time after the 30 days of 30 pieces and this piece marks the piece to the new beginning. you know, where i just get up and do and don't count or keep track.

illusions ... and habits/it takes 30 days to make or break one!

This would be day 30 of the "do some collage art or altered something every day." You do anything for thirty days and it's a habit, official and a real part of you. This can be good things you do 30 days in a row, or this could be bad things. But if you haul off and do them 30 days solid, hello?!?!?! Habit.

I am now doing art every day.
I am writing every day.
I am working every day (already did that ... but important to fit the other stuff in too).
I am making sure to be healthy inside and out every day.
I'm not afraid to show my feelings every day, and in the last 30 days (inside and outside my art and/or writing) I have put words to a lot of feelings. Finally.
I am sleeping soundly every night.
I wake up and am glad to be alive.

Rinse and repeat ... I'm going for another 30 days, and then another, and then another and ...

once ...

survive and thrive-ability ...

today has been nothing like a friday the 13th for me.

it has just been a red letter exceptionally humbling and yet fabulous day.

this morning was my first session with my trainer/exercise specialist at the gym.

i'm not new to the gym setting, but i have not exercised in a gym regularly since my stroke.

i did not stop going to the gym back then because of my stroke, because i am not a cripple! imagine me as richard nixon, shaking my fist and saying, "i am not a crook!"

i stopped going to the gym because around that time i became very anemic and very, very thin ... wispy thin, the kind of thin that can disappear.

while i remained active, still like to bike and "stuff," that too kind of fell to the wayside, most especially when i went back to college and there just wasn't time for it.

i have thought and half thought not to get back into it.

prior to bekah's wedding this summer, i worked a little harder at it and began eating better. when a "kid" is getting married, you realize a. you would like to look at least okay in your MomOfTheBride dress, and b. when it comes to anything with your kids, you want to live forever.

you just can't imagine abandoning them, not even by death, which is inevitable.

in the recent past, i've been more and more into things with regard to preventative medicine and much more "into my head," much more willing to understand that my head will never be the same, much less "bitchy" about the situation, much less stubborn, and much less "noncompliant" when it comes to neuropsych meds.

paired with that i've been at the gym a lot with mark's dad, as his transportation, as his companion, and really all around lucky to have him in my life.

since i was there anyway, i realized, "duh, now is the time to go back to the gym," but with a trainer this time, and really assessing everything, bringing in my old workout sheets from my "old gym" and really talking about myself, inside and out, and how to keep myself fit ... and not having fits.

all that being said, this is the right time. it's amazingly the right time. and my trainer/exercise specialist, kim, is the right person. i bonded with her immediately, just talking to her on days i was there with daddyRoger, and so the sign-up was easy.

and we started this morning.

the two hours were spent mostly talking and going over records, including medical ones, since it's all connected to the hospital through this gym. and yes, we had to talk about the "stupid stroke." and i was feeling proactive and empowered and all that, really not affected by it, which i have sworn to over the last seven years.

this swear is a lie.

i have my "residuals" from the "incident," and i never will be the same again. we talked about that too, and how i have gotten used to it, feel okay about it, i mean, come on that was seven years ago.

so then kim leaves her office and goes out to get the monitor thingy for my stress test portion of the assessment.

not at her desk now, and her chair pushed in, i can see beyond the bookshelf and all the self-help health books that i was gawking at while we chatted. rolled up on the floor wedged between the two bookshelves of really empowering books is a rolled up poster. all i can see on the poster in ALL CAPS is the word "STROKE."

i realize it's "just another one of those" stroke prevention/educational posters, no big deal right?!?!?

guess again.

BIG DEAL. IN ALL CAPS.

i realize, you see, at that moment (seven years after the fact of the thing that didn't "really affect me" all that much) that i'm terribly ANGRY about my stroke.

i'm writing about it now for the first time ever, though i'm sure i've alluded to it a lot. but i'm actually writing about it now, brutally honestly and for real, in a long nonfiction piece i'm calling "following May Sarton around after her stroke," which is based on her memoir "after the stroke."

even so the angry words have not come out yet. i figured they were not there, and/or why bother mentioning it since i'm so far past it, you know?!?!?

except this morning in that room i realized i'm not.

when kim came back in with the montior hookups and stuff, i pointed to the poster and i said out loud, but not in all caps, because no way am i yelling at kim, but i said, "i might have fudged a bit when we talked about the stroke and 'stuff.' i'm very angry. very, very angry."

... and then that moment, FINALLY (YES, IN ALL CAPS) just having finally said it, it started already to fade away ...

"into the woods"

yesterday was a horrifically long day, and yet i met all my goals and did everything on my "to do" list even though extra crap got shot in around all my carefully planned edges. i even managed to get to bed by ten and slept 8 solid hours. i woke up a 12:35 a.m. this morning in fact, and did the wonder-how-many-hours-of-sleep-i-have-left look at the clock, which you realize i have to first flounder around for my glasses in order to do this.

when i realized i had still 6 hours left to sleep, yes, i wet the bed, AND threw my glasses across the room and out into the forest!

on the late average these last many days, i've been getting six hours of sleep and/or less, and there has not been time to wet the bed.

this morning, i woke very refreshed, though a little humbled by the fact that Mark was going to hang our bed sheets out the window to em-bare-ass me in front of all our neighbors.

still, I HAD 8 HOURS OF SLEEP, so i really didn't give a shat!

also, i thought my collage yesterday, because i had to wait until late in the day to do it, would just say "fuck this shit" and then be all black ... so black that you wouldn't even be able to make out the words "fuck this shit" but you would know they were there, and *you* would probably wet your pants!

instead, it became yet another 8x10 collage in a very cryptic and yet not so cryptic series i'm doing. i made that sound as if i knew i'd suddenly be doing a cryptic/yet not so cryptic series of collages, but again, i never really know what i'm doing until it's done and i'm standing up to my knees in torn paper going, "yeah, i can probably scan and keep this one."

then i shoot it into the pile of how many collages in a row is that already?!?!?!?

well, today i realized that waiting till the end of the day was not really that stressful. i had been doing the collages right away in the morning when i started, but they've become more and more complex. they take me longer to finish now, and i realize i'm thinking about them all day until i get to them, which is not a bad thing. it's like this little "tease" going on in my brain that says, "live through this shitty, long stressful day and you *will* get there!"

so i'm not so sad to report that i did not get to today's piece till nearly 2pm and i've been working on it for one hour and 17 minutes already.

today's piece is part of the series, i did not know was series-ifying right before my torn paper eyes.

below are several poems i wrote, and have included in this note because they appare in this piece so to speak, and also i’ve been writing a lot, and also going back through old work, which is a good thing. ultra-word productive, in out, under and through my “real” day job.

so some words, then:

*Heart-Shaped Box*

I feel like
the proverbial
Wicked Queen
because I would take
a head off the chopping block,
or a heart, proof-positive,
in a gilded box.
Everyone should suffer,
no one should suffer,
but I suffered,
and suffer still.

Truth be told,
I'm not surprised
to find it’s my own heart,
bruised and lying,
in this Pandora's box,
the lid flung to the treetops
and knives flying about.

(the above circa 2002 or so, but never saw the printed light of day until 2007 in any such form, a hidden work, now hidden in this collage as well)

this one below has no title, and no i was not suicidal (hey that kind of rhymed), and i don't really know what i was thinking and/or going to do with this, but it really sounds a lot like ripping paper (probably i wrote it back in the day when i did not set aside time to rip things up ... hmmm)

*untitled*

I’m crying from
the inside out,
my tears
as sharp
as nails
yet I’m
wholly unable
completely unstable
and wonder at best
how to put things
back together again.

this next one circa 2007, i believe on a writing dare with someone i regularly collaborate with and he probably said something like "write something would ya" and so i did ...

*coming clean*

cold
sky spray
pelting skin
stinging insides
found without
treading lightly
walking in the dark.

moonlight
scatters thoughts
shadows melting
one with the soil
footfalls land solid
a stronghold at dawn.

sunshine
replaces the ache
heart pounds in rhythm
hands cold as stones
stretch and claw in need
reaching for the future

(it reminded me of being deep in the woods and clawing the way out and so i guess it's in this piece too)

this next one ... circa maybe even before the year 2000, i've lost track, you know, the words, the paper, the words, the paper ... but i felt it fit this piece too:

*Sentence Lifted*

You go girl.
Chin up.
Face the mirror,
your womanhood,
your worth.
Run like a girl.
Ties that bind you now
are of your own making.
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
who's the fairest one of all?
The wicked witch is dead.
No more poison apples.
Live out loud.
Unleash your words
on the screen.
Make them scream
for all the times
you kept quiet.

and this one ...

*Easier Said Than Done*

Continue on,
at leveled or disheveled best,
but is it over the next hill,
or do I bypass the obvious
taking to the wood --
taxed lungs and chapped cheeks,
ascending meaning everything,
backing down not an option?
Or, is it better to trip and fall the bogs,
leading to the depths of a black forest,
my hands and face torn by nettles,
teeth clenched in firm resolve
even though I’d like to spit and quit.
I’m not sure which is best, or who decides.
There are no forks in the road,
Mr. Frost, and I can’t see beyond
the end of my nose, the hurt in my heart,
the silence killing my ears,
and all my good sense is lost.

(i mean seriously, "fall the bogs," it's totally in the collage even though i wrote this when!??!?!)

so, all of this is to say, no matter how long the days are getting, and no matter that i'm filling them in on both sides and also managing all the shit around the edges, this *is* the most artistically productive i have ever been in a long time ... and so all i can say about the next day and the next is, "BRING IT ON!"

peace, and art, poetry and some hippy love ... out!

~a

"exercising my demons" because exorcising them is not as much fun

She Dreams in Color, She Dreams in Red

Every Woman Enjoys a Little Nakedness ...

Holy F’ing Batman … this is collage number 24, coming from me, the person who said on October 17th, that they were going to *try* and do a collaged and/or altered something every day of every freaking week to get back to her art.

I did not think I could do it.

As usual, I proved my own damn [distorted sense of] self wrong!

That case in point, I was going to ramble on about what that means for me creatively speaking, but I think I’ll wait till day 30 for that … in keeping with the old adage “30 days it’s a habit.”

Once this is habit again, believe me, I’m going to spout off about it. Once it is habit, it just is … it just is, me, something I will continue to do every day, or die trying. (tiny “woot” here)

Today’s collage is full of art, in and of itself. Off to the right-hand corner you will find something lovely, torn mag article section which features Jasper Johns. It was very Rorschach-ian, and I saw a naked woman in his piece, which became then the mood and the madness for my entire piece.

I HEART Jasper Johns! I loofa his back in a bubble bath, any day. All he has to do is ask, or just look at me, or just keep doing his art!

Ali and I were lucky to see a HUGE, and I mean H-U-G-E Jasper Johns exhibit at the Chicago Institute of Art two years ago. We both fell in love with him on the same day. I know, sounds weird, but totally is not! That was one of the times that Ali said her famous line, “I’m such a Lolita!” and I was jumping all up and down because I was all like, “Yeah, Ali, I guess it would be bad if you lusted after him at 15, so I will just have to keep him for myself.” The fact that I’d share him, because we both love him so … well, that’s a whole other scandalous ballpark, but the point is WE LOVE HIS WORK … TO. DEATH!

So, Ali is in this collage too, lower left-hand corner, though the image may be tweaked beyond recognizing her, but I like to tweak and gel and whatever the collages. She is standing behind one of her favorite pieces from our trip, a see-through piece, and I can see her through my camera. (Fabulous!)

While am all about fostering self-esteem and love of the body no matter its image, maybe Ali is tweaked to the point of being the essence of future womanhood in this picture, and then if you look you will see my big fat left eye bucking up right against John’s torn section in the piece, because while I “tweaked” Ali to protect her innocence, I then tore and put myself right next to JJ, so there! (all of this is utter bullshit, because I never really know how these pieces will turn out!)

Anyways, and ironically, after scanning and finishing this piece, I clicked over to the Chicago of Institute Art page just to be curious about what might be there now, special exibit-wise and this is what I read:

October 10-January 2, 2010 – Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Collage.

Yes, I pissed myself.

And I know what I want for Christmas now, and it’s not one or two new front teeth!

I just want to be sure that I get to this exhibit. I want to take all my daughters (surrogate and otherwise), the little girls and 17,000 of my closest friends. I want to make a day of it! I want to run naked through the halls of the art institute and … okay, um, maybe that’s taking it too far. I just want to go there, with the above-mentioned people and have a really good time all over the place!
Here is the exhibit description, the exibit I TOTALLY KNOW I’M going to if I have to crawl there! The write-up:

Collage is commonly thought of as a modern art form, but the act of “playing with pictures” has a long, rich, and surprising history. Sixty years ahead of the avant-garde—and more than a century before Photoshop—aristocratic Victorian women were already experimenting with photocollage. This world-premiere exhibition is the first to comprehensively examine this little-known phenomenon, presenting many eye-opening works that have rarely—and in many cases never—before been displayed or reproduced. See Playing with Pictures at the Art Institute before it travels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. It might change the way you look at the Victorian age.

Love it, love it love it!


I’ve long known it’s not a modern form, and there’s a painter they used to say “painted with torn paper” but his name escapes me right now, but that guy (when I read about him in my college art course) I wanted him to be brought back to life so I could make babies with him! So I will get you his name later, because I know he’s in a big fat hard-cover art text and his name is totally highlighted in purple! He totally on my “People I would like to dig up and have babies with” list!

Collage art has been around forever, and is here to stay.

I never knew till I started it myself years ago, that I had been doing it for a lot of years in journals and stuff. And while I did start to do it pretty specifically 5+ years ago, I never completed 24 projects in 24 days, I will tell you that!!! I had a handful of project per year, and a headful that I never started. I knew I loved doing it, but I wasn’t doing it enough! Until now.

Which brings us back to the beginning of this note, and why as I completed collage number 24 today, I was all “Woot?!?!?! What. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! 24 days already! What do you think about that, Self?

And my “self” well she didn’t say a word. She was just beaming and dreaming and scheming about what she might be able to rip up and/or alter next in the name of finding clarity!

Peace and art out!

~a

p.s. I kind of want to dig up Rorschach too, because this one time at band camp when I had a psych test, there was this inkblot that really did look like a buffalo eating an ice-cream cone, and I want to ask him about that one because I don’t think my interpretation merited my getting kicked out of band camp!

critical eye ... have i

puppies, roosters and bling ...

Yes, it's true, this was a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong week. Even though I built in extra days and stretched out all the hours, and even increased page length for some of my client's stuff and then compressed it all again, so that they could have it all in three milliseconds tops (!!!!!), I somehow did not have any hours in the day left for sleep! I was on the average zzzzzzzzzoning for way less than 6 a night, and we all know that sleep-deprivation can make your brain explode, and I should know this, right?!?!?

So … Last night, as Mark would say, I "shut 'er down!" instead of continuing to, as he would also say, “get ‘er done!” I was in bed and asleep by 11pm ... my goal was 9pm but Mark was watching (trying not to fall asleep during) Travolta and DenzelW in the remake of "The Taking of Pelham 123" and the banter and dialogue in that movie was fab-you-lust ... or worth lusting after, so I finished watching it with him, plus poking him to keep him awake... and then we went to bed!

I got good, solid LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG sleep.

Y' all saw the part where I dreamt that Mark, IN MY DREAMS and lying right next to me had the absolute hairy-assed nerve to make out with someone from our old high school, someone with really big boobs (only in the present tense ... in the bed right next to me no less, while I am sleeping and not even realizing that I'm dreaming about it until I wake up really mad him for some reason!) ... and this someone who shall remain nameless in case she would ever facebook add me, might be a little teeny bit surprised, with all her big boobs and all, why I slap her in the face at our high school reunion next year.

I mean, really seriously, Ms. Big-Boobed-You-Shall-Remain-Nameless, we graduated in '80 and Mark by then was already a grown man/child in the Navy, and if I didn't even know he existed in high school, even though we both went to school with his brother ... what right do you have coming into my sweet dreams and making out with my "old man from the sea" while I'm sleeping! You didn’t know anything about him either, and there you were RIGHT IN MY DREAM! Bitch!

Yeah, still kind of pissed, but I'm working through it.

Also in the dream, I was riding, cruising, and absolutely dream-screaming down country roads and bi-ways on my bike, and at the same time took some fan-ass-tab-u-lust (or to lust after) pictures of some giant black bears with grinning teeth who were chasing after me, but I was brave enough to stop on the downside of every glacier-y hill to get their photos with my phone when they crested the hills behind me, and stopped of course to take a breath and get their picture taken. (whatever, it’s my dream, bears can do that!)

Giant moose were also crossing my bike path, but I didn't get pictures of them. Damn it! This was my dream, and for once I wasn't clumsy and I was biking and taking pictures AT THE SAME TIME (pictures of things behind me, no less) while giant menacing bears were chasing me, and I managed not to even hit the moose! Mooses, the several moose and moose-ettes!?!??!? Math *is* heard, but everyday English … sheeeeeeeeesh!

Anyhoo … This is what I call a good night's sleep, because I dreamt, and when I woke up I even remembered the dream, and was peppy and well-rested enough to really be mad at Mark for kissing Big GaZonga Girl.

The rule on dreams is ... it's not what the symbols, objects or whatever meant, but it's all about how you "felt" when you woke up, and remembered the dream.

Well, like I said, I tore Mark's head off for kissing Nameless Girl, and made a mental note to blacken Nameless girl's adult woman eye next year at a social event.

But mostly, I was really F'ING fan-tab-u-lust (or to lust after) happy! HAPPY, I say.

Okay, one more time ... HAPPY!

If you are into analyzing dreams, I know that certain things showed up because they were on my subconscious tongued tip list when I fell asleep, and during this busy week, I know how they all got there too.

The Bears/Moose: Facebook-related, Wyoming-related, putting pictures up related, where there are some of me and favorite ex husband (1st husband) camping at the top of the Big Horns (’82-ish, no kids yet). We were the only ones in our wilderness arena. No other campers! A moose walked through our camp site, right past me at the fire when I was sizzling dinner. Male moose with rack! This somehow spun out in my brain that if we were the only ones atop the mountain that night, and the animals were that brave, that I'd certainly be eaten by a bear, so I slept in the truck with a pistol and Chris slept in the tent because he was not acting like a freaky scared dork. And I'm the one who wanted to come to Wyoming in the first place (huge back story), was lucky to have arrived alive, thrived and live there, and was the one who was ultra-excited about our camping trip that summer … but I suddenly tripped out over bears .. quit laughing ... I'm still trying to find the photo where, Chris is in a blow-up raft fishing in a serene water scene, and I took the picture from way up above on a ridge, where I still sat with his dad's pistol in my lap, but at a vantage point where I could shoot bears if they came after me or lumbered into the water to kill my husband! [okay, so maybe my brain damage, paranoia and other stuff was always there, even before the stroke ... but the neuro guys are still at the roundtable discussing all this]

The girl from high school ... has everything to do with SCOLIOSIS which I have and which I've been discussing with my exercise/fitness trainer this week. Anyone from my high school that is already on my facebook page, might know now who was kissing Mark in my dream, if they really think back on it, because there was only one girl in our high school who wore a scoliosis brace. My S-curved spine thankfully is milder (although still painful) case than that, but I also was born with a giant stick up my ass, so that my be why I never wore the brace.

Biking ... also discussed at the gym this week, because I HEART it!

Photos ... I take them all the time, enough said.

Clutziness ... that's me in general, and was implied in the dream by the fact that it did not exist in the dream.

THE END … sort of.

THE COLLAGE, like the dream, all about sleep and the messages within relate to the peeps I love and my puppy and is comprised of items I picked up, here and there in the house this morning, pinned to a piece of cork, scanned, and then put the items away. The Saturday clean sweep while walking around with a cup of coffee missing my new personal assistant and housekeeper (and yes she gets paid), Carol.The items regarding the end of my long week, sleep and my favorite puppy and peeps are as follows:

WALTER: One of his two boy pigtail boys that he had on his head when Mark picked him up at the groomer yesterday. Mark took them off, of course, and then to get back at me kissed Name Not Mentioned girl in my dreams, hello!?!?!?!?! There are not two bows in the picture because Mark crammed the other one up my ass and told me to stop putting purple sweaters in the dishwasher (hole other counseling appointment coming up on the calendar now, I’m not kidding!)

BEKAH: The striped moon is a piece of something from her wedding. I miss her. Kyle is sort of a part of that too, but while I tag him in this note, I would never ever tell him that I think that highly of him because he’s a brat!

CAROL: The purple ribbon, is all about her first child support and placement hearing last month, and then another appointment she had right after it, while I was in the car reading with Lili, where someone gave Carol a handful of "purple ribbon[s]" and stick pins, because it was for domestic abuse (mental, physical, sexual and otherwise) recognition. Carol came back to the truck with them and said "How ironic is that, after this morning in court, huh?" And how ironic is this? Carol had a horrifically long week, this week too, and when I came across this ribbon on my dresser this morning, I smiled because by Friday she was flying high again, and sleeping on new sheets! (long story, as are all of mine of late … but her story to tell, but the story is showing!)

ALICE: The button at the bottom with the energetic womanly figure on it. We got it at her "dad's work" last summer the excruciating time "gerald" met her dad. (ali is laughing her ass off right now reading this). And Ali is at her dad’s this weekend, and that’s where she’s laughing about this, and it’s good because we all love her laugh!

SARA ... the button with the owl made from a bottle cap. Because I think of you often and love you to death! You think I mentor you, but this year, especially the last month, and artsy-fartsy and word-wise, watching you thrive has renewed my own motivation and lust for such!

THE LITTLE GIRLS: The "pretty pretty 'sing" multi-natural stone bracelet on the edge, because everyone knows if you are a little girl and you have a really great grandma (which I did too), you love her and all of her pretty pretty 'sings! It's a given and the ongoing gift of womanhood in our family. And it’s all for Ru, Rae and the little Bug!

MARK: The bling bracelet, from last Christmas, wore it several times in the last several weeks, needed to put it back in its box and note it again in my heart. Plus the mental note that for years and years and years, I’ve always deserved really nice things, kindness and regard, and it’s even okay to ask for them up front. Mark is my reminder of that, which is why he probably gets away with kissing other girls in my dreams, sometimes.

THE ROOSTER ... because we collect them, Mark and I, and because it's all dark and purple’d and torn from an Ambien ad (which I did not have to tweak that kind of med for my own sleep train ... woot!) and because Roosters also remind of Scarlet Rae when she asked, "Grandma ... so why do you and Grandpa Mark have all these birds, and the roosters, because …………… it might be kind of creepy!" (We have roosters made out of almost everything you can think of save our own shit, so you can see why she might be kind of freaked out!)

Creepy and Happy are "almost rhymes" ... THE END

Guest collage/my collage/Place Holder ...

two collages today, and words to go with them, but the words are in a "note" on facebook and i'm too zonked to move here, but need to place-hold and mark time and know that i completed my "collage of the day" and have a great deal of pride in the "guest collage" that my daughter did (below) she rocks in her own right ... more on that tomorrow:



my collage of the day without the words and epiphany that came with it i will also add tomorrow, but here is mine:

All of a Sudden I Could Do Things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the cover of my newly purchased for a dollar at Walgreens rest o' 2009 and all of 2010 Planner ... the colorful polka-dots are all that is left of the original cover, which in my book means, the planner is now AS IT SHOULD BE! ... except on the inner pages I tried to add 52 more hours to each and every day of the week, extend all weekends to 4 days, which makes a week actually 9 days long counting the additional four days added to the five-day work week, but when I tried to do the math of what that meant for hours in a year x the number of new days to make up that year for the grand yearly totals of extra time, MY HEAD EXPLODED.

You will all forgive me, however, and thank you very much, because I did manage to push the Scan Photo and Upload Blog buttons before my brains spoiled on the floor!

What happens on a run stays on a run!

This next piece is for my lover-butt significant other. He's been teasing and teasing, about still no really good collages about motorcycles. I came up with this one last night, and the images (believe it or not) are from a vintage McCalls magazine that I've been tearing the heck out of, over and over again, and there are oddly STILL PAGES LEFT! Woot.

I also managed to work in a Honda joke, because we all know "real men ride Harleys," or so I have heard.

--------------And I also managed a quote from "Sons of Anarchy" about "what happens on a ride [staying] on a ride," which tell the character Gemma that (love Katie Sagal!!!) when she found out (as if her own menopause symptoms were NOT ENOUGH!!!) that Clay (Ron Perlman/excellent!!!) ... well, er ... um, he tried to understand her symptoms and "dry" condition, but he got his member sucked on a recent run!

Gemma broke the woman's nose, and had some pretty choice words to say when Clay found out she was in jail.

(Go Gemma/Katie Sagal ... woot!!!! ... yeah, you can tell, I'm hooked on the show and the writing!)

Anyways ... managed to get that in there too and then scanned my collage and tweaked it a bit, and here's the fun part. The photo program I'm using is at Piknic.com, and I'm just flying by the seat of my photo-tweaking ass, because I'm just messing around over there.

There are these great APPLY, UNDO and REDO buttons which are really cool, so if you tweak too far or too much, you can go back and fix and not lose something you liked.

------------And I just noticed last night that you can save a before and after (side by side) view of each tweak too, so DOY!!!! that will make my life easier now.

I didn't know the "collage a day" would take off. I've been collaging for over five years, probably longer if I look back at old journals and realize I was doing a little bit along all the way ... but anyways, I have done some fairly decent larger pieces, and altered some items and done some special orders for people (projects and such).

But ------------ I also kind of let it sit off to the side and rot when I get busy (translation: when I'm probably really stressed or depressed and most need to be doing art!!!).

Recently, I picked it back up again, on a mission, and found that doing one a day has really improved my mood and my method of handling the madness of each and every day.

So last night's piece was frosting on the cake, because the last tweak I did made me actually speak out loud at 1:00 a.m and say, "Holy F! He's going to love this!"

With all my messing around, APPLY, UNDO, REDO ... last night it was CROP, CLICK, a few little tweaks and such in the fun CREATE section at Piknik and yeah, so I was celebrating out loud!

Before I show you the pic, I'll tell you with my he-man, Clay-like (a.k.a. my own big sweetheart and softy) said when I sent him the scan (he travels during the week).

His exact words, when I told him this one, which is 8x10 now, will be blown up and framed poster-size for his growing garage art (NASCAR, Harley and other dumb stuff) and he said:

I could get used to seeing this hanging around ... although, I'd have to say it's not quite rough and tough enough. (or some such rot, trying to say he loved it, but hello?!?!?!??! it's girlie collage art!)

And my response was, well, I can spray beer all over it, but you hate when people waste beer!

And now the piece that made me speak outloud at 1:00 a.m. this morning:

this like many of the others
you may have to click on it to see the larger image. :)

there is no such time, only change ...

kind of a horrific and quick scan but the gist of it is:

But as she has gorwn, her smile has widened with a touch of fear and her glance has taken on depth. Now she is aware of some of the losses you incur by being here--the extraordinary rent you pay as long as you stay. --annie dillard

.... the original is 8x10 and a bit more readable

... day of the dead.

a note on the collages:
they've obviously taken off on the daily basis, and it's never a struggle or an exercise i feel threatened to complete, otherwise listen to my own self chastise my self to death. that hasn't happened yet. i look ever forward to them. and soon i'm going to have to start compiling them in some kind of scanned book of prints since the actual collage and then some of the tweaking and stuff, they start out as one thing and then turn into something completely different.

today's was a perfect example of that. it's original glue and paper and paint and such and stuff and then some tweaks with the depth and color and they are two different pieces, so that's a fun aspect to it all as well>

thing are never quite as they seem, and yet things are starting to follow kind of a daily theme and then they all pile up with an odd cohesion.

the day:
...today, i'm sort of feeling like a "a whole in the head fred" [egg sandwich] day of the dead head, but this too shall pass.

'twas a busy monday, that's for absolutely sure. busy on all fronts, incoming wounded and patch casualties heading out to continue the fight ... sometimes mondays are like that where i'm working, playing, creating and basically "multi-tasking" my rear-end right off, while simultaneously balancing incoming calls and of course eating more leftover tootsie rolls from halloween than it is even possible to count.

tonight, ali and i laid out a great feast on the glass top table on the deck, under the full moon with our usual bay leaf floating in broth, a cup of tea with ginger, little bowls of sugar and cream, candles and incense sticks.

the air was crisp, the cups and bowls steaming, our cheeks crimson from the cold, and it all feels good.

nothing is ever gone, just gone deeper.

i feel that way about the papers i tear up and destroy to make yet another image, and i feel that way about the people i have lost in this life, those just to the side of things behind that filmy curtain, just out of our reach ...

... it's november ... woot!

Happy Halloween and ... outrun tomorrow!

... me ... disappering ...

altered cover page of a vintage teen fiction novel ...

The Flower Bud(weiser) Shop!

The collage above really doesn't count as a true hands-on, torn paper affair.

I did it all with a photo and a photo create program as a joke because my beloved had posted on my FBook this week, "How come no motorcyle collages."

And so that was pretty much a "double-dog-dare" for me to take a picture of his motorcycle and doctor it a bit.

I did intend to do it entirely freehand, tearing and beating the band with my gluestick, but today was a busy day and so I had to rush it a bit. (TRANSLATION: My future muminlaw got home from the hospital today and I was her escort! Woooooooooooooooooooooooot!)

To save time, to get back at my lover-butt, and to keep with my "collage a day"-ing, before I do any work ... I hauled ass over to piknic photo and doctored this one up in their photo collage program.I took the "Man Cave" and showed it for what it really is, a pretty, pretty flower shop!

I was going to cut and paste a Tampax banner over the original "Bud"weiser car hood, but I didn't want Mark to have an aneursym.

He's traveling, and he lives in fear when he's gone that one of us is going to go out into the Man Cave and wreck something!

Seriously, the man dusts for our prints when he comes back through the electronic garage door!

I am not kidding you one single bit ... and now ... The Flower Bud Shop:

The Color Purple ... and my inner child out for perpetual recess!

... the morning collages are proving to be as helpful to me, myself and I as Julia Cameron's "morning pages," might be to someone else.

I actually have an old copy of Cameron's book, Morning Pages, and I have tried to work my way through it, various times, throughout the varying years. With good faith in my self, I purchased a copy of her book, The Artist's Way, as well.

I loved her concepts. I loved the quotes, here and there, throughout each book. And, I SWEAR!!!!! I really tried the "morning pages." I attempted another of her exercises, an advisement to take my inner child out on a playdate, but she never wanted to go. She was not comfortable with that much freedom.

My inner child does not know how to play, not really, not without the feeling that the gauntlet will drop, or that she'll get caught. My inner child is a bit of an anxious, guarded mess.

I called my daily pages, "mourning pages," and thought that might help to make them more my own, but even that creative little spin on the dark within did not make the regimented task of writing any easier. It was too much like an assignment, the likes of which I was obviously putting off for ... well, like forever!

Give me an hour to write, and I will write nothing. Tell me I have ten minutes between 50 other things that are popping off, and I'll write a million pages. I'm better under the gun.

My inner child, too, survives under the gun. She may run out and play, but two seconds later she will run for cover again. Believe.you.ME!

So, don't ask me why, but the daily collages work better, and some mornings these are more time-consuming than three longhand pages could ever be, and yet ... I never feel rushed. I never feel as if I should get to the "real work" and stop "goofing off."

As I run through the next day's "to do" list in my head every night, lining up work, errands, family, etc. etc. and the six things that might pop up unexpectedly, my thoughts race less when at the top of my mental list is "the morning collages," and the "come what may" aspect of their daily creation.

I don't spin my mind in circles every night now. Instead I search out the sandman, toot sweet, with visions of paper and gluesticks dancing in my head.

It's been very liberating.

And, it's about time.

I, in fact, feel that I've found a way to take my inner child out on a playdate, each and every day, and she's finally free to do so! She finally plays for however long it takes to become real, and real clear, and then let the games of the day begin!

And this morning, my inner child came rushing in, winded, from a sprint in an autumn field, and she's brought with her (from the inside out) a bushel of wild purple flowers!


ferdinand hodler is the master painter, and i've had this postcard tacked up, here and there, through many a move and groove, and now it lives on and again in this collage. ~A