Suddenly, in the matter of just a few days, my Regina has become very old. She has a palsy and tremor in her legs, is ever so slow to rise from the floor and is having potty issues. I am very sad. I know that pets age and that they love us dearly but are only with us such a seemingly short span of years. Now, I watch her decline and must nurse and care for her as she has done with me these last 12 or so years. I do not even have any idea how old she is but I remember the day she came to stay with us, bounding in the front door wearing a silly, bright scarf, bringing a favorite toy from her foster home. She is deaf now but I still talk to her as if she hears me. She just stares into my eyes and watches me speak. When my lips stop moving, she just goes about her day. She is always ready to be with me to be my companion, to just lay near me as I work, to hover nearby in the house in case I call to her, a  voice she no longer hears. She understands me, my shortcomings, my personality that is at once expansive and loving and still, quiet, ignoring everything and everyone. She has been my friend, my companion who finds absolutely no fault in me, my accepting and true friend. I love this old dog.

Just Stuff Today

Bead box of luscious vintage lucite beads before they become bracelets.

Studio color pencil stash.
In my " old age " I am finding that working with colored
pencils is so much easier and neater than
working in paint. I am becoming a lazy
artist, maybe?

This is in tonight's sketchbook. I was remembering a mannequin that used to be in a carnival, a coin operated fortune teller. Place the coin in the slot, lights turn on and she tells your future. I met her at a sweltering  flea market in Virginia. 

Today I spent four hours sorting through merchandise and arranging it so that it can be displayed at the Sew Expo show in Puyallup this weekend. It is a long task to get everything just so and sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just heap everything on my sales tables and say" here you go - have a look. "Before I know it, I am getting into the job and I am making little decorative signs, stringing beads, making jewelry samples. It all becomes a big exercise in outside my brain creativity.

Watched the Oscars this evening and enjoyed the parade of colors and flounce that were the dresses of the actresses. I get into all the pageantry of the show and picture myself there on that red carpet in a bohemian ensemble of glitter and beads. " No really, the movie was not that much effort. I put my whole self into the role but the physicality of it was on the low side. It was delightful, you know to kiss my costar. He was so striking and strong and clever in the film. "

See, I can not only see myself there at the grand event but also have full conversations in my head. I should be a writer!

Snow Days and Shoulder Days

The Olympic Mountains from my front porch.

We had snow here in Port Townsend. Lots of snow,maybe 7 or more inches fell over the course of Thursday. A beautiful, quiet event that blanketed us in the most lovely shade of winter. 

The playhouse the day after the storm. Bright as the sun itself.

I could not get outside to play or knit or do much of anything because I injured my shoulder. The pain was that white hot blinding going to barf kind of pain. All I could stand to do was marvel at the snow and watch television. Anything, even the barest of movement hurt.

One big yellow leaf sun.

I could draw though. Doodle, make marks on a paper, feel somewhat creative. After all, the shoulder pain was in the left and the drawing required the right. So in between eating comfort foods, I drew. A world of imagination emanated from my colored pencils and let me tell you, no shoulder pain lives in that world.

Birthday houses.

Time Has Flown by

currently in my sketchbook

The days have just flown by of late and I am at a loss to explain how the hours slip away. I have been engulfed with a crazy wave of laziness since I returned from Tucson. I don't want to do anything. The well has run dry and I do not even want to write on the internet. Facebook has been missing my face and this blog logs around without me. I come in from the shop and just want to sit in front of the television until sleep drapes its veil around me and I can rustle myself off to bed. Yawn, I am boring myself even with this blog entry! Snow is in the forecast so I think I will be a bear and go and hibernate in my den.

Graffiti

We were in a restaurant in Tucson that used to be a favorite of ours, years ago when it was in an isolated, funky area of Tucson near the Rialito river. The restaurant was a riot of color and imagery.  From country side weird to big city chic. It was  fun to load up on chips and salsa and talk the night away while eating un-by americanized mexican cuisine. The place has since moved to an up and coming, newly developing area of Tucson and has definitely suburbanized itself but it still has an amazing collection of airbrushed graffiti. I am always fascinated by and have collected pictures of regional graffiti wherever I go. It is the new american folk art, accessible to all, easily done, supplies readily available and loads of surfaces that cry out for adornment. Just don't run out and paint up your neighborhood! I personally think american cities should provide places that you could legally graffiti-ize!

We could all be artists in our own right! We just need the space to create! But don't deface  property that is not yours!

Home

My jewelry display wall.

The sun felt delightful on my face, the desert wind especially charmed me and even the coldest temperatures in Tucson since 1899, were wonderful as I experienced them. I am sorry to see the days go. To be out of my routine from time to time is so refreshing. I could not work in the studio or shop or office so I was forced, I say, to enjoy myself and concentrate only on the moments at hand. To see friends again was absolute heaven! I also had a new neighbor next to my booth at The Whole Bead Show and he was nice to work with! I am looking forward to seeing him next year in the same spot and to doing some jewelry design work for him in the coming year.

Silver work and new designs. 

Trays of sterling charms and bronze toggles.

These are the first of my Tucson pictures I will post here. My booth, as it is called in Tucson, is 8 feet by 4 feet so I manage to carefully fit in a ton of my silver work. I featured my sterling charms, jewelry, new designs, new metals and classic standbys: the brass I bring in from India, my favorite resins and many cords twisted in an array of color and texture.

My new metals, bronzes and  britanium, were well received and I am thoroughly encouraged to keep heading in that direction. My new silver work excited many customers and the jewelry was loved and purchased by many. Thank you!

The odd part of the whole trip is I worked so hard to get ready for the show that now that I am home, I just want to snuggle under a down comforter and watch recorded TV shows. I need space, time to unwind from all the work and travel. I will give myself some of that time in the evening when the house is still and we each retreat to our own separate spaces. I will rest in my leather recliner and take in the small world that is on the television and use it for a vacation from the day. More pictures coming soon. I had so many adventures, I want to share them all!

Last Full Tucson Day

It is incredibly difficult to believe that this is my last full day to spend in Tucson as tomorrow I fly home. I should continue shopping today but instead I am going to help a friend pack out her booth and then spend a little time out in the desert sun, soaking up the warmth and atmosphere, desert sounds and sights. I am going to give myself a day to breathe and simply be. Every year that I am down here I fall in love again with the open spaces that the Tucson countryside shows me and I get a determination to move down here and begin again an art studio. Wouldn't it feel like heaven on earth to spend months holed up in the quiet and solitude, creating my jewelry and paintings, venturing out once or twice a year to sell them? Make enough money to return to my lair and creat some more? What artist would not really like this?

I am a person that believes if it is meant to be then it will. I am sending this thought out into the universe and we shall see where it lands! Much love - Lois