Lois Likes to Doodle

I can't be on the phone or watch a TV show or have a piece of paper put in front of me, without doodling on it. From this absent minded doodling or drawing; I get designs for my charms, jewelry, paintings and embroidery pieces. The hand draws what the mind wanders.....

Times they are a changing...

I hate to leave my blog and the writing that it encompasses on a negative, sad note so I am following up my last post with this thought. " I expect to have a bunch of new paintings, drawings and even charms designs that will spring from the loss of this friendship. A better word than loss is of course, a time found for me. Creative time in my studio alone with the changing scenery of friendship. An ending is but a beginning after all ......

The Meaning of Friendship

When I was married to my ex husband ( 19 years from barely an adult to a grown woman ); he would say that you do not have friends, that you have acquaintances. That some of these acquaintances would last longer than others but eventually they all end. So this seems to be happening in a long term friendship of mine. This makes me sad, it feels unwarranted and I need to stop the nervous tic in my eye and move on. But damn! It hurts. Not a word, no explanation, no rationalized, justified cause. Just an ending. I am trying to be the Phoenix here who rises again from smoking ashes into something new, better, stronger. We will see and maybe as time passes; things will begin again. Until then, I am left looking for strength, wondering why and feeling ultimately wounded and angry. Sigh, sometimes we are doomed to repeat the same life lessons over and over. I suppose this is our journey on earth and rewards are small and daily with a better reward lying beyond. I will survive, I am strong.

Spring Images from Around Home

New BEADS in the shop!

I have actually been hoarding these lovelies for a bit now but since new ones have arrived; I am going to let some of them go. These are the new daggers made in the Czech Republic with dichroic glass. The Czechs tell me it is one of the most expensive and time consuming glass bead techniques they do and brand new, too. I think they are just wonderful and certainly stir the imagination! Dragonfly wings? Fringe? Hoop earrings? Stitch work? Embroidery? Stringing? You could do ANYTHING but mainly have fun with these beads! I am in love and bead lust... again!

It is getting on late in the evening and soon I will be heading into the black velvet of what will hopefully be a very sound sleep. My mind is spinning and having difficulty wrapping itself around the huge earthquake that Chili has experienced. The astonishing speed at which ones' life can change in the blink of an eye, the fragility of the life we make here on earth, the tenuous connection, the barest whisper of a thread that keeps us in day to day life.I am saddened for the families, the businesses, the country for the experience they have had and will continue to have for the years to come. I am powerless to effect a change here, we are all powerless in the face of mother nature. Nature can nurture us and yet still cause such devastation as to bring us to our knees.

So before I head into the sleep I am longing for, I will have a prayer upon my lips for Chili along with the prayers I whisper every night for family, friends and Haiti.

I have not always been successful, but I enjoy working with all the different resins on the market. I can make mini collages from pictures I have collected from magazines, books and postcards, layer them in frames and then add resin giving a piece a permanence. Rather like making miniature art.The most difficult part is making sure the resin cures all the way. In this area, I am still a student with grand thoughts of future success.