the SWEET smell of Success!

I have had so much to say, so much to report but have been totally unable to gain access to my blog.  It’s a minor issue with my Google account; they took exception to me turning my cookies off, but I turned them back on again-honest!!   No matter what I do, however, Google won’t accept that fact and has been refusing me entry into their hallowed halls.

Then I remembered my laptop–YES my settings were untouched…!  So here I am again.  Lots to tell, lots to talk about, lots to share.  Dreams, adventures, and hopes all mixed together so thick it makes my head spin.

Life has been a merry-go-round whirl, a roller coaster ride for sure.  I won’t go into too many details all at once, but over time will share it all, no fear.  For right now, a brief outline:

Jewelry-Very successful! A wonderful show in Florida, great gallery sales, now I’m actively seeking more galleries in other areas of the country.

Work:  new career (but I don’t WANT a career!!) that I can love that entails writing / travel / photography, almost like I’ve always dreamed of. 

Home-life:  not too much change there yet, but pending.  Dad is about to join mom in the nursing home…I’ve done my best for the past 2+ years to keep him going independently, but it’s been so hard on them to be separated and now he’s needing more care than I can give him.  They are looking forward to being reunited. 

So–Pending freedom for me, both emotional and actual, as I will be set loose and  need to move out of this 80 degree bedroom  and back into my poor abandoned home.  I don’t intend to be there forever, just long enough to fix it up and Move On. 

A brand new grandbaby, and another one due in about 4 months.  The ties that bind are strong-this would be the only thing to keep me here anymore.

Well, back to work…i have another ad to create and an article to write.  No rest, you know… guess I’ll shut up now.

-JM-

Vintage Waters

The other day I was driving on the freeway along Lake Erie.  It looked so misty and still, like a whisper. 

I was coming from shooting a First Communion in Willoughby, a town about 20 min east of Cleveland.  I used to work at a quilt shop out there, and would make this same drive 4-5 times a week and I always loved seeing the water in its many moods…dreamy, sunny, angry, gentle,  sullen, and even solidly frozen.  Back then I didn’t have a camera handy…but now I do so I pulled off the exit, fired off a few shots, got back in the car and continued on my way to my other photo job shooting at the stadium.  It took all of maybe 3 minutes, less time than I spent in Photoshop filtering the picture:

lighthouse

 I love vintage looking photos.  They always seemed to be of simple subjects, as if all of our daily lives were worthy of recording.  And they are soft and slightly tattered at times, just like our memories.   Everything today is so sharp and harsh-and LOUD…hi def TV, super saturated pictures, loud noise and music, and talk radio.  It pounds on our senses, intrudes and takes over our thoughts, clammering for our attention.             

Sometimes you just need to kick back, lay in the tall grass and look at the clouds, letting your mind drift on the currents to wherever it wants to go.

Water is good for that, for letting our hearts meditate.  The soft murmuring of a stream or the dull crashing of waves, rhythmic and hypnotic, lets our thoughts wander wherever without any effort on our part.  Daydreams,   hare-brained ideas,  visions and what-ifs—things that, once we put them into action others will call creative.  We come away refreshed and ready to work again.  And so, even though I took this picture a week ago and today is cold and windy, I still feel refreshed and ready to start working again.

And about time.

Another Bridge…part 1

bridge   [brij]  noun, verb,bridged, bridg·ing, adj  –noun

1. a structure spanning and providing passage over a river, chasm, road, or the  like.                    or,

2. a connecting, transitional, or intermediate route or phase between two adjacent elements, activities, conditions, or the like.

I think of Life as made up of a series of bridges that are connected by islands of being.  The islands are solid, stable–what we’ve become;  and the bridges are our growing–fluid, changing, in a state of becoming.   That’s my philosophical thought for today.

I started out years ago doing patchwork and quilting in a rather traditional way…I had my reasons,  but I soon found I got so tired of a pattern after just a couple of them and seldom could I complete an entire bed quilt of 25-48 blocks…I was lucky to be able to finish a baby quilt.  So I concentrated on making wall quilts, which was a lot better.  I started collaging in fabric, creating a series I called “Wish I Were Here”:

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 I love traveling, going someplace new and seeing it with that heightened awareness being in a new place brings.  You can catch details and patterns you have a tendency to miss once a place becomes familiar and I want to capture as much of that as I can-especially since my time in this area is limited.   I hurry out before sunrise just to see the golden pink glow the sun casts on everything in those first few moments and keep going until I can sit and gaze at the stars in the peace of night.

Once I’m home again, I study the photos I’ve taken and find what meshes with my memories and the details I remember.  These are what become part of my artwork.