love
Posted by Marci Molina on February 4, 2012 under Marci Molina | 
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“All you need is love.”
how can this be?
Posted by Susan Bradford on February 2, 2012 under Susan Bradford | Read the First Comment
Iris Shoots, February 2, 2012
I look forward to winter for many reasons. And one of the main things I look forward to is the opportunity to have everything stop for a while. And even though I recognize that this is a total illusion, I pretend anyway. Winter seems to give me more time to still my busy mind, to spend lovely days at home, listening to the rain and the wind, letting the beautiful gray tones of the Northwest sky wash over me. In this stillness, I feel that my creativity and my spirituality are being renewed. And in anticipation of this special time, I decided to make a Stillness mandala as my next project. To commemorate the coming around of this wonderful time of year.
But something is going terribly wrong this year. True we had a little snow two weeks ago. But where are the wonderful winter rain storms? Where is the intensity, the opportunity for cleansing, the chance to stay at home, and to snuggle up inside and be warm. To read books, to make soup, to work on mandalas.
Aside from the huge implications for Global Climate Change, how can I be still when the sun is shining? How can I pretend that things will stop long enough for me to have my winter experience when I go outside my door and see things like the photo I took this morning. On February 2nd, no less.
I miss it.
Posted by Anita Bondi on January 31, 2012 under Anita Bondi | Be the First to Comment
lately i have been thinking about how much i miss creating performance art. most of my creative time has been spent making jewelry. while satisfying and money making (both very important to me as a self-employed artist), there is just something about being hunched over a dusty dirty bench that can never compare to a huge open studio space and bodies moving together.
this pic may have to be my inspirational jumping off place…
balance
Posted by Marci Molina on January 28, 2012 under Marci Molina | Be the First to Comment
“Life is a balance
of holding on
and letting go.”
A Mini Basket Breakthrough
Posted by Susan Bradford on January 19, 2012 under Susan Bradford | 2 Comments to Read
I made this basket last May in a workshop taught by the wonderful basket maker Judy Zugish. She has great designs and amazing willow that she has grown and prepared herself. But what I loved the most was how she encouraged creativity in all the students. No two baskets were alike, and you’d never know they were even made in the same class.
Originally, I left all the spokes at the top uncut and they completely obscured the opening. I thought of it as mysterious and liked it as a design element without quite knowing why. Then I got a critique from another wonderful basket maker Marilyn Moore who juried a show I entered the basket in. She thought that the top didn’t fit the rest of the basket which was more refined and almost classical. I did see that clearly and resolved to trim all the spokes to a uniform length. But something kept stopping me.
Then last night it finally came to me. I started clipping random spokes at less than uniform length and only clipped the ones that seemed not to fit, or stuck out too much, or were too twisted, or just “asked” to be cut. Here is the result of that. It may not be finished yet. As I looked at the photo, I could see a few more things that I wanted to do. But it is getting close to where I want it to be. Still a bit wild and unruly. But with some light getting into the belly of the basket, the sense of mystery has really only increased. As you go around the perimeter, some spaces are more open, some are more dense. There is no regularity, and that is what I am liking about it.
What made me really happy about this process was that it was one of the first times I felt that I was able to make artistic decisions about a basket in much the same way I would about a painting. Whether it works or not, whether I like it as much in a week as I do today, whether anyone else likes it, none of that matters. I had fun with the process. Taking thirty minutes to clip fifteen spokes. Time well spent, I say!
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