I should be packing. Instead, I'm enjoying a warm Seattle morning with the cats. First things first. Today is moving day, and I'll be a resident of Portland, Oregon by tonight.
I am sad and happy, scared and confident, old and young, but most of all, excited. When I was young, I used to say I'd 'take it on the road' when I got old. Well...here goes!
31 May 2009
19 April 2009
The Etsy Adventure Begins
Yesterday, my excellent friend and workmate, Kris, helped me get started producing hand made shirts to be sold on my Etsy site. Just click on Born to Be Wilde, lower down on the left of this page, and it should take you right to the shirts. Though this elderly techno-peasant is really getting right out there in computer land, and I may not have connected all the synapses yet. Please let me know if the link does not work.
It's something new for me to be selling shirts. I'm making for my site nothing smaller than a men's XXL. I think it is time that big men - and big women who enjoy wearing men's shirts, and you know who you are - have, at a reasonable price, access to vibrant, colorful, in-your-face casual shirts that are not covered with sports team logos. I will have XXXL shirts listed soon, with XXXXL available by special request.
My cat, Fahy, has been tireless in helping me set up all these links and sites. Just when I think I've got a page all ready to go, he flops down on the computer keyboard, providing me with some creative edits that are not always easy to un-edit. He likes to bite my fingers when I type. I like to kiss him on the ears, and it drives him crazy.
You can find Fahy in the "Excellent Friends" slideshow on the lower left of this page. He's the one wearing the tuxedo. Mine's at the cleaners, covered in cat hair.
It's something new for me to be selling shirts. I'm making for my site nothing smaller than a men's XXL. I think it is time that big men - and big women who enjoy wearing men's shirts, and you know who you are - have, at a reasonable price, access to vibrant, colorful, in-your-face casual shirts that are not covered with sports team logos. I will have XXXL shirts listed soon, with XXXXL available by special request.
My cat, Fahy, has been tireless in helping me set up all these links and sites. Just when I think I've got a page all ready to go, he flops down on the computer keyboard, providing me with some creative edits that are not always easy to un-edit. He likes to bite my fingers when I type. I like to kiss him on the ears, and it drives him crazy.
You can find Fahy in the "Excellent Friends" slideshow on the lower left of this page. He's the one wearing the tuxedo. Mine's at the cleaners, covered in cat hair.
22 March 2009
If I could afford it.....I would spend the rest of my life making beautiful things and giving them away.
It was one of those Facebook quizzes; your friend tags you with their list of answers to a group of questions, then you erase their answers, write yours, and tag 25 of your friends. "If I could afford it..." was on the list of questions that I received, and what you just read was my immediate, knee-jerk answer.
Well it's true. And it has been true since my mom helped me, over 50 years ago, to set up my first little easel in the mudroom off the kitchen. I wanted to hang my finished paintings on the fence and to let people take one if they wanted one.
The picture above is a copy of one of my early paintings. Spring of 1956, I think. It's hanging on the fence, just help yourself.
I don't paint with brush and easel as much as I did back then; now I paint with fabrics. I am still working towards simplifying my life in 2009, towards more of my art being something that I can give away for free. The present economy isn't helping a great deal. But that's no reason to stop dreaming.
It was one of those Facebook quizzes; your friend tags you with their list of answers to a group of questions, then you erase their answers, write yours, and tag 25 of your friends. "If I could afford it..." was on the list of questions that I received, and what you just read was my immediate, knee-jerk answer.
Well it's true. And it has been true since my mom helped me, over 50 years ago, to set up my first little easel in the mudroom off the kitchen. I wanted to hang my finished paintings on the fence and to let people take one if they wanted one.
The picture above is a copy of one of my early paintings. Spring of 1956, I think. It's hanging on the fence, just help yourself.
I don't paint with brush and easel as much as I did back then; now I paint with fabrics. I am still working towards simplifying my life in 2009, towards more of my art being something that I can give away for free. The present economy isn't helping a great deal. But that's no reason to stop dreaming.
21 March 2009
An Old Poem
The weather's never as cold in Seattle as it is in New England at the beginning of spring. It's March again, the light is changing. And so, to remember this odd sonnet I wrote a thousand years ago.
Pioneers
There is a time in March
When it’s still so cold
That the ice runs hard
Out of the rocky ledge.
There, under the snow,
Green things push up,
Hardy and squat
In the dead dark cold.
Never minding the ice above their heads,
Courageous against blades of wind that fly,
Merry in the face of frozen nights
They stand, not pretty, but defiantly alive.
And in April where they stand the crocus come,
And in June, the roses.
There is a time in March
When it’s still so cold
That the ice runs hard
Out of the rocky ledge.
There, under the snow,
Green things push up,
Hardy and squat
In the dead dark cold.
Never minding the ice above their heads,
Courageous against blades of wind that fly,
Merry in the face of frozen nights
They stand, not pretty, but defiantly alive.
And in April where they stand the crocus come,
And in June, the roses.
20 March 2009
Still Blathering On
I am dedicating this new blog to my mother's mother, my grandma Ethel, and to my father's big sister, Mary. Neither of these good women are still on the planet in the way that you and I are. But the longer I stay alive, the more I realize the ways in which I take after each of them, and the deeper is my gratitude to them both.
They patrol the circle around me, two very different guardians of my mind and heart, of my craft, of my love of history and music and art, and of my beloved family both Here and There.
They are the crows that will not abandon the scarecrow, but sit, right and left shoulder, watching out for me, ruffling their feathers, and transferring priceless information from beak to ear.
The other thing you should know about this blog, is that I'm writing it just the way I feel its rhythm. Attention will, of course, be paid to spelling, but I'm thinking not to censor quite so much as I usually do.
As for you, if you'd like to read the blog, just go with it. And please take a look at the pictures. If I set this thing up correctly, pictures will be larger when you click on them and they reopen....maybe in Picasa!...for you to see more clearly.
They patrol the circle around me, two very different guardians of my mind and heart, of my craft, of my love of history and music and art, and of my beloved family both Here and There.
They are the crows that will not abandon the scarecrow, but sit, right and left shoulder, watching out for me, ruffling their feathers, and transferring priceless information from beak to ear.
The other thing you should know about this blog, is that I'm writing it just the way I feel its rhythm. Attention will, of course, be paid to spelling, but I'm thinking not to censor quite so much as I usually do.
As for you, if you'd like to read the blog, just go with it. And please take a look at the pictures. If I set this thing up correctly, pictures will be larger when you click on them and they reopen....maybe in Picasa!...for you to see more clearly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)