Rock It

On the way to Squam I stopped at a Mine. Yep, a real Mine. Thankfully, it was an open Mine, meaning you don't have to go down through a shaft or into caves or anything like that. In fact, it is called the 'mine in the sky' because it is on top of a mountain (of sorts). Anyhoo. I loved it, Ruggles Mine. Big big thanks to my friend Lyle, who told me to stop there.

So.....if you've been reading my blog for awhile, you certainly know how much I love my rocks. I collect them from everywhere and have a dish of rocks in my studio which inspires a lot of my work.
Like here.
And here.
And here. (my river rock stencil) 

Well, I am on another 'rock binge', painting all sorts of geological-referenced things, this time more from a stratum vantage point. Lots more of these pieces in the works, I think you might see this for awhile, hope it doesn't get boring. Obviously it doesn't bore me, tee, hee.......

I feel therefore I am

A husband's friend (thanks David!) sent me a link to this amazing website that has a goal of 'harvesting' human emotions from weblogs. Basically, whenever a weblog post has the words "I feel" or "I am feeling" this site extracts and saves the information. Once you recover from the freakish Orwellian nature of this project, it is kind of cool.

You need to click on the applet to get the whole story - check out the 'Madness' area, a visual representation of posts, dots and squares and all sorts of colors, flying around on the screen. By moving your mouse over an area, you can see the geographic origin of the post; by clicking, you can see the actual phrase. Another area called 'Murmurs' is a scrolling screen of posts, one after the other, sort of mesmerizing. There are other sections as well, all showing a different view. Truly fascinating.

I feel like a voyeur and some of these make me smile while others are sad.

Now I am going to watch to see if my post shows up.....

Still amongst the living

Yep, I am still here. Good grief, it has been a ride these past few weeks. Between renovating our bathroom, participating in an Art Fair, going to NH to teach at Squam, spending a week in Canada with my sweetie and hosting a visit from my parents I feel a little like a whirling dervish. I have done little art except for writing in my journal, that being the Teesha-style journal that I made awhile back.

Judy inspired me when we were roomies at Squam. I was so envious of the dedication she has to her journal(s) and observing her made me think about what prevented me from a daily journal habit. Seriously. I thought about it a lot and tried to figure out my issue. I came up with a lot of friggin' lame excuses ranging from lack of time to exhaustion from making my 'real' art to need time w/the hubster to blahblahblah. It really doesn't matter because they were all just excuses. And aha (as in Oprah aha moment) it hit me. I have a choice. To journal or not to journal. My life. My choice, if I want to journal, I simply need to choose to do it. Duh.

And so I do. I have carved out a time in the evening - that time when John and I sit down with a glass of wine to decompress - I pull out my journal. Am I an everyday journal writer? Not quite yet, but I am working on it.