12 years ago...

One of the greatest tragedies in this world as I know it...is that my children never met their Grandpa Bill, and that he will never meet them. They would have SO enjoyed each other.  My dad never lost his childlike playfulness.  He loved acting silly and "performing" for random kids to make them laugh, and they would often get in trouble with their mommies for it!

But in his absence, there's a certain little chubby boy with a space between his teeth and a gleam in his eye...genes don't lie.  And every time he's a little ornery, I can say I know where it's from.

I'm not fond of posting pictures of my children on the internet, facebook or any other such place...but this one is just too sweet.  We went to the cemetery to visit dad yesterday and the first thing I noticed was the sea of dead, yet colorful, man-made flowers.

Have you ever seen a "fake flower graveyard" at a cemetery?   On the Triumph Bonneville in the picture below, my dad and I rode through a cemetery and he took me back to see the "flower graveyard".  It was a mammoth mountain of disintegrating plastic and silk which has stuck in my memory to this day.  (Of course, I wanted to dig in it!)  The idea tickles my artistic funny bone and makes me think deeply...(what else is new?)

 

I see the flowers as more of an offering to God with our prayers for the deceased and it seems more fitting to offer something God-made. We brought colorful zinnias and a delicious edible herb from our yard...and they'll turn brown and fall over and perish, that's reality. 

But unlike a plastic rose that will get tossed in the trash heap, real zinnias and dill will die and drop seeds into the ground.  In the spring they will sprout up, and even though they will get mowed down before they get a chance, they're there nonetheless!

Maybe next time I visit I will transplant a MINT plant by dad's headstone, they'll never get rid of that!  The gift that keeps on givin'...and such a lovely scent when you mow over it.

Miss you dad.  Requiescat in pace.

Work in Progress...

When I was 15, I picked up a paint brush and went to work...and didn't stop for 18 years.  Now and then I paint a little something here and there, but no longer do I sling gallons of paint at scenery each day and I hardly ever sit and watch miles of paint dry with a cup of coffee in my multi-colored, speckled hands.  (I kept the coffee, the rest went bye bye)

With my new (but not surprising) love of rusted and dyed fabrics, I now find myself in strange, uncharted territory.  It's a place I've only seen in books, or on denim shirts back in the 1970's....it's Embroidery Land! 

Where I could paint in my sleep, (and have actually fallen asleep while painting!) I can feel my brain starting to sizzle and smoke while reading sewing directions and figuring out stitches.   But I'm obsessed with it, I love it...

I've dabbled in French knots before, but only once!!!  I quickly ran back to my paintbrush.  Sometimes we run back to what we know, but then at some point it becomes boring and exhausted.  At least for a time...

I feel I've abandoned everything I know well in pursuit of something I know very little about.  I feel like I can't "say what I want to say" with paint alone.  And while my brain runs in complicated circles, my art likes to be simple and uncluttered.

It's widely known that I have a "thing" for the desert.  After pondering what to do with all these dyed and rusted fabrics I've been crafting and piling up, it became obvious that I should take those desert scenes that float through my mind and make them "real".  When I look out my window and see house, house, house, apartment, squirrel eating my tomatoes......what I really want to see is the desert, the sky, some mountains, end of list.

Who knows where this needle and thread will lead me?




Random Tellulahness:
So I downloaded this app for my fancy shmancy phone that is supposed to remind me to drink water.  It has alarms you can set that go off throughout the day.  Mine makes exotic bird noises when I'm supposed to sip water.  It's broken...it doesn't work.  I heard the birds and picked up my coffee and took a sip.  These apps are useless!