Girlfriends and Blog Friends

Today I had lunch with a girlfriend and we talked straight for 3 hours about our family, our marriages, our kids, our dreams. Some of those tender things brought quick tears to our eyes, but we didn't miss a beat.. we kept right on talking. I couldn't believe when we looked down at our watches and time had slipped by so quickly.

I treasure those times sharing my heart-strings with another, bouncing off ideas about how to improve our lives and relationships and reach for our dreams.

Sometimes I wish I could just have a nice, relaxing lunch with some of my blog-friends. I would like to hear your voice. Do you use your hands when you talk? Do you have an accent? Do you snort when you laugh? Do you do funny things with your eyebrows? It's funny because I know your kids/grandkids, I've seen pictures of your favorite rooms, your front-door views, I've heard your dreams and read about your struggles. I've met your soul - I would love to see what that soul is encased in and how it interacts with the world and with me.

Those I've met, I can almost hear your voice in your writing and I love that....

But those I haven't, you're such a sweet mystery to me.

And I guess... in a way... I love that too.

Planting Seeds and Planting Ideas

This is Sweet Farmer bringing the planter to me so that we can tag team and plant corn every daylight hour.

This is me (Odd Chick), checking the seed boxes to see how long I can run before I call our service guys to help fill me up again. This is the John Deere tractor I drive with no hands! A GPS system guides my tractor around the field until I get to the end and then I manually turn it around, reset the seed boxes and let the tractor drive itself to the end of the next row. Amazing, huh??

This is how our May has gone. I have done some drawing but no painting, but I've had lots of time for imagining. Someday, you'll see the new things I have been planting in the fertile soil of my mind's eye while I'm planting corn. Either way, I'm creating and that makes me happy.

What are you planting these days?

New Expressions from Old Paintings

I have to show you something fun. Do you remember when I showed you this mixed-media painting (those are watercolor papers that I tore and then collaged back into a pattern.) It's never looked finished to me but I sent the image over to Spoonflower which is a company that will take your own personal art and turn it into fabric!!

Many of you know about this great company but it was new stuff to me.

This is a yard of my own custom fabric. Isn't that fun?? I mirrored the image and that's why it's a little different but I was just trying this company out to see what kind of quality they produced. I was very pleased with their quality. Now I just have to improve on my photographs and design ideas!
(close up)

Check this out. Do you remember my cow painting? It's funny but it has been a favorite of mine.





It is an acrylic piece that I did in my 5th journal after cutting hay around a dairy farm.

This is it as a printed fabric!















Do you see the cows? I'm not sure what I'll do with the fabric yet. I'm seeing so many new collage ideas with fabric and I thought it would be fun to have some of my own. I quilted years ago and would have loved to design some of my own fabric then. I would love to hear your ideas.
This is just another fun way to express your art!

Working My Way Into a Funk

Today was my first day off in a long time. I was so hungry for my art. Admittedly, she looks a little too thoughtful, like she's very weary in her soul. And she is.

Well, it's her own fault.

I get very involved in my work on the farm. I get up really early and get out in the fields and in whatever machine is serviced first, and then I am driven like the machine by some demon child within to work until I am completely exhausted. Sweet Farmer tries to get me to come in but I want to do one more thing.. one more row...and then, maybe one more. It's like I'm trying to break some kind of record. I won't quit for lunch or socialize with the other farmers like my Sweet Farmer who is not wound as tight as I, thank goodness. I just go further into this dark cave of intensity until splatttt- I can't go any further. I swear I'm not going to do it the next day and I do.

I'm too keyed up to go to sleep very well or very long. I hate to take sleeping pills because of the after-effects.

It's only later that I realize how very isolating and lonely, and hard on my psyche it is to work like that, not to mention the tole it takes on my body.

And then, Sweet Farmer says I'm too far ahead of everybody and I have to wait a few days for things to balance out.

And then, he takes me out to eat for a nice lunch. We visit and talk to other friends. I create some new art. I look at your art on the blogs, and soon beauty is again restored to my soul and I re-set and begin to feel refreshed.

I have this cute little ditty in my office to remind me when I'm paying a price for my passionate nature, when that bulldog tenacity isn't serving me well:

If your nose is down to the grindstone rough,

And you hold it down there long enough,

Soon you will say there is no such thing

As brooks that babble and birds that sing.

Three things will all your world compose:

Just you,

the grindstone,

and your darned old nose. - unknown

Now if I can just remember this tomorrow.