in 2008. a starting place.

here's my free style.
1- read more words.
2- say more words.
3- find fullfillment.
4- be resilient.
5- stay passionate.
6- caucus. january 3.
7- try to make my voice be heard.
8- clarity.
9- invigoration.
10- less complication.

"Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken."
Frank Herbert

Merry Christmas to All...

...and to all a good night.

New projects. and inspiration.

Taking a note from some of blogland's finest, I started work on some mini-projects. New ways to catalogue my photos...in print...for once. I will speak more about my warming up to "scrapbooking" in a later post, but for now, I have project B (the photos of project A turned out dark and gold-toned, unfit for blogging). Last week (as written here) an ice storm blasted the midwest leaving many (still!) without power. We took pics to commemorate the snow day and last night (while watching, shamelessly, Clash of the Choirs) I made this little book. I shot a few pictures of the pages. Currently there are only twothat didn't turn out gold toned. I glued pieces of blue scrap paper back to back to make sturdy pages and then punched holes (I heart the hole puncher) to fit the binder ring and to add "festive" snow to the pages. I like it. A lot.

And because it's Monday...

Here are 8 things that made today, today:
1- I was re-enacting a fight I witnessed at an indoor, adult, recreational soccer match...yes true story...and I punched my desk chair's arm. It really hurt. My right index finger is paying for it.
2- I ate my first homemade frosted sugar cookie of the holiday season. mmmm.
3- I received a candygram from one of my employees. A note that was so sweet I smiled most of the day. And to top it off, one of my drawings is on the note.
4- I am officially addicted to Martha Stewart's craft line at Michael's. I have plotted my next visit...I just went Saturday...all day long.
5- My sister is returning from London after 7 months on Wednesday--EXCITING.
6- Only one of my hands is cold. The right one. That got in a fight with my desk chair.
7- I don't work on Friday. Meaning I can't focus, at all. Everyday feels like Friday.
8- I'm tired. So tired. Perhaps because I slept every spare minute of the weekend. And there were a lot of spare minutes.

Sale #1.

I sold these today. These sets of notecards, postcards and gift tags or different shapes, weights and sizes. That I lovingly labored over. That I carefully packaged and repackaged until they looked just right. That I smiled at constantly while they waited for pick up on my desk.

I sold these. I did. My work. Sold.

Full on snow day!

An Ice storm covered all of the midwest yesterday... a half inch of ice on EVERYTHING in Des Moines: the roads, the trees, the cars and the mailboxes. Over 90 businesses shut down, including mine, and hundreds of area schools closed. It made for one heck of a snow day!

After attempting to get the car out for work, we realized it was better to stay put...until the power went out.

A bit scary and a bit fun, the snow day served as a great day for gift making, nap taking, lunch outing, holiday card stamping and sending, movie watching, Anne's chicken noodle soup cooking, and early to bedding. Here are a few pics of the ice, ice baby.

The first of many...

As I begin to work on inventory for an etsy shop (finally getting the guts to take on the world and see if anyone wants to buy what I handmake)
...I am working on some projects for friends to give their friends and family as gifts.




Here's greeting package #1:


I'll keep everyone posted on when the etsy store officially opens.
I hope the few folks who read this will check it out:)

What's with today, today?

Oh Mondays. Here is a list of 8 reasons why today was today...
1- I woke up at 7am with every intention of going to the gym, but justified not going by counting the hours I will be at work today and assuming I would burn extra calories in overtime. I went back to sleep and woke up at 8am.
2- I had rare Brittney Spears songs in my head that date back to her first album.
3- Surprisingly I ate dinner at home. Not only did I eat at home, but I cleaned out some leftovers for dinner. I don't do leftovers, hence the surprise.
4- It's 8:28pm and I am still at the office.
5- I did 14 sketches of what "could" be holiday cards. All were too detailed and unfit for a mass production. I then made a list of who will be receiving a card, just to see how mass of a production this would be and decided that even the simplist of drawings will take a long time. hooray for spreading homemade holiday cheer.
6- I spent a lot of the day reorganizing my schedule for the week.
7- Ice is still coating all entrances to my office building and apartment building. I enjoy winter, but sometimes forget the down side. I only slipped once and did not fall to the ground. score.
8- I managed to compliment three people today. Good genuine compliments. Not that "you look nice today" stuff, but real, thoughtful compliments.

What's happenin?

Listening to Alicia Keys and Alice Smith
Reading The Greater Good (again)
Coveting , THIS, THIS and especially THIS
Enjoying the writings of Elise, Marta and Emily
Eating granny smith apples, almonds and dried blueberries
Drinking hot caramel coffee from Iowa Bakery Cafe
Hoping for de-iced roads, productive work weeks and holiday music

A bit of inspiration.

The windows at Anthropologie were decorated with garlands made of straws. Yes. Plastic straws strung together by thin fishing line. We may have secretly taken these photos to capture the ephemeral beauty of the drinking aid. I think I might try to make a few of these to decorate my apartment in a cheap, yet so-athropologie chic way. Colored straws would look great too!

Start with today.

Make one here.

Scraps. Tape. Scissors. 5 minutes.

We are all cups.

Random thoughts...

A crow. I saw one actually look both ways before flying across University this morning. It then glided across the road within the lines of the crosswalk and dangerously close to the pavement. Its feathers glistening in the morning light. I really don't like birds, a fear that stems from watching "The Birds" with my father in the kitchen of the house when I was way too young, but this crow was sort of pretty in an awful bird way.

Home. Isn't it strange how "home" is such a relative term? I call the office home, I call my parents' house home, I call my grandmother's loveseat home...

Light. I find myself analyzing the light lately. The way the sun is spraying rays through the now bare trees, the small crack of light the streams into my bedroom from the orange street light posted in the neighboring school's parking lot, the buzzing florescent bulb that pours un-flattering light onto my desk, the sun setting in my side mirror as I'm driving through West Liberty Iowa...

Generosity. How can you not want to give something away? How can anyone not feeling the need, the urge, the passionate yearning to be philanthropic? She has taught me so much. "Have fun angel. You might think you should be thanking them. They did give you something. But they'll thank you. You gave them an opportunity to change lives. They'll thank you. Just remember to have fun."

The art in vandalism.

Remember going tp-ing?

(How do you even spell tp-ing? tee-pee-ing? t.p.ing?)

waiting until the fall sky gets dark enough to cover you, but not late enough to be suspicious...dressing in black...rounding up your friends to select the latest crush, coach or enemy's home to target...buying the cheapest toilet paper you could find at the supermarket...smiling sheepishly at the grocery boy as he rings up your purchases...running to the car with your mischievous goods... getting that tingle in your gut as you drive, perferably in a big get-away van, to your chosen victim's home...unwrapping the tissue quietly in the front yard with your head on a swivel...the soft whispering "wooosh" ringing in the air as you launch the first roll over that big oak in the front yard...frantic running and muffled squeals between you and your girlfriends...the frustration of not getting that piece of paper to hang on the branch...the desire to cover the hedges with white...the dead silence spreading across the grass when even a flicker of movement rustles from within the house...the surge of energy that comes from seeing the shadow of a face in the window...the last minute attempts at toilet paper draping...the sprint and giggles to the get-away van...the relief that follows the not-getting-caught...the laughter that lasts until you get home.

Books. Books. Books.

"The great thing about reading books is that it makes us better than cats. Cats are said to have nine lives. What is that compared to the girl, boy, man, woman who reads books? A book read is a life added to one’s own. So it takes only nine books to make cats look at you with envy.

And I’m not talking here only of “good” books. Any book—trash to classic—makes us live the life of another person, injects us with the wisdom and folly of their years. When we’ve read the last page of a book, we know more, either in the form of raw knowledge—the name of a gun, perhaps—or in the form of greater understanding. The worth of these vicarious lives is not to be underestimated. There’s nothing sadder—or sometimes more dangerous—than the person who has lived only his or her single, narrow life, unenlightened by the experience, real or invented, of others."

-Yann Martel in a letter to Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada

Sunset...Sunrise

October 9 to October 10, 2007
(On the flight from Chicago to London)
The sunset blazes on the horizon as we cruise over Lake Michigan. The orange meets the steel blue clouds as they ripple out over the water. The orange melts into a buttery yellow and then the yellow fades to a whispering hue of gold. A luminous blue hovers over the gold, threatening to swallow the saturated splendor into the night. The colors have become electric as teh clouds blow them morph into thick grey hills of moisture. The blue above the warm rainbow of light has begun to glow. As we move East the colors lose their luster. Together they lay...a greenish glow remains.
. . .
The sunrise is so different from the sunset. While the West is still sleeping the sun is pale as it rises over England. A touch of pink lights the sky. Patchy silver clouds dust the blue silk horizon line. The yellow of the warm sun is a shy, milky color. Beneath me a bit of land appears. The world at once looks round. A champagne sky becomes a rose sky, becomes a salmon glow, becomes a yellow light. The sunrise is calm. Rather than blazing the last bits of color out of the sky it slowly, almost lazily sets the horizon aflame.

The man seated next to me on the plane.

(October 9, 2007)
On the plane from Des Moines to Chicago (on the way to London) I sat next to a guy. He had a softly receding hairline with a pointed nose and small glosy dark eyes. He asked lots of questions, including but not limited to, "Did you go to college?" He reminds me of a bad movie. I don't really know why. He sells things. "Insurance brokering," he tells me. His watch is one of those hi-tech ones that is surely waterproff and rarely taken off. He went to Vienna back in February. "Awful flight," he says, "just couldn't get settled." His shoes have beige stitching and thin black soles. He crosses his legs often. "This heat is killing me," he says, legs crossed, beige-stitched shoes close to my hand, receding hair fluttering in the breeze of the air vent as we wait restlessly on the runway. We take off. 30 miles from O'Hare he calmly clasps his hands together, resting them on his un-stowed tray table, closing his eyes almost reverently. As he sleeps, a sleep I know is a light nap, his adam's apple moves up and down to the tune of his breathing. The man across the aisle from my prayerful, sleeping seatmate strains to read an issue of Hemisphere. He and his wife just finished their complimentary drinks: one tomato juice and one bloody mary mix, both canned. He laughes with her. He compares the labels of their beverages while they wait for the attendant to collect their trash. My seat partner insurance man naps for real this time. We prepare for landing.

A room full-a-Rothko.

Written October 15th. At the Tate Modern in London.
Dimly lit grey room. Big enough to only hold the 9 giant paintings. I can barely see the paper I write on. Wooded floors with track lighting and two curved benches. I teared up upon entering. The soft, almost sad mood of the room and the sheer joy of this many Rothkos at once swallowed me. Gray. Grey. Mauve. Deep Purple. Maroon. Black. Scarlet. Rust. Red. Black. Crimson. Violet. Two tall rectangles as you walk in to the left. Mauve squares with purpled lines. Edges are feathered. Solarized. Depth of color. Fields. Strength of hue. Enveloped. Lost in the Rothko.

Here's one of the Rothko works that covered the room.
Here are the others. (Only the dark ones)

I scribbled down my thoughts as fast as I could in that room. It was amazing. Simply awesome. More of my London notes soon...

Long time no blog.

It has officially been one month since my last post...time certainly flies!
Let me run down the last four weeks:
-wedding in Chicago to see the lovely Dana marry Alex
-wedding in Minneapolis where two of my most wonderful friends married
-fancy-black-dress-tuxedo-dinner at work
-LONDON with Jen
-BARCELONA with Jen
....whew...home.

The next couple weeks will be much of the same...lots of weddings, traveling, miles on the good old Focus.

In the meantime, I vow to be a better blogger.

It's Fall! Hooray!

(a list of fall to-do's...or as other bloggers have called it... an autumnal "treasure hunt")


I can't wait to...
...go see this, maybe this and this, and definately this with my sister
...read this, re-read this and this, and enjoy this again
...laugh at this, cry with this, dance around the room with this and finally see this
...enjoy sweet fall flavors with this, and this
...cheer on these guys and these guys and anxiously anticipate this

So it's a work in progress. Look for more.

Rainer Maria Rilke.

So I added Rainer Maria Rilke to the I'm Loving section this week. And I thought, in honor of one of THE most beautiful books I've ever read, I would explain just why it is I'm loving Rilke and his Letters to a Young Poet.
So here, blog friends, is my list of 4 reasons why you should immerse yourself in Rilke's literary stylings:
1- His effortless, accessible language. I have found in my reading of "classic" or "old" literature, especially in poetry, that many of the authors are hard to relate to. Words draw me in when I find them in myself. Let me tell you, Rilke speaks my language. Granted I don't say things like: "Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write."(Letter 1) But I would think, "hmmm, what within myself is urging me deeply to do the things I love?"

2- The fact that these are personal pieces of correspondence. Letters are insightful, personal, and one of my favorite means of communication. Plus Rilke writes a wicked great one.

3- His relevent subject matter. Mr. Kappus, the recipient of Rilke's letters, was young when receiving his mail. Young like myself. Troubled with the same issues those of us "coming of age" struggle with daily. Rilke speaks of ambitions, love, faith, solitude, learning, etc, all of which speak to me. "...I am touched by your beautiful anxiety about life..." (Letter 4)

4- "You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now." (Letter 4)
(This is simply reason enough!)

I'd definitely recommend the letters and everything Rilke. I believe you won't be disappointed. In fact, I think you'll be profoundly affected.

To quote another source..."The History Boys"...
Hector says, "The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours."
Rilke set down my words long before I existed.

Oh the fall.

Soooooo busy these days with work and wishing there was just a wee bit more time for getting blog-happy...
Hopefully more to report later.

A sad loss.

So it isn't that sad. But my camera died. In honor of her good, long lasting life, I thought I would honor her and her years of service with this haiku.

capture moments past-
filing away the memories
that liven my now


But, as one camera shutter refuses to close, another one is on the way.
Welcome DSC W55 to the family.

The itunes free download

Right now I'm listening to Cristantes sing "Nuevo Mundo." I don't know Spanish. I've never heard of Christantes. I have no idea what Nuevo Mundo means. It's catchy with lots of electric guitar, a snare drum driving beat and a hint of Ricky Martin appeal.

This is the power of the itunes free download.

Every Tuesday I review the itunes homepage, perusing for new obscure music, hoping to find a gem of an artist that I listen to, on repeat of course, at work. There, near the lower left hand side of the screen, lies the most wonderful, tempting link of all: The free download. I can't resist. It could be heavy metal in German, it could be a long sing-songy tune from Legally Blonde (which is was one week), or, as was the case today, it could be "Nuevo Mundo." Now I'm listening to Bat for Lashes chant "Horse and I," another product of the free download that is methodically drumming out a whispery tune reminding me of equal part military march and church hymn. I would have never come across this musical mix had it not been for my addiction to the free download.

Something about all things free draws us in. Maybe it stems from my college (and current) stage of minimal disposal income...maybe it just comes from FREE being the most un-heard-of term ever, but I love the musical surprises that come each week. Thank you Apple.

My name is Laura and I'm a free download addict.

PS- for those of you who are as Spanish illiterate as myself..."Nuevo Mundo" means New World.

The first day of school.

Ah. The first day of school. Truly one of the most anticipated days of my year, the first day of school has always haunted and thrilled me simulataneously. I love the idea of it: new outfit, fresh pens, crisp folders (color coded for each class of course) and the anticipation of another year. When the actual day comes, it always seems to go a little less than perfectly. Suddenly the new outfit doesn't look as good, the color coded folder system doesn't work out or I stub my toe on the base of a fan and break it. (Yes that happened this morning, and no- I broke my toe, I think, not the fan.) So although this morning I'm only working the first day of school, not actually attending class, it's the same story... Hooray for the new year, damn my toe.

Meme me.

Just because I need a break from work (and because I've seen all my blog friends describe theirs)...here are 8 things about me that you might not know:

1- I think of recipes as flexible guides, not food rules. I've tried cooking with them and I can't do it. I get excited with the garlic salt, want to add some cheese or want to skip the olives all together...I like to think of myself as the MacGyver of cuisine.
2- I don't know left from right, well at least I don't know it well. It's embarassing, but it's true. When I first started driving, my mom and I were out practicing and I turned "right" into the "left" lane. I ended up facing oncoming traffic on the shoulder of the road with my mom laughing in fear and me crying. I got out of the car and refused to drive home. I also give directions using "turn my way" or "go that way" and have mastered the subtle art of making an L with your hands to find your left.
3- I won't look in the mirror in the dark. Ever.
4- I miss sharing a room. Late night talks, someone to blame the mess on, etc. Nothing's better than that.
5- I often wish I were a contestent on American Idol.
6- I love airports. Most people can't wait to leave them, but I like the way everything seems so permanent and temporary all at the same time. The constant flow of people, the weird things you can buy, the starbucks at every gate and the noise excite me. I also wonder frequently what it would be like to work there...
7- I have never been skinny dipping.
8- While cooking MacGyver-style, I dance around the kitchen. Without music.

Exhausted...whew.

This weekend was too fun! I'm exhausted!

Went back to the fair last night and enjoyed the sunset on the grandstand chairs...

One more thing....

"Bright light city gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire."---Elvis.

The Vegas vacation and wedding extravaganza has come and gone and let me tell you...it was a surreal place. I'm not sure I can even describe the experience, but here are some pics...

The Iowa State Fair.

As the Iowa State Fair rolled into town last Thursday; the excitement was literally palpable, and so was the heat. As I think about my minor obsession with all things fair, let me pause here for a small Laura explanation: For the few of you who read this and know me...you may be thinking, "Laura and the state fair?"

This is a question I have pondered for three years my friends.

I love the smell of crisp cotton shirts floating on dark wooden hangers, soft wool trousers sashaying seductively on the rack, and leather handbags regally draped across entire department store walls. The melodious hum of the escalator soothes my aching soles and soul. The sweet high of bargin hunting, the thrill of the dressing room victory (in with eight, out with at least two purchases) and shoes truly make my mouth water.

After describing my refined taste, you may be surprised to learn that I desperately crave the glow of the midway as the tilt-a-whirl screetches round it's axis. I love the way your ankles sweat as you walk in and out of the rows of people without shirts, sporting sculpted mullets and portrait tatoos. I gauk at the vivid primary colors of the sky ride and it's riders as it traverses overhead from one fair end to the next, shoes, bags and tank tops hanging out of the steel basket. I savor the taste of grease on my lips after eating a corn dog, cheese curds and deep fried oreos. I come home with bags full of propagandic magnets for hospitals, political candidates, and lawn care businesses, posters for every Iowa college sport and smearing spin-arts. I climb gleefully up the stairs of a tractor with a wheel diameter taller than me, get my photo snapped seated in the driver's chair and quickly move to do so in the combine. I have, unconsciously, become a fair lover.

Don't get me wrong...I still complain about the heat, mock those wearing fanny packs too large to be called one and despise the smell of the sheep barn. I obviously prefer the Gap to the 4-H building, but I love the Iowa State Fair.

Blue ribbon winning Banana Peppers.

The glow of the setting sun through the sky ride.

The bright lights of fair nights.

Prize winning seed art. Next year I plan to top the category (although I think it's for teenagers)

Ah. The butter cow. Complete with Harry Potter glasses.

Bring on the butter cow...

The Iowa State Fair starts Thursday. I am churning with excitement.

Hello Iowa.

It is simply sweaty outside. I walked out of my apartment this morning and the hallway was foggy. It was like the dry air-conditioned air from my apartment escaped into the thick humidity of the hall and some sort of Meteorological phenomenon occured indoors. The miracle of the Iowa summer. As my weather lady says in the morning we are experiencing "weather you can wear" today. At least I'm inside, shoeless, sweat-free and working.

Oh Friday.

EB White said "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day."




I just love the idea of savoring the world.


I'll savor some of my world for you this weekend in photographs.
Enjoy a happy one.

(one of the many postcards sent this week!)

Today is poetry.

I woke up this morning to the sound of resurfacing road equipment dragging along the dewy pavement and clanking against the curb. My shower felt especially refreshing as the hot water steamed up the tiles, clearing my formally congested chest. I dressed in a jade colored sweater, piled on bright green mascara and slipped into my favorite nine west peep toe heels.
Hooray! I'm cured. Aside from a raspy voice (that Phoebe of Friends would truly admire) I am feeling like a new person today--I even lasted an entire day at the office!
It feels like a Thursday...tempting me with the approaching weekend. I can't wait to enjoy the early August sun this weekend.

A little Walt Whitman to get the health streak back on track:

"I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means."
(from Song of Myself)

That is awesome. simply awesome.
Happy August.

(did you know that august means "to be profoundly honored" like a revered holy man or king...ironic how most people hate August because it ends the sweet sweat of summer and starts the sticky first days of school where it is too hot to be in the linoleum coated classrooms...)

Sick of Sick.

ugh.
It's been a long while since my last post and, honestly, sadly, disappointingly, or whatever, not much has happened since then. As you have probably gathered, however, today I am feeling particularly sour because I'm still sick. It began Saturday, helping them move. I could feel the dust clinging to my pores and slowly coating my throat. I could feel the dry air, like daggers, scraping my throat at the onset of what the allergy medication box calls "itchy, watery eyes."
Sunday the "itchy, watery eyes" became warm, uncomfortable skin and thick, clogged chest. Monday was sweaty, shaky hands and stinging, deep cough. Today I'm feeling sharp, firey throat and sore, fatigued muscles. My love seat in the apartment has gotten smaller and smaller as the days have gone on and the movies I've watched (and there are a good eight) have gotten less funny...
It's time to get well.

I hope to have happier notes to report soon.

After failing color week, this one is for you JEN.

(Thursday)

(Friday)

(Saturday)

(Sunday)

and now...GREEN

nothing says green like the green monster...




the prettiest baby ever... oh Addison.

Waaaaay behind...but here's BLUE.

another picture of the interactive art center van gogh

my BLUE office phone. it's like a trophy i get to answer daily.

Yellow.

hulaseventy and friends are having a color week. i decided to participate.

fuzzy yellow tulips. sigh.

Life soundtrack.

So...if today were an imix...this is how it would "play out"

"Monday Monday" The Mamas and the Papas (although it isn't actually Monday, it feels like one with the fourth being a mid-week holiday)
"Love Song" Sara Bareillis (i'm addicted to her cd this week)
"Conga" Gloria Estefan (i have no idea why this has been in my head all day)
"The Rain" K-OS (just because it's brilliant, not because it's raining)

Just a few tunes from 8-3pm.
happy fifth of july.

Participation.

i'm not doing a very good job blogging these days. work is very busy with many deadlines approaching, but in honor of the art-filled sunday i had, i wanted to write a little bit.

this weekend was the Des Moines Arts Festival... under clear skies and sun, throngs descended upon des moines to celebrate and participate in art. the picture above is an "interactive" work of art. people created a piece of the van gogh paintings and they were put together to create larger than life collaborative creations. i spent hours weaving in and out of the artists' booths, longing to spend my entire paycheck on their wares. there were so many inspired pieces...i just had to share the links of a few i particularly enjoyed:

Michael Baxley won best in show and for good reason. his works are SO organic...and the mix of ceramics (which i constantly admire and cannot create) and "painting" is fresh, energetic and simply perfect. i spent a long time gauking over his bottle sets and the mixed media stuff.

i also really liked Steven and Cheryl Ward's booth...a husband and wife duo with a variety of creative talent. i was in awe of their prairie grass art. i honestly was entraced by it! hand painted cattail reeds laid side-by-side to create a spectrum unlike anything else at the art fest. Take a look and see for yourselves, but i must say- they are much more intriguing in person.

after a creative surge from new artists, i went to visit the old. the des moines art center has a Rothko i tend to visit occasionally, so after a warm day of art festing, i ducked into the air conditioning and admired the fields. (of color.)

Here's a card from the hulaseventy swap.

Hulaseventy postcard swap ...
Originally uploaded by palmer1007.

This is one of my favorite cards I sent out for the hulaseventy postcard swap this month. It has been so much fun not just to make the cards, send out the cards and receive them, but also to be able to see what other people are making and sending and receiving on flickr.
I can't wait to send some in the fall.

The Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
...
--Wordsworth
(read more of this light, summery wonder of a poem here. i read this over and over and over in high school...it's very airy.)

This summer postcard swap has gotten me back into poetry and artful reading...not just creating again.... hooray!

Edward Hopper.

Let's try to post this again...

Finally, a few moments of time to write about Hopper. Today was one of those days where I really felt like staying in bed for an eternity. (I did in fact lay around the house until 4pm!) I spent time flipping through my notes from Boston, both from my enlightening conference and the trip as a whole. I also walked through, for perhaps the twenty-third time, the book of postcards (or as I think of it, the cheap alternative to the exhibition's book) that I picked up at the museum book store.

The exhibit was set up in four rooms, each devoted to one or several periods of Hopper's visual eras. The rooms were packed with people speaking a multitude of languages, looking at the art close and from afar, dancing around each in search of a better view. I weaved my way through the maze of people, getting as close as I could to the paintings I had only seen in Mark Strand's book and those I had never had the priveledge of viewing. There is something magical about seeing the majority of an artist's life pasted on the walls, in the same place. I felt like I could truly SEE the progression, and the changes, and the strokes, and the beauty in each work as it related to the next.

Someone was saying
something about shadows covering the field, about
how things pass, how one sleeps towards morning
and the morning goes.

More soon, but for now, enjoy the poem above...the link features Mark Strand reading "From the Long Sad Party" of which this stanza is the first. These four lines describe some of Hopper's paintings....look at Cape Cod Morning

baby mia.

baby mia has arrived!! congratulations to my friends and their teeny, beautiful little girl!!

loooooong time.

I'm in Boston. (yes again) And have been for the last five days. I'm here for a work conference and must say, the city is incredible. Last time bad weather stunted our days but I've really enjoyed seeing Boston alone. There's something sad, but totally freeing about traveling and exploring a new place alone. I found myself (an admitted control freak) enjoying the idea of agenda-less wandering. I actually got lost, but for some reason it was funny rather than terrifying.
I have so much to write about the Hopper exhibit at the MFA, my travels, the "growth journey," a concept I have thought a lot about at this conference...and finally, the empowering and enlightening moments I've experienced in these last few days.

to the few people who may ever read this...stay tuned.

Found it.

Hooray! I COMPLETED four postcards last night and have found that those I initially threw out in disgust blossomed into final works. I like the idea of the process...if only I could have photographed each stage perhaps I could appreciate the end product more.

Regardless...I found it. The creative energy is back.

The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful

state which makes art inevitable.

(Thank you Mr. Robert Henri. Inevitable is one of my very favorite words.)

Nothing screams "whatta weekend" like a skull shaped wine goblet.

I found myself sick on Friday...yuck...who gets sick on a Friday? Sick days should be used on a Tuesday or Wednesday, never at the birth of a weekend.

Here's a photo of my sick self, medicinally drinking wine with my two dear friends. If liquid tylenol allegry sinus tasted as fresh and summery as reisling, I'd probably be feeling healthier today than I am, but alas, if you have a skull goblet, you must partake in a night of watching You Got Served (it's true, we watched it) and white wine with your girlfriends.

I've been working on card after card for the hula seventy summer postcard swap and I have to say, I'm not terribly pleased with my creative juices. I need some summer inspiration I guess. I have tried flowers and yellow and even Paul Celan (a poet I formerly despised).

I suppose some of the work is lovely, but it needs to be sticky with Iowa morning humidity and drunk with strawberry lemonade. They should be fresh with the smells new soil and daisies, colored with backyard furniture and croquet, and dripping with sunscreen.

If only my art could be as beautiful as my metaphors.

(PS- Thank you google image search.)

More postcards.

A drawing of my bathroom sink and mirror. I made two of these...sent to Nicole and Chadwick.

Sent to Marisa. I do wish she was here.

it's a beautiful day...

a delicious orange on a splendid day.

free people travel swap!

Here's the package I sent to Laurie in Illinois!

It's a little "Iowa" to send East.

(Iowa gift tags, a sketch book, an Iowa map, a car freshner for the road trip, and a cheesy novel to giggle about along the way.)

Birthday thank you notes...

I love making my own cards.
I love writing notes to friends. Especially thank you notes.
These are the notes I'm sending as postcards for my most recent birthday...

"Tank you very much!!"