Visiting friends

In spite of scarce time, I make it a point to visit my favorite friends' (blogs) every week to see what gifts they may have found along their way. This morning I stumbled upon the comments on Susan's blog and some of the poetry some of her friends had contributed:

I woke from a dream

warm open lyrics

rising gently

flowinglike music’s breath

a precious poet’s sweet grasping voice

howls tender joys

miles timeless clouds

like blessed kisses

on cheeks and faces

held in delicate hopes

until sweet night

and empty darkness

meets yellow light

and morning calm

Roberta

Catherine's Romeo and Juliet Collage for the Altered Art Challenge

and Susan's Haiku? sort of

his heart

wondrous

rare as red sea glass

and mine

the maiden soft

with shadows in her midst

replenishes her stream of Hope

with subtle gifts

of burnished threads

and folded treasured cloths

outcasting all her woes

on us

the kindred ghosts

rustling beside her

written to Cathy Cullis about a month ago

Hallows Eve

Shrine to my son Cristobal (Christopher) There are days when I want to make make make things. I have too many ideas that never come to fruition and I keep forgetting to write them down. Right now it's the sewing mood. Winter always finds me knitting or sewing. .Although I've been trying to draw a little a day, practicing those faces and bodies, not easy when you've never been a drawer. Reading tons too. I just finished "My Antonia" and began "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" two classics (both really worth it) I missed reading in school and have "Alice in Wonderland" just in case I can't find the one I'm reading.

Carved the pumpkin today at the last minute since I have been in bed most of the week kicking the cold. Soon the knock kncoking will start and I'll get to see all the neighborhood munchkins in their fantasy costumes. www.flickr.com/photos/ruthbruin2002/283147320/

Challenges

Two weeks of challenges have brought out creative results in me that I didn't know I had. I have never been a glitter or bling person yet Mamma's Challenge on Flickr really pushed me to explore and luckily I had received a package from a swap in Australia which had all the right stuff.

The creative "block" happens to most of us, thus these ideas by others have really helped in avoiding stagnation.

I have committed to a few more before the end of the year, the Playing Deck ATC swap on ZNE, the leaf making for a collective and a Secret Sister Swap for X-mas. I cannot commit further since I get all mixed up as the deadlines and the shipping addresses and fear the wrong items will be mailed to the worng recipients.

Believe it or not, this is what the sky looked like from the back terreace today. It seems like it wants to rain but it's waiting till Halloween is over so the kids don't miss out again like last year.

Bedridden

First cold of the season and I was hit. I've been bedridden for three days now, shivers, itchy throat and ears tingling. So I've had to keep myself busy with the little odds and ends I could manage to fit on my bed.

I started this fabric collage in ecrus and whites that I had envisioned a long time ago with all the little found objects I have collected over the years. Reminds me of the time, way back in the late 70's when I handsewed an 8x10 collage of only tags from clothing. I've always been one to see art in the oddest things. People must think I've lost it when I feel I've actually been found.

I also started a poetry book a few days ago with a paper mache book I aged. It is hollowed out and illustrated poems will be added as I remember my favorites. This lead me to think of a great community project where I will hit the streets as "The Culture Vulture" and paste all sorts of odds and ends around town. Camarillo is a very bland insipid little town with so much potential. It has the best restaurants of any small town I have ever lived in and is designed so that everything is conveniently distanced from the residential areas. Then we have the ocean close by and mountains and equidistances to Ventura and Thousand Oaks. So all in all, all it's missing is a burst of culture.

Momentum

I hadn't been creating anything for the online shop so decided I could try my hand at a few small handcrafted possible presents to list for the upcoming giving season. This Christmas will probably not be too good but we can always swap these things later if they don't sell or donate them to Tatiana's school for the Bazaar. I really enjoyed altering this paper mache box with an ATC and a mini cab on the side. I am working on a papier mache book too filled with hand printed poems and artwork which I will share tomorrow.

Cortando Papelitos

Me encantan los desafios. Me inscribi en un grupo basado en Inglaterra en que nos piden que creamos una mini obra de no mas de 3.5 x 2.5 dado un tema una vez a la semana. Esta semana el tema era simplemente blanco y negro y esta es la locurita con que termine. Claro que la hice pasada la una de la manana con mas de una cerveza atacando la cabeza. Pero la verdad es que me encanto.

Spanglish

Esto de tener doble nacionalidad..... se siente como una doble personalidad. Sobretodo que es lo Sajon mezclado con lo Latino. No seria tan marcada la diferencia si fuera una mezcla Europea o solo de sangre latina; vivo entre dos mundos y se nota. Hay dias que soy netamente inglesa, coleccionando tacitas de te, inventando un jardin salvaje, otras me suelto como una loca apasionada y bailo hasta el amanecer, escuchando canciones romanticas o leyendo poesias intensas de Gonzalo Rojas.

Amo esos dos mundos por igual; la sutileza del ingles y el desenfreno del latino en un mismo cuerpo balanceandose como un pendulo sobre la llama.

Having dual citizenship feels like a split personality. Especially since it is an Anglo Saxon and Latin mix. The split wouldn't be as marked if it were a mix of only European heritage or a blend of Latin; I live between two worlds and it is noticeable. There are days when I am eminently English, collecting tea cups and inventing my wild garden, others I let down my hair, hang loose and dance like a fool until the break of dawn, listening to romantic songs or reading intense poetry by Gonzalo Rojas.

I love those two worlds equally; the subtlety of the English and the total Latin abandon all in one body swinging like a pendulum above the flame.

This has become my Sanctuary

In the beginning it was my diaries. Then small annotations in leather notebooks, quotes, lists of things to do, goals, clippings from magazines, a sort of scrapbook. Then just poems copied meticulously in my pretty handwriting, one for them and one for us. Then a few years of silence, working hard, the e-bay store, etsy, Flickr. Today this is my sanctuary, a corner where I can retreat and talk to myself, sort things out, look back, begin anew. Here I can rage and rant, whisper sweet nothings, go in circles and let it all out. And, in a way, leave a written record of the "happenings" in my life and the family.

Very few of my earlier writings have survived over the years. The one thing I regret loosing the most is the diary I made starting when I was around 14. I still remember how I treasured that thick messy notebook and all the drawings I pencilled in. It had a whole section on the coup in Chile and the first days after Pinochet. I hope it surfaces one day and someone has the dignity to return it to me. I have a feeling it got lost at the flooding of the house in La Reina.

Hopefully no satellite meltdown will occur because all these blogs will be time capsule memories for those who find them when we are gone. I've often wondered how that would be. What would the archeologists of the future find of ours. Lots and lots of trash for starters, the kind that will not biodegrade. And such odd looking things. Will they end up in a museum like the relics we have found from previous civilizations? We are the generation of excess and accumulation so a lot of sorting. What kind of picture will they come up with?

Los heraldos negros

Hay golpes en la vida tan fuertes . . . ¡Yo no se!Golpes como del odio de Dios; como si ante ellos;la resaca de todo lo sufrido se empozara en el alma¡Yo no se! Son pocos; pero son . . . abren zanjas oscuras en el rostro mas fiero y en el lomo mas fuerte,Serán tal vez los potros de bárbaros atilas;o los heraldos negros que nos manda la Muerte Son las caídas hondas de los Cristos del alma,de alguna adorable que el Destino Blasfema,Esos golpes sangrientos son las crepitaciones de algún pan que en la puerta del horno se nos quema Y el hombre....pobre...¡pobre!Vuelve los ojos,como cuando por sobre el hombro nos llama una palmada;vuelve los ojos locos,y todo lo vivido se empoza, como charco de culpa,en la mirada. Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes . . . ¡Yo no se! Cesar Vallejo

And Sunday

Some weekends are perfect and these two days were exactly that. Mid October and we still have the most gorgeous weather I can recall in the last few years. So we took off, the whole family, minus Jon and Tatiana who always have the misfortune of having to work weekends, to Topanga to visit Martin and Andrea. Loaded with salmon and lox, salame and Rondele cheese and Pita crackers, lots of drinking water, lemon and chocolate cake and jam, cantaloupe, honedew melons and strawberries we created a feast and had a country luncheon all gathered outside in Andrea's garden. Max swung on the tree rope swing entertaining us the whole while as we chatted about our earliest childhood memory. Richard was such a charm, wearing his straw hat and looking The Godfather at the head of the table.

Going to Topanga is really getting away from it all. I love it up there and love Andrea more and more as I get to know her better. She is warm and earthy and intelligent and is really making my brother and Tyler happy.

After lunch, we took a hike up the road and crossed a fence to climb all the way to the top of the Santa Monica mountains. Miracle that I was able to make it. The climb itself was spectacular, but the summit was breathtaking especially because of the time of day we got there. The sun was hitting the hills at the perfect time, bringing out all the colors of Nature.

Happy Saturday Morn

Morning broke out with a crisp breeze, and surprises from Chile (Andres called on Skype) and Santa Paula (Bill called from the mountain) and home (Richard called from his laptop). Different. All different.

I should be out walking or riding my bike, the day is so gorgeous to be indoors but I had been wanting to change my banner so here I am doodling on the computer. It's done, maybe need to play around a little more with what I want the images to be but for now I am content.

Have been sewing my fingers to the bone. Making that nap blanket all by hand with woolen fabrics and applique of all the things I haven't sold. Thought they would make a nice reminder of all the things I sewed one year or two. Last night I embroidered the blue and white owl which will be sewn to the blanket later this evening.

I have re-thinking my Flickr uploads too, pondering whether to delete most of the photos and leave only those I really feel proud off and archive the rest. When I look back on some of my creations I can sometimes be so self-critical and say to myself "what was I thinking" or I went too fast on that one, especially the journal. I think I just wanted to get it done fast, when I could have made it an ongoing project. I have thought of starting another, but the last one really took a lot out of me so maybe I will just stick to a new idea which is a poetry book with illustraions and paintings.

Now off for that walk with my camera to find more faces.