136/menopause

when i was a kid i thought menopause meant a "pause from men". i'm happy to say there were still men in my life durring menopause. mostly it was uneventful.  i had some sweating episodes but nothing more unpleasant than that.
the worst was accepting that my child bearing years were over.  there was no more waiting for the proverbial right time.the choice was made.  that door had been bolted.

135/gardens

When i lived in California i had a vegetable garden. i grew tomatoes, three kinds of lettuce,peppers, cucumbers and corn. it was hard work and very gratifying. i loved going to the backyard to pick dinner.
i grew flowers, too..cana and calla lilies, gladiolas, impatients, mini carnations. i grew lavender, sage, thyme and mint.
the mint threatened to take over the whole plot.
hard to write about gardens without getting homesick for california.

now i have an indoor garden of green plants mostly grown from cuttings.

134/change

change is the only thing consistent in life.  i've come to find that out the hard way.
i can't say i'm a huge fan of change, but i've tried to make some peace with its inevitability.
there were times i would wonder would my life EVER change.  sure enough it did and most times
i never saw it coming.

133/magic

top hats and rabbits, card tricks, voo-doo,white magic.  the world is filled with magic of all sorts.
i 've never really studied magic...i like the feeling of awe in not knowing how something is done.  i don't really want to know how to make people disappear........well, maybe some...

profile of chaos

oil on canvas

132/mugs

i've had a lot of favorite mugs over the years. "a moment enjoyed is never wasted" one early mug proclaimed. i love that sentiment.  i bought it at the old A & S store in downtown brooklyn.
i had some great hand built mugs...mostly cat motifs.  One cat mug was striped and fat and its tail made up the handle.
barbara had the exact same mug, 3,000 miles away.
i have two mugs i use regularly these days.  one is a row of victorian houses; the other a pink, i love lucy mug.

131/California

ah, california, what do i say about that great state?  the only place other than brooklyn that i've ever called home. 18 years is a long time. i thought i would never leave, but life has a way of changing plans in mid stream and now california is just a memory for me.
one of the things i miss most are the freeways...that tangle of roads representing the ultimate freedom to me.

#130/Trash

i love the whole concept of making something out of some one's trash. i have lots of neat trash in my house for art projects i don't quite get around to.  I have a bunch of gages and tubes from Bill's air conditioning days.  i don't have the space to build something around these gages, but they are too neat to throw out.

free write 129/spirit

ethereal.  spirits are everywhere.

spirit is holy; that part in us that rejoices.
spirit is the light insdie of us.

spirit is the astral body moving in different dimensions.

128/poetry

I used to read a lot of good poetry.  Wallace Stevens, for one, but far too many good poets to mention by name.  I was in love with poetry for a long time; reading it, writing it, attending poetry readings.  i had some poems published, but looking back on my poems, i can't imagine why.
there is something so concise about poetry when it works.  it is so exciting to read the exact right words, or a line remembered...
"and for what except for you do i feel love..."

127/cigar boxes

cigar boxes are neat items.  i remember asking the candy store owner to save them for me.  they were cardboard with a flip top.  the best one were made of wood with little hinges.  both kinds are good for crafts. i used to decoupage them with magazine cutouts or old greeting cards.  some artists made purses out of them.  i use them to hold my treasured junk.

126/locks and keys

i have a small collection of antique skeleton keys and one small lock.  I love keys because they are about opening.
locks say keep out, there is something worth protecting here, stay away.  you need the right key to unlock them.

on a photo walk one time, i found myself repeatedly taking pictures of locks. I'd been attracted to the textures but not away of the symbolism at the time.

125/Power

"all power corrupts" that was the theme of alan paton's "cry, the beloved country", a book i read in high school and miraculously, still remember.  history does seem to support the notion.
then there's personal power, which i never much get in touch with in myself.  maybe i've taken the power corrupts words too literally.
money is power.  another power i don't relate to.

124/pottery

i have some really fine pottery pieces, mostly the work of my friend Judy Gregg.  My favorite piece is a sager fired bowl, which means, i believe, that the pot is wrapped in seaweed and is fired at a lower temperature resulting in a mat finish with delicate markings.

i have a big round pitcher in a cool beige glaze.  some bowls, some goblets, plates, bottles, a funeral urn in shades of gray like the ashes used to create it.

123/journals

i kept a journal from the time i was 11 years old till i was in my 40's.  i filled many pages in fancy journals,diaries,composition notebooks, drawing books and even some spiral notebooks.  I had a lot to say back in my early days  Youthful angst took up a lot of pages and crushes, romances and true love did too.  Anger and frustration also spilled from my pen.  needs and doubts and dreams were crammed in those books with blank pages.I have shelves full of journals in my house, many illustrated with stoned doodlings to accompany the rambling prose.
over the past ten years i've tried to keep a journal several times, but only made a couple of entries before abandoning them.

122/astrology

My sign is cancer, the crab, and i am very much like that.  reclusive to a degree and with a tendency to be, well, crabby. Home loving and maternal; creative and posessive.
i seem to attract mostly gemini's tho i get along better with other water signs (scorpio, pisces, other crabs) and earthy taurus people.
i don't know how accurate astrology is on a day to day basis but i find it interesting and some people really fit the characteristics of their signs.
in Chinese astrology i come from the year of the dragon.   i don't know much about that.

121/the boardwalk

so many boardwalks, so little time!

i've walked a lot of boardwalks from Coney Island to Santa Monica's Venice Beach.  Boardwalks are a favorite subject to paint. I like them most in winter when only the diehards are there;most of the concession stands closed for the season; a few polar bears getting ready for a dip.

120/food

i've had a love/hate (mostly love) relationship with food all my life.  In my youth i was always dieting, but pretty much i eat what i want these days.
tonight i had cold asian sesame noodles for the first time. really good.

119/the beach

its been a long time since i've felt the sand under my feet.  years.  i can barely remember the feel of the wet sand oozing between my toes, wave upon wave cascading over my ankles, as i walked the beach at Coronado.
i've been feeling the need for cool, damp sand and some ocean water.
artistically, the beach is comprised of three planes, sky, earth and ocean.

118/cigarettes

there were times when i felt like a cigarette was my best friend.  someone told me that once and i thought, how sad.  but i understand it on some level.  a smoke will always be there for you, unless of course, you run out...something i try to never let happen.

117/UFOs

I've never really experienced a UFO but i believe, like angels, that they exist.
"Flying saucers" they used to say in the old movies.
Roswell is more than what the government lets on, i think, tho probably not as much as the tabloids claim to know.
I know nothing of unidentified flying objects....every plane overhead is an unidentified flying object to me.
Extra terrestials are probably here among us...with the angels and the spirits here it is a crowded planet.

116/Music/the kohn concert

listening to jarrett is like being swept away on warm breezes from an open window.  Piercingly real and familiar all these years later.  an exquisite poignancy.  this music takes me back to chula vista, circle mid 80's.  riding in tom's volkswagon van...the warm breeze from the window; mountains ahead on the open road we coveted.

Jarrett curls his body around the piano with each sweet note.

115/Color

I've been in love with color since my first crayon. Color plays a signifigant role in my work; i rely on color over form.
there are two main color theories if i remember correctly, but i don't think that i do.  the sum of all color is black.  the absence of all color is black.  i'm not sure about this at all.
I have been working today with crimson...layering it over darks, rendering new shapes.
I'm in a painting mode, the words aren't flowing.

114/Central Park

If you've never been to Central Park you can't imagine how big it is.
When i was young i went to concerts in Central Park all the time.  I remember seeing Don McClean and Harry Chapin and others i can't remember any more.
Can't mention Central Park without talking about that great Alice in Wonderland sculpture.
Its been a long time since i visited Central Park.
I met David Lambert there when i was 16.  We held hands walking along the pathways and kissed behind a tree.

113/favorite cats

There are favorites among favorites and that would be Bud.  A maine coon, born in my studio in san diego, his mother a wayward stray who found her way thru the always open attic window.
Bud's markings were tabby like with thick long hair.  He posessed an enlightened conciousness and a quiet intellect.  And he had the best purr,ever.  He was a very vocal animal and grand conversations took place between me and him and his brother wilson.

Bud was my pillow every night.  i slept with my face on his belly.  He was good to wake up to, too.  i miss him still. no creature, human or otherwise has ever loved me like that cat.

free write 112/the circus

i'm not a big fan of the greatest show on earth.  i like the trapeze people best,flying across the rafters, their bodies contorted.  the clowns can be okay, but some of them are spooky.  the animal acts don't impress me, i don't like seeing animals do unnatural tricks...and don't even get me started about their care.
the popcorn and souvenirs are fun, tho.

free write 111/Lighthouses

When i was a little kid in sunday school there was a lighthouse bank.When you put coins in it the tower lit up. It was there that the allure of lighthouses began for me. 
I've visited a few real life light houses and they are always charming and romantic.  i would love to live in one.

#110/Sculpture

My immediate response to the topic of sculpture is to think of Henry Moore's immense figures.  Huge, solid, monumental forms depicting family;the most tender of subjects; larger than life and so touching.
Then again there's nothing a
Brancusi's polished bronze...the form simple and elegant.

Picasso's sculpture appeals to me a lot.  i like that sensibility of making art out of junk.

109/Gateways

In my whole life I only lived in one home that had an actual gateway.  it was a victorian carriage house in san diego with a six foot high ,rustic wooden gateway. 
we used to open the gates for company, but rarely.
Gateways can be magical portals.  mine wasn't.  it had a lock and key.

freewrite #108/newspapers

I'm not a newspaper reader any more.  I use newspaper mostly for craft projects, to iron out wax in batik or layer between sheets of fabric.
When I was a teenager i wanted to wall paper my bedroom in Chinese newspapers.

I used to enjoy reading the sunday TIMES with its great arts & leisure section and the review of books.  i remember morning sitting outside with coffee and the paper.
I loved the Village Voice when i was way young and they had better writers.

107/paper lanterns

I remember making paper lanterns in grade school.  Cut from construction paper and pasted together  I thought they were really neat.
Then there's backyard paper lanterns which i can't get enough of.
Also those rice paper lanterns that i love so much.  I have two of them but i can't use them with the electrical fixtures here.