Weeding

Oh my.  We’ve had great rain.  And the weeds have GONE WILD. 

Though I avoid weeding (hot, makes me ach-y, it’s the pcik-up-after-weeding that really bites), I love the results.  I’ll be taking myself with a cocktail and a dog in a bit, and I’ll go wander around the garden.  I’ll completely forget about how much stuff came out of the beds today, because it’ll look so fantastic, all airy and colorful and really, really happy.  And then, you know what?  I’ll spy a whole patch of weeds I missed.  How did that happen???

There are always more weeds.  The rain afforded me the pleasure of being able to actually pull weeds out of the gravel and get the roots.  I’m delighted. 

But, all that weeding, 5 hours of weeding, and I still have the backside of the center island and a good 1/4 of the front garden.  Though I’m quite certain I’ll be digging out a tick or two over the next couple of days, I’m happy that my weeding experience was spider- and snake-free.  Surprising, really, considering where I spend the first half of the day.

I worked on the beginning of a new piece last night.  It has to do with sexuality.   I began building a collage of images that I believe will eventually be deconstructed and incorporated underneath areas of tempered or plate glass.
 

I was a little worried as I began this piece. My sexual past, my youth, particularly, but also into my mid-years, were angry and difficult. Each time I do a piece that deals with a difficult issue, something that I’ve kept buried within one of those layers, a secret… the viewer doesn’t know it, but they are standing in front of my nakedness. This partcular piece will wind up being so much more than about me, but this part of it, this collage, is very personal. I’m not sure how many of the weeds I’ll actually be removing this time. I like where it is right now, visually, perhaps with some glitzy stuff added for sparkly interest within its glass tomb. There’s lots of places I can go with this topic. The weeds are waist-high.

July 6th, 2008 Posted by Virginia | change, creative process, garden, journaling, mosaic, secrets, sexuality | no comments

Layers

I completed my first layered piece today.

Now, that’s funny.  My first layered piece.  Heck, I’ve been layering and mixing and blending forever.

There IS something different about this piece, though.

There’s something different about where I think this work is headed.

This piece is called “Secrets”.  I have lots of secrets.  I have secrets I don’t even know about.  They keep revealing themselves to me.

Life is one layer after another.  From one moment to the next, a new secret is revealed.  I remember so vivdly, when I was very young, playing in front of Anne Carpenter’s house, right at and around that HUGE Magnolia tree, and stepping with a bare foot on a magnolia leaf that was hiding a big fat bubble bee, who had become totally entranced with the fallen flower under that leaf.  My tiny bare foot was just enough to startle him from his dizzy pleasure, and he stung the living wee out of me.  Not exactly poetry revealed, but a lesson that I have never forgotten.

July 2nd, 2008 Posted by Virginia | change, creative process, growth, layers, life in italics, thoughts | 5 comments

Fab cabs

Robyn commented in a recent post, asking for details on the fab cabs… these are they.  They came from Kathy Scherr at Maryland Mosaics. 

Aren’t they fab?  When I collected my stash from her display at SAMA, I really didn’t know for sure how I would use them, or if I even would.  And then a container of this chopped up china caught my eye & I knew just how I might use a few. 

So I decorated this vase 

and I shipped it along with this piece, which uses some tropical patterned china.

July 2nd, 2008 Posted by Virginia | creative process, materials, mosaic | 2 comments

just…

Days have been filled with real estate.  Mornings and evenings and nights with art.

I’ve been journaling.

I’ve been collecting.

I’ve been creating. (grouted a new vase last night, using some delicious vintage cabs)

I’ve been reading.  I purchased the book, The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson.  CLICK HERE for the link to the exhibition, for which this catalogue was produced.  The biggest problem I’m having is that I can’t “just read” it … I am compelled to take copious notes. 

June 26th, 2008 Posted by Virginia | creative process | one comment

Celebrating 25!

Yesterday, June 25th, marked our 25th wedding anniversary. 

No time to stop and think too much about it, but we’ll be going away for a couple of days on Friday.  Hard to believe.

June 26th, 2008 Posted by Virginia | thoughts | one comment