A Surprise from Teresa E.

This enchanting little miss awaited me in the mail last night. She was delivering a message of welcome from Teresa E., with my newly-joined art group, An Affair with Art. As I told Teresa, I am adopting this wee lassie's idea of carrying a gold-glitter topped wand, albeit mine will be invisible! Isn't she wonderful?

Missy Higgins - New Music Alert!!!

The first song is evidently already #1 in her homeland, Australia ... as for me, I discovered this on MSN's Listening Booth at 5:59 this morning and have been playing it over and over since. This first song, "Where I Stood", is conjuring floating, sad, urgent word-strings from me, and here I am at work where I can't capture them! Oh, this song is a beautiful beautiful thing!

My 'Anonyrrie Phase' Begins

You must begin with Anonyrrie herself to understand from whence my enrapture came. This link will presently also take you directly to her February 22, 2008 entry in which she explains how her canvases are born -- as a journal page, an experiment with background, texture, color, whimsy, pattern, technique, media -- along with their subsequent transformation to 'piece'. All of this went down my creative throat like pure spring water. Yes! Yes, this is it! And so last night, I began. This background has 4 layers already. I'm starting to 'see' what it might become, but am holding back from predetermining anything! This is a loose journal page - I canNOT work on something this elaborate when it's attached to a binding.

Toast: Poetry Journal

This is how one of my poetry journals progresses.

The Lost Children of Kenya’s Political Violence

[Photo Credit: Bernat Armangue/AP]

Seeing this photo/article this morning hit me as if my piece for Illustration Friday: Multiple came alive. On one of the comments I received, the question was posed: "How much house do we really need?" I have so MUCH house - I look at this photo and ask how many of these lost children, or other lost children, or entire families, could I actually invite to share that space? We have rooms we don't even use except to stack laundry that awaits folding. Makes me feel so ridiculously ... frivolous, consumeristic, wasteful! And I wouldn't have to go outside of the US, or even beyond Phoenix' city limits, to find those needing help.

Toast Catalog: Poetry Journal

Yesterday, I posted this picture and presented this bound 'catalog' as my new poetry journal. I got a few questions about what that means -- will there be art? Is it a regular journal?
This is an example of what will become of these catalog pages. Because I find the photos within so evocative, so personal to my dreamscapes and daydreams, I'm just going to write out the poetry and/or prose lines that come to me as I contemplate each picture. Not every entry will be this long ... sometimes it's just a word, for now, but then later a paragraph ... as for adding art, I may do some of that to cover over parts of the catalog I don't respond to.

Illustration Friday: Multiple - Details

Two beds -- sleeping how many? Thin muslin 'blankets'. One crappy window hacked out of the cardboard wall, covered with a strip of muslin. One 'table', for all activities? An attempt at brightness with the 'rug'.

Illustration Friday: Multiple

Multiple: Multiple Family Home, in so many parts of the world.

Corrugated cardboard, muslin, brads, cut-up wooden matchboxes, acrylic paint, India ink, walnut ink, paint texturizer, twine, cut piece of wooden skewer as curtain rod, handpainted paper (rug, bed coverings beneath muslin 'blankets').

I've Been Tagged!!

I've been tagged by Sue at Lily Pepper!! Here are the rules:

1 - Link back to the person who tagged me.
2 - Post these rules on my blog.
3 - Share 6 unimportant things about myself.
4 - Tag 3 random bloggers at the end of my blog entry.
5 - Let tagged people know by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Here are 6 things you never needed to know about me...

1 - While the majority of 'myself' is, of course, flawless, I am capable of wafting some seriously stinky feet [if left unmonitored]!
2 - For a while "back in the day", I dated Tommy Hearns. I also slow danced once with Magic Johnson but I didn't know who he was at the time. [But that dance is what turned me into a rabid Lakers fan all during the late 70's and 80's, though!] And I also have John-Boy Walton's autograph - NEENER!
3 - My ears are pierced three times each, and I've got a belly button ring. I also have five tattoos and I'm not sure I'm done yet.
4 - I'm petrified of snakes, and of heights - especially heights over water.
5 - I think sweet potatoes are God's worst creative and/or culinary mistake.
6 - I believe utterly in: Herbie the Love Bug, Mermaids, and the power of visualization.

I am tagging:
1 - Patty at Magpie's Nest - her blog is new to me, her art is slobber-certified!
2 - Juana @ Juana's Tiny Spacio - also a new blog to me and I'm savoring it slowly! Juana is also a fellow Arizonan!
3 - Gillian at The Fading Rose -- a third new-to-me blog and lush lush LUSCIOUS!

Altered Book: A Sense of Place

The Yahoo group I belong to, An Affair with Art, will be having an altered book swap/exchange soon. I went book-hunting at Good Will and found 2 volumes I liked. My theme is from a song title I randomly read: A Sense of Place. Non-descript little cover, size is 5x7. And the backgrounds are starting to go in. So relaxing...


I have to say how surprised I am, though, that the 'sense of place' emerging from me is not an ocean/beach environment at all, but this garden of yellow roses, sienna & green & gold & yellow & ivory. I had no idea! that's what I would start creating.

New Poetry Journal

Please meet my new poetry journal. I requested this catalog from Toast ... when it came, when I looked through it, I couldn't stand to hurt it, rip it apart, anything like that. So I asked my buddy Doug, here at work, to drill me some holes and then I put these sturdy brads through - voila! A journal! Every image seems to be directly from a mental moment, a dream, a fantasy, a wish. Below are some examples.

GO JAVIER!!!!!

Desert Vista

Tihs just in from my bro', Chris: "Here're some desert shots for ya'!

I went out by myself today looking for a WWII airplane crash site. Near Big Horn Peak (20 miles northwest of Tonopah off I-10). Was a big T-6 radial trainer out of Luke Air Force Base on a night navigation mission , 14 March 1945. Pilot got trapped in this box canyon and crashed - he didn't survive.

Closest I could get to it in the truck was 2.5 miles over 4-wheel drive roads. Hiking in, I had to cross numerous deep gullies and ravines. The last one below the crash site was like the autobahn with 80-100 foot cliffs on either side.

Neatest thing was the huge cholla cactus ("jumping cactus") forest I had to cross. It was a half-mile wide & long. I have so many cholla thorns in my boots it'll take me an hour to pull them all out! I havent seen a cholla forest this thick before. See the photo and you'll know what I mean.

Big Horn Peak looks more like a Big Hoof to me.... But it is very stark and ominous -- shoots out of the desert floor straight up. It is so steep I could barely keep my footing. The upper half is just pure cliffs. You can see it easily from I-10 west of Tonopah on the way to L.A.

The airplane appears to have impacted in a slight, level climb, actually impacting twice, then flipping over off with it's nose inverted. He was 400-500+ feet from clearing the mountains and didn't have a chance.

Must've been a moonless night..." Big Horn Peak. The Cholla Forest. Crash site. The final resting place for this airman. Close-up of wreckage.

ATTENTION SBS 11 SISTAHS

Now that we have our group solidified, I'm going to re-issue a request I made earlier.

I'd like to assemble a list of everyone's emails, favorite colors, things we each love, collect, etc., and mailing addresses. I have heard from a couple of you, but I'm sending this out again and hoping for a response from everyone. You can email your info privately at antoniafufu@yahoo.com

My Current 'Community' of Books - for Theresa K.

Theresa K. left such an insightful comment to me recently: "Don't you just hate it when a funk settles over your spirit? What have you been reading? What have you been doing to get your "happy" back? I'm intriqued by your idea of something "gestating." I like to reread my journals to track the thought processes that preceeded the big events and the births of special things that have happened in my life. I wonder what is gestating in your life right now. Isn't it interesting how often difficult times are followed by spurts of mental/spiritual awakenings?" I just love how many directions my mind traveled, after reading that. Just the suggestion to go re-read my journals -- something I rarely, if ever, do, except for use in creative writings ... what a phenomenally great idea for finding the path that brought me 'here'.

So, in answer to at least one of her questions, below are pictures of the covers of the five books I'm head-down into right now. Talk about synchronicity. I was invited to join an online group called An Affair with Art, and the current project I'm stepping into (by orders of their leader, Jeri, also one of my SBS 11 sistahs) is an altered book. This is a captivatingly lighthearted presentation of some serious creativity nuggets. What an amazing author! And this? This is the one book I can't live without, the one book I would take if I were to be stranded on a desert island, the book I intend at some point to do an entire series of art pieces about.

Note: I just ordered a used hardback copy of this off Amazon, and I'm going to use it for my altered book for An Affair With Art. Never mind 'at some point' -- NOW is the time to start arting my responses to this amazing story.

Word Verification

I had to give in and add 'word verification' to my comment settings -- I've been getting hit with several obnoxious spam comments. I had hoped to avoid this but alas! Just wanted to give everyone a head's up.

In the Morning

In the morning, the prayer blooms, grace arrived from a much-needed dreamless sleep through to a dawn potent with glittering hope, sparkling ideas, notes from friends, the welcome swat of my kitten's paw. How different seems the sky now. A new light illuminates my vine-tangled corners, and sings & sings like all the birds, up early in the trees. I feel awakened, awakened.

Inside Phoenix, & Me

Rain. A winter-Williamsburg sky, like raw pewter being hammered, and with scraps of lint from the artisan's polishing cloth scattered thru. Misty, like my thoughts. And strange, alien shapes, pods of unopened growth, scratching the horizon, obscuring the view, but there. There. Coming along slowly. Maybe the rain, watering them, will finally open them, revealing me to me.

Surprise from SBS 11 Sistah Carla!

Look what was waiting for me in the mail last night! I didn't open it until this morning because I was running around with my two male children. I'm taking this as a sign -- "All Fired Up" -- that my Mojo is just around the corner! THANK YOU, MS. CARLA!! And also for your comments about my envelope -- alas, I didn't take any scans of it and now I can't remember what I did (how embarrassing!) Can you send me a scan to refresh my blond head?

Journal Entry

Soul weary, I am. "Rote" is the parasite in my limbs, killing my spirit. That drive out to the desert with Chris, Cam, Ciera and Mom reminded me there are more expansive vistas. I crave them -- internally, especially. I read powerful books on creativity [not just art, but LIFE], then I sit on the patio and kvetch in my journal and sit staring off into the sky. Is something new gestating within? Or am I really lacking oxygen here in a stagnant pond? I am awaiting fruit from this dry barren place.

Exhaustion

The last 10 or 12 days have found me just -- exhausted -- in a spiritual, psyche, DNA kinda way. Can't stand to be in my journal, don't know what to do in my studio, frustrated by the dead-end stagnation of my professional life, just in one of those fallow, tide-is-out stages. I know it'll all surface again so instead of arguing with it, I'm just doing lots of reading, and sitting outside on our backyard patio watching the changing sky. [Googled image]

Here is my message from The Universe for today: "Ever notice, Antonia, that in the long run, those who don't eventually go "within," often go "without."

You got the power,
The Universe

Illustration Friday: THEORY

Theory: "Men and women can't be friends."

Cardboard base, acrylic paint, cut-out silhouettes, alphabet stencils.

Thank You Card for Miss Melissa

I woke up on last Thursday morning to a fresh rose tucked into the pottery jug next to my kitchen sink, a surprise from Sweet Melissa! Front of card - this is a template I pulled from the SBS weblog. I'm finding these templates to be SO helpful for me! And this is the front of the envelope. Miss Melissa is one of the most stylish women I know - I thought this lady cutout depicted that! Inside card, backside envelope.

Twin Hands & Feet