My Perfect Outing
Every day, I mentally try to force the chaos of the day into the paradigm of floating zen music bowls rather than a highway pile up in the fog. By taking several deep breaths in a kind of impromptu meditation, I can usually force down the daily irritations. However, at roughly high noon, I need release from the physical, emotional, and mental attention that my family requires of me.
Now and then, the camera gods give me a sign. Today it was a drop of water hitting the burgeoning clematis outside my glass door. The way the leaf shivered was like a rippling chime echoing through my mind telling me that I should observe some quiet wonders the outdoor world always offers. With that need pulling me through the morning, I herded my children into a state of relative outing-readiness and fled the house before the countdown precipitated by diaper-cleanliness and belly-emptiness forced me back indoors.
Walking observantly through our wet neighbourhood with my little daughter’s hand distractedly clutching one hand, my sleeping-son-in-stroller being managed with some difficulty by the other, I was able to snap detail photos of many of the luscious spring flowers we passed. Working our way down to the Songhees waterfront trail, I named the plants and flowers I recognized and pointed out the colours of the ones I did not. The biggest hit for B, however, was the enormous yellow (‘lellow’) helicopter that passed close overhead, making a wide loop before landing at the Coast Guard station across the harbour.
click on images for full view
Upon arriving at the beach by the gazebo and awkwardly making our way down the stairs backwards with the unwieldy stroller, B promptly overflowed her boots in the frigid ocean water. Then she slipped and fell up to her armpits in the same. She laughed and grinned at me with glee. I was so shocked that she wasn’t crying with discomfort and wet surprise that I forgot to be dismayed at the cleanup and logistics her impromptu polar dip would cost.
Two groups of people stopped and smiled and laughed delightedly as she busily worked away on her excavation and exploration projects. I smiled with them, marveling at the joy the simple antics of little kids can bring people.
I took photos of beach detritus and chose pieces of sand-scoured glass to include in future jewelry projects until she had enough of excavating muddy sand from one pile to another. Her strong little hands had grown numb and sore with the cold and she quietly told me that she had an owie and would like to go home. This took some consideration. How was I going to transfer my freezing little girl home in the cold air for several blocks?
I gently tried to clean most of the sand off her hands and face with a wet wipe. This elicited grimaces of discomfort from her and I explained that when hands get too cold they really hurt. Also, tossing sand in the air and catching it with your face can make your eyes hurt. Also, salty sand in your diaper can hurt. Hopefully those lessons will stick.
I put my two month G in the Ergo carrier on the front and put a base blanket down in the stroller for B. She was then was stripped to her diaper as quickly as I could, stuffed in the stroller, feet bunched up with no skin exposed, then covered with the other two blankets.
She loved it. She said she was ‘wrapped like a baby’ the same way she does when I haul her out of the tub. I asked her if she was warm enough, and she grinned and nodded, “mmm-hmm!”
Making our way back, I snapped a few more shots that I had regretted missing on the way there, getting several odd looks from joggers as I crouched over this flower or that. Several smiles at my swaddled girl from the same – what can I say? I just can’t compete with those big blue eyes.
Upon making it home, she was stripped, soaped, showered, swathed, snacked, and sleeping all within a VERY short period of time. G was pretty much blissfully oblivious to events at this point, as his current favourite locale is on me somewhere. Note that all clean-up events occurred with him strapped snugly to my chest. Yes, I am bragging.
And so, the sopping, sandy clothes, and the boots needing multiple rinses with scalding water and the three days of blasting with the fan are truly a small price to pay for such a perfect outing. Trying to take the zen bowl verses the car pileup paradigm seriously. And succeeding. Yay me!
Joyous New Life of Spring
My son was born this week.
When I left for the hospital, the magnolia tree outside my daughter’s room was still in tightly wrapped fuzzy buds. When I arrived home three days later, it was stretching out fuchsia pink blooms.
It’s a beautiful day.
FREE JEWELLERY GIVEAWAY! – Help Me Choose a New Crystal Circle Necklace Colour
Here’s your chance to let me know what you think and enter for a chance to win a new Crystal Circle Necklace at the same time! I’m going to be adding at least one new Crystal Circle Necklace design to the MindGarden Shop. The potential colours are in the image above.
THE PRIZE:
★ One Crystal Circle Necklace in your favourite colour (as noted in your entry comment) from the photo above! I will carefully wrap and post it to you wherever you are!
HOW TO ENTER TO WIN:
(note that you need to do both to be entered!)
★ become a fan of my new page on Facebook: http://is.gd/8snMN
★ comment on this Facebook post! Be sure to let me know which crystal colour is your favourite!
HOW TO GET EXTRA ENTRIES & BETTER CHANCES OF WINNING:
(note that you need to do both to be entered again!)
★ post this post to any / all of the following: your twitter, facebook, blog, etc
★ comment AGAIN below with where you promoted (one link per entry)
WINNER:
★ The winner will be announced on Lucky Saint Patrick’s Day, Wednesday, March 17, 2010. Why so far away? Well, I’m expecting a baby boy ♥ in just over a WEEK! I’ll need a little time to recover and bond with my new bundle of joy :) Don’t worry, details (about baby and winner) will be posted!
Winner has been announced on my Facebook Fan Page
Got Your Christmas List? Checked it Twice?
For all the nice (…and maybe naughty) women you’re buying gifts for this year, come checkout the MindGarden Christmas Sale at www.angelarook.com on Sunday, November 29 from 7:00 to 10:00 pm PST.
From 7 – 8, everything in the shop is 20% off, from 8 – 9 everything in the shop is 15% off, and from 9 – 10 everything is 10% off. Use the coupon code ‘christmasbash09′ during checkout to apply the discount to your entire order.
I’ve added over 55 beautiful NEW jewellery items to the shop this week for your gift-giving pleasure! Many of them customizable to create the perfect personalized gift for your loved ones.
In addition, each order during the event will receive:
♥ FREE SHIPPING!
♥ FREE GIFT WRAPPING!
♥ A GREAT FREE GIFT from me as a special ‘thank you’
♥ AN ENTRY TO WIN a $75 MindGarden gift certificate!
Feel free to pass on this invitation to family and friends (perhaps with a hint to what you’d really like to get this year)!
See you on Sunday!
Moments Frozen Under Glass
Ever been in a creative frenzy?
It seems to happen a lot to chronic artists. Immersed completely in their craft, they tune out all external stimuli not directly connected to their immediate needs and process. A strange, obsessive madness occurs in which a technique is plumbed to its depths and iteration after iteration of work is produced…
Er, what month is it?
So, what has brought on this MindGarden MIA status?
I have discovered a new medium.
Ooooh, the shivers! The itchy fingers! The frantic firings of fantastic flowing forms flitting through my brain!
What is said medium, you ask?
Glass.
I have had a love affair with glass ever since I was in grade 11. I saved up the money I earned after school and weekends working at the local IGA deli so that I could go on a group tour with the ‘Travel Club’. We visited Italy… oh my gosh. We started in Venice. Everything after that paled in comparison. Burrowing through the cobblestone alleys, ducking into the warren of tiny shops, hesitantly touching the handmade Commedia dell’Arte masks. We were there in March and the misty rain in the air made it feel like we’d never left Vancouver Island. Our group booked a demonstration at a glass gallery. We watched a man turn molten lava into a dancing horse. It was amazing. It was like watching Vulcan at the forge.
Ever since then, I’ve been obsessed. I relished the opportunities I had to go into Starfish Glassworks and watch the artists at work from the balconies. Carefully peering through the exotic jungle of sinuous, stretching forms, the flying eyeballs with iridescent wings, the disk with the swirling vortex of black crows etched into it, along with the lightly and cheerfully menacing mixed-media hanging from the walls and ceiling has been one of my all-time favourite memories here in Victoria. I have had nothing but the internet to observe since they closed their downtown Victoria studio a couple of years ago.
That is until now…
I’ve discovered the most exquisite of mediums. Glass with a microns-thick crystalline structure not unlike gemstones grown onto its surface. This illusion of stability (glass is actually a liquid) that I can create my own unique gemstones out of has become the obsession of my creative heart. Dichroic glass is the most beautiful, most radiant material I’ve ever worked with. The best thing is that I’ve discovered how to work it so that it can take on a specific design or pattern. Layering this glass, not unlike traditional silkscreen printing, creates a composed image of incredible detail!
I have included a couple of examples of the process so far. I’m still perfecting my technique, but I hope to have many gorgeous pieces like these up in the shop soon! The photos truly do not do these pieces justice. Due to the nature of the dichroic layer (which literally means 2-colours), the glass transmits one colour and reflects another. This means that when you look through the glass, it appears to be one colour, but when it’s backed by an opaque glass, it actually reflects (looks like) a different colour. Cool, huh? As such, it’s pretty much impossible to capture the glory of these beauties in a digital medium, but I’ll do my best!
Dichroic Glass Art Pendants
I’ve created these using different colours of dichroic glass including iridescent green, purple and silver. The amazing thing about dichroic glass is that it gradiates between the most amazing colours. For example, the green actually shifts from cyan to spring grass green to golden yellow. The silver can have shots of magenta and/or cerulean blue. The purple is as dark, rich, deep and mysterious as any Byzantine Emperor could dream of.
Dichroic Graphic Art Pendants
I’m so excited about these! The detail on them is absolutely amazing! So much better than I could have imagined. You can see images of poppies, a fan of silver and one of purple foliage, three intertwined oak leaves, and a pine bough with a cone and a graceful green curl of seaweed.
