The Holocaust on a Personal Level

My cousin was as close as a younger sister while we were growing up. Her parents lived across the street from me, and my older cousin David, and my younger one, Missy, and I, played together constantly. She was the sister that I never had and we were close until she moved to Aspen, Colorado in her teens. Between then and now we both married, both moved (far away from each other) and she had two incredible children. My parents passed away several years ago, and her Dad had died while we were both quite young. But her mother passed away in 2008 and Missy found a treasure-trove when cleaning out her Mom's condominum.

Apparently my Tante Vera saved documents. Hundreds of letters, cards and notes dealing with Uncle Edwin's career and their history over the war years and post-WWII. She had letters exchanged between my own mother and herself in the mid-1940's, and she had documents from others that revolved around her family. The surprising thing was who these documents were from. As my cousin sorted through the papers, she kept finding more and more surprises - documents and notes dealing directly with World War II because my uncle was a part of the legal team representing the US at the Nuremburg Trials. Letters from Albert Einstein who my uncle had assisted while he was in college. Documents regarding the assasination plot to kill Adolf Hitler. The papers were amazing.

Last week, my cousin returned to Denver and presented a selection of those papers and photographs to Denver University's Penrose Library and Center for Judaic Studies. You can find out more particulars here, and here or check out the slideshow here (the baby is my cousin, David). All I can say about all of this is, "I'm really proud of you, Cuz. You stuck with it, sorted through all of these papers, and you deserve the accolades that will come your way for your generous gift." I also hope that her future can be assured through these papers. We all deserve to have an assured future in our old age, and we are not getting any younger.

And on the creative end - I did the first fire of my charms last night and this morning. It turns out that I have 49 charms made. We'll see how many I actually end up completing. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done on these and I'm looking forward to each step :-) Live a creative day with sunshine and smiles in your heart. That joy will transmit to others and make the world a nicer place for a day.

ROP Michael Jackson

Talking about my cousin will have to wait until tomorrow because of the death of Michael Jackson. I know that all of the media are all over this story. So why am I jumping onto this overcrowded wagon to speak about someone who was, decidedly, creepy and odd in his last 10+ years? Several reasons.

First of all, it gives me great joy to be thinking about Elvis confronting MJ about his marriage with Lisa Marie. It was a strange marriage, an unusual (and rather icky) relationship, and I still can't figure out why either of them did it. But they did, and they are linked in their histories now. So would Elvis have been happy about this - probably not. But I'm sure he's liking the opportunity to confront MJ face-to-face, so to speak. But secondly, and far more importantly, a huge creative force has left this world. This leaves a vaccuum that can be filled by the creative leanings of others. But in this single person, Michael Jackson, the creativity of the entertainer found fertile ground. A consumate vocalist, choreographer, and composer, Michael Jackson entertained the world for many years through his unique voice and talent. He will still be heard through recordings and videos, but new material won't be forthcoming. So even if you don't like MJ, take a short break today to mourn this loss of creative flow from the river of the world. This loss will be felt for many years yet to come.

I'm Pushing Boundaries Again...

Apparently I'm an enigma. Or at least am pushing boundaries. I went to see the bone doctor yesterday morning. First his PA poked his head into the room to tell me that the doctor would be there in a few minutes. He looked closer at me and asked:

"Where's your sling? Did you not get one?"

"At home", I answered. "I wore it for about 20 minutes, took it off, and I haven't put it back on since. It gets in my way."

He shook his head, left the room, and shortly afterwards the doctor arrived.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Pxxxx. Where is your sling? Did we forget to get one for you?"

"No, I have one. It's in my drawer at home. It just doesn't work with my lifestyle."

Looks of disbelief cross his face. "But you broke your elbow. In fact, you broke TWO bones."

"Yes.....?" said I, wondering what the point was to this dialog.

Apparently I will live, even though I am not wearing my sling. In fact, because I have been working my arm as much as I could, he said that PT wise I'm "in the advanced class" and, if I keep on working things slowly but firmly, I might regain as much as 95% of my arm function. My personal goal is to regain 99%. We'll see... I return to see him again after MCWC, so I can now concentrate on the conference and worry about my arm later.

After a few errands I returned home. I had decided to make my charms for MCWC out of the new Copper Clay. I sat down, punched out lots of charms (used almost all of 200 grams of Copper Clay) and today I'll start to refine them. I want to get them fired on Sunday so that I can start the enameling next Wednesday. I want to use sifting as well as painting to do these, so I'll be trying out some more new techniques to get these finished. I think it'll be a lot of fun and I only hope that the firing will actually work :-))

Studio and Doctor - Wednesday Blues

Studio day - a day I look forward to all week. I only have three weeks to design, make and enamel my charms for the Metal Clay World conference, so I'll be focusing on that today. But I start my day out with a doctor appointment to see how badly I messed up my arm when I broke it on the 6th. I slept last night without pain pills, even though I did wake up in pain at 2:30 am. I was able to turn around and go back to sleep until my alarm went off an hour later. And my range of motion has improved. But I can't straighten my arm completely and that worries me. And there are still some angles, etc, that cause me "through the roof" pain. It will be interesting to hear what the doctor thinks about my injury and my recovery.

Back to my charms - I'll look at Archivers for a particular stamp, but if they don't have one, I'll have to work with clip art and try and make a PPP for the image. I want to make the charms from the new copper clay - a media that I haven't worked with at all up to now. And I want to enamel over the copper, add a CZ and some gold foil, and basically make them fairly elaborate. In three weeks. Yes ... I know ... I'm an idiot. But my DH gave me an "extra day off" certificate for a holiday gift and I may just need to play that card next week or the week after. I suspect that next week will be the crux week, so that may be when I need my extra day off. I'll see how things go today.

Oh, and I need to get the cable guy back this afternoon to re-hook up one TV that I missed last week. I guess I should get that scheduled?.....

Governmental Interference

My husband is addicted to CNN lately - solely because of the unrest in Iran. He's a bit of a newshound anyway, but he seems determined that nothing should happen without his viewing it in the evenings (the days were overtaken by the PGA US Open Championship). And I must admit that the events in Iran have been interesting, frightening, and living up to the old Chinese curse of "may you live in interesting times". One of the major images to come through in the past few days of violence was the shooting and death of a young woman - Neda. Her death, recorded on cell phone videos and sent throughout the world within minutes, also generated art because art is a form of immortality. So Neda now exists as a poster and her name will not be forgotten. (I searched for the exact image I wanted, but was unable to find it. Therefore, I post this instead.)

And my time is slipping away from me, so I'll have to cut short today. Tomorrow I go around town getting the last supplies that I need for my MCWC charms. Hopefully I'll have something wonderful to share within the next few days :-) Live a creative life today - remember Neda.

Best Laid Plans.....

Well, Sunday was supposed to be a day for photography for me. That barely happened, but here's what did....

Early Sunday morning I woke with enough time to get my DH to McDonald's for breakfast, etc. Since my car battery had died the previous day, we took his car. The key has been sticking in his ignition, and he had to fight again to get it out at McDonald's, but he got it out and we had breakfast and then went on to Target. After purchasing food and personal care items (shampoo, tooth flossing tape, etc) at Target, we unloaded things at home. One of the things we had purchased were No Name Steaks for his Dad for a Father's Day gift. I wrapped those (in newspaper - the best wrapping paper - LOL) and we were off to the local drug store to pick up a greeting card and the newspaper. But here is where plans fell apart. The key would not release from the lock. After fighting with it for 30 minutes (the steaks were starting to defrost), I phoned AAA and arranged for a tow. My DH walked back home to get my car and I waited for the tow truck. As of this morning, my car will do double-duty, his car is at the service station waiting for them to open at 8am and replace the lock cylinder, and I'm hoping that they can. This little episode, however, cut a major chunk into my day.

I did have a wonderful Dick Blick's art supplies coupon to use up, so after the car was dropped off, we went art supply shopping. I got some wonderful things to play with and saved almost 1/3 off the total price with my preferred discount and the coupon. Oh happy day!

And, I did get one item photographed. This is my finished piece for the 2010 Beading For A Cure auctions. The bottom pendant can be suspended from the clasp (as in the picture) or strung onto the beaded portion, or removed completely, depending on what the wearer prefers for that day. I'm just happy to have this finished so that I can focus on my charms for Metal Clay World. Tick, tick.....time is running out.