Emotions, Diversity and New Beginnings

I tried six times this morning to write this blog. After many years of a daily blog, I rarely have problems writing something down, but I'm really trying to not post political/situational posts all of the time, especially these days. Things are so fraught with emotions for everyone right now, I'm trying to stay away from the worst of it. We're all getting bombarded from all sides on the events of the past days. It's been less than two weeks since the death of George Floyd, and it has taken over the thoughts of a world. It's quite amazing how quickly the spark caught fire. The tinder must have been extremely dry. 

Sometimes just a single spark can cause a flame if the tinder
is dry enough. American's history is a lot of spoken promises
that often take decades before fulfillment. It's time for some
more promises to be kept. 

And it was. The tinder has been drying for decades as people of color strove to find acceptance in a society that seems to reward the pale skin of Scarlett O'Hara while turning their backs on the wonderful range of people we have in this nation. It's been a wake-up call in the middle of a pandemic, demonstrations carried out with social distancing and protesters wearing masks - not to hide their identities, but for personal protection against a killing virus that doesn't care about racial identities. 

I have been reassured by the large variety of races in the various
protest marches. I'm also heartened that most of those protesting
are young enough to actually make a difference in the futures of
their peers. I love the diversity, and hope this stance can be
continued into the future. 

A lot of people have jumped onto the bandwagon this time, and I'm really hoping they'll stick with their glib words and phrases, and that true change for the better might come about through the tragedy of the death of a single black man on the streets of Minneapolis. Every shiver that has been taken over the decades has resulted in lasting change, but it's always seemed as it if was not enough. Jobs were created, but there weren't enough jobs and opportunities to advance in a good career. Banking opened their doors, but it's hard to take advantage of such things if you're living from paycheck to paycheck. Where were those opportunities? 

We all need the opportunity for another chance because we still haven't
managed to get everything right. I'm not sure we are capable of that, to
be quite honest.

I loved this image. If you like it too, it is
available on Etsy and designed by DoodleStation. 

We've got another chance now, and maybe we won't mess things up again. It would be really nice to look down any suburban street to see a variety of guys out (and some gals too, of course) with their lawnmowers on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It would be wonderful to glance down the line at any pick-up restaurant and see a variety of skin colors and hear a variety of accents. That's the American Dream - those huddled masses yearning to break free. That's my American Dream, and I'm hoping in the last few decades of my life, that maybe, this time, the dream can be achieved and all people will be welcomed based on their abilities, talents and skills, not the color of their skin or eyes. Have a great day and I'll be back tomorrow. 

Fashion and Gender Stereotypes

I'm at a loss today. I wanted to share fashion from NY Fashion Week, but ick! Lots of really unwearable styles that only a Kardashian could or would wear, street slouch without much appeal, and it seems that the bra has become the new everyday top. Well, maybe in New York if you're very skinny and under 25, but not here in the Midwest when you're fighting to keep a reasonable weight and are over 60. Bah humbug! I want someone out there who will design for a real person - the working girl of 30-50 years of age, the overweight person who can't find fashion anywhere, or the girl who doesn't go clubbing the moment she steps out of her job in the Financial District. Who buys these fashions anyway?

Here are some selections from Alexander Wang. Note - if you're not less than
115 pounds and under thirty years of age, you won't look good in these! 

Women get down and dirty. They're cops, cowboys and firefighters. They're all of those jobs that were usually illustrated by males in the storybooks I read as a child. Sure, women are nurses, teachers and mothers. But they're also garbage haulers, miners, and astronauts. I can't think of many, if any, jobs that are traditionally performed by men that cannot and are not also being worked by women.

Blend these together and you have a real person of any sex. All people can
be hurt emotionally, can weep in grief, can be analytical and can be nurturing. 

Fortunately there's cross-over the other way too. There are Mannies, not jut Nannies. There are male bank tellers, food waiters, teachers, nurses and receptionists. Motherhood isn't restricted to women; although men haven't managed to actually give birth, motherhood or the act of mothering is an important aspect of parenthood. Those sexual stereotypical lines drawn in the sand when I was a child have blurred and are disappearing. Thank goodness!

Gender stereotypical advertising like this was common when I was
growing up. Women were at home (although some had outside jobs) and
they were also responsible for all of the housework and child-rearing. 

There are still geographical or religious pockets where men's jobs are men's and women's jobs are women's, even in this country of job equality. Those barriers are breaking down and crumbling more and more every day. Still, although I want job equality, I also know that men are usually stronger, often taller, and also often faster than women in many situations. So, if given my choice, and while I'll still envy the ease with which the guys swim in the lane next to me, I'll be happy to have more males than females in the fire department and police department, and I'll leave most of the armed forces in active combat positions to men. However, I want to see women in all of those positions too.

Do I really care about who is wearing the uniform? Hell no! I want someone
wearing it who can perform the job. Man or woman - no difference. If my house
is on fire, I want someone putting that fire out who knows how to do it best. 

So here's to sexual diversity - male, female, and the many stages in between the extremes and stereotypes. Let's celebrate our differences and emphasize our similarities. Let's admit that we're all people who deserve equal respect and opportunity.

Face Off is on tonight, so I'm a happy person. Have a wonderful Tuesday, and remember to spread some kindness today.

Favorite Things

First of all a call out and thank you to all who chimed in on Saturday's post. The discussion was lively and civil, and I really enjoyed hearing from each and every one of you. Now...on to today's blog. 

I love civil discussions with my friends from around the world.
I always learn something and enjoy the various viewpoints and
their ability to focus on a variety of things makes it interesting. 

I got totally tied up reading the first two chapters of a book that will be released in a few days and am running late, so I think I'll deal with some of my favorite things today - fast, easy and non-controversial. All good. 

Is there anything better than a good book? The choice of book will vary
from person to person, but the total enjoyment of visiting or revisiting the
adventures of the characters is one of the best things in my life. 

I love a good meal, and when it's capped off by a lovely dessert, it's really
hard to beat. This ice cream and jam concoction looks simply lovely. 

Speaking of dessert, have you seen or tried any of the new
Ben & Jerry's Core Ice Creams yet? I looked for them in my
store yesterday, but they only had the jam core variety left.
I want to try this one - the Salted Caramel. Here's a link
if you want to look at all five flavors. 

And finally we return once more to good friends. I've been very fortunate
with my LJ friends over the years. I've lose some, but those I've gained have
been wonderful to share with. My friends door is never closed, there's always
room for one more. 

Have a fantastic Monday. It's my final day of kitty care today, so I'll be a happy camper :-)

Is Your Life a Fairy Tale?

Today is the birthday of two very important and vitally different people who followed their dreams and changed the world. The first person is Steve Jobs. Love him or hate him, you can't dispute his very prevelant presence over our everyday modern life. From Apple computers to the iPods in your pocket to iTunes and features of the cloud, Steve Jobs made an impact in so many aspects of our modern life that his ripples reached throughout the earth. If the worth of a person is what is remembered about him afterwards, Steve Jobs is immortal and will long be thought of as one of the true pioneers of modern technology. I am not necessarily an Apple fan, the extent of what I own are iPods for my music and audio books, but I bow to his beautiful sense of design and incredible ability to insist on the best for his products.

The other person's birthday is from a completely opposite view. Wilhelm Grimm was born in 1786 on today's date. Wilhelm and Jacob collected the folktales of the villages near their own and published them. When they realized that many children were reading their stories, they adapted the tales a bit to make them a bit less disturbing. They were sanitized even farther by Walt Disney whose Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood were all originally Grimm fairy tales. The original tales were full of evil people and monsters, blood and gore. They were cautionary tales, teaching the village children that safety only existed within the small villages and that the forest surrounding the area was filled with deadly dangers. Wilhelm and Jacob wanted to collect the old folk tales before they disappeared and thus, created a body of work that has far outlasted them. In fact, I just purchased a "Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales" book for my DH who was unable to find his childhood copy and wanted to have the tales and the Rackham illustrations at hand.

Arthur Rackham's marvelous illustration of Little Red Riding Hood.

Finally, just a quick note to thank those of you who were so kind as to Email me or message me about my artwork and my Deviant Art page. Your kind words really made my day. THANK YOU!

Back to the Grind

So, usually when people return from a week away from their spouse, they are met with a hug, perhaps a kiss, and a "welcome home".  I'm still waiting for that.  I arrived back home during the afternoon on Saturday, unpacked and started my laundry (yes, I was frighteningly efficient).  I had asked if I needed to come into the shop and had been told "no", so I didn't bother.  Sunday I started catching up on some computer work and played LOTRO for several hours, even finally sitting down and writing a new story - I'm woefully behind on my writing since I have discovered I can't write effectively on my laptop in a hotel *sigh*.  Today I am still catching up, and I will be for quite a while still. 

The good things about my trip come down to creativity and friends.  I had a chance to meet many of my friends, as well as some new ones.  I finally have a face to put to my friend Dot - we've been writing on boards together for many years.  But I failed to find Charlene or Grace.  I ran into many customers, including Colleen, Randy, Mary and Dawn, and met new friends.  And I had the chance to play with fire and glass - can you say 7th Heaven? 

These were the enamels that I made during
class.  The Yellow and Salmon pendants in the center
row are two-sided and are enameled the same.  I kept
one, and gave the other to my friend Zhie who wined and dined
and toured me through Milwaukee.  The bottom four
fit into a changeable pendant. 

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the illustration that I am doing for Darth's story in Big Bang Tolkien.  The method and passage crystallized on my drive home, I now have the dimensions nailed, the methodology nailed, and I will begin working on that quickly.  As always, in my life, it will be a bit edgy and incorporating multi-media techniques, but I was given permission to do that, so that's my direction.  I think it will be fun, a bit cheezy, and hopefully not TOO work intensive since my time, as always, has limitations. 

Mary had never enameled before and just did a great job.  I really
love the color combinations and patterns that she ended up with.  

Denise is from the Minneapolis/St Paul area and a surface designer.  You

can see her love of pattern and color coming through in her work. 

These lovely items were Claudia's work.  She did a lot of

very fun freehand work.  

These items were from Tom.  He was very focused and precise.  As a
former engineer, his precision really came through in his work.  He did

some great work with the lustre decals - some eyepopping results.  

The pictures are from my enameling intensive class.  There were five students and we worked like crazy for three days.  At the end of that time, we took photos of everything we had created.  I'm sharing those with you today.  The class was held in the Anatomy lab, so we had skeletons, 3-D body muscle representations, and such all around us, rather bizarre, but fun.  Tomorrow...the Chocolate Bar!

Friends and Exhaustion

One of the major reasons that I go to Bead & Button Show and other events during the year is to catch up with friends, many of whom I only see once a year.  This year's Bead & Button Show was no exception.  It was an absolute joy to see my friends Beki and Shawn (and Shauna and Nikki) and wish Shawn a happy 50th birthday.  I got a great hug from Huib and the information that he had gotten married over the previous year (now I'm planning out what would be a great wedding gift for him and his life partner).  I got to see the wonderful gentle gleam in Michael David Sturlin's eyes while we had a chance to catch up a bit.  He's such a sweet person and talented fabricator.  Mary Kay Kare was a friend from several years ago who attended this year and we spent quite a bit of time catching up and just talking.  She's an amazing woman.  I got hugs from lots of my friends who were teaching/selling - Nikia, June Huber, Sherry Serafini, Rusty, Diane Fitzgerald, Virginia Blakelock and Carol, my roomie this year - Dawn, mutual friends of ours - Cheryl and Linda, and so many, many others.  To see these people, share in their creativity, and allow my own creative soul to come through is worth every penny that I spent on this trip.  I know that my July trip will be every bit as wonderful. 

But I'm still completely worn out from my trip.  My brain is not quite in sync yet, and I haven't worked on my beading project since I returned.  I need to - I have an absolute deadline and I'm in the final stages, but it won't bead itself.  So I decided that I should take it to the shop and work on it in the mornings there.  Except that I forgot my needle and thread at home.  Forgetting the needle is no big deal - I can always use another needle so buying a pack of needles is pretty minor.  But I refuse to buy another spool of thread - I don't need two of that color.  So I got delayed by another day and I won't get anything done this morning either since on Saturdays I don't get to the shop until close to 9am instead of my usual 7:30 am.  I will make this work, though.  My deadlines are absolute without wiggle room, but sometimes I wish I could expand time...don't you? 

Getting Ready to Leave

I still haven't done any packing, although I will gather my class supplies at my shop bench this morning.  I suppose I'd better pull out my suitcase tonight and throw in some clothes, etc., since I leave tomorrow morning, early.  I'll bring my BFAC project along with me since I can get some beading done while I am in Milwaukee.  I'll also bring my cloak - remember my cloak?  I am still finishing up the embroidery on it and I'll bring it along to finish a portion of it.  But the beadwork will take precedence since I want this complete as soon as I can.  I have other projects pending and I am thrilled with it - I want to see everything assembled so that I can photograph it and send it on it's merry way. 

But, I'm spending my spare time reviewing what I need in my suitcase.  Although I might post while I'm at the Show, I'm not counting on it since my days tend to be very full.  I will look forward to returning to my blog next week and to reintegrating new creativity into my experience.  And yes...of course a sketchbook will be coming with me - that's an absolute given :-)  Have a creative week - try a new craft, surround your artwork with a color you have not used previously, or finish a project so that you can start another.  Enjoy!

Jealousy

It's annoying when jealousy rears its' ugly head. There is nothing attractive or positive about jealousy. Yet many of us spend our lives looking at things and envying aspects of them. Today I was jealous of Angela's wonderful work.

Angela is a terrific artist who lives in France and has a view on her art that I would never have. The paths that her brain takes are far different from my own. She works big and bold while I mouse into details. She incorporates a lot of different materials into her work where I pretty much stick to metal and glass in its' varieties of form. She deals with the sinuous, I stick with the planes and straight geometry. But I look at her work and love it. And I wish I had the time to be able to create my own body of work instead of running a store for most of my life. That's the jealous part and no - it's not attractive.

I should know better than to be jealous. I have a fabulous life that I'm grateful for every day. I've been blessed in so many ways and I do have some time to create - just not as much as I would like. My life has been generally placid and untouched by serious illness or sorrow (for the past few years). I've been fortunate. But I'm still jealous. I guess I really need to work on getting that out of my system and love where I'm at in my own life. But while I'm doing that, I invite you to take a look at her jewelry. Really wonderful things.

Celebrating the Odd

Today is an odd number lover's delight. The date of 05-07-09, those lovely consecutive odd numbers, is apparently quite unique and something that occurs extremely rarely. I enjoy numbers as long as they are not tied up into mathematics. But as symbols, they are really quite lovely. We have the Arabic scholars of the Middle Ages to thank for the zero - great idea, the concept of nothingness. But who decided that a number two would be this wonderful clockwise curve with a base. And who decided that it could be written in so many different ways and still be legible. After all, there is the straght-bottom, the looped bottom, the humped bottom, etc. But the top, that wonderful flourish, tends to remain the same and marks it as a number 2.

People are much the same. We have the basic flourish that marks us as human. But that bottom - oh that bottom. That's where the problems can arise. And it's when the bottom tries to become as elaborate as the top that problems arise. Perhaps remembering that the bottom, although essential, is the smaller part of the whole might help all of us to remain a bit more humble. It is one of the reasons why I click on my astronomy picture of the day first thing every day. I might be the center of my own, very small universe. But I thank all Powers that my part is as small as it is and that someone/something caused the formation of the wonders that are our full universe. I can't ever forget the concept of Spirit being the love that makes the sun and stars dance. What an amazing thought...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A comment was made about how frequently odd numbers can appear this century. I quote here from the UK newspaper that originally published this story:

Numbers lovers (well, this one number lover) say the rare occurrence is an excuse to celebrate.

'The previous stretch of six dates like this started with 1/3/1905 - 13 months after the Wright Brothers' flight,' said Ron Gordon, the Redwood City, California teacher who keeps on enthusiastically promoting these numerical holidays, like Square Root Day on 3/3/09.
Gordon is offering a prize of $579 to those who celebrate the date with the most zeal or who get the most people involved in an Odd Celebration. Good luck.>>

Hopefully this will help clarify what I was speaking about in the post.