Yesterday was a hu-u-u-uge score day. I did some thrift store hopping for the grandkids, found lots of goodies, and also found a glass door cabinet at a local antique shop, something I've been trying to find for a couple years. And if that wasn't enough, I came home to a package from my mom. I called her up and told her I had two things to say to her. "Number one, don't send me any more stuff - I'm trying to pare down on my belongings!" and "Number two, I LOVE THESE LADIES!" A mixed message to be sure, but I can't help it. Sometimes she just sends great stuff.

Aren't they adorable!? I don't know which one I like best. I think I need to give them their own names. Anyone have any ideas? This first one is really sweet, in a homespun wool dress and the cutest green hair, holding tight onto her little ghost friend. Hmmm, I think her name is Mossy, because of her hair.

The other witch is..... not grumpy exactly. I can really identify with her expression. A bit frustrated, a bit exhausted. She wants to get on her broom and fly away, maybe someplace tropical, but there are pumpkins to water and crows to be fed and she's head of the planning committee for the next full moon gathering and..... sigh, she'd fly away but, frankly, she's to tired to even try.

Here's a close up. See, she's not a scary witch, just an overworked one. She's a crone with soft gray hair and yet she's not afraid to flaunt her stuff - check out the flamboyant cape and feathery, bright orange cuffs on her dress. I should probably name her crow (and the ghostie above) as well.

More holiday photos - yah! Today's selection seem to be primarily water scenes. Boat scenes to be more specific. All but the last one which sort of.... isn't a boat scene.


I said we'd moved on from Bath, but I was wrong. One more picture. This image's middle name is peaceful. Yep, Image P. River. That's it's name.


Now, we're in Conwy, Wales. Their harbor was torn up, in the process of being remodeled, redesigned, reconstructed - whatever it is you do to a harbor. A number of locals apologized for the less then picturesque mess. And parts of it were indeed a mess - large earth moving equipment laying about, piles of broken concrete. But no matter, we found plenty of great images to try to capture and bring home with us. I adore the splotches of red in the photo above.

Here's another one with a nice red boat for focus, and lovely dabs of blue throughout as well.

I took this picture from high above on the city wall. Conwy is an ancient walled city, most of the wall is still standing and, if you don't suffer terribly from vertigo, can be walked. There's also a mighty fine castle, one of a string of them the English king Edward the I built along the northern Welsh coastline, the point being to rub it in that he had conquered Wales. It's actually much higher up then this picture would imply, I used the handy telephoto capabilities to get this shot. It was a lovely hodge podge of beached water craft and I had a difficult time getting a shot I liked, particularly with William restless and telling me to hurry up. If I had unlimited digital memory, I would have simply snapped off several dozen shots and sorted it out later.


Look, no boats. No water. This is part of the wall from the around the land side on the outside, looking up. This particular area was a sort of bike path and playing fields for the community, this abandoned apple orchard hugged the old stones. I doubt the orchard is as ancient as the wall, in fact it's probably not possible, although I suppose it could be the descendants of a line of apple trees that have grown here through the ages. How long do apple trees live? But I still imagined young maidens wandering through this orchard long ago when it was tended and tidy. Maybe picnicking, their embroidery brought along to work on while enjoying a sunny day. Maybe a clandestine walk with some dashing knight. While we were there, however, the only people we saw in the orchard were a couple of teens and a woman and her terriers.

I'm creatively frustrated. I want to be creative, but this heat wave has made me so ill and lethargic it's tough to do anything (have I already said this same phrase six dozen times?), much less something that requires making creative new synaptic connections in my heat soaked brain.

Still, there have been small moments.

I finished cleaning up my studio. It's not completely organized, but it's got empty flat surfaces on which to work, and all the fabric is accessible. That's saying a lot.

I spent an evening trying to decide on some new projects. Yes, I have old projects that are desperately in need of my attention, but let's not talk about those. No, really. Let's pretend I can't hear their pitiful cries. Let's ignore the guilt piling up in the to-do section of my head. So, anyway, as I was saying, la la la la I can't HEAR you, I was trying to decide on a theme/design for a new baby quilt for my newest grandbaby, due to arrive in late autumn or early winter. I was also trying to come up with some fun blocks to make using my Halloween blocks. I WANT TO PLAY WITH MY HALLOWEEN FABRICS!!!

I came up with a couple of ideas. Nothing I was sure enough about to actually start cutting fabric, but I'm getting close. What I really ended up confidently deciding after all that tiring pondering, is that in the last few years my focus has changed so dramatically that a lot of the fabrics I own are no longer the ones I want to work with - conversation prints and themed fabrics, no matter how perfectly wonderful they are, limit me to primarily traditional, or at very outside, wonky takes on traditional quilting designs.

I went to Reno on Tuesday to run some long put off errands and to hit the quilt shops in search of the new Halloween fabrics. Yes, I know, I just said I don't need anymore traditional fabrics. Do NOT ask me to be sensible and logical. It's too damn hot and I don't care if I'm contradicting myself and I just wanted to - OKAY!?!?

I did discover that I didn't really want or, as us fabric junkies are more apt to say, need all the new designs I found. I bought a few things. What's a half dozen more FQ's, eh? But instead of buying that print with cute pumpkins on it, what I really think I need is that great orange batik that I could use to make a pumpkin. As for all the cutesy stuff I've already got, I'm starting to think of uses other then quilts for it - bags, clothing, placemats..... anyone got any fast, fun ideas?

I came home all ready to start in on something, anything, but then felt sick again, partly from the heat, partly from a touch of food poisoning I think. Then a migraine laid me out yesterday. Nothing creative happening even in my imagination for the last couple of days.

Today is a teensy bit cooler. I think the high was only in the low 90's, quite a drop from our nonstop 100's. And after the weekend we're even supposed to drop down into the mid 80's! I can't tell you how exciting this news is to me!

Now, since I'm feeling well enough to actually get up and do something, I'm gonna. Get up and do something. It might be creative. It might be as basic as sweeping up the dead and dying piles of dust bunnies all over my house. Yes, even the dust bunnies have suffered from the heat - too hot for them to move quickly, many of them have been trampled where they've fallen in the middle of rooms. They may never recover their numbers after this weather catastrophe.

Oh, but before I leave you, my mom sent me a box of goodies, including a wonderful stack of scented, decorative soaps. I've got an orange grapefruit scented one beside the bathroom sink already, and a blue one with a wave design and silver sparkles in it in the shower. Only thing is, the sparkles are sort of scratchy. Not in a nice, grainy way, but in a slivery way. But it's pretty and smells good.

Speaking of sparkles, I went to Walmart today to buy some household items, including a new deodorant for myself, my old one is almost out. I couldn't find the one I normally buy, so I started sniffing new ones, testing for a scent I liked. I ended up getting a nonscented one, in case you have to know. Also matching citrus smoothie scented suave shampoo and conditioner. Anyway, I noticed they now have sparkle deodorant. You've got to be kidding me! I mean, I can totally understand sparkle make-up and sparkle hair gel and sparkle lotion. Fun. Cute. Silly. But does anyone really need sparkly underarms!?

And why am I talking about soap and deodorants in my art blog you ask? Well, because I wanted to show you the soaps. Aren't they pretty!?


Now I'm off to ........ uhm...... to...... DO SOMETHING!

This is a very lame post. I mean, really. I'm posting to tell you I did one very small thing. I finally got the armoir out of the hallway and all the way into the studio. I also got the armoir drawers out of the pile in the livingroom and slid into place in the armoir, which is now in the studio. I know, so very lame.

But I've been planning on doing this every day for a week. And every day for a week the heat just drags me down like zombies tugging at my arms and legs. I've had it in my head that if I could just get this armoir in there.....

I had a dresser in there, the drawers used as storage, the top of the dresser was where the television sat. Then I gave the dresser to Sam several months back. To use as a dresser - you know, to put his clothes in it. This was fine. I was thrilled to give it to him. He needed it, and I had this armoir that would work perfectly fine, sitting unused and dusty in the garage.

Then when I went off on my grand adventures this spring, I dumped a bunch of boxes, baskets, and miscellaneous stuff I didn't have time to deal with before I left, into the studio. It was already a mess from from all the stuff that had come off and out of the dresser piled on the floor. When I finally opened the door back up a few weeks ago, I discovered that the room was completely impassable.

I've had it in my mind that if i could just clean up the studio, at least make it so I could walk across the floor and have access to my cutting table (which is also piled high with stuff - blankets, bags, fabric, frames....) I could find the energy somewhere to at least while away the sweltering afternoons in that room, cutting fabric. The room should be one of the cooler ones in the house, being situated with cross ventilation from windows on two sides and being underneath the side of the yard with huge shade trees. This means that room should come down from 90 to a crisp 80 degrees or so. (that "crisp" is sarcasm, in case it's hot where you are and you, like me, don't have two brain cells still working. Apparently they're all taking an extended siesta, like any reasonable person should do in a hot climate).

Am I still making any sense? I doubt it. But moving on, I have this theory that I could do this, cutting fabric, because it is fairly mindless work yet fun enough to keep me interested. And I was thinking of playing with my Halloween fabrics, which will remind me of autumn and chilly winds and frost in the air and brrrrrr - almost as good as air conditioning, yes? Well, no. But I'm pretending.

Hmmmmm, something just occurred to me. Cutting out fabric involves ironing it. With a HOT iron. Oh, damn. I didn't think of that.

Well, nevermind then. I'll just continue to lay in the shade and read Harry Potter books.

But, for the record, the armoir is all slid into place. Next step is to put the crafting supplies back into the drawers. Easy. If it wasn't sooooo hot.

Here's a picture of me showing you all why I don't have anything else to show you lately. Yes, that's me. I look just like that. And I'm out there in my.... er, watermelon patch. Okay, okay, so I'm maybe out in the backyard playing in the dirt where watermelon could, if planted, be growing. If it wasn't too hot to actually be out there. But I WILL be out there. Tonight. When the sun starts to go down and the temperatures aren't in the 100's. I even went and got all sorts of compost and plants today and they're out there right now, sitting in the shade of the apple tree, waiting for me.

And hey, I made this doll. That's creative!

My friend Deirdre took a bunch of fireworks photos on the 4th. She enthusiastically encouraged me to to do the same. So I did. My camera didn't cooperate, alas I still haven't managed to find time to read the instruction manual in order to figure out out why my low light images are all determined to come out blurry. I know they don't have to be, that it's probably the setting I have it on or something, because my old camera took great low light images. I did enjoy a few of my failed attempts though!


Make sure you click this next one larger - the tiny swirls are really cool.


Here's a summer image I find somewhat haunting. This little guy was on my screen door late one night and the front porch light, shining down from the top left, made him glow like something unworldly. Do you think there are moths on alien planets? I wonder what they would look like? A moth's life is short, incomprehendable to me. I wonder what this small creature was thinking/feeling this night?

I've been back from England for over a month and I'm just finally finishing up sharing the last of the photos from our first three day location. And that's by showing only a small percentage of the photos I actually snapped!

I took this first photo to share with an art friend, Pamela. She has a real thing for eyes. Go check out her website and you'll see what I mean. But when I finally got a chance to see the photo, I liked it too. I like the way the sky disappears (well, it doesn't on the green background of this blog, but it does on a plain white background, making the image look irregularly shaped. And how it's only two colors - gray with small spots of blue. And black. Three colors. Four. Dark green. - Like, okay....NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! And if you don't get the reference - "I fart in your general direction!" Did you get that one? Before I dissolve into complete silliness, let's move on.



This photo was actually taken in the gardens of the first B&B we stayed at in Conwy, Wales. The owner of the B&B was sitting out by a small pond taking photos himself, so we went to investigate what was so interesting. This little guy doesn't look to thrilled about getting his picture taken, does he?


The last photo isn't all that remarkable, except I like the V-shape the lower walls make and the contrast of lighted areas with the black shadows and sky. There's actually 3 tiers of increasing light - the dark righthand wall, the lighter lefthand wall, and the lightest tower. Maybe that could be an analogy for something - striving higher? The three levels of awareness? Climbing out of ignorance into enlightenment? Or maybe, phbbt, it's just an interesting composition. Might be a fun one to play with in Photo Shop.


That's all. Just wanted to get something up here to look at. I'm currently busy being productive if not particularly creative. Unless you want to describe what I'm doing as a creative redefining of my living space. I'm actually working on decluttering my house. Paperwork. Being tossed by the bucketload. (Yes, actual bucketload. I've got an old bucket sitting by the woodstove to toss burnable paper in.) Children's books and old school books William has either outgrown or never used. Computer files. So, later folks. I gotta get my nose back to the ol' grindstone.

I don't have a button for it up on the website yet, but I want to let everyone know about an art/blog challenge sponsored by my friend Deirdre called Simple Still Life. There was another project by the same name, now defunct, and this new one has risen phoenix life from the ashes of the original. There are only a few of us playing presently, all the current participants have been pretty busy with summers and family, but hopefully things will pick up.

Basically it's a challenge for those of us who can't seem to go through life without photographing it. Participants contribute one or more photos each month that evoke a chosen theme. From the basic photo, folks can then play with the image artistically if they chose, anything from tweaking it around in Photo Shop to recreating it in another medium such as watercolor, fabric, discarded restaurant coasters - hey, whatever! Or if you like the photo just the way it came out of the camera, that's fine too.

I invite you all to would check it out and join in the fun. Or at the very least, take a peek at several photos I just put up on the blog that I might use for this month's theme - Summer.

Back to the previous holiday, more photos. I think I'm only on Day 3 of the trip, I have lots of lots of photos left to show you. Aren't you thrilled! (Okay, if you're not, don't tell me, I'm having fun.)

These photos are all from The Chalice Well International Peace Gardens. It was hard to select which photos to share here with you. I picked out three, then added a fourth, and then another... I finally stopped at six. This was, for me, one of the highlights of our entire trip. The garden and well evoked feelings of deep reverence and awe, not to mention physical beauty. If you'd like, after looking at my photos, you can click here to find out more about the symbolism and history of the well as well as take a virtual tour of the gardens.

In this first photo I liked the pastel airy quality of the forget-me-nots contrasting with the deep color and substance of the tulips. It was more noticable in person then in the photo, but you can get a small sense of it.


Everywhere in the gardens sacred symbols from different spiritual or religious paths intermingled and co-habitated in peace and harmony. It was inspiring and... perhaps humbling is the word. The spiral was probably the most visible symbol. Simple and yet with so many layers of meaning.


This next image shows what you could call the "official" symbol of the well. It's called the
Vesica Piscis. This isn't an artsy photo so much, it's just to show you the design of the symbol.


Moss, dappled shade, stairs leading to...... what's not to enjoy.


Another spiral image - the spiral in the first photo was very small, less then two inches across. This spiral was quite large, two or three feet in diameter.


The serpentine wave of the streambed added to the restful, meditative quality of the gardens and of this photo. You are getting veeee-ry sleepy. You're eyelids feel heavy. You feel restful and......

Lots and lots of photos for your viewing pleasure! These are all from my trip. No, not that trip. Geeze, you're behind the curve. Our most recent trip, two weeks driving around the American Southwest. I decided to post a few of my favorite artsy photos here. For photos (the kind with faces in them) and a "what we did on our summer vacation" synopsis from the trip you have to go to Beach Treasure.

I liked the simplicity of this photo.


Does this say summer to you? Maybe I'll play with this one for my Simple Still Life - the July theme is "Summer". I have some other summer ones too that I didn't share today that I might use as well.


Again, simple. I liked the way the colors were simple but strong, like an O'Keefe - pale blue, dark blue, red, white, green.


I finally found something to take photos of (these were in a museum in Balboa Park) for last month's Simple Still Life Challenge - something about objects with shadows being the focus. Might be fun to do something fabricy or Photo Shop-y with it.


This is in the outdoor amphitheatre in Balboa Park. Is that redundant? Are all amphitheatres outside? Anyhoo, I just loved the subtle textures and the diagonal lines made by the seats, the shadows, and the tiles.


In Balboa Park. The water turns the sky and land upside down.


At the Grand Canyon. Doesn't this gnarled old thing look sentient to you? Perhaps a little deranged as well. Standing there for all those years, looking into the abyss, talking to the wind, mumbling to himself.


In the aspen grove on my sister's property.


And I didn't even have to Photo Shop them to get this bizarre look. They were truly painted this fuschia color. Looking out from The Four Corners.


At a rest stop in Colorado. Columbine -the state flower. The light was so pretty shining through them. It was a bizarre rest stop. They had hanging baskets of flowers and funky wooden painted signs on the lawn and wallpaper border in the bathroom with photos of pressed flowers hanging behind the toilets.


A wall downtown Ft. Collins, CO. I liked the colors and how I can't quite make out what it originally said. It looks like "LOST" but the first letter isn't a "L" but a backwards "S". William was very embarrassed his mother was taking a photo of a wall.

This blog can truthfully complain it's my most abandoned brain child. That's because I've been so busy being out there in the world gathering new experiences, seeing new sights (or old sights for the first time, or old sights through a different day or.....) that I'm almost not on the computer at all, nor have I had any time to create or use any of my new experiences in an artful way. I'm still not home. I'm currently at my son Joe's home in San Diego. We'll be here until halfway through the weekend, then it's a day and a half drive which will probably take three days because I have two more kids and a handful of grandkids to see on the way home.

But I noticed that folks have come here to visit this past week and I have been a terrible hostess, NOTHING NEW to entertain any of you. I picture you all clicking yourself across the vast desert that is the world wide web, hoping to find an oasis of creativity here at this website, only when you finally trudge in, weary, exhausted, you find NOTHING. Okay, so maybe I'm projecting some of my traveling experiences onto your life, but it's my fantasy so that's how I see you.

So I decided to pop in and comment about a few vignettes of my recent road trip.

- I get some of my best ideas for writing and images while I'm driving long distances. I've got several poems and dozens of new art ideas all swirling around in my head, clinging desperately to a neuron or two. Unfortunately it's impossible to draw or write and STILL drive. And stopping by the side of the road in 100 degree heat isn't really a fun option. Even if I didn't have a 14 year old with me who would complain so loudly that I wouldn't be able to think anyway. I kept telling myself that I'd write it all down at the next gas stop or the stop for the night, but I don't remember when the time comes. Or, you try writing in the dark with a flashlight when you have only ten brain cells still awake. (We've been sleeping in our new-to-us pop up camper)

-The southwest might be dry and hot and full of scorpions and snakes, but it's also full of sky. And beautiful landscapes everywhere you turn. Alas, the most picturesque spots seemed to be when we were driving along a cliff slope or a highway with no way to pull over and take a photo. Pout.

-Since my son and DIL have to work, during our visit here our mornings and half the afternoons are our own. I spent three hours yesterday alone in Balboa Park. I went to the San Deigo Art Museum. Spent $10 to get in and, honestly, eh. It was okay. They had an Andy Warhol exhibit there which I actually liked a lot more then I thought I would. There were a few O'Keefe's. I adore her work and have never seen any in person before, so THAT was cool! But clearly it was bad timing. Just having come back from all those museums in London and Paris - San Diego just couldn't compete. Gawd, does that sound pretentious or WHAT!

-I really enjoyed a second museum I visited, I think it was called The Charm Museum? The entire first floor was filled with displays from Carnaval around the world - you know - Rio de Janiero, Mardi Gras, and so on around the world. The top floor had a wonderful display of personal adornment from different cultures - mainly headdresses and necklaces.

-I'm still having trouble getting good shots in low lighting with this new camera of mine. I know, I know, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. Phbbbt.

I went to the trouble of turning a few photos this morning for you, even though I feel sick and yucky. But not restless. I guess that's a trade off. Hmmmm.

So, here are some more photos from Glastonbury. The first two are on the grounds of the ruins of the abbey. If I have the history right (too lazy to go double check), Henry the VIII destroyed the abbey (as well as many others) in order to add their considerable wealth and jewels to his own stash. That and I'm guessing a fit of pique at the whole "you can't get a divorce" ruling the Catholic church handed down. Even in ruins, the grounds are still a peaceful and beautiful place.


These first two photos, the one above and the one below, are all about framing and "doorways". Framing a photo is an easy way to create a focus, and the doorways always make me, as the viewer, wonder what lies beyond, in the more distant scene that we're only allowed a glimpse of.

Looking back at my holiday photos as a whole, I realize that because many of the images were shot during the middle of the day when we visited these locations (and when they're open to the public), I didn't get to play a lot with shadows. That's a shame because they can add so much to an image. Plus, the lighting is different in the early morning or late in the day. It was more challenging to take photos that showed depth or contrast without the extra help of shadows and lighting changes.


This last picture, below, I took while climbing the backside of the Glastonbury Tor. You can see St. Michael's Tower on the top and a few of the MANY steps weaving their way up the left side of the image and disappearing on the top of the hill. I like the way the horizon is sliced horizontally and how the top and bottom images seem to be working independently of each other. You expect the stairs to lead to the tower, and you still assume they do even though the in the scene they don't visually lead you there. And if you click and enlarge, you can see that tiny spot of red is William, waiting up top for his slower mother.

I've been feeling blah about computer time lately. Sorry 'bout not posting something yesterday. Today even, what you're getting is a hodge podge of images that were already set the right direction to upload without messing around having to turn them 90 degrees or anything. Not that I wouldn't have ultimately shared them, just that I'm sharing them today because they were the easiest next pics to upload.

I'd like to say I haven't been on the computer much because I'm being creative or productive but, well, I'm not a very good liar. What I've been doing is being idle, which was one of my Wordplay words on Beach Treasure today. Let's hope it's one of those useful idlenesses in which one recharges one's batteries before breaking out with new enthusiasm and energy. Uhm, yeah. Sure. It's possible.

I did a jigsaw puzzle last night. Took me all night. Went to bed at dawn. It was a 1,000 piece puzzle of a quilt. Does that count as making a quilt? Okay, nevermind. Just asking.

So, the photos:

These first two are close ups I took at Stonehenge. I took a lot of photos there and wish I'd taken even more. It's fun to see the composition, the contrast, the lines, the shapes made from both the positive and negative spaces. I think I'll have to play around with all my Stonehenge images in Photo Shop. When I eventually get around to figuring out how to use Photo Shop. (Yes, Deirdre, I know. I promised. Apparently I'm not to be trusted with that sort of promise. You know me well enough by now to have figured that out!)



This next one I took more to remember the moment then to create an image, but I think it's rather like an Impressionist painting, don't you? Of course if it was an Impressionist painting, there probably wouldn't be all those plant markers in the foreground. I dunno. Maybe. I used to hate little bits of "reality" intruding on my images like that, but recently I've started to think of them as adding to the image instead of distracting from it. So, I rather like them there. But the richness of the textures in all that green, and the figures sort nestled in the middle of it all, that's what reminds me of a painting. If not a Monet, then maybe a Robert Duncan garden scene.

The woman was sitting there on that bench with her son while I wandered around this historical herb garden on the grounds of the ruins of the Glastonbury Abbey. She sat there calmly, resting, waiting, I don't know, while her son chatted happily and without apparent pause or breath, talking, if I recall, about the plants and the day and just generally being a little spot of joy. The mother wasn't ignoring him, nor was she feeding into his chattiness. She was simply the calm at the center, occasionally adding a gentle "Ah-hum" and "Yes dear" and other loving responses.

As for the greenery, it was fun to discover that I had most of these same plants growing in my own gardens back home.

And my son? He was laying in the grass by a small broken hedgerow on the opposite side of the garden, bored, hungry, and tired of waiting for me to look at stupid plants. Ah, the beauty of reality.

I really like this next image. It's looking up through the top of what was a..... not a church, more of a look out, some sort of.... be right back..... the British National Trust website describes it as " the 15th century St. Michael's Tower" which was on the summit of the Glastonbury Tor. I like how the abstractness of it contrasts that tiny glimpse of medieval stone.

What! No new photos this morning!? Sorry. I'm feeling distracted and restless. I'm sure after a few hours of working in the garage, my selected torture du jour, I'll feel far more inspired to sit at the computer and upload photos. So check back later.

In the meantime, I picked up a copy of our county fair premium book the other day. Deadline for filing entry forms comes up in about a week and a half, but since I'll be back on the road again (damn, now I'm gonna be singing Willie Nelson all day), I have to decide what to enter before I leave. Mainly what I want to enter this year is lots of my travel photos.

I entered photos a long time go and then, because it's a lot of work to make them the proper size and frame them all, I didn't enter them again until last year. They did really well. I won lots of ribbons that is. The premium money however, was probably just enough to pay for all the expense of blowing up all the images to 8X10. So I have to be a bit selective. I'm hoping some of the images I create will serve a double duty as both fair entries and then holiday or birthday gifts. I did that with a few last year and it worked great.

I learned a lot entering last year's photos. For example, no matter how many great photos you have in one class (category for you non fair goers), it makes no sense to enter them all since you are then competing against yourself. You might want to enter several, but after that there's that point of diminishing return. Too, some categories are more popular then others, so try to find a way to make a photo work in a category with less competition and you have more of a chance of getting a ribbon. Now, I did well even in the popular categories, so that's not to say you shouldn't enter those too.

The one thing you can't plan for is subjectivity. I entered a lot of photos last year and some I thought were a sure thing didn't place while others I just entered with a "what the heck" attitude took first place! And it doesn't help to keep in mind what the judge's preferences seemed to be last year as it might not be the same judge this year.

I've helped with the hanging and judging of the textiles and quilts (and sometimes the 4-H or junior entries, the canned and baked goods, the school project entries, the florals...) for ten years now and every year or so they switch judges. I think it's actually a rule they must do that, although even if it wasn't, it only makes sense. Too, the judge has to be someone from outside the county. Another good idea because I know that by now I could probably guess with a high degree of accuracy who entered what. It's a small community and there's a lot of us "regulars" who participate in the fair.

Some judges are great, others are dumber then a rock. (No offense to rocks btw, some rocks are quite wise in my not so ordinary opinion) Anyhoo, one year I remember that the quilt and textiles judge preferred neutral tones. Everything that won a ribbon was done in either beige, brown, tan, gray, or taupe. It was NOT a good year for several fair participants who were unfairly overlooked.

Every year I tell myself maybe I shouldn't go to all the trouble to enter because it is so much work and effort and stress. But every year I do because I know I'll feel like I totally missed out if I let it pass. One year I did pass, accidentally. I missed the deadline. By one day. Head bang. The fair was still fun but there just wasn't that sense of excitement, the thrill of anticipation, of feeling like I was part of it. I am unabashedly a fair junkie.

I'm off to the garage. To toss, sort, organize, fume (why did my husband think that throwing the giant holiday candy canes on a stack of snow tires and bicycles was a GOOD idea!? And I distinctly remember using my most threatening voice when I asked him to HANG them in the rafters where they are properly stored), and if I'm lucky, sort through some ideas for the fair.

I'm finding it a lot harder then I thought it would be to decide which photos are "artsy" and should be shared here, and which are "touristy" and should be shared over at Beach Treasure. A lot of the photos could go both ways. Today I put up a bunch of Stonehenge pics over there and there were dozens more that were even more artsy. But, a decision was made.


I love gargoyles. Love'em. And since one of my sons has taken gargoyles as something of a "totem animal" for himself, I love them even more. I was really excited about seeing as many as I could while I was in England (and let's not even start with the gargoyles in Paris, which will send me into shivers of excitement - patience my bloggees, patience) and I wasn't disappointed. It was amazing how many different kinds of gargoyles there are, actually. We tend to think of only the scary monster type ones, but there were monster gargoyles and animal gargoyles and people gargoyles and bird ones and mythological ones and angel ones and.....

A lot of them, like the one above, have been weathered over the ages into something completely different from what they started out as. I'm not sure what this one was shaped like originally, but I thought he was a bit goofy and a bit frightening at the same time. Like the sludge monsters that make an appearance in movies.

Between the gargoyles and ceilings, I could have spent the entire vacation with my neck craned up. This wouldn't have been a terribly good idea however, since they also have lots of stairs and cobblestones in historical areas, which means basically EVERYWHERE. But I did look up as much as I dared. This beautiful ceiling was in a church in Lacock. This particular church had been recently used for the wedding of some relative of Camilla Parker-Bowles....does she have another last name now that she's married to Prince Charles? Anyway, the church was still filled to overflowing with the flowers and greenery from the ceremony and it made it smell wonderful. I wish, along with the visual images, I could have snapped "photos" of smells and sounds and textures as well.

I don't just love this photo, I LOVE this photo! This gentlemen (and isn't he the quintessential British elder) was caring for the cemetery with a hand clippers. Carefully bending over and taking care around the gravestones and flowers. I doubt I could even bend over like that anymore without... well, I could bend over like that. What I doubt is whether I could straighten up again afterwards.

I can't tell you how many times (which is sort of odd really, that I've been to cemeteries and/or landfills so often) I've come across cemetery caretakers in the States who follow the protocol of tossing all the flowers, fresh, faded, or plastic, into the back of a pick up truck, and dumping them at the county landfill, and then having a clean shot at running over the dead with a nice efficient power mower.

And that's when the cemetery allows you to leave things on the graves in the first place. It's no wonder that many of our ancestors and loved ones are abandoned to their graves when we are so discouraged, as a culture, from keeping them in our lives, from visiting them. I found the exact opposite at cemeteries we visited in England and Paris. There, there was much evidence of visitors and offerings at gravestones, even very old ones. I was particularly enamored of the beautiful highly enameled ceramic bouquets and statues that were left on graves in Paris. Just the fact that they weren't stolen or vandalized (although we saw evidence of vandalism, not in graveyards, but in other historical settings) was amazing.

Of course I'm generalizing here, and I'm being slightly unfair. I have seen offerings and visitors at American cemeteries. Some very touching. And at some of the smaller cemeteries, the rules are less strict. I haven't visited every cemetery in every part of the US nor have I visited more then a handful of cemeteries across the pond. But from what I've seen, it makes me think that we're a lot less comfortable with the concept of death in America then folks are in Europe. Of course they've have a lot more history of dealing with death then what we have over here. Overt history that is. I'm well aware that history in the Americas did not begin with Christopher Columbus, even if the school books pretend it did. I only mean that Europe has a much longer written and visible history then we do. As William commented while walking down the street somewhere in England "You can't walk two steps over here without bumping into something historical!"

I like posting these photos, and taking them was certainly an artistic endeavor, but I'm getting restless to get back into doing something in my studio. I think. The problem is, I'm not sure what sort of medium I want to work in and just about anything but what I have set up, which is fabric, would require purchasing, finding, co-ordinating, organizing. Sigh.

And then there's another part of me that wants to leave the studio door shut, let the cobwebs accumulate unbothered, and spend the rest of the summer in the garden. Another sigh.

Back to today's photos..... if Blogger lets me post them, which is another story, which I've already blogged about over on Beach Treasure..... grrrrr.....

I liked the wooden gate, the hedgerows and the tiny little path between them. Why were two hedgerows put so close to each other? And where does the path lead?

Doesn't this remind you of Hagrid's hut? All it needs is a window, perhaps a bit of clutter and a place to sit near the front stoop.

It was actually a building on what I believe was part of an old manor house estate. I like the way the reflection of the roof peeks out of the pond in the foreground in this photo from a farther distance.

I was surprised at how much humor and profanity there were in the statues, sculptures, tombs, and so on. Here's a sweet little cherub playing with a skull. Well, holding a skull. There was one tomb, the lid of the coffin was a sculpture of the person trying to climb out and skeletons pushing him back in. Didn't get a picture of that one as it was in a No Photos situation, but there was a lot of that sort of thing. We think, or at least I had imagined, people in the past as being either very spiritual and reverent on one hand or bawdy, superstitious and earthy on the other. It appears the reality is it was often a hodge podge of both.

We didn't eat at this place, although I had intended to come back here. There was just so many choices, we forgot and moved on. But I took a photo because I loved the name - The Moon and Sixpence. I have no idea if it's an original whimsy or from an old poem or quote, but it made me think that if it wasn't, it should have been.

This was probably the very first peek I had of one of these little tucked off to the side areas. They were everywhere - down an alley, close, narrow street, garden.... and I wish I could have taken a photo of each and every one of them.

This little statue was on a tomb in.... uhm, I think the big cathedral in Bath. Or was it just a church and not a cathedral? I can't remember what the difference was. And if it was a cathedral, then saying it was a big cathedral is redundant. I mean, are there any cathedrals that are not big?

Anyhoo, wherever she was, I liked her. She looks like she's sitting there, for eternity, thinking:

"What a life. I'm only six years old, max, so I never get to grow up. I'll never get to grow out of the children's department at Penney's. I'll never have margaritas with a bunch of college buddies. I'll never get laid. I'll never be able to... oh wait, I'm made out of stone. So, what does it matter. I'll just sit here in this dark corner of... I don't even know where I am, watching over some stupid dead guy for the rest of my life. I guess it could be worse. I'm not outside where pigeons can crap on me. Oh great. Another stupid tourist is pulling out a camera. No, I'm NOT gonna smile. Go play with the pigeons."

Artsy Photo Offering #2


I had a new camera and I couldn't be bothered by anything as silly as reading the instruction manual before the trip. So I had a lot of trouble with focus. Sigh.

This is an underground pool in the roman baths which I believe was originally used as a bathing pool. It is now used as a "offering pool" and a sign read that visitors were allowed to leave offerings to Sulis Minerva at this site. Basically, a "wishing well." I liked the way the coins, which were from many different countries, shimmered.

I did not leave a coin here, although William did, because I had surreptitiously left one at an earlier spot along the tour where a sign said the original offerings were left, deep at the heart of the spring. Here is a photo of it below. You can't really see it in the photo, but there were many coins here as well, some old, some new, most weathered, the copper ones green with age. Although you weren't suppose to toss coins here, at least it wasn't posted for you to do so, many people over the years had done so as I did, and it was nice to see that the trust which handles the site honored the sacred intent, leaving the offerings and blessings that were given.


For more travel photos, visit my Beach Treasure blog.