Saturday Musings

Here are a couple more journal pages for those of you who find them interesting. I am always delighted to see what other artists do for their private amusement; I have always said that I could find happiness as long as I had my paper and pencil and this is how I would do it. Doodle doodle, fiddle and ponder. Write it out and stare at it. For some reason this loosens my inner knots and helps me go on in a bewildering world. It makes me feel organized.

I try not to make my journal a bitch book but the last month has been rocky and I have searched for answers by writing. My problems are not with the outside world but rather in my own interpretation of what is going on I believe. Maybe a period of humility and doubt is good for the soul. Maybe it is just human.

Our forsythia is ginormous. I can't take my eyes off it. I adore yellow. Adore it. It is my color.

John pruned the long line of grapes this week. I love the way the vines look when they are newly pruned. It is hard to believe how much they produce on such small armatures.

This is last summer's bird nest that I found high up on the trellis in my Cecile Brunner rose bush. (the one we refer to as the house-eater) The close-up is so you can see the cherry seeds woven in. Finding a bird's nest is like being gifted with the most exquisite piece of art imaginable. A house. Built by a brave and clever being with feathers and wings. What mysteries these creatures are.

The little nest lives in a nicho outside my studio door. The painting of the madonna is the very first reverse painting I ever did. It fell off the wall and shattered one day and after I threw it in the trash I later retrieved it and glued it back together. We should always save the first thing of any new art medium we try. So that we can later revel in our improvement.

I have a little hollow rock that the birds bathe in. All winter it was covered in foliage that I finally pruned away this spring. So it has grown a find beard of bright green moss.

It sits beneath a water faucet so I can keep it clean and inviting for my feathered guests.

Lastly, a painting of a lady, younger and prettier than myself, escaping her responsibilities to go away and play with her friends at Artfest. I live in my imagination. I am a girl who makes up things.