keep your peepers open!

keep your peepers open!

Sunday, August 30, 2015

a vision

I often post pictures of flowers and plants with sparkling beads of morning dew, rain or drinks of water from their caretakers hanging down as if they are about to drop into my hand. Like liquid jewels, there they are for me to behold. On a recent morning walk, I happened upon a vision I had not seen before. Embedded into the tops of several bushes were large and very intricate silken webs laced with thousands of water beads. Some reminded me of a bib necklace that would drape across a woman’s décolletage adorning her cleavage while others curved into the shapes of cracked glass bowls very similar to one I made in class.







I stood there ogling, brought this spectacle to other’s attention, held quiet conversations with those who stopped to admire the rich lushness in the bush; being amazed by natural beauty never gets old and is something to be shared so...

keep your peepers open! ®

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Y

I don’t know about you but I encourage and support inquisitiveness. Little children are particularly good at probing further when answers to their questions just don’t seem to make all that much sense to them. Somewhere in the growth cycle we begin to shy away from verbalizing curiosity opting to go along in order to get along as we try to find our place, gain likability, avoid conflict, get chosen, be part of. There are those who break out of that stage, yet too many are content to either say yes without a second thought or keep their mouths shut when doubt arises. In my opinion, those who fail to ask not only why but also who, what, when, where and how are doomed to follow not lead and we know what happens when folks blindly or in many instances enthusiastically follow with little thought to challenging the status quo.

Even when I am creating something, I find my head dropping slightly to the right as I ponder. For example, I took an 8-week ceramics class many moons ago. I listened, followed directions, attempted to shape a vase like everyone else; it didn’t feel right to me. So after learning what the instructor had to offer, I began to experiment developing skills that helped me create pieces that appealed to me and eventually to the more seasoned in the studio. I am equally as quizzical when I find a recipe I want to try; it just did not make any sense to me when I read one for sweet potato bread that did not have even ONE seasoning in the list of ingredients! So I sprinkled, liberally, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and a couple of other things into the flour to jazz it up, made the bread my own. Yes, it is delicious.

I was prompted to write this after downloading and reviewing hundreds of photographs taken on an exceptional day with the camera. When I get home, I go through all of my shots, immediately identifying those I want to print, playing around with editing on others. Never one to keep them all to myself because I get so excited about the images, I watermark and sign my favorite pictures to send out or post and these two were in that category.



Very different pictures taken hours apart at very different locations, I found them to have an uncanny resemblance; the Y’s of nature, one molded by a single twisted branch the other shaped by the wings of a butterfly caught at just that moment got me to thinking about the word why which then led to when do we stop asking questions and so forth and now I leave you with this…being a maverick is not always popular however, I’ll take that any day over being mediocre. So as my Grandmother used to say, put that in your pipe and smoke it and…

keep your peepers open! ®

Sunday, August 23, 2015

with & without

summer is moving quickly...soon gardens with color


will go without


 with every fiber of my being I am flitting through the season


without a care in the world


it’s still summer, so…

keep your peepers open!®

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

rustic taste

I spent this past weekend with family and for the first time in quite some time, was back in the kitchen for hours preparing various dishes. As much as I enjoy cooking, I really haven’t done much since I began drinking smoothies and even when I do, cooking for one is much different than cooking for several but like a duck to water I was immediately in my element. My niece had picked blueberries that she carried all the way from Virginia; nobody felt like making a cobbler or pie however, I remembered seeing a recipe for a galette which, once made revealed itself to be such an easy and quick pastry to make if you go to the refrigerator section of your grocery store and get a Pillsbury pie crust! Trust me, their prepared dough is just fine and when family gathers, nobody will really care that it’s not made from scratch…taste and togetherness is all that matters.

This rustic looking “tart” was tasty and since it is so simple to make, I will try it again with apples. Actually, I'm also mulling over a savory version, deciding on the ingredients so...

keep your peepers open!®

Sunday, August 16, 2015

glimmer



A glimmer of light is always a sign of hope, so...

keep your peepers open!®

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

triptych

Quite by accident, as I did not set out with the intention to create one, reeds of tomato red intertwined with stalks and leaves in green hues joined to form a triptych…




It’s hard to look at one without feeling that the other two must a part for all to be whole; in actuality, the pictures were taken of a single plant from different angles so the three do make one hence a triptych which then became a metaphor.

Exploration of self may reveal multi-talents which, for some of us, must ALL be investigated! Right now I find myself devoting energy to three different areas of interest that I feel equally passionate about. As I partial out time for each, every now and again I wonder if I should put one of them off for a while until I remember -- I have already done that opting to move forward with just the three. Though each thing I am working on is distinctly different, in order for any one of them to be successful, all of them must be in play to keep me feeling motivated, focused and whole. And so it is for me.

The many gifts of the multi-talented cannot always fit into one frame. They must be given the license to appear in their own light as they come together to develop a bigger picture so…

keep your peepers open! ®

ps … the number 3 happens to be my soul number…no coincidences there!

Sunday, August 9, 2015

flying free

I love when a butterfly flutters around me. As a child, I wanted to capture them to keep forever not knowing that by placing them in a jar, I abruptly ended what they had worked long and hard to do which in part, is to fly free.

Recently, they have been all around me in various natural settings, sometimes breezing so close to my face, I could almost feel their beating wings. The first time it happened, I stilled myself to watch this gorgeous creature as it settled onto a flower, capturing it on film rather than with my hands. Each time I found myself in their midst, I grew quiet to observe and was rewarded with stunning images. I felt a distinctive exhilaration especially when several different ones jockeyed for a spot to land and pose. Seeing so many of them close enough to touch evoked a joyous wonder that now, all grown up, tickled me with childlike glee.








A weekend ago, I sat watching lots of butterflies glide freely through the air. Floating over gardens, they would disappear only to lift off from wherever they landed continuing their life journey. On that day, I resisted the temptation to pull out my camera choosing instead to internally record the image of the dance rather than a still shot. Now, when I close my eyes, I see the movement of their flight, feel the warmth of summer mingling with a breeze under the canopy, hear the peace in that moment, taste green tea with honey on my lips, and smell a symphony of aromatics that can't be bottled.


Butterflies symbolize transformation and joy, hope, new beginnings; I love the package in which my message was delivered.

keep your peepers open! ®

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

ave

There is something to be said for being out so early that you can stand in the middle of the avenue undisturbed as you take in the distance that seems so far…


…yet so near.


Before the traffic ramps up, the streets of the city are quite pleasurable; one can see more with less in the way so…

keep your peepers open! ®

Sunday, August 2, 2015

the right words

A picture is worth a 1000 words or in my recent case 1000's of words came forth because of a picture. I think that is saying what I mean but while I ponder, let me explain....

I was down to the wire; my presentation was due and something just wasn't right. Sure I had pulled PowerPoint slides together but they contained words on pages that didn't really move me so how on earth would they mean anything to my audience? The week had been packed with other major distractions that kept me from devoting all my efforts to editing and finishing a presentation I would be proud of so I requested and thankfully was granted one more day.

On my extended due day, I arrived at my desk early dispensing with several to do's with swift efficiency in order to clear space in more ways than one. I opened the presentation, stared at the words and re-asked myself about my message. Blankness answered me. I then began to look at pictures, my own and clip art until there before me was an image that lit the spark. I toyed with it re-creating my title page, realized there are choices for backgrounds that I somehow had missed, found a perfect template with the right colors and fonts, understood immediately that the new title page I just put together didn't work in that opening spot rather it was a closer, and then it just all took shape.

When faced with projects of this nature, I have always found it easier for me to find my flow if I have a working title to build on. The reprise that was one more day combined with a mindful mind allowed me to develop a presentation that slide after slide perfectly speaks to the subject in every word, image, and picture. Pleased, I attached it to a thank you email, hit send and headed out for a long weekend.

Still not so sure about my opening to today's blog but I think you understand what I was trying to tell you so...

keep your peepers open! ®