Where there's a will, there will be a way. I found proof.

I'm smitten with this harsh and hot land.Completely in love.Where some people see failure, death and destruction, I see life.I see it in the little trickles of water, in the Shoshan people, in the creosote, mesquite, the ephemeral spring flowers, the animals and the cacti......and in those who saw what I see.This is the Amargosa Opera House.It's the home of the late Marta Becket. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.You can go read all about it, but in a nutshell, in 1967, Marta, who was a New York Ballerina, got a flat tire, had it fixed in a gas station right across the street, saw, what was then the remains of a row of shops and a dance hall for the old Borax mining company, rented it......and stayed.She painted the walls, ceiling and stage of the little dance hall, and danced and danced for the next 40 years there.At first she had an audience of maybe 6 people, but eventually, this little opera house and Marta danced their way into history.But I think that the most important this is that Marta did what she wanted to do...fulfilled her life's purpose. Danced like no one was watching, because some times no one was watching, and lived happily ever after. (I imagine)It took her five years, but I love the way she painted her own audience and just worked her art, did her own magic, made herself happy.a few miles from Amargosa...ok, 89 miles but who's counting, is the life's work of another person who is an inspiration to me.The China Ranch Date Farm is a little island of life.The history is shaky and a bit sad, but it seems that a Chinese man, a refugee who worked the mines, decided that the miners lacked fruit in this harsh climate, and so planted a grove of date trees in this little area where there is a natural freshwater spring.Eventually, he was usurped by a man named Morrison who owned guns...at gunpoint...the wild west.But what remains is a legacy. A legacy of making it. Making a life of love and contentment...although I'm sure there were tons of road bumps and serious potholes along the way.Still, that life well lived, a legacy to follow, that to me is the most wonderful life.Read: To Dance on Sands by Marta BecketListened to: Glory in Death by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts)

Perfect autumn day in the country

Is it your favourite season?MINE TOO!With precious few sunshiny days left before the winter rains set in, we're taking every chance we have to drive out into the country we love.One of our favourite destinations is the quaint little town of Fort Langley.And one of our favourite places for lunch is Wendel's Bookstore and Cafe.It's half bookstore......half locally grown, homemade, organic goodness restaurant.While we waited for our lunch, we had a mooch around some of the books.I found this amazing colouring book of the universe. Talk about intricate! It's a sort of paint by numbers of galaxies and solar systems.Chloe fell in love with the Glamping book now that she owns an Airstream, but the book which really spoke to us was Penguin the Magpie.It's a story of an injured magpie chick who helped a family deal with a tragedy. It's all told in the most stunning photographs imaginable. Just an amazing book.Lunch!After lunch, we walked around the Fort and peeked into the antiques emporium.We really like mooching around in this space, but I honestly cannot believe the prices. I suppose I've been spoiled rotten with my finds at car boot sales and thrift shops.After lunch we went for a drive around.I particularly love this road. It's called Telegraph Trail and is a historic road built to run the first telegraph wires in 1865.We stopped by the side of the road because Chloe spied something.It was a little book hut! We borrowed a 1937 copy of Robbin Hood.No idea! Robert took this photo of me in my reading glasses walking back to the car...LOL.So we carried on down the road till we spied a field of sunflowers with a sign which said: "Aldor Acres open for October".I've driven past this little farm and always managed to miss any opening times, but here we were, so we stopped and went in for a look.Oh my goodness, what a beautiful little farm! We came away with corn, black currant jelly, two peacock feathers......and a huge bunch of sunflowers!

Teaching the therapy journal day at the Wellness Centre

These days are my favourite.Loads of work, but so very satisfying.I love teaching the therapy journal at Inspire Health, my wellness centre.I bring in old books, my own journals (plus my own therapy journal which I kept during a 2014 cancer journey), and I get to lead a workshop in my art therapy approach with other people in various stages of dealing with the battle. Everything I bring is there for everyone. The art in my own journals, my techniques, my images, all can be copied, photographed, traced, used for reference and remembered. Books for inspiration, bits of ephemera for collage, onion skin paper for copying, inks, felts, charcoals, gel pens, stabilos, mat medium...anything I can think of I bring.I'm always so surprised and amazed that some say they've never drawn anything more complicated than a stick man!The work that comes from the precious hearts of my students is so spectacular it always leaves me breathless.This afternoon was just a beautiful time, with all of us sharing and singing and laughing and trying new art techniques.Look at this beautiful self portrait my friend Helen painted in her journal, Look at those amazing words she highlighted all around her.Here are some more of Helen's pages. I can't believe she never painted before the therapy journal came into her life.And here is a beautiful page from my friend Shiva's journal.I love to teach here every month, and each time it's different. Today an accidental double booking for this big room resulted in a 30 minute overlap and a choice: stop 15 minutes early for a Zumba class, or, share the space! That's a choice? LOL.Can you say Zumba art? So much fun!

Earth day 2016

Oh what an Earth Day this was.It's miserable and dreary and raining, AND I got stuck at home while Ira the repairman fixed my oven.But I'm happy to report that everything is well and I can bake once more.It's my usual habit to draw or paint a little something each year in celebration of Earth Day, and late this afternoon, when I finally had some time to do something about this, I kept thinking of those beautiful days out on the ocean, and about the cormorant who kept me company.I looked into the waves in my photos and saw that cormorant in the reflections in the stylised Haida art which I love.So I painted that cormorant, and I painted her reflection.What do you think Zola?She likes it. :D

Market Monday

I went into town to get a sim card for my British phone and to do some shopping today.Usually shopping happens on Wednesdays, because Wednesdays tend to be pretty quiet and there are literally millions of people here who always decide to shop at the same time.But I had to go, and as expected, the market town was busy and made even busier for this special pop up Christmas market in the town square.Lucky me, I had to walk thru it to get to my bank and so had a good look.In the centre was a stall where a woman was grilling bratwursts. They smelled great!A bit further along was a stall selling all sorts of antipasto goodies.Right beside them was a bread baker with his wares. Don't you love the flour-baked message on that fabulous artisan bread?Next door was a knitter with crazy woollen and hand-knit sweaters. I just loved all of them.And last, I met a jeweller who was making these beautiful pendants. He takes a piece of nature; a feather, leaf or acorn, and he copper plates it, and then he silver plates it, so at the heart is the actual bit of nature. How lovely is that?A last (longing) look at the crispy duck lunches and off I go to get my shopping and business done.

Sunday rest...HA!

Sundays might be meant for rest and a lie-in, HA, not us!We jumped up first thing and hooned X country to Northhamptonshire and the Santa Pod raceway to be part of the Mini in the Park.So many pretty cars! (you have to read the "pretty car" part with a Thick Italian Mafia Accent (T.I.M.A.) like the baddie in the Italian Job)This began as quite an emotional morning for me, because this is the first mini gathering I've been able to go to since the loss of my precious mini. I decided to put on my Dunkirk spirit and look at the beautiful minis and chose the sorts of details I want for my new mini.Now, reflecting back, I'm so very glad I went.Oh pretty car! (T.I.M.A.) Really like the leather bonnet straps, the over-riders and the moustache. Not too crazy about the same as the body paint grill.Definitely no Spiderman detailing...lol...but love the moustache and the grill.Robert got me two beautiful vintage yellow fog lights, so I looked at the placement of extra lights on the various minis.This is my most favourite engine, and very close to my engine to be. This is everything a classic engine should be, including the green paint, square radiator, and yellow fan. The only thing is this beautiful engine had a dynamo instead of an alternator. I used to have a dynamo in the old mini, but my mini now will have an alternator.A lot of the pretty cars (T.I.M.A.) were grouped in mini clubs and proudly showcased under banners and flags. We're part of a mini club as well, the Turbo minis, because R and most of our friends try to out race each other with turbo modified engines. This is great fun because one year R has the fastest turbo mini in the world, (maybe only because the other three fast cars were not on the road...but still (he's making me say this bit because he says it's suitable humility)), another year one of our friends takes the title. So anyway, where was the illustrious, fastest minis in the world Turbo mini club stand?Lol, over there along the side lines, no banners, no flags, just attempting to explode a watermelon with a modified petrol powered apple peeler...as you do!While overhead, an old plane did loops and upside down aerobatics.Mind you, mini owners, as a group, tend not to take themselves too seriously. I edited a little for this pc blog of mine, but must agree about the modern BMW Minis, (sorry my wonderful neighbours in both countries who love their BMW Minis).So we had a wonderful time joining in with our gang, we had a little picnic lunch,Caught up with our friend Simon...who ran .0458 of a second faster than R and took the crown this year at 13.09 seconds to the quarter mile,watched him race, watched the races in general, the sluggish modern Minis, the funny cars, the nitrous oxide muscle car, the 4.6 second jet car and all the pretty cars (T.I.M.A.)...we watched till late afternoon.Then we said our goodbyes and hooned home.

A surprise lake, which we will keep a secret

Chloe and I seem to have developed a ritual of finding out of the way fabulous places, which usually contain lakes, like last year's treasure.This trip we followed a river off the highway just for fun, then turned right at a ground hog and headed up a mountain logging road which promised something lovely at the top.And there, about 20km up, was what we came for.Heaven in a lake.We'll be back. :D

Connections, Kristen's wonderful challenge

It's funny sometimes how a spur of the moment though...actually, maybe it's more accurate to say, a mind empty of thoughts, a mind in the present, how that inspires the perfect action.I knew that the challenge word for this week is connections. I knew this for a full week and everywhere I went, everything I did, I saw connections in. But then, you might be saying, you can hardly help that, can't you? Well, it's true, but rarely do those connections inspire a meaningful piece of art.Yesterday at the beach, it was gloriously warm and bright. I picked up a piece of orange nylon rope thinking I would recycle it properly, and, as I sat looking around me at the sunshine and the happy dogs I decided to save that piece of rope and weave it into something which connects.So I walked along the beach to find the perfect branch and some other objects and took them home.I was going to wait till this morning to do something with them, but the evening was so lovely that I decided to start right then.I wove the nylon rope around the branch and thru itself.I found some ribbon and yarn and wove that in to symbolise seaweed and the reflection from shells.And then I went to get my other found goodies to add those on, phoned Robbie and went to bed.Sent photos for the weaving to R and he said, "you've made yourself a talking stick. Even more connections. I like it!"This morning my newly proclaimed talking stick lay on the dining room table.It sparkles in the harsh morning light, with its beads of birch bark, its combinations of man-made and natural elements, discarded and wanted, saved and used. Offers, connections, from the ocean and from my hands to your heart.I took it outside to greet the day and held it up against the sky.When you have a chance, the list of participating artists is here on Kristen's site. :D

Hair, Nadine's wonderful challenge

You know, I'm one of those persons who knows her art limitations. Really I do. I do but, as you probably suspect, I tend to ignore them.Last week my friend Nadine invited me to take part in a weekend drawing challenge. Just like last time, the challenge was to take a word and depict it in an image. This word was "hair".Now I feel that I can draw almost anything, but believe I'm absolutely naff at portraiture. It's true! But the more I thought about it, the more I really wanted to draw some beautiful hair on a beautiful girl. Growing up, I did the requisite copies of my favourite album covers and people's images, (there's a whole portfolio dedicated to Bowie somewhere at mom's house I think), and I also remembered drawing mermaids.I used to draw a lot of beautiful mermaids. Some coming out of the water with long flowing hair floating on the waves, pearls and seashells dripping from their bodies, well, anyway, that's what I decided to draw.So I started this morning and have my mermaid finished by lunch time. (Only one day late...lol)Well, finished is a relative term. I believe I could be shading and refining and lifting and tweaking for another four hours. But that's not going to happen today, because I hear the mountains calling my name. :DThanks for this opportunity Nadine. And thank you for inspiring me to bring back a skill from my childhood and give it another try.If you guys have a chance to, please pop by and visit the other extremely talented and fun artists:Barbara, Tammie, Ariane, Carole, Demie?, Emily, Joanne, Patrice, Leena, Celine, Renilde, Kristen, Roberto, Kim, Mano, Stefanie, Nadine.

Randomness alert!

Those Valentine's day roses were so lovely that I wanted to hang on to them past their indoor prime and so I lay them on the cafe table out in the garden where I could see them from the kitchen. There's something so wonderfully decedent about red roses laying on a table outside. Kind of like dropping the rose petals by the front door. When it snowed they were even lovelier. Now the snow is melting and I suppose I'll have to compost them sooner or later. :(Speaking of snow, do you see Morgan there on the patio? You can just about make her out thru the railing at the bottom of the stairs. She has been the grumpiest cat from hell lately. She absolutely hates the snow and growls and spits each time she's put outside.Went for a walk round the 'hood and thru a little botanical garden near by. I was after some winter blooming flowers, like this heather, and then came round this greenhouse full of blooming calla lilies and started begonia hanging baskets and thought to myself, "man, that girl has the best job ever!"Speaking of gardens, remember when I told you all that I signed the garden for the open garden Art in the Garden weekend? Well, I got the call that the judges would like to come preview the garden this coming Wed to see if they will allow it and the garden looks like a tip! (that's British for really big mess) Gulp!So, instead of working in the garden, I decided to clean up the garage and establish a silvesmithing studio on one of the benches. (The garage also looks like a tip.)I worked all day and cleared off one of the work benches and got out the varnish and decided to sand the work bench down and varnish the plywood top to make it look better, but then I thought that actually I really liked the splattered paint and cut marks and scratches, and so I sanded it only lightly and decided to get my stamps and inks and personalise the bench some more before varnishing it.I love it! And now I want to paint the walls and rehang the paintings and clean up the potting bench and start the seeds for the flowers and veggies, and invite people in and serve tea at Art in the Garden time, and possibly have some friends come and do some art in there and make my jeweller in there...Oh, I'm so excited for that space. More info > on my repairs and improvements will be posted soon.And I have to have all this done by Wed. 8OPS. If you'd like the calendar screensaver then help yourself. It's right there on the side bar for you.Sharing with Nancy and looking forward to everyone's randoms. :D