rosieposie

toads in a teapot

She lay in her pretty little bed one night when there came jumping at the window, through a broken pane, an ugly toad.  It was such a horrid toad - big and wet - and it jumped right onto the table where Thumbelina lay fast asleep beneath the red rose petal.

"She'll make my son a lovely wife!" said the toad.  And, picking up the walnut shell with Thumbelina asleep inside it, she hopped away through the window and into the garden.

A big, wide stream flowed through the garden.  The edge of this was all swampy and muddy, and there lived the toad with her son.  Ugh, he too was ugly, just like his mother!  "Ko-ax, ko-ax, brek-ek-ek!" was all he could say when he saw the pretty girl in the walnut shell.

"Don't talk too loud, or she'll wake up!' said the old toad.  "She'll run away from us yet, she's as light as swan's down.  We'll put her out on the stream, on one of those water-lily leaves; light and tiny as she is it'll make an island for her.  She won't be able to run away from there, and meanwhile we'll get ready the front room under the mud, where you'll be making you're home!"
                                                         - from Thumbelina by H.C. Andersen
                                                            translated from the original by Reginald Spinks
                                                                                       (courtesy of Alfred Knopf, Inc.)

the robins' arrival

The robins have returned once again!  It never seems quite officially spring until they are bobbing around the lawn and singing each morning awake.  Soon the nest building will begin.  Every year there is at least one red-breasted couple who select some odd home site.  Last year's award went to the pair who chose the porch railing bird feeder just a few feet from the ground and inches from the door!  I must admit that I was secretly pleased with their choice for I often got a peek at those beautiful eggs nestled among the selected mosses, various coloured strings and downy feathers.  And then, of course, I was able to watch the babies grow and eventually fledge.  Those final days on the edge of the nest may have been more nerve-wracking for me than for Mrs. Robin!

In honor of the robins' homecoming I found this illustration colour study to share with you.  In the story,  a little brown bird, Robin, must find a way to wake Princess Spring from her long sleep before Winter finds a way to keep her asleep forever.  In desperation, Robin flies up to the sun to fetch some warm light to shine into Princess Spring's window and when he does he get a bit to close and burns his breast feathers leaving them red like the sun. Robin flew swiftly back to the slumbering Spring's window and shined the bright sunlight onto her face.  Spring soon awoke, melted the snow and ice and brought everything into bloom. The little Robin had saved the world from an unending winter!  And that is why, to this day, robins wear this red badge of bravery.

P.S.  Thank you for coming to our little tea party yesterday!  It was great fun and so nice to see everyone.  And the pastries.....mmmmm... scrumptious!!!  Lisbeth and the other dollies are just exhausted and all tucked into their beds after such an exciting day.

an invitation to tea

The dollies and I would like everyone to join us for tea this afternoon.  There will be biscuits and little cakes fresh from the oven.  Perhaps some tiny fruit tartlets and chocolate as well.  You may wear whatever you like for we are all friends and appearances mean very little.  Just bring your own sweet and loving hearts and we're sure to have a grand time!

And, Miss Corey... we know it's not  polite to ask but would you please, please bring us some of your sinful-looking pastries, too.  You have tempted us so with those photos that we can't stop thinking about them!  Oh, and I'm certain we'd all love to see Mademoiselle's trousseau list as well, although I cannot guarantee it's safe return ;0)

The image is a lithograph I handprinted some time ago.  Printmaking had never really sounded like anything I would be interested in but after just an hour or so in the litho studio and I was in love!  There's such a ritual to the process that it seems oddly spiritual . Choosing the perfect stone, hand grinding the surface until it as smooth as glass (and scratch free), all the preparation of the surface and then drawing the image (in reverse so that it prints correctly)... even preparing the paper for the edition has a solemness.  And each turn wheel on the big handpress is a labor of love.  I lived and breathed lithography for many months and thought I had found what I was meant to do.  I'd never done anything that I enjoyed more than that.  Then something interrupted it all.  I can't even remember what it was but it broke the spell, I guess.  It still haunts me now and again.  The scents of turpentine, stone and ink, the quiet hum of levigator on stone, the water trickling through the sinks... I do still miss them, I guess.

The doll on the far right (without a party dress) is my very first doll, Lisbeth.  I decided to portray her in her authentic well-loved condition.  The poor dear has very little hair and has survived more than a few surgeries to her cloth body.  One of which was caused by my sister who tugged poor Lisbeth right in half all because she wanted to play with Lisbeth rather than her own doll.  Lisbeth is still with me and looks about the same but she is loved even more if that can be. 

(Don't worry!  When you come for tea Lisbeth promises to have put on her nicest frock!)

in the garden

While ransacking the studio in search of a special bottle of ink I had put in some  extremely safe place - even I couldn't find it - this little illustration floated out of an old portfolio. 

This watercolour is at least ten years old but it seems like it was only yesterday that it was on the studio table.  I remember I had been experimenting with mixing greens and the desktop was  littered with many many little paper squares each holding a different swatch of green.

It's so strange to look at it after so much time.  I know I didn't like it at all when it was first finished and I remember that all the mistakes seemed to overwhelm the picture.  I couldn't stand to look at it for quite a while and even agonized over it as I tried to go to sleep at night.  What torture I put myself through!

Now all those  spots that  seemed  like massive blemishes are actually some of the areas I find the most charming.   Wherever the paints disobeyed me and took their own paths are  exactly where I now find the richest passages of colour.  It's quite magical what time can do.

thinking

The warming heat of the sun has brought to mind yet again how thankful I am for all of you who take the time to visit this little page and how much genuine quality you have added to my life in so short a time.

Here's a little confession... I have never had any women friends -  never the real friend kind that you can feel safe in sharing important things.  Maybe it's where I live.  I've always felt rather alien here.  Or it might be because I've always been older than my chronological age [I was raised by my dear grandmother.] so I never had too much in common with the girls in my high school.  Of course, it didn't help that I was the tall gawky shy girl whose talents in sports were, well, nonexistent.

Sure there were girls that I talked to and ate lunch with but... they could never really be depended on to be very good friends for more than an hour or two at a time.  They were typical teenage girls, I guess.  There was one girl who was a good pal all through grade school.  Our birthdays were only three days apart.  We went to Sunday school together and sang in the childrens' choir together.  We made crazy elaborate Halloween costumes and, along with my two sisters, put on plays and musicals for my grandmother and parents.  We were in the same academic group in school too, so when we started junior high we had all our classes together.  Alas, somewhere along the way she developed this rather cruel streak and seemed to enjoy making me miserable.  Now, I didn't wear my hair in pigtails nor did I have big thick black-rimmed glasses with tape around the nosepiece like the brainy girls in the movies do but I may as well have.   If your the smart girl whose also painfully shy and thinks too much the last thing you need is a best friend who revels in announcing any embarrassing moment to  the entire school.  I guess it made her feel more important and strangely enough I don't remember ever being angry at her.  I do remember deciding that friends cannot be trusted.  And I've had no reason to think otherwise until now.

It's amazing!  Do you remember the feeling that fills your whole being when you really understand something for the first time?  For years whenever I read an article or book about women friends I was unable to really understand the bond that they often described.  Or, for instance, did you happen to see a television commercial that ran a few months ago with four women who went on vacation together?  I think the ad spot was for a hotel.  "What would they possibly do," I thought.  "And how would they get along together for an entire week?"

Hmmmm... perhaps friends truly value each other, share life's burdens, give each other strength...  understand when someone unearths well-masked treasures from the flea market or sews a sleeve on inside-out for the third time in a row.... encourage each other when ill-winds blow...  soothe troubled minds when creativity runs dry and one is left to battle the nausea-like frustration that remains.  I think they do. 

And that's what I feel here on this page and on all the other virtual front porches I regularly visit.  I'm a lucky girl.

the abbreviated version

This looks much like the outcome of Thursday's adventures... well, that is if the dress were a bit sootier.

The unnecessarily long version is posted below for those wanting  a meandering and senseless story with their coffee.

not you average day...

My mind has this crazy notion that if I share the humiliation of my day that it will all feel less painful.  The remaining sane hemisphere is not as convinced but I guess at least it might give everyone else a chuckle...

The day started out as usual, good even .  There were the same old chores to be done and I had dared hope to squeak out a few extra hours in the studio.  It was not to be...

I had all my daily chores done but it was so nice outside that I decided to make a start at raking out the rose beds.  I gathered all the old damp plant material and took it back to the spot where I compost things and have a little area to burn papers.  Well, as long as I was going I might as well bring the kitchen papers, right?  Great idea!
It was a damp day with very little wind so I felt perfectly confident in starting a little fire.  Now, mind you, I live on a old 300 acre farm which has 3three or four feet of water as the back property line so I wasn't putting any neighbors in danger.

The fire didn't want to go at all and just sputtered a bit. So, thinking it would most likely go out and  I would later have to bring the papers back to the house (before I found they had scattered over hill and dale), I  went into the house for a little snack before getting down to work.

I looked out at the burn area a few times and it was just smoldering.  I guess it was... about forty minutes later I went out to the kitchen for some fresh paint water and see the entire fire department parked in my driveway.  And the old grass in one of the meadows is on fire.  Not a raging inferno... just a little grass fire that I could easily put out by myself.

At first I was a little annoyed that my work time had been interrupted with such a silly thing.  And I was equally annoyed at whoever it was that had called the fire department.  I have to admit I was a little short with them at first - their trucks were making horrendous ruts in the lawn and I'm the one who would have to fix them) .  But I quickly regained my composure and apologized - they were just doing their job - but I told them I didn't want them to put the fire out.  And when they asked my name I wouldn't give it.  It really all seemed like an invasion of my privacy and was really of no importance anyway. That triggered some patronizing remarks from the fire crew - the kind men make when they think a woman is "trespassing on their territory" -  How much fire-fighting have you done?  Do you think you can handle it? ...   Granted, I am rather slender and people usually treat me like I will break but I was raised by my grandmother, a woman who believed there wasn't anything a woman couldn't do!  The new fire chief, who I went to high school with and reminds me of a Keebler elf (I don't mean that in a bad way... he really does...), came forwarded and smoothed things over.  "Are you sure you don't want us to put it out?"  I didn't and the firemen went away.

The hay in fields didn't get cut last year [ because I have to hire it out and the person a hired never got the job done.]  so there was a lot of long old grasses that would need to be burned off if the fields were to produce well this year.  The fire had already burned a few acres so I monitored it and let it do its work.  It went well.  Not exactly what I had planned for the day... but it was something I would have had to do eventually.   The  weather was nice and I was enjoying a day outdoors.

Four o'clock came and I was getting a little tired but the fire had almost burned itself as far as it could go except for one little spot near the next field.  I walked down to put it out all the while debating... should I put it out or am I just being lazy... this next field needs to be burnt off too...  and it's a wet field.... it probably won't burn further than half way across where it's the lowest and wettest... hmmmm....

"Oh, don't put it off'" I told myself, "get the job over with for the season."  So I let the fire make the little jump into the next field.  The field is almost twenty-five acres.  It burned nice, low and evenly - nothing I couldn't put out if needed.   But it's getting later and later.  I'm regretting my decision to burn further and really want to be done with this.  [Now, I'm no stranger to burning off fields.  I grew up on a farm and have done it many times.]  So  I did a little back burn so the fire can't go any further and will burn itself out when the two lines of flame meet.  So far, so good.  I walked around all the edges.  Everything was under control.  In maybe another forty minutes the fire would be down to nearly nothing.

I walked over an old fence line where I had trudged out in stormy weather last fall to hang some posted signs.  [ I have a terrible time keeping people from driving ATV's all over and using the farm as their own personal hunting camp.]  I grumbled a bit because the sign had been ripped down and some of the trees in the hedgerow were broken down to make a path for the ATV's.  All was still going well.  I walked to the other side of the meadow to check on things there.  There were e few little teeny flames straying so I put them out.  The back burning had done its job and the fire was burning toward the center just as planned.  And then I looked back down to the other side.  The exact spot where I had been muttering about the sign and the new hole in the fence.  The fire had reached some particularly thick grass and because someone had taken the brush out of the fence line to make that path there was just enough fuel to let the fire move to the other side.  And if I hadn't been mad about the hole in the fence I probably would have realized that was going to happen... and I would have prevented it. 

I'm pretty tired by now... it's after 6 pm... but I start putting the fire out.  It's nothing too terrible.   The big field that was on its way to being completely done did look quite "flamey" if you just a happened to be driving by.  A strong burst of breeze had fed the flames enough to make them seem tall as they burned toward each other.  Someone else thought so too, I guess. 

Fifteen minutes later the fire department returned.  Yes, that's right, twice in one day!

Apparently it had been decided that the chief would deal with the crazy woman this time because he walked across the field by himself.  He calmly asked,  "Do you want any help ?"

He quite possibly meant that in a sarcastic way but it didn't really seem it.  Oh, how I hated to say yes!  After not wanting them earlier in the day and practically demanding that they leave... the utter humiliation....   but I was so tired and a bit emotionally exhausted from being responsible for fire all day long...  I yielded and accepted the help.

I stayed with them and continued working along the fire line putting it out.  As I walked past the fire chief he smiled, put out his hand and said,  " Do you think you could tell me your name now?  You know, just to be sociable?"

I'll be wearing a veil of shame for the next few months....

Julie Heffernan, a painter I discovered only recently, is the creator of today's image.  In honor of my day as a most embarassed fire bug... "Everything that Rises"  Do take a look at her  other work if you have a chance.  It's quite feminine, ethereal with a touch of delicious decadent decay and her palette so lusciously warm.

puppy biscuits for Miss Pugsie

buzzing with inspiration

                           from Thumbeline.

Many thanks again to all of you who have been so generous with your uplifting thoughts and reassurances.  Words of advice from such kindred spirits are sincerely treasured and have kept me buoyant even though I feel I must be wearing leaden shoes. 

Much to my surprise I've made a bit of a breakthrough in the mental block that's been slowing down progress of the RosiePosie & MaryRuth stories.  Hurray!  Even the teeniest bit of movement on this front is a happy happy occurence. 

It woke me at about 5 am this morning... the story outline was there in my head... and it made sense!  For weeks now I have come at this dilemma from every angle I could think of only to find myself going around in circles and then out of seemingly nowhere a hint of a plan appeared.  It feels like a miracle.

Maybe it's just a coincidence but... I happened to have spent all of Friday evening watching movies with my oldest niece.  She seems to adore any film involving heart-wrenching angst, grief, and , of course, a great love story.  All in one story.  Needless to say, we cried and laughed our way through three films and then we were both so giddy that rather than sleep we played piano duets for another hour.  Our eyes burned from so many hours of video that we mostly improvised our way through the music leading to much more giggling and silliness.  It was close to 3 am before we finally climbed into bed!  Which brings me to
the notion that all that playing knocked something loose in my tired wound-too-tight head.

Could it be possible? 

I think it may be.  And it surprises me because for years it has been my greatest challenge to find the solitude I needed to physically create art.  It has never before occurred to me that when all the chaos of life is whirling me away from the studio there are still things being planted and incubating in my subconscious.  True, I was aware that I got many wonderful new ideas when I was away from my paints and brushes but I always thought that I had carry them back to the studio to "work" on them. 

Not true!  This will no doubt sound bizarre but until today I really didn't understand why people liked to "go out and do things".  Isn't that funny?   I feel so much lighter and freer today.  I'm just abuzz with creative energy.

(((Hugs))) to all.  And if I haven't returned anyone's emails or posts yet.... I definitely have not forgotten you and you'll hear from me very soon!

lingering winter blues

Alas, Lady Winter is still with us.  Yesterday the wind whipped through tossing everything in its path hither and yon and this morning there was an inch of snow to greet us.  Even though I know that Spring will soon arrive I still find myself wanting to pack up and move to the northwest where trees are already in bud and bloom.

Yesterday was such a gloomy day that no matter what I tried I was unable to work at all.  Maybe it was just that I hadn’t fully recovered from the cold I had over the weekend.  Whatever it was (or is) it’s still lingering.  The housework and animal chores are done but I simply cannot get my mind engaged in any creative work.  If only the sun would shine for a few days!

In the meantime there are so many beautiful blogs to be visited! I’m so impressed by all these talented and generous women who if not for cybertech I would never have had the good fortune to “meet”. Sometimes I feel quite a bit intimidated by all this talent and vow I won’t visit all my favorite spots for a few days.  But in the end I almost always make the rounds. Turkey Feathers has some ever so lovely bags! Ullabenulla is brimming with inspiration plus I love the wonderful masthead.  Alicia at Posy Gets Cozy is a must read. Gorgeous words and photos! And do look at the adorable bunnies at Sewing Stars.     Does anyone know what to do about an art addiction?

Right now I'm in love with these images by Lauren Mumford at alice*lands .  The combination of textures and feeling of age speak to me insome haunting way.  I think Lauren may suspect this but I've already been looking for the perfect place to display them!  Aren't they great?!!

Plus, many congratulations to LoobyLu for winning a Bloggie!  And Angry Chicken for the much deserved but should have won nomination!  [Make is cool but it's not  on the same level.]  Just take a look at today's very very lovable bunny at Angry Chicken!!!