working my fingers to the bone

...and loving it. Yesterday I worked from cain't see to cain't see and have got some terrific stuff to show for it - of course this is Mac world here and I have no clue how to make this machine cozy up to my camera so I can post some pictures so that will have to wait until I get back. Today I devoted some time to overdyeing some old rejects and bringing them back into play. The accomodations are fine, the food is great. I used to crab about there not being enough hours in the day - now I have to acknowledge that I can't be up and functional 20 hours a day - at least not two days in a row. Ciao for now.

Spring Signs

I'm less than half packed and I'm sitting here wondering how I'm going to spend a week away from my favorite live shows. The Barn Owls of Italy, TX (Mum standing around glumly wondering when her Prince will show up) and The Great Horned Owls of CA (Single, urban Mom struggling to raise three young huns.)

inspiration needed

I have been in a tiz making lists and losing them. Lists of the stuff I want do drag down to Focus On Fiber next week. Much of the frenzy is about avoiding the blank spot between my ears where ideas about art usually hatch. Seems the muse is in rehab with Crow leaving me casting about for eyecandy. Speaking of same, both of these painting are by Joe Tully. The amazing spontaneity and energy of his work is thrilling. If you have a few hours to spend, start wandering through the Saatchi online gallery where I first tripped over this artist and then followed his bread crumbs to another amazing artist's resource site: Artist File Online .

My Crow is in Rehab...

Nothing like a change of subject to help move on. Que Sera, Sera is all I want to say about the previous post. The crow? Something I didn't have enough energy to blog about once I returned from NY. Also, I didn't want to think about it much but since he's going to survive...

 The day before I left to come home it was bitterly cold, something like 10 degrees. I was doing the dishes and heard a commotion at the large bird feeder that dominates the front window. Moments before, a gang of crows were celebrating over a batch of burnt popcorn. As I looked out to see what the disturbance was about, they dispersed skittishly save one. ALL the birds took off except one crow who sat in an odd stance on the snow. "That's not right" I told my dad as I stepped outside for a better look.

The snow was really two inches of ice so I stepped gingerly across it with an old New Englander's bad knees fears roaring in my ears. The crow did not move or mutter. His head was up, eyes open - he seemed in a trance. As I grew closer I saw the blood, dark crimson on his impossibly black feathers and dotting the snow. I bent slowly and encircled his body as best I could with my bare hands.

Crows are huge. Bigger than soup chickens. Nothing, not a peep nor shift of muscle in protest and as I raised him up I saw the gashes around his eye and the one under his beak pulsing, dripping with his steady heartbeat that I could feel like a bomb ticking. He was bleeding to death in my hands. I brought him into to house with my fingers pressed tight over the bleeder that seemed to be counting his life out in a trail of bright splotches through the snow.

My Dad protested feebly but knowing my history with birds in plight he just watched, anxiously concerned over some clutch of germs that crows supposedly carry. "Soap and water, Dad, not to worry." Easy for me to say, I was leaving for GA the next day. After keeping direct pressure on the worst wound for a few minutes and determining that he still had both eyes, I rolled him burrito style in an old dishtowel so he couldn't flutter or walk once, or if, he came to his senses.

 He wasn't unconscious but seemed to be "away" - all of his instincts in abeyance as I handled and tended him. I have no illusions about being a "bird charmer" the most injured birds will still struggle for escape and survival and injure themselves even worse when humans try to intervene. This bird was dying.


 I found an empty diaper box, tucked him in it and set it in the dark and warm laundry room. My hands were covered in gore and I was amazed that I hadn't gotten blood all over my clothes. Checking the web I found that the generous residents Westchester, NY one of the richest counties in the USA, has spent some of it's wealth for a Wildlife rehabilitation organization probably out of desperation as all the critters now routed from their habitat and conflict with the people on a daily basis. I left a quick message and within minutes a woman called me back asking if I could take him to the Somers Animal Hospital just ten minutes away. I quickly agreed but told her "Ma'am, I can't afford open heart surgery on a crow..." she assured me that all the care was provided by vets and staff volunteers. No charge to save a wild life.

Within a few minutes I was lifting the box out of the trunk of the car and Crow was staring angrily out a crack at me seemingly amazed to be where he was as I handed him over to a crew vet techs. This was the same animal hospital where, over thirty years ago, I sat in the waiting room with my then future husband, holding hands in grief while I waited to hear whether my dog, Danny Baily, would live or die. He had been hit by a car and was injured internally. He lived and thrived thanks to the care he received at this place,including a blood transfusion from their resident donor dog named Mountain. Amazing the memories a place will hold.

 Anyway, Crow spent a week in treatment and now is in rehabilitation where he will be assessed for release to the wild. I hope they hold him until the weather warms up a bit. We'll never know for sure why he was attacked but, reading up on it, I found out that crows will attack one of their own if it is weak or injured or acting oddly. Maybe he had the gall to bitch about the popcorn being burnt.

LOST!

(cue Little Richard - SOMEBODY HELP ME!) Remember these earrings I got for Christmas two years ago? They are lost somewhere in my house and I am heartsick, not to mention wallet-appalled. I jokingly called these my bail fund but more important, they were a gift from my GoodMan and in thirty years of marriage I have never lost a gift he has given me. If someone out there has any psychic clues, please be generous. Looking for them has become obsessive. Today I am going to tear apart a California King-sized platform bed on the off chance that they somehow got under it in a place I cannot see or reach. I have run out of logical places to look and it's making me crazier than usual. OK-it's NOT under the bed. My stomach hurts from trying to move the mattress alone but I'm satisfied that nothing I really want was under there. Joyce suggests prayers to St.Anthony. I'm easy, I'll go with whatever voodoo BS gets the job done. Spaghetti sauce & meatballs today in St.Anthony's honor. Tony, help me find my diamonds, Dammit!

something old/new

Lately I have been captivated by Karen Jacobs work, her bokoshu series in particular. I've always liked Japanese calligraphy and just finished watching "Lost" where Jack found out the painful consequences of thinking he knew what his tattoo meant. Don't you think that it would be real prudent to learn the alphabet before I started slinging words around ? but tonight I just said screw it and put black paint to wet paper for the first time in my life. This is probably some foul imprecation or racial slur. Next stop - uninformed gang graffiti on the interstate divider with spray paint! Watercolor techniques - there's another thing I know zero about. Having just received a fabulous art package from Rachel over at Honest Art Talk, I should stay my hand. take a class maybe. at least.

Attention Silk Junkies!

All you silk junkies out there need to hustle on over to my buddy Jane Steinberg's shop and check out her Shibori Bits and her Cloth Candy. I need a new fiber addiction like I need hives but I know some of you just can't resist that Silk!

Cool Find!

I just love it when you find lots of something cool for real cheap! This shaving brush was languishing in a basket (with about 100+ others) at the Salvation Army. 75 cents apiece! I think they were a promotional item for a company called "Bump Patrol". Maybe some barber shop went out of business but they are new, never been used, made in China. I think the brush is goat hair - it's pretty soft. I bought a dozen of them for dye painting and discharging. That Cascade just tears up my good brushes! If you are interested in getting some of these, email me and we can work up a swap or paypal or somesuch.

Home from NY

This is the first day I'm feeling semi-normal since getting back from NY and the first duty of the day is to get my buddy Voodoo to the vet to see about his overdue shots and an abcess on his shoulder that's been perking for a few days. Poor bugger...he'll feel better in no time. 'Doo is one of those rare cats that actually likes the pink antibiotic prescribed for infections. When the boys were young and prone to ear infections I sometimes had three different bottles of it lined up in the fridge labeled "JAKE", "COLIN" and our first cat "MOSES". Maybe later this evening there will be some fiber fiddling... until then look at this gorgeous hairstick Jan Thompson made for me from polymer clay

I Asked For It

As I stepped off the plane, the icy blast caught me full in the face. "Ahh wonderful.." after being cooped up on the plane for 2+ hours. The the snow and freezing rain started in the early evening but the alarmist hysterics have taken over weather forecasting in the northeast too. When I lived here schools would not close for this measly lick of a squall. Dad mends apace, walking better each day. We took my Mom to a post-surgical gripe session with her orthopedist who prescribed a corset to help her back woes. She's happy now but last night I dreamed she had gotten ahold of someone's Glock and was waving it around, gansta-style, at the nursing home waitstaff. Not too farfetched. This is Reno & Ryder's buddy Mr. Potato Head.

Sweet & Sour & Reheated

Bet you didnt' know I was a secret, closet, reformed and backsliding embroiderer?! Stitching with three or six strands of DMC floss was my very first initiation to the Society of the Needle. I used to calculate my allowance as to how many hanks of DMC I could buy each week. Floss was my crack at the age of five! Back then I made my own colors by pulling one strand from each of several colors and blending them to suit my mood. This UFO, "Sweet & Sour", has been mocking me from the pile for a while now. Last week I went to JoAnns to see if I could use a 50% off coupon on anything I actually needed. Of course not! (Jan, you were right) but I did find myself drawn to the array of embroidery threads and selected just exactly the right colors to set Sweet & Sour on the path to completion. TODAY...DMC Floss is 5 for 1$. I'm putting on my shoes right now. Another thing, I used polar fleece for batting in this piece and there is ZERO coming through as I stitch. No fluffers, no cooties, or whatever embroiderers call it when wool or cotton batting comes a creeping. ZERO creeping with fleece inside. Tasty.