hear the trees and plants and critters sigh

The woods behind my house look lush - there's a creek down there somewhere - but we have been in a serious drought for a long time. We need a month or more of this kind of rain, all day, everyday, ending at sunset each day to let the earth take up the water and distribute it to all the parched life. And I wish people would stop needing LAWNS of all the useless man-made conceits. When we first moved into this house in 1998 the lawns looked like a golf green. I swear they were tweezed! Then I looked inside the garage to see an entire wall of boxes and cans of various chemical and toxic lawn stuff. I told the broker that they would have to take all that crap with them. Since then our lawn lives on whatever falls from the sky and dog piss.If I had my way, we'd have sheep but we are still inside town limits here. There's been a watering ban in effect for most of the state and people have been turning in their neighbors and going to jail over Watering The Lawn. Insanity. Plant something that will survive without artificial assistance! Grow Food in the Front Yard! Have a meadow! Grow rocks like they've figured out in Florida and Arizona. People in Georgia are going to have to come to the realization that climate change is going to impact the status quo but then again there are still folks down here that don't get that the Civil War is over and their side lost.

affirmation

Getting the acceptance letter is one thing. A big thing. Then getting an email with a list of the other artists chosen to be in this exhibit gave me pause. The works of several of these people represent, to me, the pinnacle of accomplishment in this media. Not being known for BS, I won't say "what am I doing here?" but I will say "holy shit!"

Fall

Two days in a row I stepped over this leaf on the front stairs coming into the house.I think it wanted to be immortalized. Once I remember to take it out of the scanner, I'll tuck it deep into the pages of an old favorite book that's gathering dust on the shelf. While looking through old files for inspiration for this rug hooking adventure I came across a picture of this fabric and was diverted to digging it out of the closet and readying it for some stitching. Looks like Halloween somehow. It's about 30"x40" and some ongoing cyber discussion regarding line in art (and stitching on quilts in particular) has me thinking hard about making a new approach to the stitched line.

Summer's end

I was still going in the pool right up til Friday but the night time temps have dropped off and I've been running a fever on and off for a few days. Probably something I caught from swimming in September. We'll struggle daily to keep ahead to the falling leaves until the cover can be dragged out from under the house and installed. The Braves just finished their last game of the season, their long-time TV announcer Skip Carey made his goodbyes and I found out (where have I been?) that Turner Broadcasting will no longer be carrying the Braves games to the nation. Sad. So far nothing on the upcoming season seems worth watching.

Hooking for Fun (no profit in it)

I picked up a couple of wonderful books at the library the other day and set about to see what all the fuss is about. I like that rug hooking can be a real recycling art using almost anything at hand, and I got lots at hand. With a quick stop at JA's for some burlap (shudder) and yet another crochet hook that I didn't really need. The fact that they didn't have a real rug hooking tool tells me that this technique is not on the trendy scale here in the South. At this particular JAs they are still up to their butts in scrapbooking materials/supplies and probably consider rug hooking to be a bit provincial like churning one's own butter. I worked up this little sample in no time and I like it. The burlap doesn't thrill me but the potential and the notion of using whatever charms me. I missed the chance to observe some pros at work at the ACA retreat back in March; I was too intent on my own thing and boy, they were intent as hell over their things too.