prayer flags

Since I proclaimed on this blog that I was going to make prayer flags I was extra motivated to complete them...and complete them I did.  I had an interesting moment after I posted my intention here.  My dear friend Brigid commented on my last post, she wondered who my flags would bless.  When I read her words I panicked a bit...oh man, I hadn't thought about that.  Who will they bless?  Should I put words of blessing on them?  Should I dedicate them to something?  Should I blog about that?  Wow, the pressure!

Now, I know for sure that my friend had no intention of sending me in that direction but go there I did.  Granted, it didn't last long and I knew I was doing that to myself but it did spark some reflection.   I've often said that what I love about doing artwork is that it allows me to express parts of myself that I don't have words for.  I use words as a means of self-expression.....I talk, I teach, I process out loud whether I have an audience or not.  I give my self permission to feel as a way to experience being human.....I laugh, I cry, I get mad, I love like crazy.  Even with all the ways I have to process and express there is some deeper part of me that only knows one language and that's creative expression.  When I try to analyze it, or make it be something that I think others will like or respond to I miss the mark, every time.  I make things because it brings me pleasure.  I like that I don't need a reason and that I don't spend much time trying to figure out the who, what or why of it.  I make art, it's good for me.  And when the art is done I do love show and tell.....

So, here's what I've got for prayer flags.  I like them.  I took photos along the way.  The photo above was after I had cut the fabric, stamped it some and spread some red paint around.  Then I added some pre-printed tissue over the top....

 Payne's Grey and  Interference Gold acrylic paint over all that......

After playing around with bits of fabric, feathers, beads and sequins here's what they look like..

and here they are on the wall!  I dedicate these to the gods of creativity who push me and pull me and whisper in my ear.......

spiritual mathematics

I've decided to make some prayer flags to hang in my house.  I used to hang a Papel Picado I got in Mexico years ago.....it's a hand cut white tissue banner and it's lovely but I'm wanting something I make with my own two hands, something that helps me connect more with my creative center.  Wandering through this year end/year beginning time of turning always moves me on some deep level.  So I'm off to the studio today but first I want to share part of a poem I read  last night.  I found it in a book I've been so immersed in....staying up much too late reading this one.  It's called Acedia & Me, a Marriage, Monks and a Writer's Life by Kathleen Norris.

The Higher Arithmetic
by David J. Dwyer

In heaven, I do not know that there are angels,
but I know that there are numbers there, and light.
(Arithmetic and heaven are both uncountably
full of light.)  Inaccessible cardinals, there,
will lord it over mere infinities;
the naturals will dance among the reals...

Apart from numbers, how little we know.

There is no largest prime.  The Halting Problem
is formally undecidable.  Every subset
of a well-ordered set is well-ordered itself.  And so on....

Such things are true, even easy to prove.
Are there uncountably more, unknowably other
true things in the world?

well that took forever

Apparently I started this thing in 2007 and haven't written a thing since. It's been a busy 5 years. Lots has happened that I could have written about but it honestly didn't occur to me to write about it here. I could have written about buying this house and land and making it ours.....or about watching my Mom fade away and helping her go....or about having my granddaughter move close and be joined by a grandson who arrived on my birthday nearly two years ago. I could have written about the programs I've led and the brave folks I've met there. Today I sit here and write having decided that I'd like to be a little bit braver in 2012. Here's a picture of my garden in the summer time.