Blog 9th

So here I am in this November Blog-A-Day thing and I am not writing every day. 'Course I didn't find out about it until the third and so there goes that. I thought that it would be good practice for me in this my new Let's Be An Artist On The Web job though. Just to get used to working on the various pieces that I have going and inciting a sence of accountability.

Today's news is a bit mimimalist as I have been, as I said, working on two altered books for our library's Out Of Bounds art show next week. I will submit the books today. I hesitate to show pictures on the internet too soon for fear of "ruining the surprise". Or maybe it would be good advertising for the exhibition which is Friday through Sunday at the Rockport Opera House, here in Maine. Maybe I should go ask the Librarians.


Those done, I get to go back to October Bird. I have gotten her pink self about as embellished as I like. Here:

See those "feather" stitches on her wings? Get it? ... I really love the feeling of thread and beads on fabric. Lovely little Braille-like bumps telling intimate stories.

I have been thinking and talking about our physical beauty. Some people think that our beauty shouldn't be so important. But I keep thinking that often what someone looks like is our first knowledge of a person. Unless we know them in writing - like here on a blog, or an author in her book, or we hear someone on the radio. But as long as sight is one of our active senses, looks are what usually draw us first with the people in our lives. The other senses are more intimate - though maybe sound on the radio, or in a speech in a crowded place is less so - normal talking voices need proximity, touch needs, one hopes, permission, which implies a relationship. Smell requires a moment and nearness, and certainly taste implies relationship, even if you are only sucking the venom out of a snake bite and in the relationship of healer.

So touch is intimate, (I love to sew), and sight is our first knowledge of another. Why wouldn't our looks be important? We lowly humans who have lost much of our awarenesses of psychic skills. All I'm saying is: why fight that? Why shouldn't we train ourselves to use our beauty for whichever good causes we stand for? Dress up, look fabulous, and go speak about Peace, or Kindness to Mother Earth, or Voting. Not that dating isn't important too, but as long as people are being drawn in by the visual - well, why not use the audience to say something important?

Oh, all right. Enough. I am off to sew the sky.