songs of swans

Howdy, my little troop of swans-  I think I have lost my way lately.  This blog started out as a way to document my work, and that's a good thing to have floating around and for ME to go back and look over.  But I know none of you are interested much in what brand of paint I use to draw on some 'quilting stitches' when I don't feel like finding a needle like normal people might.  Anyway, as much as I love clicking around the web looking for the weird and wonderful stuff I come across, I am spending much more time at that than what I should be doing.  'Should'.  Like somebody is looking over my shoulder...  Anyway, I think I am going to try to scale back a bit, maybe not try to blog every single day, maybe shorter- no, DEFINITELY shorter!

I come from the more-is-more school of life.  I love the added layers, the abundance of thought processes, dense imagery, and those people who I have encountered who are simply off the grid.  I'm not going to change interests or redirect myself to anything but away from the computer, but sooner than I would like I will be entering into my 'end of days'.  An aside: 

 

I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come. And then - I go on to the next thing, whatever it is. One doesn't luckily have to bother about that.  Agatha Christie

Although I don't have a clue how long that borrowed time will be, and in fact may be there already, I feel the pressure to spend more time on my work.  Family issues call also, and that means workless-weeks back in Boston.  Hopefully I will be entering a few new shows with all this 'new work' and get to meet some of you at openings, but I need to do this before I can't remember WHY I'm there, let alone who you might be.

I may need to taper this blog off slowly, or maybe the cold turkey treatment will be necessary, I will probably lose focus once in awhile but hang in here with me and we'll see what develops.   (Looks like by newfound brevity hasn't kicked in yet!)  SO, without further ado, a long message from Ira Glass:

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.—Ira Glass

sign here...

We think we understand the rules when we become adults, 

but what we really experience is a narrowing of the imagination.- David Lynch

Banksy again.  I love Banksy.

 CONCEPTUAL ART

And more conceptual art because even your species doesn't matter :

Caddis flies spin a web of silk and attach whatever materials are available around them for protection before climbing inside to pupate.  Instead of the sand and twigs that they would use French artist Hubert Duprat and naturalist provided the moth-like insects with gold and jewels to work with. These are the resulting protective cases they made.

And I guess the tapering off thing hasn't been too successful today, but I still have 'binders of women'  errr, I mean folders of images--- to share.  More ravens making 
Snow Ravens.  See what I mean about species not being important:

Love ya, thanks for sticking around-