one man show

The picture is one I painted after my previous trip to the Santa Fe area.  It is conte stick on red suede board.


Suppose I give a one man show

Collect the pieces I’ve let go

And rent a space both wide and grand

Pictures in a hall, sculpture on a stand

And I stay and listen to the critics cry

The slams and complements that fly

From the mouths of fools, masters and kings

Would it help or hurt the cause of things?

Or would it only waste my time?



Suppose I gather a one man band

And sit myself by a hotdog stand

In a county fair or festival

And sing and play till the air is full

And wrench the hearts of those who hear

With a song of love, sorrow or fear

Until the day or my voice is gone

With the hope that the crowd stays on and on

Would I only waste their time?



But suppose I offer a friendly hand

To a lonely soul, or a broken man

And stay a bit til the sting subsides

And he wanders off to where he resides

A little stronger for the bit we shared

With a happy tale of someone who cared

And I walked away to a sumptuous spot

To carry on in my spoiled lot

Where I waste much more than time.



Do the things I have and the things I’ve done

Ever last a day, ever change someone?

Are accomplishments worth the energy;

Do I give myself to what’s meant for me?

Will it mean a thing if I reach some goal

and ignore the things put in my control?

In the here and now, in the scope of things

Is success, success if no truth it brings

and I’ve wasted all my time?  DW '06

Room to Grow and Bloom

The last few days have been quite busy.  We went to see my husbands siblings and mother on Thanksgiving day.  We worked around the house and then went out to eat with another daughter on Friday.  I took my grandchildren to see their mother on Saturday.  Today, we did some rearranging and reconfiguring.  I used some discarded doors with rollers on them to make a display board for my fall drawing class, which is coming to a close and will formally end with a show on Thursday night.  I hope to take some pictures.  I also put out a flat of pansies today with the hope that they will get over being transplanted before the cold sets in later this week.

The picture above is a collage from my sunroom.  My digital camera is, as I've mentioned, getting quite tempermental but I like these anyway.  They are, from top left, a bougainvillea, an angelwing begonia and a Christmas cactus.  These are, of course, common names.  The magnifying glass will enlarge them somewhat.

It's funny how plants you live with take on meaning.  The begonia isn't blooming right now.  It takes a rest every so often.  The plant is one I got from my mother and I know it's at least 30 years old.  For a while, it didn't look well and seldom bloomed.  Now, it's gotten much healthier and blooms frequently: rich heavy drooping clusters of orangey-pink flowers.

The bougey is one I bought about 10 years ago.  It blooms frequently as it is now.  Sometimes it will rest and gather strength for the next go round.

The Christmas cactus was blooming when my daughter brought it home about 15 or 20 years ago, but never would bloom after that.  The last two years, it has been gorgeous.  I don't know what I'm doing right, but I hope I can keep it up.

I have two other bloomers, but they aren't in bloom right now.  They give the sunroom a nice appearance and a feeling of life happening.  I've never been a very good gardener, but I'm learning from both my mistakes and my successes when I can identify them!

I hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving had a good day and plenty to give thanks for.  DW

The whole mural

The picture above is of my mosaic mural for the aquarium to sit in front of.  Still need to put the shelf in place, seal it, move the aquarium and install the waterfall.  But the mural is complete.   Granted it's not an awesome picture, but my camera still isn't working right.  I had to take it in 3 shots to get it all in without much distortion.

I feel like I've given birth to something big!  I can say without reservation "It's my art."  I am now an artist.

Having come from the ranks of academia, it's hard to say "I am an artist."  Even now, I think I hear my professor's voice disputing the claim!  But this is a unique piece as far as I know.  It is 5' wide and 8' tall.

The mighty beaver (no perversion here)

Being challenged to use an animal for my avatar, I considered many things.  Then I remembered a personality test I took in a workshop while in the public school system.  I was a beaver, industrious, compulsive, creative.  Okay, then.  Well when I went looking for a beaver picture for my avatar, I ran into some info, so I'm including it just so you'll know.

Beavers are more than intriguing animals with flat tails and lustrous fur. American Indians called the beaver the "sacred center" of the land because this species creates rich habitats for other mammals, fish, turtles, frogs, birds and ducks. Since beavers prefer to dam streams in shallow valleys, much of the flooded area becomes wetlands. Such wetlands are cradles of life with biodiversity that can rival tropical rain forests. Almost half of endangered and threatened species in North America rely upon wetlands.

Besides being a keystone species, beavers reliably and economically maintain wetlands that can sponge up floodwaters (the several dams built by each colony also slows the flow of floodwaters), prevent erosion, raise the water table and act as the "earth's kidneys" to purify water. The latter occurs because several feet of silt collect upstream of older beaver dams, and toxics, such as pesticides, are broken down in the wetlands that beavers create. Thus, water downstream of dams is cleaner and requires less treatment.

Beavers' ability to change the landscape is second only to humans. But that is just one reason why we find the flat-tailed species fascinating. Adults may weigh over 40 pounds, and beavers mate for life during their third year. Both parents care for the kits (usually one to four) that are born in the spring. The young normally stay with their parents for two years, and yearlings act as babysitters for the new litter. While some beaver behavior is instinctive, they also learn by imitation and from experience. Dr. Donald Griffin, the father of animal cognition, has said, "When we think of the kinds of animal behavior that suggest conscious thinking, the beaver comes naturally to mind."

Wildlife rehabilitators find beavers to be gentle, reasoning beings who enjoy playing practical jokes. An Indian word for "beaver-like" also means "affable." Once weaned, their favorite foods include water lily tubers, clover, apples and the leaves and green bark (cambium) from aspen and other fast-growing trees.

November 11, 2006 GOD BLESS THOSE WHO SERVE

Every war must be our last, must be the final test of strength and will

And yet again midst disagreements men still take up arms and mount their hill.

With each new conflict weaponry evolves piling horror upon horror.

And at each ghastly end we reevaluate the loss and senselessness of war.

There are things worthy of the fight.  Each man must settle then his mind and heart

And know beyond a doubt if work and prayer or leaving home and bearing arms should be his part.



Long years ago, my father fought his fight on islands and on foreign ground

While those who history still calls tyrants faced an end that brought their efforts down.

And many of my friends went off to struggle in a war that knew no victory

A number of them struggle still and fight a war within an unkind memory.

Today my nephews live and serve a place of heat and wind and storms of sand

Sometimes the end seems further than it was years past when all of this began.



I read a journal of a man commissioned to record on film the civil war

He joined the fight excited by a job he’d do that never had been done before.

Hist’ry in the making yet so soon he lost his zeal and innocence

The overwhelming conflict fought by friends and brothers came to make no sense.

And though he thought it right to wage and win the battles and the war.

His final entry spoke of hope that man would learn to live in peace and fight no more.  DW'06



One of the most honorable men I have known was my father, a highly decorated soldier from World War II.  As I look at his medals and mementos, I am reminded that he never spoke of the war.  He spoke of the children in that foreign land.  He spoke of the men and their antics aboard ship.  He spoke of his days in basic and his time as a drill sergeant.  He never spoke of what the medals were given for, though at times I saw him looking at them privately with sadness in his eyes.  Only recently have I learned of the horrors he personally had to face in his service.  My heart broke for this man I still love dearly though he had departed this earth.



I suppose that man will always wage war, justly or unjustly.  Sometimes the decisions have nothing to do with the men who fight or loose their lives and yet as soldiers they serve without reserve as they are commissioned.  We must always be proud of the men and women who serve honestly, doing the best job they can under the circumstance they are given. 



God bless those who have served and who still serve our country in the military.

whilst our hamsters process your request

I'm probably not the best blogger in the world.  I certainly haven't been blogging so long as many of you.  My page isn't the most creative, and I don't even care about moblogging!  But dadgummit, I've become a blogger.

At first it was a request: Come look.  Then there was an invite: Be my friend.  Then I started experimenting.  It's a place to dream, a place to care, a place to find people I never knew existed that care whether I have a brother named incognito or not.  People I didn't know started leaving little comments.  I laughed, I interacted, I fumed, I cared.  Wow!  Now I understood the virtual world.  I considered my science def from college. "Virtual: not real."  We'll just send that to the recycle bin and beyond.

Next, I discovered that I had albums, or at least I could make albums.  I could share pictures that revealed another dimention of my "real" world to my virtual friends.  I photographed some things just for my new friends.  I sorted and posted old things and created albums to say, "Here.  This is me.  This is what I know, and what I do, and where I walked today."  I have albums planned, albums prepared and albums I've only begun to imagine.  But alas, the hamsters have been poisoned.

Not only that, but I find that not all the hamsters are sick.  Some people still have healthy hamsters and they continue to roll out those photo albums.  But my hamsters are poisoned.  I can't tell you how that frustrates me.  (See virtual photo above.)  It may be true that I neither knew or cared that I had albums available a year ago, but all that changed when I became a blogger.

I went to 360 with my inner panic, but like all governing agencies, they are ignoring the complaints while they try to figure out what the blazes has happened to the hamsters.  I'm sure they've appointed a committee to try to see who poisoned which hamsters and why that person would do such a thing and what kind of rehabilitation they will need to live a virtually productive life in the future, cohabitating peacefully with hamsters.  They probably haven't touched on the veterinary bills yet or the psychological dammage done to the bloggers.

Growl, snort, sigh.  I just want my friends to see my photo albums.  Somebody let me know when the hamsters come back to work.  Oh my.  They might not have been poisoned; they might be on strike.  Now why would 360 cover something like that up?!

This time of year

This photo was taken by my friend who lost his dad this past week.  I included it, because it's really more about life than death to me.

At this time of year, while I watch,

the trees struggle between life and sleep

through the strongest brilliance they will know,

shedding their coverings for the harsh, brittle

state of winter.  I see that the only way

they can possibly live again is to die –for now. 

Dropping all signs of life through a grand

array, they lie still and bare until,

through the wonder of spring,

they are resurrected to beauty and vibrance.

Such is a picture of our seasons

and of our lives.