Creatively Thinking

  Featured work: Yellow Bird At this moment, this very moment, I wish I could be a tiny warbler and answer the call of a male warbler singing his heart out. Calling, calling for a mate. His song is so glorious and pure on this sunny morning. Now I hear another. Glorious morning. In the weavings I am currently doing, I hope I am showing that everything is connected. Everything is like a weaving, whether tightly woven or loosely woven. The papers are woven together one way or another. Adornments are added, stories are told as I work. Things are connected, like the warblers, their song, and me this morning. Glorious morning.

  Featured work: Blackbird Lyrics: Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free Blackbird, fly
Blackbird, fly
Into the light of the dark black night Blackbird, fly
Blackbird, fly
Into the light of the dark black night Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise Source: Musixmatch Is this not a powerful song? For me, it is like the message of Christ. It is a song of hope. It is a song of freedom. It is a song of struggle. And it is a song about life. It is a song about life that applies to all of us throughout history. In this song, the symbolism is a blackbird,...

  Featured work:  Whirly - Gig I have a magnet on my magnet board that says Why Be Normal? I have always thought that artwork that matches the pillows on your sofa is a normal thing to do. As an artist I often find myself asking, WHY do people like to be normal? Like a wind-up toy. Someone winds up your key, and you just waddle about like everyone else. You don't have to think for yourself—it is easier if someone else thinks for you. Just take the blue pill like in the movie The Matrix where taking the blue pill means the story ends, and you wake up in your bed believing whatever you want to believe. It allows you to return to the blissful ignorance of everyday life and avoid having to think about or question reality. Everything is blissfully normal and boring. Normality doesn't celebrate differences. Normal rarely changes. But things do change. We are not merely different; we are unique—one of a kind, one in a million. There are millions of us, yet each of us is singular. We ...

  Featured image: 002 Stories Series I have been creating different things lately from new ideas that have come from new thinking. This, for me, is always wonderful and exciting. It’s the weaving of paper in my work that is triggering this new thinking. The weaving is abstract, like life, like history, and each thread of paper represents a time and a place in history. Wherever/whatever may have come next, this thread weaves a wonderful tapestry of time. The tapestry of time passes by so quickly that we often don’t even see it. We miss it. It is invisible, but it connects us. It feels like a divine glue that connects us. It is there—perhaps it always was—and when we look back, we can describe it. The tapestry's purpose was to create a connection to whatever is next. Most of us, like myself, can look back and create it.

  Featured image:  Coffee With a Little Yellow Bird At The Bird Bath Coffee in the garden this morning. Hummers buzzing overhead. One turns its tiny head, looking cautious. Another comes. Their buzz is so distinctive. The phlox is in full bloom; the colors are so prolific and wonderful. A much-needed shower seems to have just passed by, as everything is wet and glistening, covered with raindrops and rainbows. Birds chirping in the woods. Chipmunks scampering underfoot. I am not feeding them as much this summer, so there don't seem to be as many of them. The same goes for the red squirrels. I guess I have learned my lesson. As much as I enjoy them, they really are destructive. The gray squirrels let me know they don't like the change. They climb the screens and eat my red plastic lawn chairs. I wonder what it is in the plastic that they like, or if they are sending me a message. I wonder what I could put on the chairs to stop them, because they really are destroying them. I tru...

  Featured image: Our Stories Lately, I have been thinking about how important it is to tell our own personal stories. After all, they are our history. Many times—often, for that matter—we feel shut down. We feel shut down for various reasons, often very petty reasons. For example, recently I was told I couldn't do a particular something because, listen to this, "we haven't done it before." Really! Now, if I was breaking a major rule or something, I would consider it worthy of discussion, but I wasn't. I was merely telling the story behind one of my works of art. I was told I couldn't tell the story because it hadn't been done before. That only made sense to me if it would harm others in the process, which it wouldn't. The other reason was that others weren't allowed to do it. I couldn't understand that reasoning, but at the same time, I said to myself, if others wanted to do it, then let them see my example and ask if they could also do it. I ...