"burning" I.F. 12/11/2010

This week's I.F. quote:

"To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it."
- Mother Teresa

With Mother Teresa's image in the back of our minds, the quote has a positive note to it. All weekend long I mulled it over - just how many things do we keep burning that aren't so positive? And as I sat down to draw, I thought: it is we ourselves who are the fuel for the passions which fire us.

It is as well to give thought to where we choose to put our energies for there will come a day when these passions will have consumed us.



















...and for something simpler, a quiet hour.

Who Speaks For The Worm??

Early bird may get the worm, but stop and wonder how the worm might feel....

"Trail" I F June 5, 2010

This week's quote: "The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for" - unknown.

Seemed fitting to support the image with images from my rambles.
" I am thankful I did not realize how difficult this path ahead earlier. I would have deemed myself not strong enough, and in stepping aside from pain, denied my soul such beauty as I had never before thought to taste." - anon.

What do you see?

It may be hard to get a new view of things if you're always looking out of the same window...

Some days gravity hits harder than others

Finished a drawing begun some time ago.

There are days when it seems there is not even the memory of floating... but it is in our nature, and eventually we will get back there.

"Linked" Illustration Friday April 9, 2010

This week's quote was from Audrey Hepburn - "For me, the only things of interest are those linked to the heart."

Never as simple as it might seem at first glance - or first reading, that idea lends itself to viewing from many angles... And once you have something that's linked to the heart, what do you do with it?

"Rescue" IF March 26/2010

From the quote: "Hope is the expectation that something outside of ourselves, that something or someone external is going to come to our rescue and we will live happily ever after." - Dr. Robert Anthony.

This image popped to mind immediately I read. Dr. Anthony's quote, and I wondered what sort of people he knew, to prompt such a definition.

Folks I have known over the years express hope very differently from his idea - from the young woman hoping for a certain someone's attention, dressing carefully and shining with energy whenever they come into view, or a farmer anxiously watching the skies and walking his fields after sowing fields and tending the earth... People I know step out to meet the future actively, not sitting with hands folded waiting for something outside of themselves to effect a rescue.

In my experience, what we add to the day, to our lives, that of those around us and the society we are part of, that is what will rescue us when we are truly beyond our own efforts, as in the image above, the swimmer's one hand reaches for help, the other has already grown to be part of the environment that he reaches out to.

IF March 12, 2010 "subterranean"

From the quote: "The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises." - Sigmund Freud.
Eyes closed, unaware of doing so, we pluck thoughts in passing to contemplate and act on.

March 10, 2010 - Remembering

I have to call my Grandmother.

Same urge as ever, sometimes followed by the thought - soon, just as soon as I finish this or that, find a moment, catch my breath or get the kids out the door to school... Same strong feeling as any time these last 25 years. I'm still not used to the idea that she can't come to the phone right now. That's how it feels. She just can't get to the phone right now.

Driving by her house today, the highway took me by so quickly, crammed in between transport trucks and hurrying commuters in a cloud of dust under a press of fog so thick I nearly missed the spot beside the highway where her little yellow house sits quietly.

The car zoomed by, but my thoughts made the exit, parked on the gravel driveway beside the house and went knocking on the kitchen door in the back. I just want to give her one more hug. Just one more. And I'm still on the doorstep, squeezed between the old aluminum storm door and the wooden back door. One hug overweight.

colour version soon

IF Feb 26 2010 "perspective"

Perspective - from this week's I.F. challenge. The idea was: having our dog adore us while our cat ignores us helps keep our view of our importance in perspective.

I mulled this over for a few days, wondering just what in life does determine our perspective - on our own importance? On the world around us? Slowly this image began to take shape. We are all in a process of becoming. We take in, and become a product of our environment. ..while the environment around us is constantly changed by the shape we take. Keeping perspective on our importance seems less of a challenge when we see the environment we are in and ourselves part of it. Dogs and cats optional.

Moon Cat

I grew up with cats. A house doesn't quite feel like home to me without one.

As a child I'd rather sleep pressed against a cold outside wall on top of the blankets than dispossess the enormous black cat who had decided to sleep in the middle of my bed. There was always a sense of disappointment if he chose to leave - and worse, if he preferred someone else's bed to mine.

Today a mishap in the kitchen with a jar of Dijon mustard demonstrated my current cat's decidedly un-feline taste for condiments.

IF Feb 20, 2010 "propagation"

Propagation of any idea is essential, or its death is as sure as our own.

Propagation within the idea community is made possible only through true communication - respectful listening, criticism and maturity which leads to new growth in time.

IF Feb 12/2010 Adrift

"Adrift", today's challenge word, from the quote : "I've often been adrift, but I have always stayed afloat." by Dave Berry.

This image came to mind immediately. Although I prefer to draw on the day of, and prefer to see what folks come up with on the fly, this image stayed in my mind.

Spent a lot of my childhood afloat, adrift on night water after a sauna under the stars, or in a rowboat whose oars were slowly inching their way toward the dam where I fervently hoped they'd get caught and not bounce madly over and downstream, so I could recover them - AFTER madly paddling myself to the dock with my hands, of course. Floating with birdsong muffled by water barely heard, eyes closed with sunlight warming the eyelids - I imagined I could fall asleep, and where I might end up if I let myself drift.

Those experiences have shaped my subconscious so much, that I imagine I sometimes do drift, and the water takes me where, aware, I would not choose - or dare - to wander.

IF Feb 5, 2010 "muddy"

"muddy water, let stand, becomes clear" -Lao tzu. And while you let it stand, clouds drift by, schools of fish wiggle through your midriff and your foot goes to sleep. So while you're waiting for clarity in a given muddy puddle, it's a good idea to have room to breathe. And don't think too much about what might have made its home in the mud you stirred up.

Best of Friends

Remembering Brandon. If someone didn't toss the ball for him, Brandon would fling it up over his shoulder at the top of the St. Clair Reservoir and scramble to beat it down the hill, catching it on the way down and trotting back up to do it again, black plume of a tail wagging with pleasure. When early spring came around he'd visit the playground at the top of the Reservoir where the sandy basin was slow to drain. He liked to slop in, belly-deep in the icy water to fetch out the biggest cake of ice he could carry home. Miss you, Buddy.

IF January 29/10 "Focused"

I wouldn't have bet on the little guy - until I saw the magnifying glass in his arsenal. Reminded me of my grandmother - self-sufficient in the face of cataracts and arthritis, slowed down by angina and age, but always focusing her efforts - and getting her greatest enjoyment - from doing what she'd always done: inviting birds to her back window, meeting the challenge of the daily crossword, knitting another row, cooking another meal - and if it took a magnifying glass to get it all done, she was ok with it.

Whatever else you may put off...

Inspired by I.F. Dec. 18.

...make time for joy.

2010 Begins

...and here's the watchdog at my gate.