Saturday, October 17, 2009


"Are You My Mother?
Last Sunday my two neighbors, Tanya and Bill, my housemate, Charlie, Paul and I built a chicken run for our chickens. We started with a flock of 23. We have 5 now. Coyotes. Do not get me started. My free ranging days are over. Back in March the chicks arrived from the post office just 48 hours old. They can survive fine without food and water for the the first few days after hatching. Opening that box and having the sweet little fluff balls ask "Are you my mother?" is powerful and humbling. Dip each tiny beak in water, feed and then set them under a heat lamp at 90-95 degrees. The frightening ordeal of traveling in that ventilated box for a few days can cause something called pasting. Yup, that means daily washing each chick's bum with warm water and q-tips. So there's a lotta love getting the chicken to adulthood. And giggles. As those personalities and sex traits emerge, pecking order and a rooster's first attempt at crowing on the tiniest scale is the best after dinner entertainment. And that's where I've been every night for the last few hanging out with the girls in their new run. Technically they aren't all girls, 3 hens and 2 roosters. But did you ever meet a rooster who couldn't use just being put in his place a little? Eggs are coming any day now.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Some of the feathers I've collected through the years. I might try some quill making this winter.

Thursday, October 15, 2009



"I don't want reality, I want magic"
-Blanche DuBois from Street Car Named Desire
As always Tennessee William's characters can explain the meaning of life in one short line. When we get dead tired, weary and overwhelmed, all we want is a little sparkle. Some fairy dust, a whisper of an escape is sometimes all it takes. Hmmmm...white. I want it. Bad. I know, I know I'm always harping about color. Be brave, jump! Do it! Wear the pink and orange. Don't even look at the beige swatches the boyfriend feels comfortable in. But so much of what I crave right now is white. Beautiful empty white. Is it because I flipped my life upside down a few years ago? Reinvented myself in so many ways it's hard to count? I can go in so many different directions at once my to-do list makes my friends scream. Outloud. This church I live in has been a lab for some pretty crazy combos through the years and slowly but surely the light is leaking around each corner. Maybe because I have so much color in my art, my design, the relief of the white is what frames and settles it all. And white is never white. It's pearl, and chalk and kisses, blinks of pink and yellow and blue. Just makes me breathe bigger, deeper. Sigh. Magic.


Tuesday, October 13, 2009


Some of my favorite things that bring and capture light. A wonderful sea creature I found recently with my little guy at New Bedford's Ocean Explorium, lovely white furniture from Apartment Therapy, my beloved Eva Zeisel, the watercolor paper in my studio in fall light, those bleached carved birdies in my choir loft, the sweet white rock chicken, fun Swedish beetles cups and saucers from Gustavberg, more yummy paper, and these 100% egyptian cotton blankets from Matouk.