the many faces of...

As artists do we not put a little of ourselves into everything we do? Is this, then, a self-portrait?

(This is the beginning of this year's name tag - I do a new one each year for the summer program I teach in. My group decided to name itself the Ninja Turtles, so this is, in fact, a self-portrait of Ninja Turtle Twilight. Note the bangs and the pigtails, and the fierce showing of teeth.)

Or is this a self-portrait of sorts? My inner goth-vagabond, a bottle doll I'm working on.

(The clothing is not actually hers - she invaded Deirdra's stash of doll clothes and fabrics, and even swiped the miniature harp guitar for this photo shoot. I had to take it away from her. In the photo below, you can see that she was none too pleased with me - she wouldn't even look me in the eye after that!)

This is NOT a self-portrait, even though it looks more like me than the photos above. It is only me modeling the lovely poetry dress that Deirdra made in Ruth Rae's class at Artfiberfest.

It was big time fun hanging out in D's studio over the 4th of July weekend - I got a LOT of artwork done! I worked on 2 parts of my Oaxaca art quilt, a journal page, 2 cloth and clay dolls, one polymer clay doll, and my bottle doll. I wish I could always feel that energetic and productive!

On Monday it was back to school, and guess what I found in the classroom!? Poor little birdie may have come in through a hole in the ceiling tile, and could have been trapped in the classroom since last Thursday. I found its lifeless sibling first, and then this little one hiding under a projector cart. Not sure what to do, I took it home in a tissue box and called the Audubon Society. They said I should release it near where I found it, so I would have to wait 'til the next day. I tried to feed the baby, and it eagerly jumped into my hand - so endearing! Sadly, sweet baby did not make it through the night, and she took a little piece of my heart with her.

The next day I found the mama bird in the classroom - she had also passed on. I am not sure what to think of this. The theme of our program this year is "Taking Flight," so I'm feeling very troubled that all these flying creatures are showing up dead around me, as if it were something symbolic. I don't want to believe it is - I want to think it's just a sad coincidence that this bird family got stuck in the classroom, but I don't know. Everything else about the summer program has been so inspiring so far - we're working with the kids on defining their dreams for their lives, and reading biographies of people who had all kinds of obstacles to their dreams but figured out ways to overcome them. It all resonates so much with me and my own transformations at this time in my life. I have never been happier as a teacher. So what does it mean that the little bird died? I want my dreams to fly.