Getting in the Spirit

'Tis the beginning of the Season...

My college girl Miss Em is home for the holidays, all the way through New Year's. It's such a joy to have her home and be caught in her whirlwind of activity!

Thanksgiving was warm and wonderful this year, spent at my sister's beautiful home, enjoying the family with lots of chatter and laughter. The celebration included lots of birthdays for all the fall babies, including my Willow bean. Seventeen! I can't stop thinking of the song Leisel sings in the Sound of Music: "I am sixteen, going on seventeen..." So grown up. She's been busy practicing her part for the Nutcracker next weekend. We look forward to that.

Projects of my own: these little peeks are a set of ornaments I'm making for an artist ornament exchange. I think I'll make a few extra to send to some special people, including Barbara Babcock. She's an Artfest gal - I think I actually met her my first year and did a trade with her - a wonderful artist and a spunky gal. I just learned tonight that she's been in a terrible accident and was severely burned - 3rd and 4th degree burns! Her sister put a call out for people to send cards. I'm thinking, wouldn't it be great to send the word out through our blogs to help cheer up one of our art sisters during her recovery? If you'd feel so inclined, please send her some mail art or something jolly to make her smile and brighten her spirit. Her p.o. box is: Barbara Babcock, HC 62, Box 3868, Thoreau, NM 87323.

Addendum: I checked with her sister and she says it's ok to post this, so pass it on to other bloggers, too, to help spread the good cheer during a difficult time!

the winds of change?

Gale force winds shivered our timbers last night. Deck furniture blew to the left, blew to the right, crashing against the walls, but every time I ran downstairs to look, everything was calmly sitting in its place. Or so I thought.

I stayed up much later than I expected to, not actually making anything, but holding and looking, joining things in my imagination, seeing what they could become. Finally at 11:41 I drifted off to sleep to the stormy sounds of the wind and rain.

I was awakened once again just as I had entered the sweetness of REM time. Was I dreaming about water? Plop, plop, plop. Not only was the roof leaking, but it had decided to let loose directly over my head, and the rust colored water splattered onto my pillow. I ran to get the big spaghetti pot, ping, ping, ping, then I dragged my blanket and pillow (the dry one) off to Emily's room, burrowed deep down under cover like a Peter Cottontail.

I was awakened yet again at 4:00 a.m. by an insistent pounding on the door or the front window. It sounded like the ghost of boyfriend past, impatient and demanding. Was it him? Or some neighbor come to tell me that my chimney had flown into his patio. My heart echoed the pounding downstairs, but I waited, frightened. By the time I dared to creep downstairs, whoever or whatever it was, had gone away.

By morning the leak over my bed was slowing down, but the one coming through the light fixture was picking up speed. I phoned in my absence due to emergency, called up the condo management company, and waited for a roofer to call me back. While taking Shoobie for her morning constitutional, I saw what had been making all that noise the night before: a wide swath of my roof had been busy prying itself off the top of the building during all that wind. It now lay defeated and worn out across my garden bed.

Despite the damp dormitory and the lack of sleep, I was in a strangely good mood. I thought of my inheritance from Great Grandma Farrell - a framed, hand-lettered quotation she had hanging on her dining room wall:

Guest, you are welcome,

be at your ease.

Get up when you're ready,

go to bed when you please.

Happy to share with you

such as we've got -

the leak in the roof

and the soup in the pot...

Ah, yes, I thought, I should make soup and invite some friends over! There's just something about this episode happening now, in conjunction with the other recent events, that makes me wonder. Time to get rid of some of the tired, worn out parts of my life that no longer serve, and move on to the new! (It's all a sign!)

And now~ Excerpts from this week's horoscope from Astrology.com (that I just read):
November 16: New Moon in Scorpio
What is your passion? Is there something you want so badly that you feel like if it doesn’t come true you will have missed out on something important? Few signs are as intense, driven and powerful as Scorpio; now is your chance to put everything you’ve got into furthering your goals and dreams. This is a time of new beginnings. But to get what you want, you need to let go of whatever is not working and anything that has outlived its usefulness whether that is an attitude or a life situation that no longer fits who you are today. Invest now in something you want to grow and become more important in your life. At the full Moon later this month, you’ll have a chance to stand back and take a look at what you’ve accomplished!

November 21: Sun enters Sagittarius
You’ll feel restless as the Sun travels though this nomadic fire sign! Use the energy and enthusiasm of Sagittarius to break out of old routines. And since you are likely to be in a questioning mode as The Archer is known for being quite philosophical, ask yourself some of the bigger questions about the meaning of life and what your purpose in it is all about. You will receive some interesting answers. It’s time to be inspired –- and inspiring!

How's that for some cosmic synchronicity? (God is working in mysterious ways...)
: ) lulu

synchronicity and the journey

This morning Michelle Allen led me to Aimee who led me to Jennifer who wrote in her blog exactly the kinds of questions I had been thinking about yesterday before I attended Optimisto. Is the purpose of synchronicity to show us that we are on the right path? (Or are there just a lot of us out here who are unsure and trying to find our way?)

art-o-rama day

[Note #1: Thank you SO much for the comments you've been leaving for me. I am in awe of your insights and your kindness, and I am so happy to get to know you as I click on your links. I also feel like I have all these wonderful guides to accompany me on this journey!]

[Note #2: Yesterday was Veteran's Day. As I worked in the studio yesterday, I was accompanied by some very gorgeous music on the classical station in honor of Veteran's Day. It was very moving. To all the veterans and families of veterans: I cannot even imagine what it would be like to be so far away from loved ones and worried about their welfare. I pray for peace and happy reunions when all are safely home again.]

No school on the holiday yesterday, so it turned into an art-o-rama day here in lulu land. But it's so funny how things go. I had an urge to journal about how lost and undecided I feel, not sure whether to take the dive in this direction, or into another pool all-together. That page would have looked dark and sad, but this is what came out instead:

I have no idea where this big-eyed skinny Minnie girl came from, but she was so much fun to doodle that I kept on going:

And then I had to do just one more:

I plan on having fun coloring them in with different media, but I really should get back to work on my shrine for the Oaxaca Strret Children Shrine project. Here is one little part of what I've done so far on my shrine:

Hmmm... I think one of my problems is that I like the way things look when they're still unfinished!

I also started a couple of commissioned pieces that will be in celebration of Westside's The Nutracker Suite:

I hope you had a wonderful day yesterday and today, and that tomorrow will be richly rewarding as well.

: ) lulu

Journal pages - inner journey

[Tech note: I have no idea why sometimes my photos won't open to a close-up view when clicked on. It's frustrating. If anyone out there has had this issue and resolved it, I would love to know! Anyhoo, the very last image is the only one that opened when I clicked on it.]

I have three different journals going right now, each with a purpose. I've had written journals over the years, but I'm finding it so much more valuable, meaningful, and purposeful now that I'm doing visual journals. It might be the level of maturity that I've finally reached, or the self-awareness I've gained at long last, or it could really be the process of working through issues using art materials that leads me to believe that my journals are helping me more than ever.


This is a page I did in one of my journals this week. It's a drawing of my mother when she was a little girl. It's interesting that when I flipped the page up, I noticed that the drawing on the previous page showed through when backlit from the window light. There's my mom, fitting snugly into my hand, like I could hold her and protect her - like I could give her everything she needed.



One of the journals I'm working on is for the work I'm doing with the book The Creative Entrepeneur, by Lisa Sonora Beam. I am more and more impressed with how motivating and eye-opening the assignments are. Whether or not one has the entrepreneurial bug, I think it's a great book for moving you toward what you really want in life.


You know how so many of us creative types are our own harshest critics? This page shows some of that negative self-talk that I play and replay over and over. [This page has actually morphed since this photo was taken thanks to Peggy, who asked, "What else is holding you back?" There is now a gilded birdcage in the upper left of the page, and a little figure of me trapped inside it. On the bars of the cage are words like mortgage, student loan, kids' college, car loan... all the stuff of life that we feel like we need to take on. Some of it is without a doubt important, but one can prioritize, and let go of that which is weighing you down, n'est-ce pas?]

Although the following spread is from a third journal, my experiment and play journal, the theme of this spread goes right with the Creative Entrepeneur work.

Back inside my CE journal, I worked on these pages to figure out my "structural tension" - when you think you know where you want to go and you want to take that step, but you are still stuck in the here and now.

Yeesh! I really was stuck. I made that page a couple of weeks ago, and it took me forever to figure out what the dream/goal page would be. Of course I had the idea, but how to make it truly representative, how I really wanted it to feel in contrast to the tension page? It could go a thousand different ways. Just sit down and do it, do something! Ahhhh, I feel much better now!

How is your journey? Are you going where you want to go? May we all find our way to that which will fill our hearts with joy.

: ) lulu

photo class

LK Ludwig started doing a monthly online photo art journal class last month. I found out about it late, signed up for it late, and then didn't manage to hustle quickly enough to post on the flicker group, but there's always time to eventually get it on the blog, eh? LK has fabulous ideas and techniques to share. The November group is under way, so check it out!

These are photos I did for one of the assignments based on the theme of a journey.

Unconsciously the currents of my life guide the impulse of taking an image and then the writing. The meaning is slowly revealed. It all becomes clear. A portal to self-dscovery, I'm seeing my path open out in front of me.

Día de Bloglandia

¡Felices días de los Muertos!

Today and tomorrow we celebrate the Days of the Dead, the traditional Latin American holiday to remember and celebrate the spirits of Nuestros Queridos Muertos - our Dearly Departed. Although I do not come from a Latino family, I am deeply honored by my latino friends who consider me one of their own. I've been wanting to do Día de los Muertos for a number of years. Finally this year, I got it together! Here is my altar, in honor of my dad (stepdad) Carleton F. Wood, his grandmother and my great-grandmother Anna Gajewski Farrell, and from my other dad, my beloved grammie Ruth Jane Brock.

The biggest surprise for me in setting up the altar was how much fun it was to think about these people while choosing items that would represent them.

Color, beauty, food, creativity - oh, and some relationship to me! - were what tied these people together.

I don't have much in the way of photos of mis queridos, but here is an image of Grammie that I've included alongside the altar.

Dad, Gammie, and Grandma Farrell were all quite famous in the family for their good cooking. Food was central to their lives. As such, I've included these proteins, frijoles negros and nueces to represent the basics of nutrition, the building blocks of life.


In the top portion of this photo is a bowl full of millet - a popular bird food! This represents Grammie, for though she always insisted that she ate hearty meals, we all know that in reality she cooked hearty meals, and enough of everything to feed the whole farm family of ten that she grew up in, but she ate like a bird. And she was tiny like a sparrow.

The kosher salt represents the savory flavor of life. It also represents that these people were the salt of the earth!

Speaking of flavor... the Asian hot sauce is for dad. We heard his stories a million times about his days in the ir force, when he was stationed in Holland and became enamored of spicy Indonesian food. One of our favorite family meals was his hot garlic spaghetti. He seasoned the cooking oil with chile peppers, black peppercorns and garlic, and we loved standing over the steaming pan breathing in the aroma. The spaghetti was partially cooked in water, then drained and added to the spicy oil, cooked until it got just a tiny bit crisp. A sprinkling of parmesan cheese, and let the hot oil drip down your chin - mmmm!

The vinegar represents two stories: First, every summer as a kid I spent a couple of weeks with Grammie and Grandaddy at their home in Lemoore, California. Summers in central California get mighty warm, so one afternoon after playing outside I ran into the kitchen thirsty. I saw a glass of clear water on the table, so I grabbed it and drank in deeply - YIKES! It was a glass of vinegar. I'm not sure why it was on the table like that - maybe Grammie was trying to trick those pesky flies?

Second, Grandma Farrell was full of vim and vinegar - she was a feisty one. She had grown up on a farm and was very proud of her strength. As an 80-year-old she loved rolling back her sleeves and making her huge biceps dance like a tattooed sailor does!

The Karo syrup also goes to Grandma Farrell. On Sunday mornings she cooked a special treat for us kids: her German pancakes. Super light and thin as a crepe, she plopped them onto our plates then added Karo syrup and powdered sugar. She showed us how to roll them up like a tube, and then we were in sweet tooth heaven!


A new Frida doll presides over the altar. Pues, claro que yo la honre a mi querida Frida, but she's also here to represent Grammie, who gave me her love for creativity, as well as to represent Grandma Farrell, who crocheted the lace on Frida's dress here by hand!

¡Qué bella!

More flavor. These three put a lot of spice in my life! They let us kids hover and watch and learn. We had wonderful conversations. I loved sparring with my dad over politics. Although we had opposing views, he was very open-minded and a good listener. The chiles de árbol are for him. Cinnamon and cloves for the grandmothers. Warm, grounded and sweet, like the warmth of their love and affection.

The veggies represent Grammie's garden. Even when she left California and moved into a small apartment in Missouri, she still kept a little vegetable patch going because there's nothing better than fresh produce off the vine!

The iced tea is for Dad, who drank one right after the other and begged me to go get him ANOTHER! Oh! The Chevy's cookbook is for him, too - not that he used cookbooks much. But Chevy's is a restaurant and as a restauteur Dad took us out to dinner a LOT. My favorite was going to Mexican restaurants!

The poppy lemon scones are for Dad. Despite being a diabetic, he couldn't resist sweets! The black coffee is for Grammie, and the café au lait is for Grandma Farrell. She scandalized me by preparing coffee like this for my little brother and sister. Of course it was only a dollop of coffee and mostly milk, but I still didn't approve!

Over here to the left of the altar I have included a small sampling of student artwork, showing los Queridos Muertos of my students. Most of my students are latino, so many of them aleady have some familiarity with Días de los Muertos. We also read and looked at some good books before working on the project, like El espiritú de Tío Fernando and Chumba la Cachumba. Then I asked them to think about someone special in their family who had passed on, and they worked on creating a collage portrait of that person.

I think the expressions and tenderness in their portraits are wonderful. I just love kid art!Hopefully I'll have time to set up a display of these tomorrow morning before parent-teacher conferences.

One more dollie to share! This is la señora del mercado, with some more chiles - this time chile pequín. For Dad, of course! For him, the hotter the better. I hope he enjoys.

Now I must be off to work on my shrine project for the Oaxaca Street children benefit. I'll try to finish it and post it on this same posting tonight.

Blessings to you and your queridos muertos!