Increments

Returning from Arizona, I realized how many projects that I've been juggling and how difficult it's been to get all my balls back up in the air. The first two weeks back were a real slog, but the most recent two have been much better. Still, I've wondered if all that I do would ever amount to anything whole and complete. Today I managed to connect the dots, dot the i's and cross the t's on a number of projects and I feel great. Sometimes it's like that-- you put one foot in front of the other with the hope that you will get somewhere and just when you are about to lose faith, you realize that you've reached your destination. The important lesson in all of this is to stay focussed, make the most of the journey, and to have faith in what you do.

This is my 400th post. I wrote them day in and day out, one at a time. Thanks for visiting!

Week 12: Adobe Illustrator

Lounge I © Karen Thiessen 2012

My fling with orange persists. One day I created a rather ugly alien/lounge shape. On its own, it was strange. Put into a repeat, it played nice with the other aliens and the resulting negative spaces are extraordinary. In the end, I created seven patterns with the lounge shape without exhausting its potential. And to think that in my student days I drew all my repeat patterns by hand. 

Arizona: Yuma patterns and shadows

Yuma's bright sun offered plenty of shadows to photograph. Old Town was the most photographic area of the city. We were there on market day when the main street is closed to traffic. Market vendors sold an array of products including magnetic jewellery, smelly soaps, colourful clothing, and farm produce. 

Karen Shapiro at Scottsdale Fine Art

Just days before we left for Arizona, I saw my colleague Catherine Weir's new raku work where she had added bold colour (it's so new that it's not yet on her website). Until then, I didn't know that raku could be so colourful. Catherine's new work was a harbinger of what I was to see at Scottsdale Fine Art during the weekly Thursday evening Art Walk in Scottsdale, Arizona. Karen Shapiro's work knocked my socks off! The gallery attendant generously gave me permission to photograph the work. See more of Karen's work here.

Arizona hummingbirds

Hummingbirds were plentiful in Yuma. Almost every time I pulled out the camera, they would hide. It took three days to get semi-decent photographs of these elusive creatures. Once in a while they would take a break on the Ficus tree branch but they were so small that you had to look very hard to see them. Beware: if you wear a bright pink top, hummingbirds may mistake you for a flower.

Quotes: Patanjali

"When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dominant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a better person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be." 

– Patanjali

Weekend

I had one of those weekends of running errands, a chance encounter and lovely visit with an old friend, sharing dim sum with a new friend, puttering in the garden, and going on long walks with my handsome guy. My husband and I watched And When They Shall Ask, a docudrama about the Russian Mennonite experience of war, famine, and escaping Russia in the early 1920s. I needed to watch it for research purposes. The story is personal because it is an account shared by my grandparents and great-grandparents. And When They Shall Ask and the online documentary Through the Red Gate are parallel historical accounts of what the Mennonites suffered. Both were difficult to watch. This weekend I also attended the funeral visitation of my great-uncle (a remarkable man), my oldest and last living relative who remembered Russia and escaping with his parents and five siblings by the skin of their teeth. T'was a weekend of memories both old and new. Balance is everything.