flowers for mom

i made some flowers for my mom   to celebrate her birthday.
Lilies are her favorite.
She said to me, “ah, now my lilies are not yet over for the season!”

to find her treasure (the flowers) mom followed ten cryptic clues
we laughed at our site-specific foibles, our love of this place,
our family home, temagami. I love my mom.

Q: Why practice creativity?

ANSWER: to transform old structures including:    local and global over-production and resource use     the illusion of separateness within our skin / sense of encapsulated and isolated selves     individual habit-patterns + responses     also     alienation / isolation

I said something similar here

old reused local from a time before vinyl or aluminum when someone got out the brush and made efforts to help the wood last longer.   in my neighbourhood the housingstock decays in mouldy raincoast winter. Nothing on the northside dries nothing on the southside stays fresh

sometimes it’s hard for me to see the links between the intention of my art work   and what is the outcome?   yet ripples expand outwards even if today this work does not feel important
how will the effects of my actions surely carry on with or without me in this life and beyond? this is an important and central question.
this is also a helpful long time     non-linear view of creative practice.

i’ve also said before that PRACTICE:    to repeat and renew effort regularly is important.    with practice my creative muscles gets stronger.    i see opportunities. i feel braver to grab hold of them.

Yar this is the mighty power of transformation.

THANKS and i miss my homies

jenna lives with me at the Beehive Collective House. She runs a school called Soaring Eagle Nature School. Ya she does!

She asked me to help create a thank you card for her to give to her summer students and campers. She provided the cool stuff (buckskin, baby bird of prey skull, handmade nettle fiber cordage, owl leg, awesome feather, arrowhead) and i provided the design and photography skills.

Looks exciting if you were a kid in nature school learning cool stuff like tracking and harvesting wild foods. later, i arrived home after a trip to find a finished card on my desk, signed with love from jenna. A good collab.

Speaking of the Beehive, I miss my homies! We are: Collective House, 6 people, 3 cats, guests, we share food and cook for each other too. (east)Vancouver, BC, Coast Salish Territory.

no more numbers this lawn is astroturf

ninety : things i did and saw at the farm part 1

borrowed a car and headed to visit friends     the road was not totally clear but i was warmly received    i bailed some wire     saw a bone     and met new friends

eighty nine : up to good

here come 12 old blog posts that are yet to be created    sorry for the long lapse    i guess this has been an unannounced holiday from blogging    tho not from daily creative actions

does this count?

eighty two : hot pink

prepping for a costume     where my familiar
red black and shiny gets mixed with
HOT PINK EEK!
close inspection reveals my lovely parents
captured here as i show off my new    uh   shirt

seventy seven : massive edge landscapes

spectacular march bicycle trip on the oregon coast with allison.   characterized by unheardof snow    extremely high winds    hail    hardy days spent outdoors exploring in the company of elk, peregrines, eagles, hummingbirds, ferns.    The spotted owl and marbled murrelet remain illusive.

seventy five : lunch as art

home made turnip pickle    home roasted warm sunflower seeds    salad    grated beets    red cabbage    sunshine     ✔

seventy four : looked just like this

i did not use any effects    the sky was fantastic as i was riding home on my bicycle    i love my bike!

seventy three : strong beautiful cyclists in my life

b:c:clettes did a photo shoot on the weekend.     while getting ready i listened to a Hugo Chavez speech     and was inspired by his words:     mobilize the human spirit

thanks for taking the picture mom    i mean linda    who is lori’s mom

seventy one : for mom

dad and i went walking at the park of queen elizabeth in vancouver     mom     we thought you would like these flowers   they were under a corkscrew hazlenut or somesuch

sixty nine : so many me

sixty eight : more circles

sixty five : i love birds

i love birds

many of my posts feature bird art     like this one for example

⥤ these are pictures of bird things within reach of my desk

i do love birds

the question

¿why have i been recently exposed to pictures of birds that are dead because they ate plastic?     such as this b e a u t i f u l  4 minute (sensitive viewer warning) video trailer     and the presentation i watched last night

i love birds
i experience angry
single use products are

NOT OK

cat.bird.funny from Sara Ross on Vimeo. 12 seconds.

May i present… one ❝symptom❞ of single use things

pictures taken last night in feeling of anger
two blocks of recycling      normal      in my neighbourhood.

it made me feel sad looking at the ways we have adapted to survive     drinking milk from somewheres somecows     crushing cans of pea soup night after night by ourselves     tomato sauce tomato sauce tomato sauce     newspaper tells us whats happening     dead fish in cans     plastic     so much plastic

i send my love to the mountains and to all people who are doing their best at this very moment to survive    which likely includes just about everyone

i send my love      as Chris Jordan’s film trailer says      to those of us who have the courage to face the realities of our time     and who allow ourselves to feel deeply enough that it transforms us and our future

brave spirits of the earth and downtrodden     thank you    you are my heart

sixty one : how to take a picture of sunlight : part three

skipping into sunshine
where my head disappears

immersed in streets   with the spring springing
still low sunshine smiles
and it is
all
right
here

what a grin!

sixty : how to take a picture of sunlight : part two

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.

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my camera is a digital relic
with a light meter that operates    sometimes
click to view these light loved asphalts in their full contrasting glory      so pretty

fifty eight : how to take a picture of sunlight

get giddy go!

camera relic in hand
even speedy shoes can’t go so fast nor penetrate so deeply
as the sunshine
bringing us all out

low hanging into low-lying eddies and cracks
shadows show it
the smell of whitchazel proves it
my head disappears and i see an early bee!

stay tuned for more from this series of sunshine photos…

forty four : new years resolutions

i’ve been putting off this post because it involved more sitting at the computer       which is what i’ve been doing since 2012 began. lesson about creativity     right now it is more fun for me to just make things.     i am going for a run

do you want to be different?      what shines in your future?

pressing my words into fine silver foil
makes a double sided book with two versions of every mark

(ok and i don’t know how to spell affect)

my product is the manipulations of the thing i make, not the thing itself.    See 13 more pictures

forty three : neighbourhood shadow

blue shadows   i can see my breath tonite   and snow on the mountains