I'm creating jewelry using the ancient art of mosaic.
Etched Metal, Gemstone & Pearl Necklaces
I've been busy etching metal in ferric chloride and then creating gemstone and pearl necklaces.
Etching metal is a very simple process:
1. Draw design in permanent marker on metal.
2. Suspend metal in a shallow bath of ferric chloride, (follow all directions on the bottle when working with chemicals).
3. Clean metal and neutralize ferric chloride with baking soda.
4. Sand & file metal.
5. Drill and attach a soldered jump ring.
6. String chain or beaded necklace through jump ring.
Poem Therapy at 11:58 P.M. - Alicia Ostriker
Mother/Child: Coda
Alicia Ostriker
Fear teaches nothing
that is my message
but O to grow means pain
means division
the crust cracks and the open
organism faces danger
the grass plant bladed and seeded, the forked spruce
burst from the mountain’s northern side that never
asked to breathe, here in this cold, but must.
It is the oldest, saddest story.
The oceans were ebbing.
The climate was chilling.
Anyone who had a lung was forced
to live, not die.
Anyone who had a leg was forced
to leap. The driven soldiers of the cause.
March. Think. Pay no attention to
the corpses. Do not attempt to join them.
March. Your task is to survive. You
are permitted to feel triumph.
Here is water, here is dry land,
up there the kingly sky and queenly moon,
a desire to turn back and a desire
to go on are the permanent
instructions, and we know that this has something
to do with our souls, also that “go on”
for any individual thing or creature
at first means “play,” “multiply,” “strike
deep, aim straight” and “trust,” but that
later this changes and means “it is too late,”
“take your last journey,” “we love you, but goodbye.”
We do not know yet what the instructions signify
for an entire species, a muddy ooze,
and we cannot make any prognosis on those levels
or answer the intimate question
shall all life
perish like us, the perfect crest subside?
I am glad and sorry to give you this information.
I see you know it already.
I want to tell you it is not your fault.
It is your fault.
So from now on you are responsible.
That is what we mean when we say
consciousness is a curse.
Meanwhile we are looking into
each other’s eyes, windows of homes,
and touching, with sweet pleasure,
each other’s downy surfaces.
You will never forget this,
will always seek, beyond every division,
a healing of division, renewed touch.
You see the silver bridge
spanning a flood?
This is what we mean when we say
consciousness is a blessing.
There is no possible way to protect your child from what life has in store for them. This is the burden of being a parent. Life can be a curse and a blessing. Ostriker's poem states that consciousness is a curse and a blessing, and this is so true. Sometimes, the examined life is a bit much to bear. Sometimes, reflection is what makes life bearable.
Before my daughter reached her third birthday, I divorced her father. For what ever reason, he has chosen not to be involved in her life, other than a couple phone calls a year. Of course she blamed me, herself, turned her anger everywhere but at him, and then finally fully at him, until spent, she sent her anger off on a little boat and and wished it safe journey.
Mother's Day is this weekend. I'm more of a mother bear than a bake cookies kind of mother. The Artemis archetype as my style of mothering comes to mind, although the goddess never had a child.
My daughter is strong, independent. She loves nature. She always loved animals and being outside, and at this moment, she's off hiking with her boyfriend.
I think I did the best I could with her and my stepchildren, but you'll have to ask them. I used to tell my daughter that she was "on the pychiatrist's couch for that one". Once, after some infraction or craziness, she turned to me and repeated this word-for-word. I still find it hilarious to remember her tiny sweet voice telling me she was going to need therapy to deal with my mothering.
My mother had seven children. I don't know how she managed. I know I couldn't have raised that many children, even with an entire cadre of helpers. Nine years later, I can say that I am fortunate to have had two mothers in this lifetime. Same woman. One prestroke, and one post. I used to get very angry and ask god and the saints, the stars, whatever or whomever was available, "when is my mother coming back?" The old her is never coming back, and although I miss her, I like the new her just fine.
Alicia Ostriker
Fear teaches nothing
that is my message
but O to grow means pain
means division
the crust cracks and the open
organism faces danger
the grass plant bladed and seeded, the forked spruce
burst from the mountain’s northern side that never
asked to breathe, here in this cold, but must.
It is the oldest, saddest story.
The oceans were ebbing.
The climate was chilling.
Anyone who had a lung was forced
to live, not die.
Anyone who had a leg was forced
to leap. The driven soldiers of the cause.
March. Think. Pay no attention to
the corpses. Do not attempt to join them.
March. Your task is to survive. You
are permitted to feel triumph.
Here is water, here is dry land,
up there the kingly sky and queenly moon,
a desire to turn back and a desire
to go on are the permanent
instructions, and we know that this has something
to do with our souls, also that “go on”
for any individual thing or creature
at first means “play,” “multiply,” “strike
deep, aim straight” and “trust,” but that
later this changes and means “it is too late,”
“take your last journey,” “we love you, but goodbye.”
We do not know yet what the instructions signify
for an entire species, a muddy ooze,
and we cannot make any prognosis on those levels
or answer the intimate question
shall all life
perish like us, the perfect crest subside?
I am glad and sorry to give you this information.
I see you know it already.
I want to tell you it is not your fault.
It is your fault.
So from now on you are responsible.
That is what we mean when we say
consciousness is a curse.
Meanwhile we are looking into
each other’s eyes, windows of homes,
and touching, with sweet pleasure,
each other’s downy surfaces.
You will never forget this,
will always seek, beyond every division,
a healing of division, renewed touch.
You see the silver bridge
spanning a flood?
This is what we mean when we say
consciousness is a blessing.
There is no possible way to protect your child from what life has in store for them. This is the burden of being a parent. Life can be a curse and a blessing. Ostriker's poem states that consciousness is a curse and a blessing, and this is so true. Sometimes, the examined life is a bit much to bear. Sometimes, reflection is what makes life bearable.
Before my daughter reached her third birthday, I divorced her father. For what ever reason, he has chosen not to be involved in her life, other than a couple phone calls a year. Of course she blamed me, herself, turned her anger everywhere but at him, and then finally fully at him, until spent, she sent her anger off on a little boat and and wished it safe journey.
Mother's Day is this weekend. I'm more of a mother bear than a bake cookies kind of mother. The Artemis archetype as my style of mothering comes to mind, although the goddess never had a child.
My daughter is strong, independent. She loves nature. She always loved animals and being outside, and at this moment, she's off hiking with her boyfriend.
I think I did the best I could with her and my stepchildren, but you'll have to ask them. I used to tell my daughter that she was "on the pychiatrist's couch for that one". Once, after some infraction or craziness, she turned to me and repeated this word-for-word. I still find it hilarious to remember her tiny sweet voice telling me she was going to need therapy to deal with my mothering.
My mother had seven children. I don't know how she managed. I know I couldn't have raised that many children, even with an entire cadre of helpers. Nine years later, I can say that I am fortunate to have had two mothers in this lifetime. Same woman. One prestroke, and one post. I used to get very angry and ask god and the saints, the stars, whatever or whomever was available, "when is my mother coming back?" The old her is never coming back, and although I miss her, I like the new her just fine.
Spring, Winter, Winter, Spring
A Green Spring - Kate Birch kebirch.etsy.comLast Thursday it hailed, cleared up, snowed, cleared, rained, cleared up again. This past weekend, the wind harrowed the trees until they snapped. Every day brings a surprise. I think the weather around here is feeling a little nostalgic for winter.
The birds and my perennials don't seem to mind.
I found this painting by Kate Birch this morning and think it visually articulates the layering of the Wasatch Front's weather lately. I'm happy to discover she is a local girl and will watch for news of upcoming exhibits. If you'd like to see more of her work, check out her etsy site at ekbirch.etsy.com. Here's her bio:
Kate Birch studied painting and drawing at the University of Utah and graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in 2005. The pattern and texture in her mixed-media floral paintings are inspired by her love of textiles. These paintings focus on the decorative influence of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, as well as patterns from the Orient, Morocco and Mexico. Kate is constantly studying pattern and design found in fabric, rugs, tiles and papers as well as more organic floral forms found directly in nature. The creation of her paintings is focused primarily on process, layering stencil and charcoal drawings throughout each piece. Kate lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband and their three children. She exhibits her work in galleries across the U.S. from ekbirch.etsy.com profile
Poem Therapy at 11:38 P.M. - Peter Cole
The Ghazal of What Hurt
Peter Cole
Pain froze you, for years—and fear—leaving scars.
But now, as though miraculously, it seems, here you are
walking easily across the ground, and into town
as though you were floating on air, which in part you are,
or riding a wave of what feels like the world's good will—
though helped along by something foreign and older than you are
and yet much younger too, inside you, and so palpable
an X-ray, you're sure, would show it, within the body you are,
not all that far beneath the skin, and even in
some bones. Making you wonder: Are you what you are—
with all that isn't actually you having flowed
through and settled in you, and made you what you are?
The pain was never replaced, nor was it quite erased.
It's memory now—so you know just how lucky you are.
You didn't always. Were you then? And where's the fear?
Inside your words, like an engine? The car you are?!
Face it, friend, you most exist when you're driven
away, or on—by forms and forces greater than you are.
It's always been true that avoiding my worst fear is far greater than facing it. Also that in flush times, although an enjoyable respite, nothing of real consequence, on a deep level, happens.
Only when I am nudged toward the fire and I walk through it and come out remade on the other side, do I see who I really am.
In case you're wondering, a Ghazal is a "poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain. The form is ancient, originating in 6th century pre-Islamic Arabic verse. It is derived from the Arabian panegyric qasida. The structural requirements of the ghazal are similar in stringency to those of the Petrarchan sonnet."
Peter Cole
Pain froze you, for years—and fear—leaving scars.
But now, as though miraculously, it seems, here you are
walking easily across the ground, and into town
as though you were floating on air, which in part you are,
or riding a wave of what feels like the world's good will—
though helped along by something foreign and older than you are
and yet much younger too, inside you, and so palpable
an X-ray, you're sure, would show it, within the body you are,
not all that far beneath the skin, and even in
some bones. Making you wonder: Are you what you are—
with all that isn't actually you having flowed
through and settled in you, and made you what you are?
The pain was never replaced, nor was it quite erased.
It's memory now—so you know just how lucky you are.
You didn't always. Were you then? And where's the fear?
Inside your words, like an engine? The car you are?!
Face it, friend, you most exist when you're driven
away, or on—by forms and forces greater than you are.
It's always been true that avoiding my worst fear is far greater than facing it. Also that in flush times, although an enjoyable respite, nothing of real consequence, on a deep level, happens.
Only when I am nudged toward the fire and I walk through it and come out remade on the other side, do I see who I really am.
In case you're wondering, a Ghazal is a "poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain. The form is ancient, originating in 6th century pre-Islamic Arabic verse. It is derived from the Arabian panegyric qasida. The structural requirements of the ghazal are similar in stringency to those of the Petrarchan sonnet."
Poem Therapy at 1:16 P.M. - Hester Knibbe
Never Alone Shirae from shirae.etsy.comLight-years
Hester Knibbe
Translated by Jacquelyn Pope
It’s a beautiful world, you said,
with these trees, marshes, deserts,
grasses, rivers and seas
and so on. And the moon is really something
in its circuits
of relative radiance. Include
the wingèd M, voluptuous
Venus, hotheaded Mars, that lucky devil
J and cranky Saturn, of course, plus
U and N and the wanderer P, in short
the whole solar family, complete with its
Milky Way, and count up all the other
systems with dots and spots and in
that endless emptiness what you’ve got
is a commotion of you-know-what. It’s a beautiful
universe, you said, just take a good look
through the desert’s dark glasses
for instance or on your back
in seas of grass, take a good look
at the deluge of that Rorschach—we’re standing out there
somewhere, together.
It is a beautiful world, a beautiful universe. Lucky us that "the world offers itself to our imagination" as poet Mary Oliver said in her poem Wild Geese. Also, that regardless of how alone we may feel, the stars are always present.
Poem Therapy at 3:11 P.M. - Victor Hernadez Cruz
Problems with Hurricanes
Victor Hernández Cruz
A campesino looked at the air
And told me:
With hurricanes it's not the wind
or the noise or the water.
I'll tell you he said:
it's the mangoes, avocados
Green plantains and bananas
flying into town like projectiles.
How would your family
feel if they had to tell
The generations that you
got killed by a flying
Banana.
Death by drowning has honor
If the wind picked you up
and slammed you
Against a mountain boulder
This would not carry shame
But
to suffer a mango smashing
Your skull
or a plantain hitting your
Temple at 70 miles per hour
is the ultimate disgrace.
The campesino takes off his hat—
As a sign of respect
toward the fury of the wind
And says:
Don't worry about the noise
Don't worry about the water
Don't worry about the wind—
If you are going out
beware of mangoes
And all such beautiful
sweet things.
It is a good thing to beware the power and fury of "all such beautiful sweet things," and also the fury of the whirlwind. And yet, there are those who actively seek to reap the whirlwind. And for this, I am grateful.
Victor Hernández Cruz
A campesino looked at the air
And told me:
With hurricanes it's not the wind
or the noise or the water.
I'll tell you he said:
it's the mangoes, avocados
Green plantains and bananas
flying into town like projectiles.
How would your family
feel if they had to tell
The generations that you
got killed by a flying
Banana.
Death by drowning has honor
If the wind picked you up
and slammed you
Against a mountain boulder
This would not carry shame
But
to suffer a mango smashing
Your skull
or a plantain hitting your
Temple at 70 miles per hour
is the ultimate disgrace.
The campesino takes off his hat—
As a sign of respect
toward the fury of the wind
And says:
Don't worry about the noise
Don't worry about the water
Don't worry about the wind—
If you are going out
beware of mangoes
And all such beautiful
sweet things.
It is a good thing to beware the power and fury of "all such beautiful sweet things," and also the fury of the whirlwind. And yet, there are those who actively seek to reap the whirlwind. And for this, I am grateful.
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