XO

my three week stay with a friend in dallas is coming to an end... it's been a time of sitting in the sun and talking; buying new art supplies (and some cool clothes); a whole lotta reading of what i guess is called spiritual nonfiction; and, of course, making stuff. as if to reinforce my intention to take a blogging break, my computer screen died just after my last post; from there it was just a short hop to staying away from the internet almost entirely during my time here. i've loved the break... it's felt intensely freeing and i have no idea where my blogging journey is headed.


i've eaten, read, talked, and just generally soaked up the sun in those chairs at the far end of the pool... a lot different than home, huh?


as part of tying up loose ends here i just sent my 'vision' collaborative journal off to karin (you can see her first pages here). above is a weird pic of the front cover when i sent it off. who knows what juicy goodness karin might do to it?! the buttons on the left are sewn to buttons on the inside so that something besides glue is holding the cover on... this is what happens when you punch two holes in the cover and then realize your eyelets and brads are too short for the job. the tie is muslin and some shiny gold ribbon that i saved from a gift.


the inside front cover -- i cut the window out of the top layer of paper and painted it on the piece underneath. none of these pics are great, but you can get an idea...


the first page... after i collaged and wrote on the page i put down a layer of matte gel medium, which i then painted on with caran d'ache crayons and twinkling H2Os.

the second page, which has about 50 layers of paint on it... seriously, i painted and repainted it the whole time i was here. finally i covered most of it up.


tim holtz crackle paint... my new favorite thing. thank you, julie,for turning me on to it. i found a lot of tim holtz products on sale here so i've, er, stocked up... the sparkle in the cracks is the twinkling H2O color 'stargazer'.


one of the other things i've been doing is playing with paper clay -- it's my other new favorite thing! these are the first 'dallas brick people' that i made, and only the one on the left was finished when i took this pic. i found a lot of brick pieces at a construction site nearby, and i've already mailed a very heavy flat rate box full of them back home...

this is a little, brief glimpse of the last few weeks of my life... thank you everyone for taking the time to leave a comment even when i wasn't answering. i hope this finds you all thriving no matter where you are or what you're doing -- no matter what your 'present moment' is. my journey continues to coax me closer to the one thing that i think is really all that matters... being present; being here now...

XO