Hand-made, slab-built clay torso, Mermaid (yet unnamed), with shells found on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and a raku rattle necklace, 36" tall, by Tammy Vitale.

Well, I got her together.  Not as I had originally planned – so that she could be taken apart into two pieces, and not again with wood support pieces to hold the two pieces together, but with lots of good old goop and cloth – more for looks than help as the goop did its usual amazing work.  She isn’t named yet, and I think I’m going to have to read and offer some names because nothing is coming.  I think something to do with the shells but I’m not sure just yet.

Yesterday as I was posting I was thinking it was Tuesday.  But it was Monday – bonus!  extra day this week.  So I didn’t attempt the cottage.  Instead I did put in a kiln load which is now cooling.  And finished Ms. Mermaid here.  And noticed that it’s about time for me to give a good cleaning to my studio area – hands and knees, water, sponge, mop, etc.  So maybe Thursday for that.  Today, the actual Tuesday, am meeting another artist friend for lunch because we only see each other at shows when we have no time to talk, and then tomorrow a.m. my regular coffee break sanity meeting with another friend.  So it’s social week.  Afterwards for both, work on the cottage a bit.  Today unload the kiln and take pictures.  Thursday clean studio.  Friday off to West Virginia for an environmental summit.  I used to work in the environment, and this is a 3 day summit with food and board for $90 (sorry – all sold out) in Shepherdstown, WV which also has some lovely shops for me to check out for potential representation – a skipped class or two at the summit won’t kill me.  Have signed up for mostly PR classes because PR is PR whether it’s the environment or art, so I’m really looking forward to a weekend in the mountains and time with another friend who lives an hour away and who I hardly ever see anymore.   It promises to be a good week.

Yesterday’s whining about crayola crayons brought in great information from Wendy of WindyAngels, another AEM participant (really – go check out her work!).  Who emails:

I had some of these [neocolor II crayons]hanging around from when I used to sell children’s toys, about 10 years ago. They were excellent for "face painting". Now i realizethey are excellent for artists – actually meant for artisits. they are great for blending. I was also informed they work well on fabric. the smaller pieces of fabric on my previous post http://windyangels.blogspot.com/2006/11/weekend-with-creative-play-time.html were coloured with them and then I went over with water and they work beautifully.

The crayons are available from http://www.dickblick.com/, http://www.dickblick.com/zz200/42/. Must get the neocolor ll, not neocolor l if want watersoluble. I first heard about them on Inspire me Thursday http://www.inspiremethursday.com/ when Misty Mawn http://www.mistysartstudio.com/mistymawn/page_two.html mentioned them. [since these are copied from an email, if the links don’t work, copy and paste into your URL]

So in addition to pushing myself art wise (and getting a sale – people out there love blue herons, whether or not I find them ubitquitous, so Big Blue is gone already), AEM has expanded my daily blog readings (when I have time) and brought in great information.  Check it out yourself by clicking on Kat’s Paws in the upper left column here, or by clicking here.  (and do click off this page – do you know how much work it is to type these long long links?).

So I have been loving the collages and altered books I’m seeing as I click around other  AEM participants and decided to make an altered book of my own, though I know that I don’t have this collage thing quite down yet.  So I did find a book – an old sewing book, Sewing for Your Home, and I colored out everything but home and realized that homes/houses are also symbols for ourselves and our souls and whal-a! had my theme for the book and had at.  Am interspersing pieces of my poetry with the pages since my poetry is all about coming home to one’esself.  So, here are the opening pages.  I don’t know if you can read in the picture, so here’s the poem on the left side:

Note to Self

Remember

(when the need to forget pours down

like fire from heaven or

the pressure to pursue yourself

nails you to the wall):

something must die

so something may live –

(small deaths, more flower petals

than torn skin, windblown

under footsteps, across the sidewalk).

This is where the heart lives; be

still.  Listen.  See how

the story rises

like breath,

like song.

And the facing page, using the original title’s home, says:  I Know I have found my way Home.  I’ve done 4 more pages but will spin them out this week, catching up with pre posts for the days I will be away this weekend.

I have a poetry chapbook, Shift, available at Amazon.