Sculpt Lapel Pin, clay, beads and wire, by Tammy Vitale

I’m using this little pin as today’s offering for AEM since it isn’t my actual usual clay work.  I’ve made myself several of these lapel pins to wear out and encourage people to ask my why I wear them.  So far none have but you just never know.  It’s a good way to start an art conversation.

Today was art day.  Dhyana came over and we played in the mud for several hours.  I even got the studio cleaned up and bit and moved around – more space, different configuration so I can make larger pieces.  I’m working on, ahem, a blue heron yard piece that is slightly over 4 feet tall.  I will mount it like a totem and see how it turns out.  My thought is that if it’s nice, I’ll give it to Heron’s Way Gallery to put out in front of the new gallery space they are opening in December –  as an advertisement for both them and me.  It’s under plastic right now, evening out its water – it’s got varying thicknesses, so that best to do.  Then I’ll have to trim the edges, dry, glaze and fire.  I made it from sculpting clay and will be able to use some of the great glazes I used for the Chesapeake piece (for your clay folks, that’s cone 6 vs. the low fire cone 05/04 I use for everything else).

Before I forget, here’s a picture of my Friday setup for the show in DC at the  law firm Meyer Brown.  I forgot my camera and one of the women there took a picture of each set up, and she had it waiting for me when I got home – very fast!

After we played in the mud, we ate Dhyana’s home made from scratch clam chowder with fresh bread and white wine.  Yum.  Very much YUM.  Then we trundled out to openings at Main Street in Prince Frederick, where I bought a cute little bag of metal hearts which I can use on my Dancing Women a and we took advantage of the bounty of great food that Nancy, the owner, always puts out (even though we were both already stuffed from dinner).  Then, off to Carmen’s Gallery on Solomons to their opening, where we didn’t stay quite as long, but where we did browse through all the offerings there.  Then home, where I sit now blogging and then I’m going to bed and try to read at least one page before I fall dead asleep.  Eventually, I will rest out of this need to fall dead asleep at 8 pm simply because it is so dark outside.

But for today the fire is burning in the wood stove, the house is toasty, and I’m most definitely ready to fall into bed.

Here’s a great site to visit:  Wild Wolf Women.  It came via a very nice note into my email box from someone who had found and enjoyed my web site.  Of course it’s based on Clarissa Pinkola-Estes Women Who Run With the Wolves, but it starts there and continues musing about the Dangerous Wild Woman archetype – you know me:  those words were a happy invitation to enter.  And I totally enjoyed reading everything there (not all of it by any stretch, but the sampling was wonderful), and it helped call me back to myself this mid-November.  If you need some propping up, or if you just want to go read something inspirational, do visit.

thought for the day:  It is said that when a butterfly flaps its wings, that energy flows thousands of miles away.  Therefore, everything you think and do extends outward and multiplies.  Live your life knowing that the difference you choose to make is toward wholeness, not destructiveness.  Even if no one sees or acknowledges it, an act of unkindness contains energy that impacts our entire universe.  And a silent blessing or thought of love toward others contains a vibration that Will be felt throughout the cosmos…Be conscious of how very much you matter to all of creation.