Wylde Women, hand made and cast ceramic, approximately 9" tall, by Tammy Vitale

Here are three of the Wylde Women finished yesterday, along with Ugly Fish and Women.  It was a busy, productive day.  I had to push a little to get the tags designed.  I wanted bookmarks but couldn’t find one that I could get to work for me so after an hour I gave up and went with cut cover stock paper and pasted on information.  I think they look good and don’t take too much time.  They look really nice and very professional on the pieces and that’s something I’ve been working toward for a long time (5 years!) without ever really taking time to see what I could make.  I’ve made paper tags and business card tags, but these are the nicest.  I even scrounged around and found an actual (start) hole punch and design scissors to cut out the paste on.  The Ugly Fish tags says:  Ugly Fish – You just have to love them.  And the Wylde Women  tags say:  (on the front)  Wylde Women:  Claim your Power; and on the inside "What is your secret name?  The one the seashell echoes, the rain taps on the roof?  The one the trees whisper?  Wylde Woman knows – give her that name for safe keeping."  In other words, I opted to let buyers name their own Wylde Woman.  Caron, who helped named the line, helped with that decision too.  Hers wasn’t yet named when mailed out to Caron, and Caron knew immediately what name to give her.  Additionally, there’s only so much you can get on a tag.  I guess that’s how a lot of possibilities get twiddled down to size.  But I’m happy with that decision.

The Ugly Fish, however, each have individual names based on the water element – I found a spot on line with a bunch of odd names.  As I post them I will post their name.  I can’t find the site I was using but looking for it I found a bunch of other sites, so I doubt I’ll have any dearth of names to choose from.  But you’ll have to wait for those pictures.  I don’t want to use everything up at once – need some pictures to post in the coming days.

Checking in on on my process with Finding Water, I have done morning pages every day, and find myself slowing down on wonderful discoveries, but my art energy level remains at an all time high.  I have taken at least on artist’s date – in the past my "hard" part of the work, and tomorrow plan to walk along a boardwalk on the Chesapeake Bay for my walk.  I have to drop off some work for a show, and it’s the boardwalk where Chesapeake, my public art work is, so it will be a fun walk.  And, as expected, I am meeting new folks as a result of participating in this communal effort at individual creativity – what more could one want?!

thought for the day:  For many modern women, it is not the driving about in the dark looking for the soulskin that is most fearsome.  Rather it is the diving into the water, the actual return to home, and especially the actual leavetaking, that are far more formidable.  Though women come back into themselves, draw on the sealskin, pat it closed, and are all ready to go, it is hard to go; really really hard to cede, to hand over whatever we’ve been so busy with, and just leave…Our skin is our greatest sensing organ…When a woman is gone too long from home, her ability to perceive how she’s feeling about herself and all other things begins to dry and crack.  She is on "lemming status."  because she is not perceiving what is too much, what is not enough, she runs right over her own edges.  Clarissa Pinkola-Esters, Women Who Run With the Wolves