Seahorses, facing right and left, hand-made, unique wall sculptures, 20.5" high x 8" wide, by Tammy Vitale

I have finally come to an understanding of why I have such a hard time with directions when I’m naming my pieces.  The piece on the left faces right, the piece on the right faces left.  Too much for my directionally-challenged brain to get itself around.  Maybe with that recognition, it’ll be easier in the future!

Am having a terrible time getting myself to sit down and focus.  I can spend hours playing Luxor 2 (exploding colored balls pushed by a scarab), but that’s because it doesn’t take much more than hand to eye coordination.  Surely no thought – although if I monitor the thoughts it goes something like this:  green, yellow, red, black, blue, green, green, etc.  I guess we all need time to veg out and I’ve taken my time this week.  I did get a kiln load done (see the new work here?) and have been researching glass and talking with an artist acquaintance who does glass.  Did you know that you can put plaster in a kiln?  Apparently, yes.  And slump the glass into the plaster.  Now I have a ton of plaster molds that I’ve used with my ornate tiles…so I don’t even have to make anything new!  Although I did make a plain torso to use as a slump mold.  But now I can start with the smaller pieces and work my way up.  How cool is that?  So maybe today I’ll glass shop and get myself some new toys.  I just paid for 1,000 pounds of clay, though, so maybe I’ll add up the glass first and it might have to wait until next month.  Or not.  We’ll see (my favorite thing to do besides vegging is to buy art supplies.  It makes me feel prosperous.)(until the bill comes in).

Did I mention that Husband made me raku lids?  Yep – that fast, he cut the big piece of metal we bough in half and put handles on the two pieces and has offered today to dig the 2nd pit for raku and open up the pit I already have.  Aren’t I lucky and isn’t he sweet?!

I might mention that along with the wild mountain laurels having their best blooming time in years, we also have mosquitoes blooming in the yard so from here until fall we have to put bug spray on when we cross the threshold to the great outdoors are get eaten up.  I’d spend way more time outdoors (where I seem to be itching to go…itching because I was out day before yesterday without spray) if I didn’t have to deal with those pests.  Does anyone know what their purpose is?  Everything is supposed to have one – perhaps theirs is to control our population (yellow fever, malaria, bird flu)…heh.  There’s a thought.

I had an interesting questionnaire come in from an American master’s student studying in Amsterdam – she had questions around my torsos Lilith (to the right here), on whom she is focusing her thesis work.  It was fun to answer her questions and led me to go back and read NightVision, the chapbook Artella put together for me when I won their Poetry Idol Contest a few years back.  NightVision is the core or my own thesis and after reading it I think it’s held up pretty good these 10 years.  Ten years! since I got my master’s.  Time flies these days.  It is based on the web of connection and I can send it along for anyone who has high-speed downloads and enough space to get it if you’re interested.

Hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend.

thought for the day:  Nature is an interconnected web, a complex integrated system.  When we meddle with one part, we cause inevitable repercussions.  Every year developed countries fill rivers and lakes with industrial chemicals, petroleum products, solvents, road salt, garbage runoff, household detergents, pesticides and organic waste.  A few miles downstream, the water is pumped out, treated with chlorine and other chemicals, then sent back through the pipes as drinking water.

In a kind of aquatic karma, what we give out come back to us…Hormones and contraceptives excreted in urine have found their way into urban rivers and may result in reduced fertility among the population …Avoid or reduce your use of phosphates…don’t overuse bleach and scouring powders…don’t use water fresheners in the bathroom….don’t use garden chemicals…don’t dump oils, paints, and chemicals down the drain…share your ideas with other.  The water we use belongs to all of us, our descendents and the many life forms on this planet.  The more people who use it wisely, the healthier our collective future.  Diane Dreher, The Tao of Inner Peace