Backyard Madonna with Lilies hand-made clay sculpture by Tammy Vitale of Tam’s Originals.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.  Since the earth is our mother, I thought I would share some of my "Mother’s" pictures with you.  The earth is beautiful right now – changing every day.  I walk on the  small plot of land I have the honor to tend and I use it for inspiration – so it is fitting that these pictures be included as part of my art. 

I also have some great links for you.  Yesterday I got my blogs all mixed up and wound up with most of my links over on myspace with my journal here.  I’ve got that switched back around today and hope you enjoy these news tidbits.

Yaro Starak is a name I keep running into these days when researching webs, blogs and entreprensurship.  He’s in two of my links today.  The first is his own website and includes "Blog Traffic Tips 101" – a great outline of articles for driving traffic to blogs (an websites).

You’ll also find him along with 9 other blogs chosen as the top 10 small business blogs online by 60 Second Ideas.  Want to do some fast research on on-line use by and for small businesses (including really small – like you and me: one person shops)?  60 Second Ideas has already done the browsing part and posted enough information for a mini-course in on-going information for your perusal.  You’re bound to find at least one you want to subscribe to.  And comment on – go ahead.  Start commenting now.  It’s great writing practice and makes you put your thoughts in order.  That’s never a bad thing.

I liked this story by JSOnline (the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal) about Della Wells, who, according to the article, "has been heralded as one of the leading African-American folk artists in the country….A self-taught artist best known for her whimsical collages and bright pastels…."  Her show is called "Don’t Tell Me I Can’t Fly:  Folktales by Della Wells" and I really like her philosphy of not letting anything stand in the way of making art to her own unique standards. 

Finally, for you writers, here’s Suzanne Falter-Barnes on How Women’s Magazines find their "experts." I started with her "How Much Joy" ezine and have continued to follow her new blogs and now her consolidation.  She’s a great font of information because she talks about the problems and mistakes she makes as well as what she does well.  She shares questions she has which are relevant to anyone blogging these days or thinking about using the web for business purposes.  If you go for the article, stay and browse for all the other great information.

Emily, hand-built grave memorial by Tammy Vitale of Tam’s Originals. We love our Pugly poos.  And I’ll never stop missing this one.  She was my best friend.

Right is the garden at the foot of my back deck steps.  My son built the garden for me and I have stocked it, slowly, with azaleas and perennial flowers and just about anything else that struck my fancy – my gardens tend to be jumbles of whatever will grow.  Shown here are my recycled furniture garden bench and a copper tube snail (not mine) as well as one of my hand-built clay sculputuresr  Many of my older works wind up outside.  Currently  everything is fired to cone so that it can withstand out winters.  Earlier, I didn’t keep track of my different clays and some pieces have lost layers to the winter icing.  Now I’m better about that.  The Madonna with the lilies above and this sculpture (which isn’t named) have been outside year round for 4 years with no ill effects.  I bring the bench in for the winter, and need to put it on bricks to keep the ants and termites out of it.  This bench is made with shards as opposed to having tiles made specifically for it.

Here it is in the basement when I was working on it.

Thought for the day:  "If you have read Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book, Women Who run with the Wolves [and if you haven’t, run right out and get it], you may remember the story of the woman who sang over the dry bones and brought life back into what was surely dead.  The story, in brief, tells about an old Indian woman, La Loba, who painstakingly gathers the bones of a wolf from across the desert, finding every bone.  She arranges them on the floor of a cave and then she sings over them.  At last, as she continues to sing, the bones come together and take on flesh and hair, and the wolf leaps up alive and runs away.  When you gather images from magazines and other sources, cut them and paste then into collages, and then consult them, it can be the same sort of miracle.  You gather up your various inner parts, conscious and less conscious, lovable and hateful, beautiful and shadowy and then you ‘sing’ over them until they take on a living presence.  Using intuition and imagination, creativity and some discipline, your Story can be revealed."  Seena B. Frost, Soul Collage.