Modern cave painting

paint your own.

My studio looks like this...



...I want it to look like this...



...okay at least this?

I Eat My Peas with Honey

by Anonymous

I eat my peas with honey;

I've done it all my life.

It makes the peas taste funny,

But it keeps them on the knife.

"Don't be a Goop." my mother would say.


Goops, a tribe of bauble-headed androgynous creatures who set a bad example with their misbehavior. First published in 1900, Goops and How to be Them:
authored by Gelett Burgess.

Visit to the UW, February 24, 2011

Inside the Burke museum

Feather Star
Pterocoma pennate
around 150 million years ago
Solnhofen, Bavaria, Germany
UWBM #19734/A7542


Outside the Burke Museum

Newspaper on Sidewalk
Papyrus cementus
around two days ago
Seattle, Washington, North America
EB#19735/9475

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

Sir Winston Churchill ~ British politician (1874 - 1965)

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot -- "Little Gidding" (the last of his Four Quartets)

An empty canvas is a living wonder... far lovelier than certain pictures.
Wassily Kandinsky


photo: e.bouman, vacant beauty salon

“Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.” ~ Loren Eisely

sketch: susan wray, abandoned factories in Allegan, MI

"People come--they stay for a while, they flourish, they build--and they go. It is their way. But we remain. There were badgers here, I've been told, long before that same city ever came to be. And now there are badgers here again. We are an enduring lot, and we may move out for a time, but we wait, and are patient, and back we come. And so it will ever be."
- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Ch. 4

cherry blossoms will be here soon.

AT A GLANCE: In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard, a silk-weaver, invented an improved textile loom. The Jacquard loom was the first machine to use punched card. These punched cards controlled the weaving, enabling an ordinary workman to produce the most beautiful patterns in a style previously accomplished only with patience, skill, and hard work. Jacquard’s invention helped not only the textile industry, but helped in the advance of technology. The Jacquard loom not only cut back on the amount of human labor, but also allowed for patterns to now be stored on cards and to be utilized over and over again to achieve the same product. The idea behind the Jacquard-loom was a system of punch cards and hooks. The cards were made very thick and had rectangular holes punched in them. The hooks and needles used in weaving were guided by these holes in the cardboard. When the hooks came into contact with the card they were held stationary unless it encountered one of the punched holes. Then the hook was able to pass through the hole with a needle inserting another thread, thus forming the desired pattern. Intricate patterns were achieved by having many cards arranged one after the other and/or used repeatedly. This idea of punch cards was revolutionary because it used the idea of a machine having the ability to follow an algorithm. These punch cards were innovative because the cards had the capability to store information on them. This ability to store information was what helped spark the computer revolution. Jacquard's punch card system proved to be such a useful idea that it was incorporated into the ideas of many computer scientists that followed.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. ~Henry David Thoreau



...or how about I get a velvet cushion all to myself?

pastel: Susan Wray, Lute player, Jerry Wray

Orpheus with his Lute made Trees Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing: To his music plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Everything that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die. William Shakespeare

artist: Neuzz aka Miguel Mejía

There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them. ~Andre Gide

Cold now.
Close to the edge. Almost
unbearable. Clouds
bunch up and boil down
from the north of the white bear.
This tree-splitting morning
I dream of his fat tracks,
the lifesaving suet.

I think of summer with its luminous fruit,
blossoms rounding to berries, leaves,
handfuls of grain.

Maybe what cold is, is the time
we measure the love we have always had, secretly,
for our own bones, the hard knife-edged love
for the warm river of the I, beyond all else; maybe

that is what it means the beauty
of the blue shark cruising toward the tumbling seals.

In the season of snow,
in the immeasurable cold,
we grow cruel but honest; we keep
ourselves alive,
if we can, taking one after another
the necessary bodies of others, the many
crushed red flowers.

Mary Oliver

For dinner tonight,



"Mommy fries the latkes
And puts them on a plate;
Supper’s almost ready,
And I can hardly wait.

Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel,
I made it out of clay;
Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel,
Then dreidel I shall play."

I have woven a parachute out of everything broken. ~William Stafford

"The conversation was sparse, the smoked ham wonderful."
~ Mins Reinsma

photo: e.bouman, son Johnny in Winthrop WA, 2007

FIRESTARTER

Since this morning he's gone through
an entire box of Safeway matches, the ones
with the outlines of presidents' faces
printed in red, white and blue.
He's not satisfied with one match at a time.
He likes to tip the book over the ashtray
and light them all up at once, the flame
less than an inch from his fingertips
while the fathers of the nation burn.
He doesn't care about democracy,
or even anarchy, or the message inside
that promises art school for half price
if he'll simply complete the profile of a woman
and send it in. The street address burns,
zip code and phone number, the birth
and death dates of the presidents,
the woman's unfinished face. I'm afraid
he'll do this when I'm not around to keep him
from torching the curtains, the couch.
He strikes match after match, a small pyre rising
from the kitchen table. I think I should tell him
about Prometheus and the vulture, the wildfires
now burning in the Oregon hills.
I want to do what I'm supposed to
and make him afraid, but his face
shines, bright with power,
and I can't take my eyes from the light.

Dorianne Laux

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who'll decide where to go.
~Dr. Seuss

Nerves and butterflies are fine - they're a physical sign that you're mentally ready and eager. You have to get the butterflies to fly in formation, that's the trick. ~Steve Bull


photo: deena denaro-bickerstaffe

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way
they have to live than other things do.
- Willa Cather (1873-1947), O Pioneers 1913

photo: e.bouman, Burke-Gilman trail, 2008

pastel: Susan Wray

'The barn was very large. It was very old. It smelled of hay and it smelled of manure. It smelled of the perspiration of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows. It often had a sort of peaceful smell -- as though nothing bad could happen ever again in the world.'(13)
E.B White, (p.13) Charlotte's Web

photos: e.bouman, south lake union, 2010

• Did you know:
• That litmus, the dye used to indicate acidity and alkalinity, is extracted from a lichen? (And another lichen fact: A lichen is a symbiotic reaction between fungus and algae. Who knew?)
• That the branch of a tree is buried deep in the tree’s trunk—not some appendage stuck on merely from the bark outward. Knots in lumber are actually slices through the bases of a branch.
• What the word is for the oozing that happens from the stump when a herbaceous stem is severed, or that you sometimes see exuding from leaf margins? It’s called guttation, and is caused by root pressure. (I just love this word, now that I know it.)

from Botany for Gardeners, Brian Capon

from the book of Sleep

Inscription for the Ceiling of a Bedroom

Daily dawns another day;
I must up, to make my way.
Though I dress and drink and eat,
Move my fingers and my feet,
Learn a little, here and there,
Weep and laugh and sweat and swear,
Hear a song, or watch a stage,
Leave some words upon a page,
Claim a foe, or hail a friend—
Bed awaits me at the end.

Though I go in pride and strength,
I'll come back to bed at length.
Though I walk in blinded woe,
Back to bed I'm bound to go.
High my heart, or bowed my head,
All my days but lead to bed.
Up, and out, and on; and then
Ever back to bed again,
Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall—
I'm a fool to rise at all!

Dorothy Parker

also see

http://www.squareamerica.com/

This little video was inspired by the documentary Grey Gardens (about the eccentric Bouvier sisters), my friend Amy's Birthday party and stars my sock monkey doll, Little Edie.


video, 2010:e.bouman

reposted from my friend Vick's blog.
http//voicelyn2@blogspot.com

"In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn’t squeak."— Tom Robbins (Skinny Legs and All)

Source:
Ocean Beach
People's Organic Food Co-op

"Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him."
-Charles G. Davis

photo:e.bouman

Rainy morning at South Lake Union Park, Seattle, WA.

Asparagus "...transforms my chamber-pot into a flask of perfume." Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

watercolor/crayon: e.bouman

Bottle trees are fun to make, capture evil spirits and cast colorful shadows. Blue bottles are best they say. I found these little brown ones at a salvage shop.

photo: e.bouman

Here is a short excerpt from Eudora Welty's short story Livvie:

"Out front was a clean dirt yard with every vestige of grass patiently uprooted and the ground scarred in deep whorls from the strike of Livvie's broom. Rose bushes with tiny blood-red roses blooming every month grew in threes on either side of the steps. On one side was a peach tree, on the other a pomegranate.

Then coming around up the path from the deep cut of the Natchez Trace below was a line of bare crape-myrtle trees with every branch of them ending in a colored bottle, green or blue.

There was no word that fell from Solomon's lips to say what they were for, but Livvie knew that there could be a spell put in trees, and she was familiar from the time she was born with the way bottle trees kept evil spirits from coming into the house - by luring them inside the colored bottles, where they cannot get out again.

Solomon had made the bottle trees with his own hands over the nine years, in labor amounting to about a tree a year, and without a sign that he had any uneasiness in his heart, for he took as much pride in his precautions against spirits coming in the house as he took in the house, and sometimes in the sun the bottle trees looked prettier than the house did..."

antennae?

I am so pleased with the contributions that my fiber arts group created in response for homemade valentines from several local facilities. They will be given to the patients this week and are designed to hang from a door knob.
The Seaview Weavers Guild produced handmade, wondrous hearts...enough for Gen Care (nursing home) 50 people...Fircrest (home for disabled) 90 people and 30 left over for another convalescent home.
These hearts are quilted, beaded, felted, rug punched, sewn, knitted, painted, crafted of paper, wood, bubble wrap, and many other techniques.


Pictures above and below....enjoy the love.