Worlds Within Worlds
More glass-related art.
I took a weekend glassblowing workshop this past summer at the Diablo Glass School in Boston. Glass is a seductive medium and I'd like to learn more about it. And since a glass studio with 6 furnaces is only slightly cooler than--you guessed it--hell, maybe January would be a good time to take the advanced paperweight workshop...
Color and Form
Dye samples as art... Who knew?
These are Jacquard colors Sun Yellow, Cherry Red, and Sapphire Blue. Together they make a rainbow.
Welcome Yule!
The Shortest Day
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
by Susan Cooper
Happy Holidays!
It's been a busy year, and I've not had much to write about. But I always seem to find the time for our annual holiday card.
Happy Holidays and here's to a great 2009!
Cuteness
I finished a sweater this morning. Granted, it's for a very small person, but it's still a bona fide sweater.
It's a Debbie Bliss pattern knit in Rowan Wool Cotton with a few of my own modifications. Since it's for the soon-to-be-born baby boy of my chic french colleague, I took extra care to give it a special dose of je ne sais quoi. She loved it.
I had help with the finishing of course. Tortellini says, "Am I not also the embodiment of cuteness?"
Winter Wonderland
The weather outside has been rather nice the last few days, so we went for a walk on Christmas to survey the winter wonderland. Even though the warmer temperatures have dispensed with some of the 26 inches of snow we had last week, the little wetland near my house was still beautiful. Everything was quiet and still.
Having lived all of my adult life in northern states beginning with the letter M (Maine, Michigan, and Massachusetts), I've always been fond of the snow-shrouded landscape. I bought this excellent book, A Guide to Nature in Winter, by Donald Stokes back when I was a student at the University of Maine. I spent many a winter afternoon cross-country skiing behind campus, then reading the book afterward to learn more about the things I saw on the trail. I pull it out and look at it nearly every year at this time.
I also spent some time at the studio this week. I'm working on a special project for someone out there in blogland. Stay tuned for more as it develops ...
