AdornMe

 

Catching up, I went to AdornMe in Houston.  Consequently I have been fiddling with jewelry stuff instead of working with clay. Or as we call it in Texas in my classes, "mud daubing".

I make lots of pieces that I envision as wall sculpture because Susan doesn't wear jewelry -- too many years of hearing her mother say "Be sure you don't lose that if you wear it!" Sad because I'd like to see some of my pieces on her but good because she doesn't spend money on jewelry. Or shoes. Or clothes. How did I get so lucky? But books....

 

The piece below needs some alcohol ink on the white wrapping to change its color. I have no idea why I used white (it was a class freebie) but I do know I specifically wanted that eye in the middle.

 

This last piece isn't mine - it's EJ Brown's, a fellow student. Way cool skull necklace (made from spoons).

Happy Father's Day, 2015

If you know me well you know I can easily be described as quiet, a stoic, and hard-working. You should know I'm also not a quitter. All this came from my father.

He had a tough start - his mother rotated through 5 husbands, which was not exactly model-mother behavior in the 1920's and 30's. He served in the Pacific in World War II and never talked about it. He always, always, always worked.  When the Texaco service station he managed closed down he took a job selling soft drinks at the high school football stadium, just to keep working. For him, exchanging as many as 25 words was a long conversation.  He didn't walk out on a bad marriage*, which meant that whenever I came home there was a father around.

On the down side he was a distant and unemotional father. For the good side, he never ever gave up, never tried to force me to do anything I didn't want to and was proud of me.

He was my father and I am him.
Rest in peace, Pa.

*Unlike my father, I am lucky enough to be married to a good woman.

Another Anniversary

Once we were very, very young and married less than one year.  Now we are very, very definitely not young. But still married.  I added this frame to the picture for Susan's card. She was absolutely stunned, not that I had saved the picture all this time but that I had figured out how to make a color copy ALL BY MYSELF on our printer. Miracles never cease. Like our marriage!

If you go to iTunes and search for "Lucky" by Jason Mraz, with Colbie Caillet, you can play a little of a song that explains how we've managed to stay together all these years.

 

School is out and I'm starting to drive her crazy because I'm home all day but hey, that's the way I roll.  These are probably the last of the penguins because I'm moving on to new things and the penguins have had their day in the sun.