Looking Up! Focus on Life Week 20

My backyard

Well it's time to look skyward! I really wanted to see a hot air balloon, or get a shot of one of the multitudes of helicopters that fly over my house, or maybe just some of those mammatus clouds we saw a couple of weeks ago. And then I thought perhaps there would be some animal shaped clouds flying over. I did see a lot of birds, for sure! We spend a lot of time looking down and around. Looking up was a bit of fun!

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

Ghost plane

A very vocal starling

A gingko tree- so lovely!

See what everyone else was looking up at here!

Chrysalis Lampwork Bead Pendants

Oh my, sometimes I just get into something, whether it makes sense or not! Right now it's what I call 'chrysalis' beads. I'm going to say that these are representational beads. They are not meant to be perfect reproductions of any type of chrysalis, but rather the idea of a chrysalis. I don't like to attribute any special meanings or powers to my work. I'll leave that up to you!.

So here goes- what are these beads all about? Well, the first one was really an accident. I made this wild bead and decided it looked pretty cocoon-y. Months later I decided to try something like it again. And then there was a competition I wanted to enter that I decided would be perfect for a chrysalis of some kind.

I worked on a lot of different styles- some of them actually pretty accurate, and finally settled on the style of the red one on the left as being what I wanted. Of course I was not chosen, but I had a lot of fun working on these.

There is something about these pendants that really appeals to me. I have kind of a mental list of attributes that I like to include- twirly bits, raised bumps here and there, a bit of wing on one side to give an idea of what's inside, lines around one end, raked colors. All of these things are to give that bumpy, odd chrysalis idea and a feeling that there is something just about ready to burst forth.

I know not everyone will 'get' these, but I have been really happy with feedback I've gotten from folks. When people purchase them for family members who are going through a period of renewal, I am truly honored. So here is a pile of my most recent chrysalis beads...

Hope- Focus on Life Week 19

Lord save us all from... a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.  ~Mark Twain

Well, I am very late to the game this week- I hope not too late! I've been thinking about hope this week thanks to Sally's prompt. Seems like I'm always hoping for something as folks everywhere are all the time. I'm going to show y'all a bottle tree this week- a kind of hopeful symbol in this neck of the woods.They are meant to trap evil spirits- and the moaning sound they can make in the wind is those trapped spirits. Why do I call this a hopeful symbol? Well, I think it's pretty hopeful to believe you can capture bad spirits, thereby making your life better and happier!

People are always coming up with creative ideas to make their lives more hopeful- amulets, talismans, dreamcatchers, all the little things we like to use to give us a feeling that we can make the world around us a wee bit better! So cross your fingers and let's get this game we call life rolling!
 
See more signs of hope at Sally's Blog.

Abstract Photos- Focus on Life Week 18

'You like it, that's all, whether it's a landscape or abstract. You like it. It hits you. You don't have to read it. The work of art-sculpture or painting-forces your eye.'  Clement Greenberg 

 Sally's prompt for the focus on life challenge this week is Abstract! Woohoo! I had no clue when I read that word what I would be doing. Sally had some suggestions and told us about making a light trail in our photos. Fun stuff, so that is the first thing I tried. But then she suggested that we distort our photos for more abstract designs- I think I could play around in photoshop all day trying out different things!. So this first photo is a distorted light trail taken right off my front porch.

But my own epiphany came when I took my camera out on my weekly Focus on Life Walk- I took a LOT of pictures, and when I was almost home I stopped to shoot into the window of the local bike shop. Ummm... have you ever tried to shoot a picture through a window? Well, there is a little something called a reflection. The window is right on a busy street, so there were cars going by and folks walking by too. These pictures seem pretty abstract to me! Even though I know what these are photos of, I have a hard time figuring them out. Yes, it's been photoshopped...

The local hair salon was even cooler! 

Another abstract trick?  Simply laying a photo on its side can do wonders to make it all quite confusing! Start here for more abstract fun.