Weather changes, and so do I...Drumming, ancient crafts, Day 15

I was taken by the notion of making my own when I got to play and hear The World Drum, which has traveled all over the world, from hand to hand.  It has been played in ceremonies and quiet celebrations and riotous dancing, and seems a miracle of worldwide cooperation in these turbulent times.  It brings peace to the heart.

For more of its amazing story, read this from Morten Wilf Storeide.

My first still goes everywhere with me...

 

My drums absorb the moisture in the air, changing tone day by day, hour by hour--I sympathize!  The weather affecs me greatly as well.  Their voices become lower and lower these humid days--and less resonant--and finally, soft and flat.  I warm and dry them as ancient peoples have done for eons, and once again their voices rise and ring and resonate, each with its own mysterious song.

The rawhide still carries within it the life of the deer and elk that once walked the land; the wood of the rims was born of stately trees that grew tall and took nourishment from the earth...as do we all.

I have loved making my own drums...and will make at least one more.  The most recent I call my healing drum; the rim of ash wood reminds me of my ancestors and of Yggdrasil, the World Tree of old Norse tales.  The hide was a gift from a friend, who prepared it himself.  And each step of the process was meaningful, respectful, and sacred.  The big elk drum is the family drum...Joseph plays it too and loves the deep rich sound.

Each one is different, and sounds different.  Each has its own demands, and resonates in its own way. 

Day 14, Re-wilding--creativity in ancient ways

I love to explore how our forebears might have worked when creating art...discovering my own pigments, grinding and making paints, making my own pens or other tools, trying out natural dyes or inks...

Drawing with a twig dipped in paint or ink connects me to ancestors long gone.  They drew on cave walls and stone and parchment, I on paper made from plants--but still I sense them looking over my shoulder.

Hematite on a grinding stone...it makes a beautiful reddish brown color.  That's the hematite stone itself at lower right.

My palette of natural colors! 

This is the healing hand symbol currently on my healing drum...it's limonite I found in our local river's gravel bar.  I've since found a darker stone, perhaps a type of hematite like the one above, that I want to use, so may give it a try.  It's a good feeling to honor our ancestors and to use the kinds of tools they might have used.

I often use this river stone for smoothing, rather than reach for the sandpaper...

Check out Nick Neddo's book, The Organic Artist: Make Your Own Paint, Paper, Pigments, Prints and More from Nature, or Sandy Webster's Earthen Pigments; Hand-Gathering & Using Natural Colors in Art for much, much more.

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It was a honeysuckle, honeybee, and hummingbird kind of a morning and I loved sitting and working
where I could see these little visitors.

This little female repeatedly darts in for a taste, chittering each time, then draws away before chittering and diving for another taste.  None of the others seem to need to vocalize before drinking--perhaps she's giving thanks!

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Interesting, to me, the way my blog offers related posts or those you might be interested in.  I checked back on this one, on nurturing or killing creativity and found it relevant but ironic, in one way.

Though I am normally not one for challenges or prompts, I have taken on this 31-day challenge, and I DO feel a bit constrained by it, as I thought I would.

Still it is one I need, and it's deeper and more personal than most, and completely self-directed--letting the days unfold as they will, grateful for what they offer me. 

(And if you're interested in what DOES nourish my own creativity, that was the post before, here.)

Day 12, re-wilding, one bite at a time

Perception.  I was hot in the sunny garden; that's why it is there, vegetables need sun.  When I walked into mulberry shade a few steps away, it felt cool.  A few moments in the house and it was cooler still...and by the time I  reached the shade between back door and my shed, it felt hot and sticky.

I'd be willing to bet that mulberry shade and shed shade are the same, give or take a degree.

Perhaps perception really is reality, a "truism" I have steadfastly refused for decades, insisting on the immutability of Truth.  But it seems that perception is the current reality, after all.  It certainly can apply emotionally, as well as physically...

I moved a cushion to the floor and sat cross-legged in meditation for a while, just being and breathing...the first I have done that particular thing, during this month of inner journeying, I was surprised to realize.  Then I played the bones and the drum for a while...taking time to focus/unfocus.  No plans, no expectations.

I could feel myself relax into the moment, and it stretched into a shape all its own.

It set the tone for the rest of my wanderings...

The scent of aromatic gill-over-the-ground and the pleasant spicy taste...

The gurgle of water as it courses down the path after the rain...

The feel of the wind on my bare skin...

Someone's home was spangled with mist-glitter...

Raindrop magnifying glasses on a redbud leaf...

The back yard was sodden and the prayer flags hung like wet clothes on a line...

The deck shone with silver moisture...I was taken by the long shadows of the morning...

A colony of lichen has moved in on top of my chiminea's lid.

And oddly, I felt the LEAST a part of nature later at our local park...Pokemon Go has arrived and the park was anything but peaceful.  OR wild.  I chose to ignore that for my sketch but I still see the unusual crowds in my mind's eye...

Day 7 Distractions...and time.

It was a day of business and distraction, culminating in a 3+ hour interview that will be distilled down to 4 minutes.  That is the way of television, of course; I am curious as to what will remain.

At least it assured I would have time to sketch--this from a time-lapse journal page.

So, I was grateful I had taken time in the early morning to wander, and observe, and dream...

Leaves danced and sparkled and shed their droplets with a syncopated patter after an unexpected shower.  Birds crowded the feeders; jays called loudly overhead...

The fence between our backyard smallholding and the shed is almost hidden in burgeoning green.  The rain has provided needed moisture and the green leaves rejoice!

A darkened stem draws spiky lines against the rocks in Hotei's garden...was it sumac, or grape, or...?  I like a good unanswered question or two...

The tin crane sculpture atop the fence is a shadowy presence in all the leaves...I almost forget he's not real.

I love my tiny Zen garden with the dragonfly lantern...perhaps I'll put a candle inside one evening and sit by its flame-light dancing on the rocks.

English ivy climbs the corner of the shed...it spreads everywhere, and I let it.  In truth, I can't bear to cut it back!

Fascinating root shapes...last year's corn from my 3 sisters hills still offer their beauty, though no longer anchoring the tall plants in the ground...

Sweet, sweet serendipity...I found the remains of a softball in the woods and loved that it echoed the shape of my round rocks...two years later, it has sprouted a moss garden of its own.

Waiting to become...

My journey unfolds on its own timetable; much more populous than I had envisioned, much busier. much more filled with business.  My husband suggests the Universe tests my resolve, and I believe his take is right--though some things happen because this is when they ARE.  This is when they must be. I can either choose to respond, or hermitize...and so far response has been my most frequent choice.  Jobs, deadlines, requests...the interview...friends...the neighborhood picnic...perhaps next week!

And some things are postponed for reasons I may discern later.  I have saved a nest of dry shavings to make a fire in a more primitive fashion, during this month of re-wilding...and it has rained off and on for a week.

I plan a small installation of black and white stones near the Zen garden...a mandala, a spiral...and again, it is too wet to sit upon the ground.

I trust when the time is right, it will become clear to me.  So much of this journey revolves around trust, and unfolding, and time.

And perhaps that is the lesson.

Well, hello! I'm back.

More or less, anyway...life has been more than full, and mostly good, and satisfying, though with it's fair share of pain as well.

What fills me today is being ready, finally, to start working on a new class.  More than likely, interactive again, after all this time.  Those are time-consuming and exhausting, but this is something I want to connect with, personally.  Connect with the students, personally.

It will grow out of this place--a journey begun, for me, years ago in the 70s, really.

It's time.

This is what I wrote on my Facebook page this morning:

"Someone flipped a switch in my brain. There WILL be a new class upcoming, maybe two of them, I've been writing for 2 hours and ideas just keep flowing. I love this part of what I do!

This is a class I thought of doing a couple of years ago, but life--and death--got in the way.

It's time.

It will TAKE some time to pull it together, but it feels good to be so full of energy and ideas."

And I've been writing down thoughts, quotes, ideas, and plans ever since.

It will be personal.  It will be DIFFERENT.  I'm not even sure where it will take place, yet, but most likely on my old familiar Blogger.

I'm not sure what to call it, yet..."Meaning-full Journaling" popped to the forefront this morning.

But I am confident it WILL happen.  It feels right.  I am full of a serene kind of excitement, if that isn't too much of a contradiction in terms.

It's time.

It's been a long, long time!

Hello, all...it's been a long, BUSY time since I've been here. I've done videos for YouTube and for my class for Danny Gregory's Sketchbook Skool, I'm working on a new North Light book on sketching on the spot, there's been a death in the family--my older sister, which threw me for a loop, though it was not unexpected.

There's been growth and change...I'm very active on Facebook, both in our Artist's Journal Workshop group and on my own pages, both personal and professional, as well as in our Urban Sketchers groups, Plein Air Artists, and Nature Artists groups.

I'm still on Flickr, too...crazy, yes?

And I've been trying to focus and simplify.  I realized I wanted to share more of my work and thoughts with you in a calmer, more comtemplative way, and realized I already have THIS blog, ready and waiting.  It was intended to be my gallery, but I'm not so great at keeping up with that.

I've been leaning more in the direction of calm, meditation, focusing, as I've said.  I even offered a video for my latest mini-class, Keeping an Artist's Journal, on Journaling, Contemplation, and Meditation.  That's so important to me that I made it public instead of only for my students.

You'll find more recent videos in my YouTube channel as well--I had a LOT left over from the upcoming class, and I wanted to offer them to you.

Looks like I NEED to focus, doesn't it?  Finishing up some of these projects has felt SO good and SO freeing.  And it reminds me that I need to say no more often--even to myself--for my own sanity.

Breathe, Kate, BREATHE...and as one of my favorite meditation CDs suggests, begin again.  Begin again.  Begin again...

So bear with me, peek over my shoulder, and if you're interested, come along for the ride--or, truthfully, more of a walking meditation.  This may not be regular as clockwork, but it feels right...