I'm gonna Creep You Out!

I got spooked out the other morning. At six thirty a.m. and doing my morning Yoga... I got a knock on the door. I asked "who is it?". There was just some mumbling and nothing really coherent coming through. I kept the door closed. Then came the turning of the door handle. Someone was actually trying to get in my house!

Well, I always keep pepper spray handy on a nail right by the door so I took it out of its leather satchel and yelled that I was calling the police right now and don't try to come in or else you will get a nasty surprise. Did not want them to know what weapon I had so he could prepare to block it.

I looked out the peep hole and just saw him standing facing the traffic with a cap on and what looked like a car service person's gear on.

Three cop cars showed up and he did not move from the porch or try to force his way in anymore. I also did not open the door...no duh. The only words I could actually hear from the man was "let me in cause its raining".

Turns out he had dementia and did not know where he was. The police just carted him off and I asked them if they knew if anybody was taking care of him. He visited someone else in the neighborhood a couple days ago, so maybe they will know some info.

He is one lucky fellow as many people here sport sawed off shotguns with enough force to cut him in half.

That episode gave me a fright though. My daughter says she heard the whole scene from her room. She says I freaked out. That is a teenager's perspective. I was upset but in control of the situation.

Anyhow, how is your Halloween week going? Did you have a demented Freddy Krueger show up on your doorstep?

Picture above of my latest gothic vampire piece. Its a trapeze of fangs and pearls.

Happy Halloween!

May the Garden Of Your Heart Bloom

For all the dear ones out there going through transformation, keep the vision going.

When trudging through any of life's trials I try to think of a meditation exercise I learned from one of the Dalai Lama's books. If you are suffering mentally or physically, try to picture your suffering in some way relieving the suffering of someone else in the world. This helps us feel like our own insufferable plague of pain is not for naught, but is being applied into a worthy cause. It is just a mental exercise to help us "get over ourselves", sort of like volunteering at a food bank or visiting a nursing home without going anywhere.

Now, as far as the world's problems are concerned, if everyone worked on their own issues first, everything would fall into place.


Embrace . Educate . Guide . Transform

"In the case of such global issues as the conservation of the Earth, and indeed in taking all problems, the human mind is the key factor. ....Though these issues seem to be beyond anyone's individual capacity, where the problem begins and where the answer must be first sought is within. In order to change the external situation we must first change within ourselves. If we want a beautiful garden, we must first have a blueprint in the imagination , a vision. Then that idea can be implemented and the external garden can be materialized."

-His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama (Born 1934), Tibet

New Soldering Toys

I am thrilled with my new toys. Now I can properly connect pieces together with molten metal rather than glue or jump rings. I am also stoked that I found solder that is lead free and cadmium free so I don't inadvertently poison someone through their skin. Oh joy! No, seriously some people don't really care what materials they use just as long as it gets the job done, but I'm different.

The same kind of loving care translates to food. Some of us do not even look at the labels on our food to take into our bodies. I used to be one of those people until I started reading up on the failures of our food industry. I will write about that another day. However, did you notice that the food amounts in the packages keep on getting smaller and smaller? They are cutting back on the sizes so quickly and so frequently they don't even have time to reduce the box or package size! I'm serious!

Just the other day my daughter commented that the Nutri-Grain cereal bar just last week had a bigger bar inside the same size wrapper. The new bar shrunk, but the wrapper did not...... to try to fool the consumer. We will now save a couple wrappers to catch them out next time!

This is also why I have returned to making my own granola bars, snacks and so on because it is getting too expensive to buy packaged stuff. Even people who can afford a glut of those things have taken notice. And they are pissed.

I found a new occupation: Soldering a string of aluminum wrappers starting with the largest to the smallest and display as a modern work of art exhibiting the blatant efforts of the food industry to slowly starve us to death. At the very least, people touching my exhibit will not die of lead poisoning.

Emerald City Madness

I don't know why, but I had a strange urge to create a mini Emerald City out of Polymer Clay. Of course I used a bit of artistic license to create some of the "Emeralds" but Swarovski Crystals came into good use to fill out the little cavernous space inside this gem world. The stripe on the flat surface of the "Geode" kinda reminds me of the bad witch's socks that curled up fiendishly under Dorothy's home after she was squashed.

I haven't decided what to do with it yet, whether to create an assemblage or a necklace out of it.

Had a good time this weekend and saw my dear friend on Friday at the local watering hole establishment. Have not seen him in about four months. Also good to see some old faces that I haven't seen in a while. This town is practically a ghost town....it used to be packed there on a Friday but it was quite dead. Did not really notice though as I had to play catch up on all the gossip...etc. I wonder how it is in other areas out there? People are just not going out like they used to...so I guess they are at home watching DVD's to save money.

They say the economy is turning around, but I think they are only basing it on the stock market in how that is making a steady comeback. There are more people out of work than ever.

Just stay firm out there and continue to update your skills, even if you can't go back to school because of financial reasons. There is always the library where you can book learn yourself in practically any subject you can think of. If you need to update your computer skills.....learn metalworking...learn how to create a bullseye poster of your old boss to put in your new hay bale shooting range......

Don't loose your sense of humor through all this. It kept me going!

Vampire Hoop Jumper and Moon Smasher

I apologize for just showing pictures of my art recently, but the reason being is that I do not have much time for taking any other type of pictures. It takes pretty much all my effort and time to create something, then I've got to transform the same space that I create this stuff and use it for a photography area!

So it is really not my intention for this blog to just be about that. When I first started blogging I had a lot of posts of poems that I created at my previous employment. It was literally to keep from going insane and keep me busy during the huge downturn in business at the company I worked for.

I would have loved to take a picture of the NASA explosion on the moon. However, I was actually grateful as I sat there on the couch while the Today show presented the bombing. The large plume of debris they expected did not happen!

I personally think they could have used that money to create greener programs here on Earth rather than spending it trying to find water on the moon..... as if we could gingerly escape this planet after we have destroyed it and go live on the moon! Maybe for a couple months until the Aliens rescue our foolish asses and cart us off to their lush green planet.

Some people thought it would throw the moon off its axis, and in turn topple the earth's axis like Nostradamus predicted in his quatrains. Or was that the Mayan prediction.....wait...that is not until 2012.

So here is a picture of what the moon bombing mission would have looked like if it was successful. And a picture of my latest attempt at saving the planet from Vampires. Fair enough?

The Dark Side of "Chark"

Just in time for Halloween I shall reveal my dark side.

I reveal a story of a vampire slayer in our myst.....one who keeps relics of unknown malevolent beings who walk the night and who slays these beings and keeps the fiendish trophy hidden amongst benign objects.

It is no matter whether anyone believes or not. What matters is that society has been protected from these malevolent specters on a daily basis since time immemorial.

Are our citizens grateful they are being protected in such a manner? Only human egos are concerned with such folly as being grateful, but they are alive....so I guess they are grateful by osmosis.

Faux Bois Turquoise

Tried my hand at some Faux Bois Turquoise and the color did not come out exactly as I wanted. The popular color is a variation of duck egg blue up towards a green-blue, but this nugget is green/green! So I guess I should call it Martian Rock or some other title. Now, I know there is such a thing as green turquoise and I suppose it looks like the rough stage of the process before the nugget gets polished and primped, etc. So I guess I am satisfied that it turned out like some rock out there that we have not identified in rockdom. If there is any Geologist people out there reading this, help me identify my own creation! Here I bellow a laugh, as they are going to think I am too lazy to do my own research.

On top of all that wonderful confusion I also added an inclusion of various elements such as shark teeth (yeah, I am running with that right now!), drift wood and old diamond earrings that I clipped down and fired into the pieces. I might add that they are not real diamonds by any means, because if they were, it would be a couple carats worth! As you can tell the vein colors are different on each charm, with the shark teeth charms getting the white treatment and other three a combo of gold and common garden dirt treatment. Don't worry people, the dirt has been baked, so there will not be any chance for zombie worms popping out my chest when the necklace is worn.

I send my love out to all those people doing there own thing, whether creating something with their hands, or with their minds. Just remember that creativity cannot be exhausted. The more you create, the more creativity will come your way! Or take the advise of Jack London when he said "You can't wait for inspiration....you need to go after it with a club".