What Are You Waiting For?

52-year-old gnaws through the cocoon.

Archive for Women

But I Loved that Man . . . .

Mark-Sanford-Piglets expI hate politics. Always have. There isn’t a sentence you could utter about any politician on earth that I wouldn’t believe, no matter how bizarre, how far outside the bounds of credible human behavior. Except Mark Sanford. I loved that man.

I uttered as much to the father of my children last week, and he replied, “I feel the same. He was my Tar Tudent. Character matters, and I hope he has boatloads. He’ll need it.” Indeed. Read the rest of this entry »

The Menopause Diet

The Menopause Diet

My name is Pam, and I am in a Bad Mood.

If you’ve read Sex in the Fifties, you’re probably aware that I’ve been in a Bad Mood since that first hot flash in June 2006. I’ve heard that hot flashes can continue for 10 years. A very bad mood indeed. Read the rest of this entry »

Fall Color Wheels

I’ve just returned from a visit with my sister in Virginia, and the October slant of the sun is currently pickling even the lowliest subject matter into a sparkling celebrity in Fall’s Five Minutes of Fame. I’m a snap and run kinda girl, not by nature but by practice, stealing as many shots as I can while companions wait with varying degrees of patience ten paces ahead.

Not every face is lovely, but this one is Beyond Beautiful. Ancient Indian elephant, Wise Woman, patterns of dew-starved earth? Fall colors steal the show, but I’ve always been a sucker for the overlooked.

Art: Not (Just) a Pretty Picture

Ciel Gallery’s exhibition entitled The War Against Peace presents the responses of artists across the nation as they ponder the question of why we continue to cry for peace and simultaneously continue to wage war. Best of Show winner Janet Kozachek, whose Fallen Floyd is pictured above, illustrates the emotional and physical torture of war in stone and handmade ceramic. Phil Fung’s War and Peace depicts a hundred or so maniacal Read the rest of this entry »

Mosaic Howl

Okay, random things first. In between my too-many pursuits, I finally finished Howl, my mosaic protest piece, just in time for the opening of The War Against Peace Exhibition at Ciel Gallery. I chose to work this piece in a folk-art style, because it is so often the “child” within us that reacts most instinctively to the atrocities around us. The image depicts a Peace Angel howling in anguish over the current state of Man and Earth. Alphabet Millefiori spell out her howls as she flies over the land surveying our lives below. This piece uses vitreous, smalti, millefiori, glass beads, and shell. Click on the image to enlarge and read the messages.

Community Mosaic Project Gluefest 1

The great thing about mosaic artists is that they just never want to put down the nippers. So what starts out as “just finishing this one little section” ends up with you staring zombie-like across a cup of steaming tea while a Dear One utters words that sound oddly like, “What happened to you? You never came to bed last night?” Hence the Premier Gluefest of Charlotte Art League’s Community Mosaic Project was a howling success, Read the rest of this entry »

Mosaic Art Deadline August 4

Entries for the Contemporary Mosaic Art Juried Exhibition must be received by digital submission by August 4, 2008. A full prospectus is available here. Questions can be asked and answered here. The exhibition will feature artists working in mosaic from across the globe, both 2-D and 3-D, showcasing a wide variety of materials. Show dates will be September 5 – 26, and will include several receptions. Best of Show Award is $500, sponsored by MosaicSmalti.com. Artists’ Reception and Cocktail Salon will be held Saturday, September 6, sponsored by ArtfulCrafter.com. More information on Ciel Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina is available here. Mosaic Art featured on the postcard shown above by (clockwise from upper left) Virginia Gardner: Secrets; Valerie Fuqua: Dangerous Curves; Marian Shapiro (inset): Lolita; Kathleen Jones: Un Moment de Paix, and Pamela Goode: The Happiest House.

Oddly Passionate

I was waxing my way through Summer Pierre’s fab blog called An Accident of Hope (gotta love it), when I mired down in the post “30 Things I Feel Oddly Passionate About.” Of course that got me to wondering, what would be tops on my own list of odd passions? Of course I’m passionate about my family, art, respect, and a crucial pair of gladiator sandals from Anthropologie, but those hardly qualify as odd. And I’m passionate about things like open cabinet doors, spiders skittering towards my legs, and combing my hair before answering the phone, but I’m just going to go ahead and file those under OCD. When it comes to the quirkiness that makes me me and makes you you, what are the defining idiosyncrises? Shall we give it a look? Read the rest of this entry »

Mosaic Mural Intensive with Laurel True

Ah, April in Oakland! Tried Paris once and it was cold and rainy, but eight days of brilliant sunshine set the perfect stage for my venture cross-country for Laurel True’s Mosaic Mural Intensive at the Institute of Mosaic Art. Click here to see the completed mural for Kefa Coffee.

Marian Shapiro’s Field of Dreams

Marian Shapiro Field of Dreams

Steely cold in Charlotte, forecasts for five days of rat-wet rain in Miami, newly-planted palms shriveling on the porches, bikinis in iminent danger of being tossed from suitcases to allow room for more smalti and perhaps the far more practical Gryphon Grinder, where can I find even the tiniest hint of spring on this 30th day of March, wholly bereft of bunny clouds and beckoning starflowers? Read the rest of this entry »

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