Business Card Update

So, remember those lovely business cards I designed about a month ago.....well.... I finally got them! And they look great except for one thing.....GOOGLE deactivated the email address printed on the back! I have no idea why either....500 business cards.... so with D's help it is now iamthewildcucumber@gmail.com! Google was trying to foil my plan but I shall persevere! maybe ill make a little tiny stamp that says iam and stamp them all! Not ideal but I am not about to be ripped off by vista print again....lol so if you want to contact me about my crafty handmades remember.... iamthewildcucumber@gmail.com <3 <3

just adds a touch-o-human ;)

Creativity comes from NO-MIND and thru the hands

We have taken a cute little doggy named Bella Sue out on some walks in the afternoon.  As we walk on the sunny side of the street the grass shadows on the edge of the sidewalk always catch my eye... Especially in the late day orange-gold sunshine that leaves shadows so blue...So through my eyes and into my hand comes this simple image. Too bad cameras are a little incapable at capturing images as I see them...

My hands have transformed the octopus's environment. So quiet, serene and deep. I've enjoyed gazing upon it. I find the colors very beautiful. It's so beautiful that I'm feeling a touch apprehensive about painting the octopus itself, but I think its time for it to transform as well!

Wonder what this could be...?? Leave a comment with your guess!

 mmmm You may have noticed by now I see the world in colors! These ones look juicy and delicious I kinda want to lick them!!

Much love!! xoxoX

the soft light emanating from my window

We hung a sheet up in our window.  It lets such a lovely light into the room, I find myself staring at it. The soft glow puts everything in a beautiful dream like light. I've found myself staring quite a bit lately, at lights, out the window at my painting, my mind usually a buzz with thoughts. I just can't let the thoughts be, they've been a little overwhelming lately I've watched them flipping around like a T.V. racing thru channels, click click click click. I don't like how that makes me feel. It seems a familiar feeling though too, ripping at my projected sense of self. My mind is very self destructive. Everything outwardly is just as it should be, but the mind, takes and judges every little thing. Judges things I did (or didn't) things Dorian did (or didn't), things anything or anyone did or didn't do and tells me I don't measure up. I should go, I'm just in the way. I reacted in the wrong way. Not good enough.

But all of those things in my head are just that: in my head, situations invented by my mind to prevent me from living in the now, seeing the beauty in each moment, enjoying each button I press on the keyboard. They distract my attention or intention away from what is currently happening. My intuition has been clouded and masked by these streaming thoughts, but I can feel it in my heart just below the surface. Ready to re-emerge softly and kindly parting the thoughts, acknowledging them as what they are...imaginary. As my intuition grows in light an intensity, I am ready to break that conceptual sense of self and just live. I want to strengthen my intuition I want to be life.

Meet 'Bulby'. He's from my Senior show in College.
I love knobs :) This one's a two-hander!

Have you ever noticed the 'life' objects have? The way they command space, almost as if they are living. I find this easier to see in art but I can see it in most objects. They have a sense of life, not that they are living though if we get real technical for a moment, they are all made of atoms which are moving molecules! I remember during a critique in a ceramics class I took, having a hard time trying to explain why the object I was looking at was so beautiful. I could just feel it in my chest that it was beautiful. It had a commanding presence, a life to it. It seemed to be breathing in life and holding it in its belly. Full of breath! Breathing in all that life has to offer.

I'm making an agreement right now for every person who appears in my thoughts or I physically see, I want to make a conscious effort to send them peaceful loving thoughts. Everyone deserves love, everyone IS love. (maybe that's why it's so hard to describe, we ARE love)


Well, this one go a touch crazy some may think but thats just the crazy life is :)...

Sending joyful loving thoughts, and bidding peace of mind ;)
xo


"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."
-Buddha

a bit-o-art

We went out on a little adventure recently to visit a farm in which we could purchase some delicious cage free eggs. Winford Pond Farm was the place, and heritage chickens, geese and goats where the game! They were wonderful, fluffy little ochins, and beautiful roosters, and ADORABLE Nigerian Dwarf Goats....of which I did not photograph :( We did however stop on the side of the road and I snapped a few shots of this lovely old building. I seem to be attracted to photographing dilapidated things. They turned out beautifully.

Here we have the little Octopus, it's only in the under-painting stage. It will look completely different as a final product.

Just a couple of creative endeavors of late. Made a few aprons too, which may lead to my next post and a new addiction....

A 'mini' disaster!

Back a night or two I was gazing out the window and noticed the sky looked a touch peeved, and appeared to be spitting in a misty way like when a two year old sticks their tongue out at you and blows sending a shower of saliva your direction.  Was I going to be able to enjoy a thunderstorm??!! That was one thing I occasionally missed about the mid west while living in California, a good old wind whipping, downpour, lightening cracking good time! (tornadoes, however, were not missed) The thought excited me. But, alas,  the sky seemed like something (or someone?) was coercing it to precipitate. Like a mother hovering, "well c'mon now. Don't just stand there, squeeze out a few drops now. There ya go your doing it, oop well now ya gat to give it a bit more now dear. It just doesn't seem like you're trying very hard. Give it another go now."(spoken in a nice midwestern accent don't ya know!) So I lay back down succumb to the fact that no storm was to happen tonight, only saliva (pthhhht!). 

20 minutes later...

The clouds unzipped, and unleashed all they had! A deluge of rain and whipping winds! Weee! (insert wind and rain noises here)..... for about 25 seconds(wah wahhh). Eh I guess I was wrong, apologies for the underestimation, sky. (not about the thunder and lightening though! ha!) 

Now for the disaster...

A couple weeks ago a lovely little portable greenhouse was set up in our backyard, by the two suburban farmers (Dorian and I...ay thank you!) in the hopes that we could start sprouting seeds come January to set out in the garden. We have also been getting a bit antsy so... we decided to experiment with a few cool weather crop seeds and see what would happen. (maybe they would combine in a strange chemical reaction and form a bucket of ooze that we could play with!) So we set up a flat with a few rows of seeds; spinach, cauliflower and broccoli, we then watered and waited.  Until today. I went out this morning because our backyard faces the west (by west I mean south) and the house acts like a giant reflector, not like the foil kind that you use for sunbathing but a less shiny vinyl one, and toasts up our cement patio quite nicely. And I of course was freezing I can't help it, I'm prone to being a peoplecicle! I didn't find much respite there so I wandered over to our dinky little greenhouse (tee hee greenhouses are warm too!) and came upon the scene of the crime!

My 25 seconds of storm satisfaction delivered us splattered barely-sprouted seedlings, (storms are obviously are not pro-life! humpf!) disheveled shelves, and the pottery that once held my succulents lay shattered; succulents de-potted and strewn about the floor! CRAP! Well, in its defense our greenhouse is made of plastic and aluminum and may double as a kite if taken to the beach on a windy day... We had used some metal stakes and a 40 pound bag of lime to try to hold it down, unfortunately they were a bit ill placed... Oops! 

I shoveled the seedlings and soil back into its home and we hopefully (cross your fingers... seriously look at the thing, it totally has kite tendencies!) found a new more storm-worthy home for our little greenhouse.

The Carnage

I had cleaned it up at this point, I can't lie, the pottery was staged. (Thanks D :)) But my poor succulent 'tree' is sadly leaning against the fan.

Kindness of Strangers

I am in AWE today. All due to a stranger.

As most of you know Dorian and I have moved from glorious California to North Carolina to live with his brother Sean and Sean's Girlfriend Stacey.  We moved here not only to live with these two wonderful people but to start our own garden and perhaps infect a few people with the idea that growing your own food is an incredibly useful tool. (Not to mention delicious, rewarding, and way better for you!)

Now we have this glorious blank canvas of a garden that we get to have our way with. We decided to sheet mulch as much as we could. (find out more about sheet mulch here, or check out one of my new most favorite books Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture) Which means we need an absurd amount of cardboard/newspaper, straw, mulch and manure. As well as a boat load of lime as our pH test let us know our soil is 'very acid'.

 With our budget of $0 we were excited for the challenge of "materials reconnaissance" (OH MY! My spell checker just let me know by NOT putting the red line under that word that I have spelled it correctly (side note - I am a terrible speller and am incredibly pleased with myself)). We started out asking newspaper companies for old copies and ended up with a 1.5 foot stack. The local library informed us that they have an internal recycling system, which means sad face for us. But never fear treasure (abandoned boxes) was to be had! We didn't even have to dig it up it was just laying around the neighborhood so we picked it up when we were out walking (we also found a shovel that was a little broken but would still dig holes! Even after these victories we still need much, much more.

Haulin' a load in my truck!

Next step, straw. ( Which is really what this post is about.) We could have purchased them for around $5 a bale, but that isn't much fun now is it?  Right, so on many of our tours through our little maze of a community we had noticed that a few people had straw bales up for decorations! It being nearly Thanksgiving I had a inkling that perhaps these bales needed to be gotten rid of. Lucky them!  I knew just the people who wanted them! After ringing a few doorbells and leaving some notes we ended up with about seven bales. One of those people that was so kind to give us three bales (seen here in our "truck") even offered to ask her friend about getting more! So we gave her a call today, she had said perhaps her friend had seven bales that we could have. She not only brought seven plus two bales she had gone to her friends' house picked them up and delivered them to us FOR FREE! All from a woman we didn't even know. It was such a sweet thing she did, she even said she might have more for us! (sighing in awe and total gratitude, I think this is a little wink and smile from our friend Karma! you reap what you sow! (pun intended!))

Yeah he is that strong!

It's when things like this happen that remind me why Dorian and I are meant to be here. To share in the human experience.  The world is so full of kindness, consciousness and love; we all just have to remember it is in everyone.

Adjustments

Well, we have arrived in North Carolina from California. My friends at REI thought I was a bit crazy for moving here, and when we got here I completely agreed. Fayetteville is a military town, kinda dirty, full of dispair and mustangs (this has begun to become a joke, each trip out we see how many we can count, i think around 20 is the number to beat), and most certainly absolutely nothing like northern California. ...sigh..

When we finally got the courage to venture out of the house (Dorian and I are road warriors, we slept only a handful of hours on our trek and we were in no rush to get back in our cars!) we were frightened to say the least. Organic food was very hard to find while in Nor Cal you could trip and fall on organic food! All of the stores look pretty run down, and our neighborhood is a suburban labyrinth! Luckily Stacey (Dorian's brother Sean's girlfriend) has the low down and let us know that there is a grocery store resembling Publix nearby.  Harris Teeter! (really!? who came up with this name??) Who did have organic food and was a nice grocery store. (Food Lion=Scary Charlie C's even more so we hear....haven't been brave enough to enter yet...) 

The whole town seemed to be in a state of depression on first glance. So we gave it another go, we went out looking for a local seed store to check them out. We found it and the people were lovely and helpful we also ended up taking a detour through downtown proper and it was cute! We felt relief, we no longer had so much animosity for Fayetteville! Though the first week brought about many thoughts of why in the HELL did I leave CA for THIS? I knew in my heart this is what we need to do. After a few more adventures (in the next few blogs) we realized we may be able to cultivate a wonderful growing community after all, our neighbors are so close and so many!

The house we are staying in is very beautiful annnd....We have a HUGE backyard for our GARDEN and Sean and Stacey are so excited for all the fresh vegetables they are going to have!!!