The ABCs of Me, Episode 3

Posted on February 19, 2012 by kathryningrid

The Awesome Blog Content Award, Courtesy of HRH ‘Nessa of the Stronghold, requires that I provide you with an entire alphabet of Me-itude in response, so in order to prevent your eyes from snapping back in your head like the cylinders in a slot machine and your brain going into hibernation, I have subdivided the alphabet into three parts. I will reiterate only the award rules–to get the rest of my response to it you should head back to Episode 1–and share the second series of letters in today’s post.

Rules of this award:

1. Pass this on to unlimited fellow bloggers.

2. Share some things about you, using the alphabet.

R is for Rascal

Rascal, riffraff or rapscallion, I’m not such a naughty Nell,

but I am enough subversive that I think the faintest smell

of a smokescreen is escaping with me on my escapades;

hope nobody’s looking closely ’til I up and close the shades.

Smithereens and splinters and microscopic mites

are all that’s left of language when I’ve mangled it in verse

and twisted it and tangled it and murdered it; by rights,

I should be stopped from writing, for it’s only getting worse.

Tangential thinking takes my mind

and leaves my plots and plans behind

to visit wildly different fields

and see what each new tangent yields.

Uxoriated by my man I be, if any woman can,

but never fear, I shan’t abuse by whipping him whom I did choose

as much as he chose me, for I would fain have no one else nearby,

since his uxorious love for me remains a perfect mystery.

Volare Wagon, with your fine faux-paneled sides,

the way your heavy-duty shocks put such smooth-gaited glides

on my great cache of tools; how virile your slant six

that took me where no other car could do such tricks!

Why, O Why? The question best to ask

no matter what the moment or the task,

for none can learn the magicks life brings by

more quickly than the man who questions Why.

Xeriscape my garden–that’s the mandate I have got

for making up the most of every inch of my small plot

in weather short of water and in heat too high for hope

except if I can make dry art upon my garden’s slope.

Yikes! is such a handy shout

when trial and trouble are about,

when great surprise occurs–and when

I’m overjoyed, now and again!

Z is for Zymurgy

Zymurgy–musical, this word,

whose other music we have heard

when from the tap a creamy head

yields cheers for joys from A to Zed.

The End. You’ve survived, my friends! Hope I haven’t worn out my welcome in home, laptop and email inbox, but I trust you all know where the Delete button is by now. Forthwith, Back to Our Scheduled Programming. Whatever that is! Tomorrow will tell.

The ABCs of Me, Episode 2

Posted on February 18, 2012 by kathryningrid

Rules of this award:

1. Pass this on to unlimited fellow bloggers.

2. Share some things about you, using the alphabet.

K is for Krumhorn

Krumhorn, sackbut, transverse flute:

not clues in Trivial Pursuit,

but instruments from ancient days–

I’ve newly learned to sing their praise.

Light, come clear the darkness, break impenetrable night

to let in day and sanity and set the wrong aright,

to open hopeful windows wide, to raise to higher station

these wond’ring, wand’ring souls of ours through your illumination.

Mute as the grave, voiceless and weak,

I haven’t a singular word to speak

when the signal fails and the synapse strays–

but only on my worst dysphonic of days.

Night calls to me. I love the velvet

darkness of its touch, its song,

its slowing breath, the way a well-met

dream can draw me right along . . .

Ossified as I can be,

a stuck and stubborn brute am I,

unwilling and unchanging–see?

I let the whole quatrain go by–

Peculiarity is my gift! My adoration for the weird

knows few bounds–I get a lift from thinking fish could grow a beard,

from dreaming idle silly dreams of lizards singing, candy socks,

electric sofas, grey ice-creamsand giving grown-ups nasty shocks.

Q is for Quiver

Quiver full of arrows, yes? Here in my heart I quiver with glee

because in love I’m a quivering mess,’less Cupid comes to puncture me–

No, no!–the quiver, instead, should hold an armload of arrows of skill and wit

to set ye a-quiver, as though fell cold, in astonishment I had thought of it.

I Know My ABCs, but I’m Not So Clear on My Ps & Qs

Posted on February 16, 2012 by kathryningrid

What I don’t know: what happened to yesterday’s post (this is it, again). I could swear I’d posted this and even gotten a comment or two on it already. Where it went baffles me. Apparently it’s now keeping company with the magically disappearing previous post about coulrophobia, which I also had to re-post. Go figure. So here’s Round 2 of Yesterday’s Post.

That slyly generous character ‘Nessa, over at her Stronghold, has tagged me once again, this time to participate in a bit of speculative introspection via the medium of the ABC award. I am happy to state that she did not give me the ABC award in the sense that I knew it as a young squirt, when we generously offered our playmates ABC gum (Already Been Chewed). So while I know from reading her post that ‘Nessa did indeed ruminate on the award before sharing it, I am glad to announce that there was no saliva whatsoever on the award when she passed it along. In fact, it was much like getting a good and playful cyber-hug, something I would call quite the opposite in a very nice way. So I send many thanks to dear ‘Nessa and will give many thinks to the alphabet I am to present to you as a response.

Awesome Blog Content Award

Rules of this award:

1. Pass this on to unlimited fellow bloggers.

2. Share some things about you, using the alphabet.

You know that I am going to put my own spin on the whole thing, because that’s just how my strange little brain prefers to work. While the award’s tradition appears to be that one offers a personally resonant word for each letter of the alphabet with a couple of words of explanation for each choice, I feel compelled to do some of my rhyming play with the puzzle, for no good reason of course, so I’m off to scrawl an alphabet of quatrains.

And as for sharing the award, I must tell you that the reason I subscribe to your blogs and read them as faithfully as time will allow (whether I have a moment to comment or not every time) because your blogs are simply brimming with awesome content. So I would be horribly remiss if I didn’t share this award with each and every one of you with whom I am so happily carrying on commentary-conversations and from whom I am delightedly learning new and funny and moving and useful and otherwise wonderful stuff every single day via my subscriptions. That means that if you’re reading this and we have conversed about our blogs, I am offering you the opportunity to play this amusing game yourself and consider me a grateful sharer of the fun. If you’re too busy, private, tired of blog tagging, or committed to more meaningful activities, believe me, I will not be insulted by your opting not to join in the play. I bless you for choosing to do or not do what suits you best.

Here, then, is today’s Alphabet of Me. I cannot promise to mind my Ps and Qs despite the alphabetical mandate, because behaving properly tends to chafe me. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

A is for Art

Art I seek, and fain would honor Art

with skill and courage, for the larger part

of life and love and light that may be found

awaken to Art’s call, no other sound.

Balance neatly conjured from unlike, unequal parts

is best achieved by using that most delicate of arts

which we might call diplomacy or mediating care

or just the coaxing of agreement from the thinnest air.

Community is my desire: I would the flame become a fire,

the bloom become a garden whole, the note float into barcarolle,

the morsel be a meal complete enough for everyone to eat,

the joy be broadcast far and wide until there is no Other Side.

Doggerel dances its jigs in my brain

until, irresistibly, I can’t refrain

from making up poems as silly as dogs

would be to write doggerel verses for blogs.

Ethereal loveliness, sweetness and grace

all whisper their zephyrs of breath as they chase

my sorrows and fears and my troubles away

and replace them with lyrical words night and day.

Flora, garden goddess thou,

wreathed with flowers upon thy brow,

what scented bowers have you grown

that leave my senses overthrown!

Gothic grotesqueries fill the abyss

of night in my cranium; stranger than this

is that, while they are creeping their hideous way

into my grey matter, it still feels like play . . .

Hungry every minute,

always looking for a spoon,

my midst has something in it,

but I wanna eat more, soon!

Idiosyncratic me,

how idiotic would it be

if I should be less odd? Absurd–

also unlikely, ‘pon my word.

J is for Jester

Jester to the king and queen and to the populace,

I’d like to have the wisdom and the humor to express

what should be said for betterment and conscience-pricking itch

without offending quite so far as be condemned a witch.

Lighting Candles in the Vastness of the Dark

Posted on January 27, 2012 by kathryningrid

It’s easy in this big, busy world to feel sometimes that one is alone in the magnitude of space, a tiny voice calling out and not knowing if there’s anyone who will answer. When times are grim, that is quite simply the pervasive sense. When my youngest nephew was very small and spending his first overnight at his grandparents’, my mother tiptoed down the darkened hall before turning in for sleep and heard his little voice coming out of the doorway with the plaintive little inquiry: “Is there anybody here who knows me?”

Like him, I have always eventually been answered in my timid forays into the fearful or unknown with rescuers coming to my aid, whether in a literal sense or in the sometimes equally powerful act of offering emotional and companionable solidarity. I’m here for you; I hear you. It doesn’t always have to be more than that, though I can’t imagine there are many who would find themselves able to be surfeited when it comes to genuine kindness and support; sometimes just knowing that there is somebody else somewhere in this overwhelming life who cares what happens to us is grace enough.

Entering the seemingly surreal world of the blogosphere is certainly sufficient intimidation and unfamiliarity for most of us, and a place where we well might feel we’re talking into empty nothingness. The discovery that there are not only fellow wanderers in the place, indeed, but kindred spirits–well, that is more than just a comfort. It’s a relief and a joy and the sighting of rescue breaking through the impenetrable dark with, however tiny, a candle flame. Amazing how that infinitesimal light pierces the gloom and begins to widen. How it begins to be passed from one to the other until a seeming infinity of tiny flames has suddenly coalesced into blazing daylight!

That is the kind of friendship that shifts from virtual to virtuous in a rather quick succession of conversations and shared thoughts and dreams, where we go swiftly from meeting-in-passing to knowing that it matters that each little flame be tended thoughtfully. True community, it turns out, can be cultivated in dimensions that know no boundaries of physical space. It grows in sharing commonalities and respecting and treasuring the uniqueness and differences of opinion and belief and history that give so much deeper meaning to what we do hold in common.

So I pay grateful tribute to those who have answered my voice in the darkness, who have shone light upon my blogging life and more importantly, shed light in every direction by the mere warmth and passion of their spirits through their own voices in blogging. There should be a much more beautiful and euphonious name for this dimension of community than Blog, Blogger, Blogged, Blogging–all of them sound, if not rude, then at the least terribly plebeian. But then, perhaps the true beauty of the construct is its very ability to carry our unvarnished, unembellished humanity if not on golden wings then on plainly mortal feet, all of us walking along, however trepidatiously, speaking softly to others we only trust are there, carrying our little candles ahead of us with quavering hope.

Lately I have been reminded of this sharing of light and warmth yet again by the gifts of three further Versatile Blogger Award recognitions by that Beautiful Spirit, Alpha, at Aspire.Motivate.Succeed., the warm and wonderful master of his well-tended garden, Bishop, at Bishop 9396’s Blog, and the Bardess, DM Denton, who shows magnificent visual and verbal ambidexterity. From three people who demonstrate great versatility indeed I take it as a high compliment.

And I have now been granted the Candle Lighter Award by dear ‘Nessa at Stronghold. She is a bright light indeed for such a young torch-bearer, bringing her insights and opening discussions on many a topic that could fall into the dark but for the repeated loving applications of the light of inquiry and passion that she offers in her forum. All are free to ponder there the complexities of life, love and the human psyche that cross all boundaries of age and experience. Precisely the kind of place that welcomes shared illumination just as I’ve been describing here.

The Candle Lighter Award has been variously described in terms of its requirements, so I thought I’d see if I could trace it back, and behold, this award’s creator actually maintains an open link so that we can bask in her generous and thoughtful gift. So raise your lamps high with me, won’t you, and we’ll thank her for this kind and inspiring offering. Thank you, then, both to Kate, the nurturing mother of this Award, at Believe Anyway, and to ‘Nessa, who believes strongly enough to shine her own light in the darkness.

Kate is especially generous and ingenious, I think, in opting to simply let the award she conceived stand on its own, requiring no response or action other than that one should, appropriately, shine light upon its meaning as a representation of positivity and hope and illumination in and of itself and the thoughtful sharing of it ought to recognize those whom the giver sees as showing those qualities in blog work. To further those beliefs and ideals, I will of course share the names of a small few bloggers who represent the vigor of meaningful optimism, teaching and leading and sharing the light through their munificent and loving work. And as ‘Nessa has reminded me, many of the brightest lights are those that persist to shine in the darkest places.

Thus I gladly pass the torch to my friends at PsycheVida, The Invisible Shadow, Aspire.Motivate.Succeed., The Human Picture, G (of G Caffe), and Year-Struck, who all know the light well, if partially by virtue of having known or passed through various dark places, and choose to shine their better selves abroad like rays of sunlight.

I have handed the Versatile Blogger Award along (as well as a few others with similar requirements) enough times that I fear I shall put your lights out, all of you, if I should share another laundry-list of factoids about my shining self, and know that you’ll find more than enough of my self-revelatory chatter just by wandering around my blog any day of the week. But I hope that you will also attend to the following fellow off-road-thinkers who certainly deserve a badge of Versatility for their wide-ranging skills and interests, again without requiring anything of them in return other than that they should rejoice in being in company that deeply appreciates the surprising and wonderful collection of wits that each of them represents.

To Marie, tending home, garden, and a next-gen toddler in her Little Corner of Rhode Island; to Ellen, who writes and paints and draws and sets the cultural coordinates of her region at Nine Lives Studio; to Bella of winsomebella, a magical land where passionate soul-searching merges with poetry and photography, travel and storytelling; to John, cooking up history and food and familial love in the Bartolini Kitchens; and to Nia, who intertwines photography with food, the tails of cats with tales of travel, and wonderful daily expressions of local culture to charm and amaze us.

Some of you, I know, have been laureates of these specific and many other blogging awards, and deservedly so, so I neither demand of you that you accept (though it’s pretty much an impossibility to make me un-like you once I’ve decided I like you, as far as that goes!) nor that you ‘keep passing the dessert around the table’. Your blogs and excellence speak for themselves, and if you wish to share the joy further then I am delighted to have put it in your hands for the sharing. Because that is the whole beauty of this place we call the blogging community. There’s dessert and light and warmth enough here for everyone.

Mrs. Sparkly’s Ten Commandments, I Mean Ten Questions. And More.

Posted on January 12, 2012 by kathryningrid

I am “It”. No, really, that’s not just my Godzilla-sized ego talking: I’ve been tagged, and I didn’t even know there was a game going on. So very like me to be caught unawares. Least I was wearing more than just my “underwears”!

Among the activities in which the denizens of Bloggervania indulge are those through which we unmask various bits and bobs of our selves for mutual edification or at least amusement. This can be dangerous or great fun, depending upon whom you ask what, but then that’s the way it always goes, isn’t it. The promise of a nice sunny afternoon swapping gossip over a cuppa suddenly turns into a sword-fighting bloodbath. Oh, no, that was the murder mystery I was reading last night. Never mind!

Here’s what I got asked, followed by my to-the-best-of-my-knowledge-true answers.

1. Describe yourself in seven words.

I can do it in 1: Rich. Okay, here are six others, but they’re all extrapolations of the first: loved, happy, curious, privileged, encouraged, playful.

2. What keeps you up at night?

Brain-spin. I’m a very good sleeper generally speaking, but if I don’t quiet my mind by bedtime and shut down the wacky-factory, there’s no telling how long it’ll keep me too busy to sleep.

3. Whom would you like to be?

The best version of me I can manage. Too much work to figure out how to be anyone else!

4. What are you wearing now?

Jeans and a comfy shirt suitable for doing chores between bouts of typing.

5. What scares you?

Other people’s drama.

6. What are the best and worst things about blogging?

In my circle, we all seem to experience the same basic risks and rewards: the risk of losing ourselves completely in the effort and time of dedicated blogging, and the reward of working amid and coming to respect and love such stellar folk as populate the blogging community. Come to think of it, that pretty much encapsulates what I think is good or bad about any activity for which one has a passion.

7. What was the last website you looked at?

Retire Early Lifestyle, a travel, food, culture and off-the-beaten-path-living journal produced by the only friends I’ve acquired through online conversation before I began blogging, and a site that is simply a joy to visit.

8. If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?

Let go of fear.

9. Slankets, yes or no?

I have three perfectly excellent reasons to Just Say No to Slankets: 1-The skill a perpetually freezing person develops for dressing in layers more numerous and impressive than those boasted by the best millefoglie, 2-A really cuddly husband, and 3-What, I need to make a bonfire out of my money because I don’t know how to wrap up in a plain blanket to get warm?

10. Tell us something about the person who tagged you.

John comes from good stock. By that I mean that he has great familial roots, and that they are such natural foodies that he learned early to appreciate and make excellent soups, among many other classic Italian dream-foods. He documents all of this, and much more, on the wonderfully warm, witty, artful and delicious pages of From the Bartolini Kitchens, all while being himself ever the debonair gentleman-about-town and as sweet as fragole.

Whom are you going to tag to join the quiz?

I hope I’ve not “double-tagged” anyone. I’ll just go alphabetically here, for fun:

Antoinette at cooking-spree
Bella at winsomebella
Cyndi at cfbookchick
Dennis at thebardonthehill
Eden at litrato-ngayon

My blogging friend Antoinette, she of the wonderful aforementioned site where you can learn from her expertise how to put “Love on the Table” but more importantly, the myriad ways she expands that love into a multitude of life’s little nooks and crannies, all with a measure of mindfulness and gentle good humor–this lady asked me yesterday the perfectly innocent question “how . . . do you do this?” Since the bellissima Bella (also tagged above) soon thereafter made a comment that begged the same question, and I have fielded a few inquiries in a similar vein over the last six months of blogging, I am going to take the self-indulgent opportunity to spout off a bit on the topic today.

Many folk simply wonder how it’s possible for me to post a new and (mostly) different essay, poem, story or combination of them, illustrated with my own art and photography, every single day. They politely edge up to the corollary question of whether I don’t have a big closet full of old stuff that I’m just pinning up in public as I go. If it’s any consolation, yes, I have been producing things like this for a rather long time. Yesterday’s post (https://kiwsparks.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/what-were-you-born-in-a-barn/) is a perfect example: the cow sketch is from some doodling in a notebook nearly 30 years ago (and digitally doctored yesterday); the rooster and hens scratched their way into my sketchbook last year; the birds were among many sketched multi-panel proposals for a set of organ pipeshade carvings around 7 or 8 years ago; and the pastel of the Cheviot ewe and the Highland cow is from about two years ago.

Some of the illustrations I use (photographic or drawn/painted) are completely, hot-off-the-pencil new, a few are practically archeological finds from my vast trove, and some are oldies that have been digitally “remastered” (dolled up or changed) to fit the occasion. Almost every visual image requires some tweaking or re-formatting for the blog medium or to better reflect and expand upon the text in some way. Regular readers will have noticed that I am not averse to using the images’ captions to try to intensify the relationship and relevance, ‘specially if the connection was a little tenuous or artificially-imposed at the start.

In addition, I do have a (digital) reserve of hundreds and hundreds of picture + text images like the ones I used on Tuesday (https://kiwsparks.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/its-foodie-tuesday-and-i-havent-eaten-yet/), set up like book pages, where I guess without knowing it I was practicing a variant of the sort of combined word and image that I’m now putting in this blog. I try not to dip into that storage much, if nothing else to prevent my getting lazy or stale or not producing anything strictly new. There is a remote possibility that they will someday in fact be used to produce actual books, but realistically, publishers are inundated with stuff they find much more relevant and exciting, and like most artist-types I hate the drudgery of trying to sort out the whole business end of book production. Hence my standing on this soapbox handing out free samples daily. And I thank you all for coming by Speakers’ Corner (though since I live in Texas I suppose I should pretend it’s in Rawhide Park) here for visits so I don’t die of neglect and boredom.

The prose of my posts is never older than a few days (and that, only if I happen to have gotten a day or two ahead in writing), but nearly always written on the same day the posts go online. The poems are a mix of old and new. I started wading in poetic and essayist waters as a mere stripling, and as long as twenty years ago spent a twelvemonth writing five poems a day for discipline. Yes, mostly short forms! A couple of years ago, I did a one-drawing-a-day year, and I’m gearing up to get back to somewhat more regular drawing and art-making, so hopefully I’ll be posting more ‘fresh produce’ soon, but having unused images in storage takes an nth of the pressure off of the blog production. As it is, the process takes me several hours of the day to get through both creating the post itself and the related correspondence.

And it does take time. I wouldn’t be able to do this other than extremely sporadically if I had a “real” job, that’s for sure. Working from home, I can keep up with laundry and cooking and housekeeping and that sort of thing without losing the flexible hours it takes to do this. That’s the big issue for me: I have a husband who values my art and writing enough to have supported my leaving my previous employment and kept us in financial safety with his own work, and that is a rare and fabulous gift indeed. Or a cruelty to you, if you happen to think I should have kept it to myself. But then, I like to think you’re all smart enough to not show up here if I weary you with my nattering.

Having noted that, I suppose it’s time to address the Why of it all. But that’s embedded in the whole Who-What-When-Where-How of it all, isn’t it. I do this because it gives me joy to play with words and pictures, and because I’m not necessarily cut out to do something else, and most especially because by sharing stories I find new marvelous and inspiring friendships and loves, and renew the best of those I already have, all of which serve to infinitely reinforce my knowledge that I am Rich.

Gold, Mine (detail from a mixed media collage)

“Thank You” is an Excellent Exit Line. Or Opener. Oh, Both, of Course!

Posted on December 31, 2011 by kathryningrid

So I shall begin with a resounding Thank You. To another three gracious and inspiring bloggers who have nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award. Thank You, amazing Eve and marvelous ‘Nessa and sweet Peaches! Eve’s poetry and prose move me so deeply I sometimes think she reads my mind–but with better compositional and editing skills than I have. ‘Nessa inspires me with her old-soul attitudes and resilience in the face of committed creative work in such a public forum as a blog at what seems to this aging lady like a tender age indeed, putting out fine and fiery writing as well. Peach Farm Studio is a lovely land whose mistress creates fabulous letterpress art and, as inspiration and adjunct to that, plays with beautiful and wonderful text, music, imagery and any other ingredients that can be combined to make the Studio’s output a joy.Another heartfelt Thank You to the incredible Cecilia. She who presented me with my first VBA has now passed the Reader Appreciation Award my way as well. There is probably no irony at all in the fact that one of the rubrics for proper reception of this award is that one should pass it along to one’s own six most faithful commenting bloggers, but not to anyone who’s already received the award–and you guessed it, she’s been easily among the six most frequent and thoughtful and uplifting commenters here from Day One. One of my first frequent-flyers, period. And a constant source of gracious good-humored help and outsized compassion and good sense to push me ever upward and onward.Now, in case I needed an extra boost, ‘Nessa popped back over to my place to tell me she’d also nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger Award, and that deserves yet another moment of humbling contemplation of my embarrassment of riches and the great aid lent me by all of you, to which I add Thank You again, no less joyfully and with equal amazement at my good fortune.All of these are among my cloud of muses and angels, my support and drive and comfort in the form of family, friends, and teachers–all of whom are represented among you, my gracious and ever-encouraging, in the deepest sense of that word, readers. So I Thank You all particularly and sincerely for all of the strength, wisdom and joy you have shared with me since I began this blogging adventure. It seems far more than mere months ago that I began to meet you all–you have become so much a part of my world that I move through my days buoyed by the mere knowledge that you are ‘out there’ thinking up innumerable ways to brighten and improve my life, even when you don’t quite know it. That, you might well note, is what family and friends and mentors do, and oh, you do it very well indeed.

Thank You for providing a Safe Harbor where I can be myself both at work and at play . . .

At the end of the year I can look back and be thankful for so many fine things, and one of them is clearly the great experience that my dive into the untested waters of the blogiverse has turned out to be. Thank you for making it not only painless but a great pleasure, a steeply upward learning curve, and generally smooth sailing to new and delightful places. I cannot begin to tell you how much I look forward to seeing those places with all of you.

For the moment, I shall wrap up here by recognizing those others who have so sustained me with their commentary. There’s the wonderful ChgoJohn, who also has already received this award himself because he’s always out offering wit and succor and freshly-sauced pasta to everybody around these parts; the sweet cfbookchick, so tender-hearted, poetic, quick with praise and generous with clever commentary as well as being a fellow ooh-sparkly-objects human magpie; the gentle, celestially-inclined Barb of Just a Smidgen, who consistently provides far more than a smidgen of encouragement and sunbeams and shared love of music hereabouts; the warm and open-handed Marie in her Little Corner of Rhode Island, who nurtures all while slyly tickling our ribs and funny-bones, stealthily adding bits of great practical advice all the while; and the self-effacing fairy godmother of Ireland, Our Lady of Just Add Attitude, who eschews awards (luckily for me this one officially doesn’t require her responding to it at all unless she so chooses) despite producing award-worthy posts of her travels and thoughtful ruminations on all sorts of good food and pretty things and then turns around complimenting everyone else as though she’s never heard of such talent. All of you, whether you know it or not, have been an amazing and unexpected joy in your sharing yourselves with me here.

It could but most certainly should not go without saying that these are all joined in my field of heroes by such fine characters as Ted and Nia, the two bardic Dennises, Raymund and Caroline, Desi and Lindy Lee, Anyes and Bella, Neil and Geni and oh so many other worthy and outstanding blogger colleagues and friends. And of course there is that particular fella who patiently shares me with my magical laptop kingdom and who works to keep the roof over our heads as well as still making me glad every time he spontaneously yells out “I LIKE YOU!” and gives me a big goofy wink.

Farewell, good 2011. Come on in, great and glorious 2012! And to all of you out there reading this, may you have a year full of peace, love, joy and ridiculously fun creative living.

Thank You for helping me discover yet another Happy Place . . .

Highfalutin Company

Posted on November 14, 2011 by kathryningrid

Otto von Münchow is a very nice man. But I don’t have to tell you that, if you’ve done any looking around the web. I’ve never even met him–in person–but it took very little time looking at his blog and ‘conversing’ with him in the process before I saw how much help he offered not only me with his photographic and creative-production insights but also shared with all of his other readers and correspondents. And then he went and shared a Versatile Blogger Award with me. I’m humbled, and I’m touched.

Yes, there are those who would say I’m tetched. It’s how I got where I am today! And where I am is in truly rarefied company, as I’ve been learning over the last number of months here in Bloggerville. I am surrounded by deeply gifted and incredibly generous fellow bloggers, some of whom have taught me more in my short stint as a web denizen than I learned from many an arduous class project and long years of practice. (Okay, I’ll still say the years of practice made it possible to actually understand and make use of some of the good stuff I’m learning here, so no, my young friends, don’t skip that part!) I know I’m one seriously fortunate person, surrounded by, as my good friend Nia aptly identifies them, a glorious cloud of “angels and muses”.

Sankt Synnøve, an appropriate patroness for adventurers!

The Irish/Norwegian saint Synnøve is one of a select group I chose to make mixed media portraits commemorating for a collaborative program with organist David Dahl a number of years ago. The fabulous Dr Dahl agreed to create a performance program with me, and despite his renown as a Bach expert, even agreed to plunge into French Romantic literature to please my whim–something he not only performed with superb fire and panache but taught me a lot about in the process. I loved the preparations: David would join me in the organ loft for a flurry of ‘howzat’ samples he played from a number of great composers in a wide variety of styles and moods and colors within the fantastic treasury of my dream realm. He told me about the background of the pieces, how and why and when they were written and by whom–and who that composer studied with–and so on. Gradually we winnowed down the possibilities as I began to talk, in return, about what sort of imagery these evocative pieces inspired. I fell in love with each and every song and movement, and with the genre yet again.

I also decided, as the good Doctor played, that the exquisite and potent Finale by César Franck was reminiscent of a solemn procession of saints, so I decided it was a good excuse to play around with a series of portraits, beginning with figuring out which ones it would most interest me to envision. My main criterion was simply that I was on the hunt for saints famous for more than martyrdom. While I recognize that being willing to die for your beliefs, whatever they are, my school of thought tends to be more impressed with how incredibly challenging it is to live for your beliefs. So I looked for people beatified and sanctified for their deeds rather than their being dead. The princess Synnøve certainly seemed to fit the bill, what with evading an oppressive forced marriage, adventuring off on the wild open sea to who-knows-where and landing in remote Norway, creating a community there, and then fending off pagan attackers. As well as a few other attributions that become even more mystical and magical. In all, a history that says this was one tough Celtic character who went to great lengths to shape her own destiny, and in so doing shaped others’ as well. Eventually she was joined in the recital processional by a number of other intriguing worthies–educators, hospitalers, rescuers of the poor and builders of bridges among them–and I found a large quantity of inspiration, not strictly artistic either.

That’s what I find in this new endeavor of mine too. A long parade of angels and muses that bring to me new knowledge of art, of self, and of life. And I am ever so grateful for the gifts!

We who are inducted into the Versatile Blogger community are tasked with telling you friends a little more about our selves and then sharing the gifts of the award with others whom we deem deserving as well. I’ve done this twice before (thank you, dear Cecilia and Nia!), so I’ll try to be succinct.

Saints Valery and Finian, leaders, builders-of-things, and my birthday brothers (I was born on their feast day). (I'll take my inspirations wherever I find them.)

Versatile Blogger Award protocol:

1. Nominate 15 fellow bloggers.
2. Inform the bloggers of their nomination.
3. Share 7 random things about yourself.
4. Thank the blogger who nominated you.
5. Add the Versatile Blogger Award pic on your blog post.

So here’s that Pack of Facts about me:

1 – I’m one of those awful excuses for a human being that doesn’t like blueberries. There are a number of fruits I’m not crazy about for texture but in the juice or coulis form I’ll slurp ’em right up. Not blueberries. Don’t like the scent or the flavor any more than the texture. Yet the blueberry bush is a plant I happily put in my garden because I think the shrub is beautiful year-round, and even the berries are very pretty to look at. Go figure.

2 – Even a complete non-athlete (there are few who can begin to compare with me for lack of skills) can have a Sports Injury. My only-ever stitches are hockey related. Too bad I wasn’t making a brilliant goal play at the time, but at least I got a little scar to show for it.

3 – The dentist is my friend! I am something of a rarity, not only enjoying visits to the dentist but also hitting the 50-year mark without ever having gotten a cavity. That’s thanks to good dental care on top of a bit of good luck: my parents both have “normal” teeth, so it was clearly not straight-up genetics that gave them four caries-free kids.

4 – Besides some costume design and construction for theatrical productions, ecclesiastical vestments, and other clothing design/construction projects over the years, I’ve had a few evening gown commissions–favorites are probably the plastic-garbage-bag (Hefty Steel-Sak) gown in silver and black for a costume party (I labored over the hand-cut lace edges) and the plastic wedding gown made for an exhibition (that one had plastic doilies for its lace).

5 – No cigarette or smoking device of any kind has ever touched my lips. Wait: I did try a couple of bubble gum “cigars” in childhood (banana was my favorite of the chewing gum flavors, I think), does that count? But thankfully (for both my lungs’ and my wallet’s sake) I never had the remotest urge to experiment with smoking.

6 – I think my husband has one of the most beautiful singing voices I’ve ever heard.

7 – Many of my art projects arise from random exposure to topics, objects and ideas I encounter whilst “on the way somewhere else”. Ah, serendipity!

I know that some of my favorite bloggers have received Versatile Blogger recognition before, and I do know that it takes a great deal of time and effort to meet the requirements of acceptance, so for the following blog-stars, I personally exempt you from any of the responsive requisites, but I want to recognize publicly how much I admire your work.

Today’s Sparks Blogroll of Honor:
The Bard on the Hill

Sweet Caroline’s Cooking

The Seven Hills Collection

Patridew’s Perfect World

Aspire. Motivate. Succeed.

The Valentine 4: Living Each Day

A Cup of Tea with this Crazy Nia

With thanks and cheers for all that you do in the blog universe, I bow to you all! Onward and upward, my friends!

I Hereby Crown Myself Mistress of the Mess-ups and Guru of Good Intentions

Posted on September 28, 2011 by kathryningrid

It's okay to be screwy, as long as I keep it upbeat . . .

Yes, I have received another award. This one’s from me, to mark the official recognition of my silliness in not quite getting it right when I got the last one.

My last award was a generously conferred Versatile Blogger nod from one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Ms. Cecilia the Sage and Savvy Farmer. Yesterday I was tagged with a second such recognition by the delightful and gifted Nia, a photographer and diarist from Istanbul. And when she sent me the notification, I had to slap my forehead with dumbstruck awe at how remiss and inattentive I’d been when I was tagged the first time. So, with my apologies, I tip my new self-anointed crown in an apologetic genuflection and promise both to re-post and to remember to inform (as is customary, if you’ll note in the rubrics down below) the people to whom I had hoped to show my admiration in the first place. Oops! My oversight is in no way meant to be reflective of my great enjoyment of the bloggers listed here, and I hope all of you reading this will click on the links, check out their blog sites, and share in their wealth of knowledge and artfulness and entertaining and thoughtful world-views too.

Now, for the REST of you, who really do deserve this!

In Search of My Moveable Feasts

We ask anyone receiving the Versatile Blogger Award to
pay it forward, if you will.

Thank the person who gave
you the award and link back to them in your post.
Tell your readers seven (7)
things about yourself.
Give this award to fifteen
(15) recently discovered bloggers.
Contact those bloggers and
let them in on the exciting news!

As for things to tell you about myself, I’ve already mentioned my dyslexia and wildly meandering forms of thought, and here I am just proving the point again. No news there! So I’ll go off on a little different tangent, with a list of a few of the interesting places I’ve visited.

1 The Grove of the Patriarchs (Washington State). An isolated little island surrounded by streams in Mt Rainier National Park, because of its sheltered position there the islet is still populated by spectacular old-growth trees, mainly Douglas firs and cedars, that are awe-inspiring and make you feel you’ve stepped into another dimension, an incredibly peaceful one.

2 Saint Lucia. Another island, but of an utterly different kind, being in the southern Caribbean. My mother and father in law took the family on a cruise with them for their 50th anniversary (apparently missed the memo where people are supposed to give YOU big presents for big events). While ‘cruise culture’ isn’t necessarily a logical fit for my personality, it was tremendous fun to spend the time getting to know the family better, seeing a part of the world I’d never seen before, and especially, going off with the parents, my spouse, and the elder nephews and scarpering off the ship across a lonesome stretch of high road to the local aquarium, where they had the most impressive tarpon I’ve ever seen sailing around in the tanks.

3 Prague (Czech Republic). By default, really, the first time. Our honeymoon was planned to time perfectly with a previously scheduled conducting gig my husband had gotten in Hungary, so we thought we’d fly to Budapest right after the wedding since we were to be picked up there by the festival arrangers. But it was one of the big years for European travel–so much so that there were no tickets to be had anytime close to when we had to be there. So we flew into Prague, fell wildly in love with its superb Gothic-to-Art Nouveau architectural beauties, and were sorry when we did have to leave on the train to Budapest.

4 Tijuana (Mexico). It’s not really what I’d call having been to Mexico! I’m sure it’s quite different now, but if you visited there, say, in the seedy seventies, you know exactly what I mean. But what a colorful experience in a sort of eccentric country-of-its-own. Unforgettable.

5 Winnipeg (Manitoba). I’ve been on the Canadian plains before–not least of all, spending joyful years going to our home-away-from-home in Edmonton, Alberta. But going to Winnipeg in cold, wintry weather was a special kind of revelation. Wonderful historic buildings rising seemingly spontaneously from this incredibly flat expanse allowed me to see distances that seemed almost godlike in the chill and windy silence of the season. Indoors, warmth galore: great events, great food, and most of all, great people. But outside, something uniquely apart that appealed to my soul greatly too.

6 Grim (Kristiansand, Norway). The neighborhood near my sister’s home in Kristiansand is not a tourist destination or remarkable for its unique character, per se, and let’s face it, the name doesn’t read with promise in English! But as it’s the ‘home’ neighborhood for us when we’re there, it has the unbreakable draw of bloodlines coursing through its streets and walkways. And all roads then lead to family. Quite the opposite of feeling grim, indeed, to me.

7 Molokai (Hawaii). After a rough year at work, my father’s friends and supporters gave our family plane tickets to Hawaii, a family to greet us on Oahu and host the start of our visit, and a week’s stay in their condominium on Molokai. When we flew into the dirt-paved airport on Molokai and saw the big scrawl on the tin roof of the “terminal” (using the term advisedly here) shouting “THE FRIENDLY ISLAND” at us in welcome, we almost fell out of the plane laughing. The 6-mile-long island looked so dusty and forlorn and godforsaken that we couldn’t imagine anything would be engaging there. But the condo was peaceful and proved a perfect place for personal restoration after the year’s exhaustion, not to mention for the family to simply regroup a little. And better than that, the locals embraced us as though we were long-lost relatives, feeding and leading us with incredible generosity and kindness that can never be forgotten.

8 Kersey, Suffolk (England). Our late friend Ruth was a world traveler, gourmet cook, lifelong teacher, and one of the kindest souls to grace the planet. She took my sister and me in over American Thanksgiving when we visited her charming home Blue Gate in the English countryside. She fed us glorious meals, showed us the Wool Churches and thoroughbred stables nearby, and took us into the sweet town of Kersey, where she introduced us to a marvelous lady I still suspect of having been a fairy or elf of some sort. With the most perfectly gossamer sterling hair and blue eyes brighter than the North Star, she ruled a tiny woollens shop right beside the most significant natural feature in the village, the main street ford of the stream. Which was no more and no less than a slight depression in the road, and would fill with water at any and every drop of rain or dew, and it was accepted as the Only Thing to Do that when the water came in, the ducks followed, and when the ducks were in the so-called Ducksplash, anyone in an automobile had better just settle in for a wait until the bathing was done rather than risk the ire of the villagers by forcing the ducks out of the little ford to let him pass. The shopkeeper knew full well what a marvel this village was, surviving intact and quietly into the noisy modern age, and told us of a young man who’d visited in the past and was unable to conceive of this sleepy town’s merits. He asked her what on earth it was that had moved so many people to urge him to spend time in Kersey. “You don’t know yet, then?” asked the twinkling lady. He shrugged. She smiled more widely than the Cheshire Cat and said softly, “Well, then, you’ll die wondering, won’t you.”

9 Balatonfüred (Hungary). A resort town on lovely Lake Balaton, situated in wine country and popular as a seaside getaway for many generations, my husband and I and a pair of close friends visited it on the advice of colleagues while we were at that honeymoon music festival I mentioned before in a nearby town. While the town itself is quite charming and pretty and full of interesting people and inviting walks along the water, the driver we hired, who tore up the countryside with us crammed in his little car while he narrated at top speed in delighted broken English, was really the highlight of the trip. His evident pleasure in the outing, in racing his little automobile as though on fire, and in showing us a favorite town were wonderfully contagious.

10 Fort Worth (Texas). Now that I live in a nearby town myself, I have been to this haven of cowboy culture and enjoyed a taste of the present-day version of Old Tejas. There’s something immensely appealing about being in a city big enough for the requisite skyscrapers and big business but still housing pens full of beautiful longhorn cattle within the city limits. Ft Worth has much more resource in the way of arts and culture that I’ve yet to explore, but it’s nice to know that the old west is still alive and well here thousands of miles from where it finally hit the actual west coast of the continent.

Friends Well Met in Cyberspace

Posted on September 22, 2011 by kathryningrid

We have constant reminders of the dangers lurking around the dark corners of the webiverse, and indeed we would do well to heed all such warnings. But I have seen that the obverse of that coin is equally impressive and far more enlightening and cheering: cyberspace is full of fantastic people and inspirations, and I don’t have to go far to find them. The kindness of strangers is quickly transformed into wonderful streams of affinity and even deep friendships when we have the ability to find so much common ground despite the physical, cultural or temporal distances between us.

Case in point: ceciliag, author of the exquisitely artful and personal blog The Kitchens Garden. I saw, without surprise, that today she had received a much-deserved blogging award for her marvelous work, and was delighted, because in the short time I’ve followed her blog I have come to see her as an inspiration, a mentor and even a friend. That’s the beauty of this concentrated contact we can develop with wonderful people whose shared insights and arts move us to do more than merely hang about the fringes basking in their gifts, and actually get to work on our own, howsoever we can! What I saw with surprise, and gratitude, was that C had generously passed along the award to other bloggers, and included me. I will of course try to narrow the field of my admired cohorts enough to pay the gift forward, because others besides ceciliag have strengthened, entertained and inspired me as well. She must know that I would gladly have included her in my own list had she not been the one ‘tagging’ me!

The purpose of the award is clearly to reinforce the ties between us in this remarkably friendly and creative world of blogging, and also to introduce us to more new connexions that we haven’t yet known to enjoy. Along with the fine mandate to share with you some links to other blogs I know you’ll find delightful, I am tasked with telling you 7 things you don’t know about me. Finding 15 bloggers whose work I admire and think deserves recognition is easy (though keeping it to only 15 mightn’t be)–but since I’m so boldly non-secretive a person, I may have to fish around a little to think of any things everybody doesn’t already know about me. So first, a blogroll of other worthy persons whose blogging efforts I hope you’ll support and find as delightful, provocative, educational, witty, touching, and/or flat-out gorgeous as I do.

In Search of My Moveable Feasts

And now, as if my dear readers haven’t already heard enough blather about me, here are seven things you might not have known.

1 I consider ginger root the Universal Donor. I can think of hardly anything that can’t benefit from the addition of ginger in one of its many forms.

2 I have something a little like the earworms people get when a pop song (or, among people I know, a movement from some classical piece) gets stuck in their head for a day or week–but mine is a permanent repetitive tune. My personal theme song, I guess. At least it plays in variations sometimes, thank goodness, or I’d go batty. Or have I already?

3 Once, long ago, I got to make a commissioned artwork to be presented as a gift to the Bishop of El Salvador.

4 The shelves on my desk have a miniature found-science collection of bones, bugs, bird nests, rusted hardware and seed pods.

5 I have a horror of telephones. Yes, it has a good latin phobia name too. But what do we phobics do to get over it–call each other???

6 My ability to raise one (either) eyebrow sardonically once garnered me the nickname “GP” for reminding my teacher of Gregory Peck’s expressions. I don’t think she meant it as a compliment, ‘specially if she had any idea that my sense of irony was mostly aimed at what I thought was the absurdity of her teaching style. Mea culpa.

7 At various points in my life I thought I’d study to be a pastor (that was clearly before I started developing into such a heathen); a marine biologist (all that scientific knowledge started to get in my way); an architect (oh, yeah–a dyslexic who can barely do grade-school math). Turns out I wasn’t really cut out for any sort of well-defined path.

Which brings me right here! And I can definitely say I couldn’t be more pleased with having landed among you. It challenges more different aspects of my personality and self-image than pursuing any of the aforementioned would have done in my case. And it lets me keep up the hunt for my vocation, if I have one, with a dandy support community that often drives me down previously unknown and unexpected paths of fun-filled mystery. So thanks, and here’s to all of you, not just those on today’s list!

Bouquets to all!

a ReSounding ValeNtine to eXuBerant advocates

Posted on August 8, 2011 by kathryningrid

Digital collage of two handmade collages

What are we searching for?

What need have I of inspirations of my own when I’m being diligently hand fed meaningful resources by those around me?

In response to my musing on the Muse, or substitutions for one in absentia (https://kiwsparks.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/titles-without-tales/), XB writes and asks what moved me to begin blogging in the first place. Short answer: XB.

The longer and more precise answer is that those kind souls comprising my Support Group–loved ones, fellow artists and writers, and those standing ready with the occasionally required kick in the hindquarters–made me do it. There are those who will say that that’s a typically long-winded way of saying the Devil Made Me Do It, but I like to think their motives were altruistic, regardless of what anyone thinks of my output. After all, there was the now-famous critique of a gallery installation of mine, and I quote, If I had stuff like that, I’d burn it. Since that came from my very own Gramps, and I knew that he had zero sense of irony but that, well, he loved me, I feel certain that there was no hidden agenda in the remark. Purely observational. In point of fact, my grandfather would have burned the lot of it without a second thought, but luckily for me he didn’t have his hands on the stuff. Turns out, it simply made me consider more seriously my audience, if any. Granny, viewing the photos of the installation from the other side of the table, loved it. Bless her soul.

My grandmother, let’s be honest, would have loved my work if it were the closest thing to excrement produced by anything other than a mammalian digestive system, because she so closely associated it with me, whom she also loved. I think she really did get a kick out of the art installation in question, aesthetically speaking, but it was irrelevant in the context of the moment. What I was beginning to figure out was that there are as many filters, as many reasons for liking or disliking what an artist does, as there are electrons in the known universe. And that’s counting the town of Electron, Washington. I was also starting to understand that I was compelled to Make Stuff (pictures, poems, stories, sculptures) without regard for whether anyone else would care or not, would like it or not. This was a very useful realization, as freeing as that period when I discovered that if I made larger quantities of stuff, it wouldn’t matter as much if the same percentage didn’t turn out the way I wanted, I just had more to recycle.

Meanwhile, ambling back to the main question (all roads do lead to me) the concomitant bit of info seeping into my lizard brain was that it did matter to and please others that I made my art and that I shared it. So far I’ve never forced anyone to look at or read my work, unless you count teachers required to evaluate assigned things. Thus, I’ve become more comfortable with the idea that if something I do catches someone’s interest, they will likely come willingly to gaze and, if I’m especially fortunate, to make it a communal experience by responding to it as some of you have here.

Which all loops conveniently back to why I’m blogging. I’ve long been happy to haul out the artwork or haul visitors to where it is, if invited (or if a blank wall is foolishly left near me when I’m on a tear). But my friends, family, and other supporters are far-flung in the physical world and we all have remarkably scheduled lives. So when some of the same gang began to suggest that I consider sharing via a more “portable” and less time-constrained medium, the internet, it started to seem like a good idea. Further, when I began to notice how much more I enjoyed the compulsion to write and draw and whatnot if I actually practiced in a slightly disciplined way, not to mention that I sometimes even got noticeably better at it, then blogging at last appeared to be a logical outlet. I acquiesced. Here I am, forty-some posts into it and scratching my head in wonder.

In another completely unsurprising development of the sort that makes me slap myself in the forehead with an appropriately gobsmacked expression, I got a quick reminder that my attraction to art-making is inextricably intertwined with the urge for storytelling; that storytelling is one of the most basic and universal forms of communication; and that I meet and come to know yet another round of good and encouraging and inspiring people via this medium of ether-wandering. From my Oz correspondent at ‘the wuc’ (http://thewuc.com/) to my longtime friend and artistic supporter Mark who shoots me responsive emails from Edmonton, AB, to this morning’s surprise blog subscription from a high school address in Kathmandu, Nepal, I gain strength and hope and camaraderie and ideas. And this morning, from XB right here in my neck of the woods, I get the impetus for a whole new day’s blog entry.

So thank you, XB, thank you spouse and parents and siblings, Jimmy Dale and VN and my personal Dragonfly, and Candas, and so on ad infinitum. This blog’s for you.

With continued gratitude . . .

Never fear, though, while I do indeed have a soft squishy marshmallow center, I also blog because it’s a socially acceptable place nowadays to whine, vent my spleen with unseemly rants and generally behave like my crusty curmudgeonly exterior wants to do. Just a little caveat, my dears, lest you forget whilst I’m busy drizzling the much-deserved honey on y’all.

Art-Colored Glasses

Original poetry, essays, artworks, photographs & musings on whatever moves me…

Tag Archives: Blog

The ABCs of Me, Episode 3

The ABCs of Me, Episode 2

I Know My ABCs, but I’m Not So Clear on My Ps & Qs

Awesome Blog Content Award

Mrs. Sparkly’s Ten Commandments, I Mean Ten Questions. And More.

“Thank You” is an Excellent Exit Line. Or Opener. Oh, Both, of Course!

Highfalutin Company

I Hereby Crown Myself Mistress of the Mess-ups and Guru of Good Intentions

Friends Well Met in Cyberspace

a ReSounding ValeNtine to eXuBerant advocates

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