New beginings!

Ah, it's a new year. Thank goodness!
Today I took ALL my Christmas stuff down and packed it all away for next year.
I replaced Christmas things in my kitchen window with this gorgeous old meat cleaver my Dad gave me for Christmas '08. I love hanging stuff by ribbons and I think this orange and black striped one gives it an extra ominous appeal.

Unfortunately as the day wore on I get sicker and sicker:( No fair! I had strep before Christmas and got just well enough in time to get together with my family on Christmas day, thankfully. I often get sick a few times in a row, what a gyp. So now I am up with my head burning & snotty writing in my blog at 4 A.M.
While packing up my Christmas things I remembered going through that ritual after Christmas of '04 and writing myself a note tucked away so that I would find it the next year, a little time capsule.
I planned on attending The American College of the Building Arts in '05 and I knew the next Christmas would find me in a world I could not yet imagine. I tried to picture myself living in Charleston S.C. as an architectural restoration student; new town, new job, new friends, new life. How exciting!
Here is a picture I took last May when the inaugural class graduated. This is a student's example of ornamental plaster restoration which was my major.

And this is the Charleston City Jail which the school has been working on restoring for years and houses their main offices. It is absolutely gorgeous and crammed with history. Yankee prisoners were held inside during the Civil War and you can read their graffiti scratched into the walls inside.
Long story short; it wasn't meant to be after all. I moved there August 2005, started school on the 18th, and developed a debilitating illness on September 15th, my Mom's birthday.


After months of driving between there and back to my Dr. in Charlotte and missing school it was decided that I would withdraw that semester with the option to start over in '06.....

For a time, Charleston was the city that broke my heart, with it's achingly beautiful live oaks and haunting old graveyards; it will always remain my one true love.

......but that was not my path after all and after much heartache I am here, now, much wiser and much more certain of what I am doing.....
That's the short version. These past 5 years have felt more like 10 and I am astounded at the ways my life has changed. Those first few years I was completely broken hearted, broken down...broken. But like a phoenix I have risen out of the ashes to be born anew. I put myself back together. I am always looking with an open heart and an open mind for the path before me.

This is how I see my life; every moment of every day I make choices, like a map with many different paths. Maybe it's true that for every choice you can make a new universe opens up with that version of you going down that path, infinite versions of yourself are being created at every moment...but I can only be one Dusti at a time (I'm not completely crazy)!
This Dusti is always looking for the best fork in the road. I have to believe that there is one true life that is the best one, one path on the map that will lead me to my greatest self.
Life is like a many forked roller coaster ride swish-swooshing by very fast, you have to decide "right, left or straight"! Like those Chose Your Own Adventure books when I was a kid; surely there is an optimum outcome, right?
This year I will hang on tight and enjoy the ride, and trust that a combination of good sense, strong intuition and bravery will serve me well on this journey.

A contemplative new year's eve...

Yesterday at Bran's house we began a crafting frenzy starting a Victorian feather tree! Stuff was flying all over the place as she hastily improvised in ways that both made my skin crawl and delighted me at the same time. Once she has it in her mind to get something done, conventional methods be damned! Come Hell or high water "thy will be done".
Here she is cutting a dowel down to size with what? A Dremmel! She gets her money's worth out of this all purpose tool; she's a regular MacGuyver with that thing. She uses the same drill bit on it to cut through a variety of materials as well as to drill holes. And when it's all the way in she uses the tool's chuck as a grinding burr!
I looked forward to getting the half started tree back to my house where I must say, I generally have everything I could ever want at my disposal.
The idea of a feather tree is a stick on a stand with several tiers of branches all sticking straight out leaving several inches in between tiers to hang ornaments. They are gorgeous and the possibilities are endless! We robbed the metal base from a 1960's lamp she had in the basement. We saved the middle stand part to be used on another project later and trashed the rest.
I made a rudimentary sketch of the tree last night before bed just to get the ideas flowing. Next time I'll use a softer lead so it shows up in the photograph.
Today I sharpened my technique until it was flawless! It took me a total of 3 hours of twisting, twisting and more twisting of black annealed wire onto the dowel to complete all the branches. I'm quite pleased with myself.
Once I get the feathers on it I will post another picture for your viewing pleasure.
Here is a "very Brady" clock I got from the thrift store to turn into something fabulous...
I'm not sure what to do with it yet. I'm thinking something with skulls, what a shocker right?
I only realized it is new year's eve about three hours ago! I thought it was tomorrow. No matter, I'm not a big new year's party-er anyway. I finished a glass of wine early and when I set it on the kitchen counter I thought Mixie just looked so cute curled up on the beaver pelt! Don't ask why there;s a beaver pelt on the kitchen counter. Actually I just got it out to try to photograph some ornaments I made to put on eBay. I keep it hidden so Roxi doesn't find it and chew it into oblivion.
Here's a shot of the ornaments. Aren't they adorable? I just painted the skulls on with a metallic silver Sharpie. I did them all free-hand yesterday and the day before. I like the skulls over crossed swords the best. Skulls are my "go-to" motif. As I was drawing them on I remembered drawing a skull and crossbones on a class mate's hand in fourth grade...
...I can almost remember his name; it was "La-something" or "De-something". He was a sweet and charismatic black boy. I had an eraser pencil thing. Instead of lead in the middle it had a white eraser, and I could draw on his brown skin and it showed up beautifully. We were both pleased with the results, kind of a "fourth grade tattoo".
Fourth grade was the most dreaded of ALL the grades for me, and drawing in my spiral bound notebooks or on a friend's hand were my only pleasures; like a tortured artist carving a bar of soap in prison it was my only creative outlet. I don't recall even having art class at that dreaded school. I felt like a prisoner, and facing an entire school year may as well have been a life sentence.
To simply say I hated school would be a vast understatement. I remember vowing to myself that no matter what I would not live my adult life feeling the way I did as a kid in school. I could not endure waking up every day to the same feeling of dread I felt every morning as I headed off to school. I was comforted by the belief that anything would be better than school; surely this would be an easy thing to attain! I honestly think I would have been happier as child laborer on an assembly line or machining bomb components.
To my great joy I can say I enjoy adult life looking forward to each new day. I fill my days taking care of myself, observing the world and creating things. Some days I create art, some days I bake, some days I repair things, and on the best days I write about it.

Thanks for sharing all these things with me.
I can't wait to see how I will live a better life in 2010 than all the years before it!
Happy New Year!

man in the moon clock on eBay

Here is a clock I painted. It is on eBay for 6 more days!




http://cgi.ebay.com/OOAK-Man-in-the-Moon-clock-handpainted-bubble-glass-bat_W0QQitemZ250555604237QQihZ015QQcategoryZ158655QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3286.m7QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D3%26ps%3D63

I spent yesterday painting. I love Christian Icons, the archangels, Jesus, Mary and saints. I've always wanted to do a similar painting but with animal heads in place of human ones. This is my first stab at it. Keep in mind it is still unfinished.
I need to change his hands; either his right hand could be the weird two fingered "Pope hands" or he could be holding a spear like one of the angels. Actually, the only part remotely right so far is his cute little 'possum head. The wings are okay, but the rest has to change.
I moved on to paint ornaments for a change of pace. I love these black ornaments and there's so much you can do with them but to me they begged for Jolly Rogers, yarg! On the larger ones I painstakingly brushed the skulls on in gesso with a tiny liner brush. I'll go back over those today with white acrylic. I love this kind of tedium; mandibles, tiny teeth, nose holes.
I also have small 2" ornaments and for these I switched to a silver sharpie. I'd like to have a twin tip for the smaller detail but I don't know if they make metallics in twin tip? I'm favoring this method because it's just one step. You can't make any mistakes though, once it's on there that's it.
It is 32 degrees outside and a wonderful day to stay inside detailing cute little Halloween things.
I had a thought yesterday about the one advantage Christmas has over Halloween. On November 1st Halloween is over (except at my house). It is a huge let down, you just have to go cold turkey, society in general moves on straight to Christmas without even slowing down to Thanksgiving. It is awful. In contrast, Christmas has a whole week of decompression built in. The week between Christmas and New Year's is a time you can leave the tree up, relax and enjoy the afterglow of the holiday. It's traditional to leave all the decor in place until New Year's day. By the time January first rolls around I am ready to take down the tree and all things Christmas and move on with the New Year, a fresh start!
Even though I'm not a die hard New Year's Eve-r I always welcome the "clean slate" feeling it brings with it. I don't usually go out to do the count down, it's just not my holiday. I will spend this one at home with a glass of wine with a fire burning in the new year. I might throw something symbolic on it as a ritual cleansing, maybe some old medical bills!
I am ready to move on!

Clutch

Wow, I went out in public to see one of my favorite bands play last night. I am now deaf. It was worth it. I wasn't able to get close enough to get any good shots, but these still capture the energy of the night. Clutch has a HUGE following and Amos' was packed to overflowing. The air was thick with testosterone as their fan base is mostly male. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of ladies there too, but we were outnumbered.

Being in a big crowd does not make my list of top 100 places I'd like to be. I've always been that way, but I'm working on it. It's not like a phobia, it's more like being around so many bodies just sucks the energy right out of me. I remember going to some very epic heavy metal shows as a teenager and feeling so conflicted; I really wanted to see the band but I dreaded the crowd.
In an effort to get over it I made up a little ritual to gather my energy and get my "shields up" as soon as I walked in.
I walked to the back and found an unoccupied corner to adjust. I played the stare at the floor game for a few minutes. (Behold my view above).
Then I fiddled with my camera trying to find a mode best suited to override the flash. I dislike pictures taken with a flash. I take lots of pictures and all that flashing makes me feel conspicuous and annoying in a crowd. People were going up and down the stairs in droves; none of them knows their feet made it into my blog.

After I got warmed up I made it up close to the stage; I hopped on the wave of energy from the crowd. Everybody was so "up" and sparkly. It occurred to me at that moment that watching a live performance makes for a great opportunity to truly live in the moment. Your attention stays focused on whatever is being presented and you can really "be here now". I was surprised to discover that being in a crowd can be a nearly meditative experience in it's own way.

There were so many people rockin' out, and little to no drunken aggression. The one time somebody had to get carried out we all parted like the Red Sea to make way, no problem. There is a weird collective consciousness of a like minded crowd that reminds me of a flock of birds; they can move as one body, synchronizing when necessary. That is the flip side to stampedes where people get trampled to death at events. As many shows as I've been to, I've seen far more examples of camaraderie than fear and malice.
I love this shot; guys in front of me making Devil horns, the traditional gesture reserved for the most awesome of rock. We were a happy group. I did see some kids skulking around looking like they had a chip on their shoulder which of course reminded me of being that age. And then I realized that I am an adult; I remember what it's like to be young and inexplicably angry, and I just smile knowing they'll get over it someday and laugh at the angry kids too.