New & Improved!

Tonight is a time to rejoice! First off we are having the most glorious snow like we hardly never get around here anymore. although it does seem like just yesterday I took Roxi out to play in the evening snow when she was just a little Pokey Puppy of a thing. She's a year old now.
I took her outside tonight to frolic in the silently falling snow, and to take a few pictures although I do so hate to use a flash that there's really no use.
Here's one I tried to get just because the sky has that glowing, snowing, otherworldly feel. Even though it's not in any kind of focus, I think it still conveys the right tone...

Secondly, I recently came into a Nikon D50. I know! Amazing! Where to even begin?
I suppose it began last month when I told my Mom "I don't know how, but I am going to get a digital SLR in the new year"...I really didn't know how, but I knew that I would.
Fast forward to this week, my cousin had this one sitting in its box and found out that I was in need of one, so he mailed it to me! How's that for manifesting? Don't try to tell me intention doesn't work.
I am just playing around with it tonight, trying to relearn all I once knew about photography. I was never any kind of "real" photographer, but I knew my F-stops, ISOs and shutter speeds. This camera is so entirely different than my beloved 1970s Minolta, but wow cam,eras have come a long way. I am generally a purist but I am loving all this new technology. If nothing else the ability to take seemingly unlimited shots as freely as you please and weed through the whole batch for free and fast on your computer, all that alone is enough to turn even the most Curmudgeony of cynics into fans.
I need the ability to get good close up shots of tiny things, fine detail for portfolio purposes and for bringing new & improved photo quality to this blog! I can get this close up with a 35-70 mm. And these interior shots are all taken with existing lighting (I didn't even try to set up anything) and free handed!
I've been walking around for hours with it hanging from my neck and I don't much plan to go around without it too much for a spell. It feels like an entity in your hands as the AF lens zooms and zips in and out as you set up your shots. I had almost forgotten how the sound of a shutter clicking thrills me!
This is my mantle, just playing around with a little depth of field stuff...(planning for a nice row of old tombstones in crooked lines later).

By the way, how spoiled am I? I get to be an art snob because I'm lucky enough to have to many wonderful artists as friends and family. Brandi painted this for me several years ago, and it is a scene that I could just jump right into. It's her rendition of one of the Pre Rephaelites' work and I love it. I call it my "Graveyard painting" (guess I should find out the title and artist's name) and it hangs above my stove.
Here is another closeup of objet d'art a.k.a. cool stuff I have layin' around. I do love my vintage maple shoe forms. Aren't they pretty?

Let me just say thank you to everyone who continues to inspire me and support me throughout my very charmed life.
Thanks!

****************Dana Dee: Glimpse, Part 2

Do yourself a solid and check this out. Short and sweet.

****************Dana Dee: Glimpse, Part 2

I shouldn't even show pics of these WIPs because they are only in the conceptual stages...But here are some skull pendants I'm cobbling together from "space age polymer" skulls, vintage rhinestones and other bit of thisn and that. I am going to rearrange things, I'm just playing with components right now. It's fun. I'm thinking of gold or silver leafing the skulls, putting rhinestone eyes in both and making the one on the right into an elaborate Victorian style choker. I'll keep you posted.
I also want to incorporate some .22 hornet shells, like the earrings I made when i was 14. Tell me those aren't redneck magnets!

I drove out to Bran's again today to collaborate on our feather tree and to get each other going. We made good progress but hit a wall around 3. I always have a slump that time of day. When I finally decided to suck it up and get back up the light had changed drastically.
At one time it was electric blue...

...then it got colder and turned this gorgeous steel gray with dramatic clouds, it smelled like snow outside.

I'm so tired. Time to go to turn the heat way down and get in bed with a very snuggly Miss Roxi to keep me warm.
To all a good night!

****************Dana Dee: Cornflower Blue Mix, in some detail

Here is a link to my friend Dana's blog. This post is just about some of her favorite songs. Her short critiques are uniquely perfect, such an indulgence to read. You should check it out. I was just writing back and forth to another friend about music, actually about writing about music....


****************Dana Dee: Cornflower Blue Mix, in some detail: "Observations, thoughts and stories from my life in Western North Carolina"



...let me get to that.

A Bruise

There's a blue bruise with a cut in the middle about toe-sized on my leg. I don't know how it got there. I think I've done this before...

...I can't remember running into something, or any event that caused this injury...

...but I do have a vague memory of saying distractedly "son of a bitch!", like you'd do after you ran into something, or got attacked by a critter...

It made me think that maybe I'd want that to work on memories of bad things too, for a little. Would it be better? If you could in some automatic, natural kind of way just forget the details of say, a bad year you had or 4th grade. You'd think to yourself "I think I really hated the multiplication tables" but you wouldn't have to remember all the details of how you struggled against your arch nemesis every day. Whatever, insert your own bad memory. Would that be better? I guess it's sort of like that, you can't remember physical pain.

I think you have to remember; life is good and it's your life.
I'm not dwelling on bad things. Lately I've felt free and inspired and excited. I expect good things. "Psychic connections" flyin' around all over the place, ideas being created, art being set into motion...

...quothe the redneck:
"I got me all kinda ideas can't nobody touch !"

Soon that bruise will turn yellow, the scratch will close up and I won't remember any of it until next time I find a bruise and can't remember how it got there. I'll say "I think I've done this before".

What a day, and what an enchanting evening.
I'm struck by the thought of how magical this weather is. All day, it looked wintery outside; the sky had its steel gray January appearance. As cold as it looked, it was mild and pleasurable.

As I took Roxi outside just before dark, I was hypnotized by the color of things. The inky black silhouettes against the purple and blue skies, low, all around everything.

The warm air kisses you tonight on a sultry breeze. It whispers for you to stay outside, go into the woods, stand barefoot in a cold creek, listen to the music the trees make.

There are so many places I want to go right now. I need a graveyard trip soon. Maybe the one with the stone wall around it on Rocky River, or Sugaw Creek Baptist on Tryon...? Those are closer than Charleston, which I must visit soon. Also the farm, oh how I'd love to sleep in the woods tonight. My spot in the woods to sleep is much closer to a house now, and closer to the edge of the woods. But it's still there!
I'd love to be able to live in the woods during a (won't say it!) low energy time; that's the cure for what ails you.
Fortunately nothing ails me. I have peace and harmony and I'm full of creativity,
among other things...

Stop-Dana time!

Okay okay okay wait just a damn minute! My friend Dana previously discovered my blog, thus I found her blog and have been letting her regale me with tales of her travels and life via her delightful writing, which you too can treat yourself to here:
(Just a couple of tidbits of kernels of Dana's wisdom, I highly recomend)

http://dana-dee.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-tiny-slice-of-this-place-fits-into.html

http://dana-dee.blogspot.com/2009/09/one-crazy-ass-type-mommy-blogger.html

A few choice words about Dana Nagel. First off she is the weirdest girl I've ever met, and that right there should tell you something. She's a kindred spirit for sure, in just the weirdest way. I met her in gym class in 11th grade; sadly, she was in 12th grade so I just had the one year to enjoy with her in school. We immediately began skipping gym to go to a lunch period that obviously was not ours. Our coach was kind of a perv, and we objected to the class in general. The two of us together could scarcely take anything seriously anyhow.
I was amazed and delighted to learn that she did not use any recreational drugs; she was like that naturally! What's she like? She is like a far out weird-a-roo who makes everything very fun and funny, and you laugh your pants off over the most unremarkable things together.
One time she found a note some kid had posted on a telephone pole in her neighborhood for his friend to read, this of course was in the 90's, preceding Facebook and cell phones. I wish I was in possession of the note; it said things like "by the way, your parents have a nice f#@!&*g liquor cabinet" and other choice bits of poetic genius that only a 14 year old boy can write.
She had all manner of friends who were all unusual characters themselves, as someone like Dana does not attract only one "type" of person, even in high school.
Also we could be very serious together about things, and we went to the mountains to do naked sweat lodges with my spiritual mentor Ayal, who I had met earlier at the age of 14. She is very genuine and sincere and in no way conforms to anything at all. She is an excellent friend and a seriously fabulous writer.
Don't believe me? See for yourself...(please see links to her blog above)