current beadwork

These beaded rosettes and a barrette are examples of my current work

I started beading when I was about 16 so it has been awhile. It began with one of those little craft looms and a fascination with Native style designs. Over the years I have experimented with many styles but I still like Native designs best. I have never had a teacher, but my inspiration comes from old things, nature, and things I see in museums. I often sit down to bead a rosette and have no idea what it will look like. Other times I muse on the design for days before I put it on graph paper, and then it still turns out different. I've been selling my work to a leather worker who mounts the rosettes on leather jackets and bags. I also make hand-laced leather apparel and bags, but I am still a beginner at it. For more images, please see my website adahsarts.itgo.com or stay tuned here as I learn to post on this blog.

Masks

I'm thinking about nothing pretty much all day today - that happens sometimes. Its a more visual day.

These pics are from the Masques for Owein 2008 video I made last year and want to load here but I can't get it to load. I'm still learning about all of this.

Going through old projects that I've never shared with anyone is a good idea sometimes - throwing stuff out and editing etc. Glad to have a place to share things that would otherwise just sit on the shelf.

Today August 25 2009 I discover >>>

I discover new things everyday, without meaning to. Today, first off, I find the site engrish.com all about those wacky misuses of English on foreign signs and instructions - a whole website is dedicated to even blogging (brogging) in engrish-speak. OK, many knew about this already but I discovered it today. And now I've started thinking in engrish and I want to inflict it on even those who don't think it all that funny.

Then, (when reading a great book called Off the Beaten Track by Jerry Parker, a naturalist writing about Sonoma and specifically the valley and mountain where I live) I discover with his help Chuang Tzu - who famously dreamed of being a butterfly and then was no longer sure which was the real thing - man dreaming? or butterfly dreaming?

And I was sad when the day started! I was sad, and bored, and frustrated with the loneliness and meaningless-ness of it all. My tasks seemed dreary and the fog was just fog. Now I have hope again. Thank you internet! Thank you Jerry Parker!

It also seems important to me, somehow, that all of this knowledge is available instantaneously since I am now a "senior" = which reminds me to research that word and see if I can find out when all this talk about "seniors" started and why. Why can't we just be the "old folks"? I like the term, and it describes us, while "senior" is so relative. ah well. But anyhow - the time seems short and if I want knowledge I must grab it fast!

Chuang Tzu says it for me "Already my will is vacant and blank. I go nowhere and don't know how far I've gone. I go and come and don't know where to stop. I've already been there and back, and I don't know when the journey is done. I ramble and relax in unbounded vastness. Great Knowledge enters in, and I don't know where it will ever end."