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."

What I'd Like to Know

Remember in the 70's when everyone was talking about "dream learning"? That was the theory that one could learn things by subliminally listening to tapes while asleep. I was intrigued and I would have tried it, but instead I went to sleep each night exhausted and didn't want to stress my brain with more learning.

But now I'm still lazy but not so exhausted and I would really like to try it . Here are some of the subjects I would have piped into my sleeping brain - things I'm too lazy to research during the day but would like to know more about:

The HEALTHCARE PLAN

POLITICS IN THE MILLENIUM IN AMERICA
and subtitles for that course would include:
what is a Democrat?
what is a Republican?
how does pork barrelling work?
how come political talk show hosts can say anything they want AND represent it as TRUTH?

The BAIL OUT

GLOBAL WARMING

Where did all the "Third World Countries" go - or
what are they calling those nations now and how has anything changed for them since 1980?

LIGHT TRAVEL (not meaning "travelling light" but rather travelling on actual light)

that would be a good beginning, I guess.



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