Telling Our Story at The Chester County Guild of Craftsmen

Wednesday after a day of teaching I am headed to West Chester for a business trip.  The trip has two purposes, but for now let me say that I am going to tell the creative people of Chester County how Mosaic Woman and I use social media to make connections that can lead to sales.

I will tell of the joy of finding Ignatius loving RevGals, Icelandic jazz artists, and a Hawaiian book lover. I will talk about Snowcatchers and lizards.  I will celebrate my "jury duty" special.

I will have them imagine amber mandalas of hope, mugs on retreat, Blue Jays and house numbers.

I will tell them if they don't want to spend time connecting with people or they don't think internet friendships are real, they may want to focus their energies elsewhere.  I will tell them I can't imagine not being friends with some amazing people who are real, heck I've met enough of them to have data.

anyway, if you want to see me tell stories of connections that not only bring sales, but bring me joy, hope, and peace.

The Lyrical Chef Surprises Red and Creates Hope

   you will create this, because of this...



You come home and on the porch is a book.  There is no note.  Feel free to wonder why "Sean Scully: Works on Paper" is now in your house.

Go ahead, assume a phone call or e-mail will explain.  But you are left living a mystery.

Then one day, The Lyrical Chef shows up, unexpected as you expect.

He has something to say to you.

"I want a gift for Red.  This is all I ask.  I left a book here.  I want you to be inspired by Sean Scully.  I want something between x$ and y$.  I want it by Christmas.  I want to give it to Red."

You are one who believes that your brain works while you sleep, so you take the book to your bed and you look though it... night after night.  You are trusted to create something.  You are blessed.

Eventually images like this begin to become part of your daily thoughts

 
But your favorite number is 21, so you imagine this:

7 columns times 3 horizontal boxes

and

3 horizontal boxes times 7 pieces in each box.

You love Youghiogheny glass and you love your friends... the columns.

For diversity you turn to amber... the boxes.

Now it is Christmas Eve.  You have gotten all other commissions into the hands of the givers, but where is the Lyrical Chef?

The daughter e-mails.  A time is set.  And 20 minutes after the exchange of cash and unexpected sticky buns, you head off to worship with Red, who knows much, but not about this...

  


and thus there were 14 shades of amber glass sitting on my drafting table which cried out to be something special... 

Crafting On Thursday- headed out to tell their story in Skippack

on sale
So we have been inside doing shows for the last 6 months, and now we have put our panels away and dusted off our tent.

Mosaic Woman and I meet all the new challenges of the change in scenery and of course the weather forecast anxiety will come into play, but I am looking forward to having some natural light flowing through my glass. I won't be able to hang the stories of the pieces up, so it will be up to me to tell the stories myself, and I do enjoy telling stories. The stories behind my designs are true, unlike some places my mind can go (like lies about dusting tents).

So Skippack it will be, this weekend. Stop by and say hello. I'll tell you a story

Spring Fest

May 7th and May 8th, 2011
10:00 am- 5:00 pm
Victorian Carriage Shops
4039 Skippack Pike
Skippack, PA

News stories, short stories, my stories

Maybe it was listening to stories about swine flu all week.

Maybe it was reading a short story from 1975 about the fear caused by cholera on Wednesday night...

... "No, there is more than the body of a man that you have in there," I said. Because now I was sure what it was. I had heard the talk up and down the river, and everyone was afeared that it was coming back, any day now. I don't mind saying that I was afeared too. And had been for a long time at the thought it was coming.

from The Burial by Jack Matthews

Maybe it was the dead squirrel on my side walk Friday morning.

I love making up stories so all day Friday I found myself telling this one...

Have you heard that Squirrel Flu has come to Lansdale? You see, when I left the house for work I saw what I thought was a dead squirrel on the sidewalk at the bottom of my porch steps. I went in to tell Mosaic Woman that she may want to stay inside for a moment. I was going to head back to the garage for a shovel when I realized I had a snow shovel in the mudroom. It was when I was scooping up the squirrel that I realized it wasn't quite dead. It turned and faced me and with a final gasp, it coughed directly at my face. Knowing that deadly flu viruses can spread from other species, I began to be concerned when I my temperature rose over 100 and I began twitching nervously in the middle of a road not sure which way to run away from oncoming traffic. A concerned friend tells me that the final stage of the disease involves raiding bird feeders and making squirrel like sounds.

Anyway. I have always felt blessed to be living in a country and during a period of time when fear of infectious disease has been so low. Cholera, Typhoid, TB, Polio.... I am also glad that my tax money goes to the CDC. I don't expect them to always say the wisest statements, but I believe in their mission.

I imagine the human brain has a special section to fear diseases that spread causing much suffering as they move through populations. Listening to folk this week, I believe our brains are alive and well, and thus full of fear.

For my part I tell stories. And my students, who know me well, say... "You're lying to us again."

and I say, "part of it is true."

may peace be with you.

unsettled

That's how it feels right now. and I don't know how to write about it. So I turn to Julie Miller.

Her CD, Blue Pony, is one of my favorites and I had not listened to it for a couple years. I hoped something would resonate.

I have been openly telling my life story to a new friend, who I wish lived closer. She came to my school on three occasions to train us teachers this past year. After the second visit I e-mailed her and said I thought we would be friends if she lived closer. She agreed, but I did not keep the messages flowing. After the third visit, I e-mailed her to say that I would have made an attempt to be social with her, except for the fact that I had signed up for a silent retreat which started two hours after the training. She e-mailed with questions about the retreat and I did not stop the flow.

The scientist inside wants to know why I can see a person and sense a new friend, or in the case of Mosaic Woman, a person to intimately share a life. But the part of me which is glad the world is still filled with mysteries, is feeling joy when yet another e-mail arrives from my new friend and is glad to leave it there as a mystery. I fall into a trust as I tell her how I have arrived here in 2008 over a series of e-mails, and I am blessed as her story unfolds in the messages sent back to me, and I listen to Julie Miller sing these words:

By Way Of Sorrow (Julie Miller)

You've been taken by the wind
You have known the kiss of sorrow
Doors that would not take you in
Outcast and a stranger

You have come by way of sorrow
You have come by way of tears
But you'll reach your destiny
Meant to find you all these years
Meant to find you all these years

You have drunk a bitter wine
With none to be your comfort
You who once were left behind
Will be welcome at love's table

You have come by way of sorrow
You have come by way of tears
But you'll reach your destiny
Meant to find you all these years
Meant to find you all these years

All the nights that joy has slept
Will awake to days of laughter
Gone the tears that you have wept
You'll dance in freedom ever after

You have come by way of sorrow
You've come over a stoney ground
But you'll reach your destiny
Meant to find you all these years
Meant to find you all these years

Tinkie Tunes(ASCAP)/Martha Road(ASCAP)

Peace