shower curtain art, mosaic and mandala

It goes like this...

You get a phone call from your friend who lives down the street.

You tell your wife the woman from Texas is on her way.

She arrives with two things in hand--- her most highly favored shower curtain, and her medicine cabinet door.

She tells mosaic woman to match the colors.

You cut strips of glass that match the colors. You make a pile of the glass in case more strips are needed.

The mosaic....






You draw a mandala and need to pick colors. You see the pile of glass you had made. You could put it away, or you can use it as inspiration. The shower curtain Mandala comes to life...




side notes...

to see our ETSY shop click here.

another glorious trip to Willow Creek Orchards... they still have peppers and tomatoes from PA! we also got Chinese cabbage, radishes, cheddar cheese, milk from pasture fed cows, maple cream, sweet onions, potatoes....

I am going to make bread tomorrow. I've been itching. Mosaic Woman has been craving.

I am going to see The Turtle Island String Quartet tonight play some standards favored and written by John Coltrane. Here is story on NPR about the Love Supreme with links to their music.

Searching for a cassette by The Cure, I found another memory from 1986: a sweet voice that led me down the road of folk music...

The album ends with a song that is sad yet hopeful...

Nanci Griffith: The Wing and The Wheel

The wing and the wheel... they carry things away
Whether it's me that does the leavin' or the love that flies away
The moon outside my window looks so lonely tonight
Oh, there's a chunk out of it's middle... big enough for an old fool to hide

Where are all the dreamers... that I used know?
We used to linger beneath street lamps in the halos and the smoke
The wing and the wheel... came to carry them away
Now they all live out in the suburbs where their dreams
Are in their children at play

There's a pale sky in the east... all the stars are in the west
Oh, here's to all the dreamers... may our open hearts find rest
The wing and the wheel are gonna carry us along
And we'll have memories for company... long after the songs are gone

no longer...

Mosaic Woman and I just watched a music video from the 1980's. We laughed. We remembered. We were scared.

I play lots of jazz in my classroom, you know anything to rile up the masses.

One angry young man used to say..."Why don't you play rock music?"

My answer.... "I am no longer an angry young man."

So what took us to a place of wanting to watch a video by the Cure. It was a rather cool movie called Starter for Ten, which was set in 1986 and the lead was a freshman at university. The soundtrack was a flashback. I graduated from college, toured the Catskills on my bike and ended the year cutting my hair to teach at a military academy. I owned jeans with many holes. Mosaic Woman was beginning her college days in her purple high tops and a pin of a snake with a nuclear missile in its mouth. I think you could say we were angry about a few things and we listened to rock music.

so here is the video: The Cure: A NIGHT LIKE THIS .... not one of the several The Cure songs featured in the movie, but was on an album I owned/own.

where were you in 1986?


By the way... I am still angry at times, I just like jazz these days. However, I see myself digging into my musical past as I spend time in my studio this weekend...

The shower curtain mandala was soldered last night, now I just need some sunlight and my camera.

2000 miles ago

A few days ago I searched through my LP's and there came a memory. It was the Pretenders.... Learning To Crawl... that I played which caused a trip back to my angry young man days. Here is the last song... 2000 miles.

and I was at an election night party. We were sad for our guy was going down by over 10% points to Arlen Specter. Maybe it was the anger of being a born again environmentalist while Ronald Reagan was doing all he could to replace all the Redwoods with a plastic tree that led me to that party. It was the only campaign I have ever worked for. I still would vote for the man. Maybe Bob Edgar is glad he lost that election in 1986 for he has done quite a bit with his life outside of being a US senator. And here I am 22 years older respecting the man I wanted so badly to lose. Specter is a dinosaur in DC, a moderate Republican.

The campaign was over and the party would be the last time I saw all those people who had come together because we believed in Edgar. I don't know if I saw it as a last time event when I was there.

Jesus saw the last supper as a final event. He "ardently" desired to be with those good folk, for one last glass of wine. One more feast with friends before the suffering. In week three of the spiritual exercises I am to walk with this man I have befriended during week two and be there for him as he suffers. Jesus filled with joy to have a community he so desired to ist down and eat with one last time. Jesus filled with dread as he faced his suffering. The dread that flows out later in the garden. How blessed to have that final meal? How blessed I am that final meal took place? How blessed to share that cup every Sunday?

At the party, a woman I had grown fond of was getting drunk and sad. A Pretenders song came on the stereo and she said something that has stuck with me. "They just don't spit vile like they used too." Strange what stays connected in your mind.

So yes, 2000 miles doesn't spit vile, but Chrissie Hynde was stuck in the cold missing someone, who was too far away and ardently wishing that the person will come back.

I will be at that part of the story soon enough, but till then there is loving someone so much that you will be by their side when they suffer, and miss them dearly when they are gone. and hope with all your heart you will see them again.

were you with me 2000 miles ago in the Lehigh valley?