March BJP Finished - Difficult to write about....

When you look at this detail picture and the whole piece below, what do you think it's about?




Like all of my BJP pieces this year, the cross represents the intersection between me and something else going on in my life. What do you think this is?

If you have the impression that it has something to do with spirituality, you're right. It's about me and my higher power.

This is a difficult subject for me, ever since my early college years when I abandoned all faith in the Christian church after witnessing several improprieties by the pastor of the Congregational Church where I had been Confirmed. For decades I declared myself an agnostic.

In my 50s, writing and reading poetry, learning Tai Chi, and befriending an artist-shaman who introduced me to the concept of "totem animals," brought me out of agnosticism and into a limbo of vague spiritualism. In this realm, there was no supreme being and definitely no force responsive to me or my needs. Rather, it seemed more like the power of positive thinking. A small force stemming from within me toward good, healing and beauty; a connection to the same force in others. There was a contentment in those years and an optimism I'd never felt before.

After getting married and moving to the small island community where I live now, my connections faded somewhat and I lost spiritual ground. Then, a year ago in March, something happened that will forever change my life... I became aware that my whole life of yo-yo dieting, overeating and binging was a matter of addiction. (I write about it on Words Paint.)

For the first time I grasped that I, alone, can not control my eating, that only if I admit I am a compulsive overeater and yield my will to a higher power, only then might I regain sanity. If you have not suffered addiction, or if you have seen me and seen that I am not morbidly obese, you may think I exaggerate. I do not. Whether dieting or gaining, I constantly thought about food, driven and obsessed particularly by sweets like chocolate, cake, cookies, pastries, ice cream, pie and candy, hating myself for it all the while.

I had no choice. I joined Overeaters Anonymous, became abstinent on the above mentioned sweets, lost about 60 pounds in the past year, and finally began to grapple with the concept of a higher power... faith and serenity, not from within me, but from outside me and available to me. At this point, I believe in a force for good and balance within the universe. I believe this force is what keeps me abstinent, keeps me from falling again into the grip of addiction.

I have tried to illustrate this force in my March BJP, the intersection between me and my higher power. Thanks for reading along... writing this post has helped me to clarify my thoughts and beliefs, as did working on the piece.

Six Words for February ~ BJP

As you may have seen on my previous post, day 1 of each month, I grab paper/pen and write the first six words (action verbs) that pop into my head. Then I circle the one that seems the most compelling. These words will appear on my monthly Bead Journal Project piece, somehow worked into a collage of beads, fibers and papers...

My six words for February (above) sat fallow, until I read Elizabeth's post about her blank canvas problems with her January BJP. Once again, let's hear it for BJP bloggers!!! Her wonderful post turned me around and made me excited to play with my words! (Thank you, Elizabeth!)

So yesterday, when finally there was a block of free hours, I painted and played with my words in Photoshop, the results of which you see above. Then I printed them on fabric (smaller than what you see here on your monitor). I can't wait to get out my painted papers and beads later today. Where will this month's journey lead? Who knows?

One thing I will say, cry was the word I circled. Right now I don't want to deal with crying at all, so it may be a hidden element in my page... We'll see...

Bead Journal Project ~ June Finished!

Sometimes when life gets too busy and stressful, I forget about my ongoing need to stay in touch with the river, the internal life of my soul, the spiritual flow, the source of love, wisdom and peace. For several months in a row, I hardly touched the river at all and seemed to go through the days on some sort of automatic pilot. When finally I felt the dryness, I knew I needed to make myself another visual reminder to stay in touch with the river.


So here is my BJP piece for June, Stay In Touch With The River!

I've been grappling with this concept for some time. It shows up in my piece for March (Zero Circle) and again last month as I seek help from tiger (Open the Door). I am thankful to Pat Allen and her book, Art Is a Way of Knowing, for giving me the word river as a metaphor for that deeply honest force flowing within. And right now, a sense of contentment and ease holds me for a moment as I share my work and this immensely important idea with you.

* * * * This and That FYI * * * * *

The shells on this piece are old puka shells from Hawaii. I found a strand of them when I was teaching there years ago and have hoarded them ever since. I got them out to offer some to my brother for his under-water quilt... Ha! Immediately I knew some had to go on my river piece.

The tiny pink flower sequins are from Accessories of Old, a shop full of vintage beads, trims, sequins and buttons, located in Bethesda MD. They sell these flower sequins on line, here. Thanks to Plays With Needles for the discovery of this shop!

You can find new flower sequins (and oooooodles of other new, reasonably-priced sequins) at Cartwright's. Most of the new flower sequins are large, compared to the vintage sequins I used on this piece, which I think are only about 2.5 mm in diameter.

The folded fabrics are strips of loosely-woven cotton which were hand-dyed with indigo by my friend Carol Berry. The top piece had a single indigo bath, the lower piece had two. I pulled the threads to make the holes and fringed edges. You can see these strips and the pile of pulled threads at the bottom of this post.

My finished BJP pieces are 4" x 6" ~ post card size. I haven't decided yet what to do with them and consequently have not finished the edges of any of them yet.

Most of the seed beads on this piece are size 15s.