When we are raised with abusive or neglectful parents, we learn maladaptive coping mechanisms. When we grow up, we often unconsciously continue those habits, reflexively acting, mindlessly being. With the new life that is offered to us through Jesus, we can begin again, with a new Parent in God, who loves us unconditionally and without measure. We can learn how to act in new healthy ways, rather than being stuck in our old mindless habits. Jesus calls us to a new life of being awake and fully alive and present in every moment. This is the promise of new life in Jesus – a slate wiped clean, a chance to start again. No longer are we slaves to our past. No longer are we consigned to repeat our actions, over and over, flinching from blows that no longer come.
Monthly Archives: October 2016
Prayer to the heart of Mary
Sacred Heart of Mary, holy heart of Mary, listen to my plea.
I ask for your love and your guidance and your strength in this time of loss and brokenness.
I ask for your help, your assistance, and your strength in this time of confusion.
You were called to serve God by harboring and nurturing an innocent child. For so much of your life you took care of him, and it was through your example that he was able to heal the world.
Help me guide others in the way that you guided Jesus.
Help me to see and nurture the light of God that is within them.
I am unable to do this for myself. I ask for your divine guidance and love. Please help me to see the many examples of mercy and glory that appear in tiny ways before me. They remind me of God’s eternal presence.
Help me to nourish, support, and nurture others in the same way that St. Monica prayed for her son St. Augustine.
I pray to be able to help others reach their full potential, to grow into God’s light, to be able to take care of themselves and take care of others, to know the glory that is being connected to God.
To do this, help me to reconnect and recommit to the Sacred Heart of your son, Jesus, the heart that is exposed for all the world to see. It is a reminder to trust in being vulnerable. It is a reminder to not be afraid of being open.
Friday adventure
I have Fridays off. Don’t get too jealous – I have to work every Saturday.
After years of being off on Fridays, I’ve finally learned how to do extra during the week so that my Friday is actually a day when I can do what I want to do, rather than a day to do chores. A day off isn’t a day off if it involves getting gas, picking up the mail, getting groceries, going to the pharmacy, paying bills…
So now I go on adventures. Usually the day starts with waking up whenever I wake up. This often means around 10. I have to be up around 7 every day, and that is not normal for me. I make up for it by sleeping in when I can. But I don’t want to sleep in too much – then I’ve slept away my life.
My theme for the day was to only go to places I had a coupon or a gift certificate. I wanted to spend as little money as possible. I’ve had some of these saved up for over a year -and some I just got the day before.
This was outside of my car when I got out to go to lunch. I took it as a sign that this was going to be a fruitful adventure.
While eating lunch, I read some of the material from The Wander Society and learned a new word – Zouave. I looked it up and here’s a picture of one. He’s charming! And it is in sepia. I’m not sure what it is about sepia that I love so much these days.
Here’s the definition from the Dictionary website – “(formerly) a member of a body of French infantry composed of Algerian recruits noted for their dash, hardiness, and colourful uniforms. 2. a member of any body of soldiers wearing a similar uniform or otherwise modelled on the French Zouaves, esp a volunteer in such a unit of the Union Army in the American Civil War.”
I like writing down new words (well, new to me) in my journal and then writing the definition beside it. It is like collecting ephemera. I may or may not use the words later in my writing, much like with how I use ephemera in my collages. I don’t think I’ll have a call to use this word, but that picture may spark a story.
I had a $12 lunch at Panera and paid only $2. I used a gift card that I’d gotten for Christmas from a lady in my book club. The meal was tasty and healthy, although not very filling.
I went to Target in the next town over and perused the dollar bins near the front of the store. It actually took over an hour to find something I wanted and needed that was close to my budget for this trip. The ticket was $9 and I spent $4 because of the free gift card my husband gave me. I got some Halloween yarn to use in making a quipu, some gauze that was for Halloween decorating that I’m putting in a collage-painting (See the post “October art), and some pumpkin pie energy bars from Larabar. I was a little hungry at that point but didn’t want to be forced to eat fast food (translation, processed and greasy and mostly meat, as well as taking a while to get to and to get). Plus, the Larabars were on sale, and there was one more in the package than the Kind bars that cost more.
I spent the most at Yankee Candle, but saved the most too. The total was $61 and I paid $45. I got Napa Valley Sunshine (an old favorite that they are discontinuing. It smells like the convent I like to visit on silent retreat) and Maple Pancake – for my husband. I also got a car scent of Autumn in the Park. I had a $20 off coupon that came with the catalog I just got, and a $5 voucher for buying so much stuff in the past. I like to supplement the atmosphere of my house with smells. It helps my mood and helps me concentrate. My first book was finished using candle-scents to focus me. They had a deal where I could have gotten a $25 jar for $12 but I didn’t want to spend over fifty dollars here. I was a little bummed that the clerk took the $5 off after the tax was added.
The best deal was the last – it was a trip to Duncan Donuts (why not spell it Doughnut?) where I got a salty-caramel hot chocolate for free. A friend had given me a $5 gift card for them (paired with Baskin Robbins) for Easter – last year. I’d used part of it and kept it. I saved it and drank it cold at work the next morning.
I kept all the gift cards I used and will make them in to scrapers/markers for painting.
I keep a running total of gift cards that I have not yet used in my phone so I won’t forget to use them. They are like cash. I used to do the same with Groupon-type things too but I stopped buying them. The expiration dates came us too soon and there were too many exclusions and limitations. Too stressful.
All told, I got $84 worth of stuff for $51 = so I saved $33.
————–
The weird/interesting/sad part is that I had to leave the house at all. I really like having time to myself, and right now my husband is unemployed. So he’s home all the time. I need a day to reset, to do what I want without anybody watching what I’m doing and asking me questions. I self-censor enough as it is, so I don’t need help with that.
October art
October is about stripping away, of seeing beauty in decay, of letting go. It is about seeing things in new ways, when the trees lose their leaves and reveal their bones.
For this, I’m using a lot of leftovers and pieces I’ve accumulated. Nothing is expensive. It reminds me of how I got my start buying beads at the nearby thrift store and broke them up to make my first necklaces. I could buy a necklace for a quarter, redesign it with a few new beads, and sell it for $15. People don’t appreciate the time or creativity involved in making art, so it is better to not pay too much for materials.
The canvas was bought at Goodwill – already painted. This is a great way to buy a canvas – instead of $40 to $50 for a 24 x 30 inch canvas, this was $15. You can always paint over it. This too is part of the process of letting go – of not feeling I have to keep everything like it is. Change is essential for growth, and letting go is part of that.
This is what was on it.
I found gauze at Target for $1. I actually got it free because my husband had gotten a $5 gift card because he gets his prescriptions filled there. I’ve heard about using gauze as texture – time to try.
I painted the canvas with a thin coat of gesso, and affixed the gauze with it.
I’m not very good at putting on gesso yet. But maybe I should use a regular bristle brush and not a foam brush. Most of my bristle brushes are small – not suited for gesso. This is a new experience for me. Here I’m playing with texture.
I didn’t entirely cover up the image that was already there. I think it is nice to show what came first, the origin of the piece. You can never fully erase your past – it is always with you, even if you don’t see it.
This was paper I got from Yankee Candle – they’d wrapped up my large jar candles in it. I spritzed it with Tim Holtz “Distress Ink” spray stain and a few spritzes of water. I made this last week, not sure what I was going to do with it. I tore it into pieces, saving the parts I liked best. The remaining pieces I’ve already sprayed with more color and will use later (maybe in this project).
It is darker on the canvas because it is still wet with matte medium (coated front and back). Perhaps I’d have been better not painting the front with matte medium, since I might put acrylic paint over some of it. We’ll see. This is an exercise, a practice. Mistakes are valuable opportunities for learning.
Detail – some of it tore while I put it on the canvas. I’ve added a little gesso too.
I like this dead moth. I found it in a windowsill at work. I picked it up and saved it with a label protector. Things die in October. They have to. This moth is a reminder that time is precious, yet also not to take it so seriously I forget to live life.
Here is the assortment of papers I intend to use – leftover bits from tissue paper and bags from items I’ve bought, and bits from other projects. I like the saying on the bag I got from the Hallmark store in Boone, NC when I got some rainbow pencils. It is a little large, so I might just write this on the canvas when I’m done. Right now it is nearby as inspiration.
These are the Asian-language instruction pages from a tiny Moleskine journal I found at a used book store in Knoxville. I tore them using a metal ruler as a straightedge.
This is a subset – a collage within the collage. I plan to put it in towards the end, but assembled it first. Some of the pages with words are from Robert’s Rules of Order – I got it for free. I’m not sure how I made the back. I definitely used Distress Spray Stain, but it reacted with the paper in an odd way. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t replicate it.
I added the moth I found to it.
Then I underlined some of the words in gold gel pen.
I might use some of this. This is tissue paper that I had under other things that I was spraying. The empty spaces are where they were.
This is at the end of day one.
(Day two)
Here, I’ve painted some of the corners and edges with acrylic paint, daubed on with my fingers. It is a blend of White with water, Phthalo green blue, Olive green. I’ve used these colors on my bathroom door. They remind me of the color of rust and I’m told it is the color of Parisian municipal things – benches, street lamps, grates. It is the color of rain and mist.
detail –
I’m sorry some of the pictures are so dark, thus the colors aren’t true. I was working in my craft room which is on the North side of the house, and it was about an hour before sunset on day one, and an hour after sunrise on day two. I could see fine, but the camera thought otherwise. Maybe one day I’ll have an assistant and a professional studio, but for now, this is what you get. That too is part of the art – of using what you have without fear.
When I work more on this, I’ll add it all here rather than make separate posts.
Tiny picnic park
There’s this unusually landscaped area in an open-air mall in Mt. Juliet, TN. This is near the movie theater and Fulin’s restaurant. What is unusual is that it looks like a tiny park.
The sidewalk goes from the fenced-in courtyard of a now-defunct restaurant.
This place is begging for a picnic…
Notice the stepping stones. They were added in after this area was built. People kept walking across the grass to get to the other side. People walk along the path of least resistance. These paths are known as “desire lines” or “desire paths”. (Definition from Wikipedia – A path that pedestrians take informally, rather than taking a sidewalk or set route ; e.g. a well-worn ribbon of dirt that one sees cutting across a patch of grass, or paths in the snow.)
Some colleges and apartment complexes are now realizing the futility of putting in sidewalks first. They wait to see how people use the area, and then pave the desire lines, rather than paving un-used areas first.
A small park bench would look nice here – one like this
or maybe this –
but never this –
There will be a picnic here one day, and I’ll add that here.
betsybeadhead 
You must be logged in to post a comment.