#51, Many, many moons ago

Many, many moons ago in a Galaxy far, far away, well it does feel that way sometimes! I remember reading "Passages" by Gail Sheehy way back when I was interested in such things. I didn't understand how life could change so much but after all I hadn't lived as long as I have now. My life at times feels alien to me; kid, student, wife, daughter-in-law, mother, ex-wife, new in-laws, working at jobs I loathed, ex-wife again, and then finding my way back to art first through off-loom weaving, photography, and finally to where I am now which I like to think of as abstract experimentation in a variety of mediums. It's a good thing that we can't see too far down the road, well actually, we can't see down the road of life at all. We leave a trail of events behind us that shape who we become on any given day. If only I'd known that with age comes some wisdom that wasn't afforded to me when I was younger. What wisdom you may ask? One thing I know for certain is that nothing stays static long enough to give up our happiness for. Now if I could just remember that on a daily basis perhaps I wouldn't drive myself so crazy with anxiety.

While looking back at the 52 projects I am shocked that so much has happened in a span of a short time. One year can seem so long when entering it and so short at the other end. This time last year we had just gotten word that Stacy was on a kidney transplant list something that we'd worked toward for nine months of physical and endless lab tests. She'll celebrate her first year with her new kidney, an awesome gift from a donor, on Oct. 28th. We went through Melanoma and the scare of the unknown and came out of that experience with a second miracle, no spreading of it anywhere surrounding the eradicated area. Mom on the other hand continues to disappear into the Alzheimer's abyss and I continue to daily mourn the loss of my mother and try to gracefully take care of the stranger she has become. The gift of a trip to Italy was a much needed respite and visually/culturing exciting seven days, I was blown away when I left mom and Stacy in the capable hands of my youngest daughter and her husband; I was overcome with pride, I had raised a marvelous young woman who continues to astound me. It was truly a remarkable year.

Components: hand-painted fabric base, water-downed black fabric paint. Using a hand-made stencil three colors of paint were applied with texture tools including hand-made stamps. Haphazard machine stitching around the circles in the hopes that the moons would stand out from the background.

Quotes: Buckminster Fuller: When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

Carl Sagan:
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.