Fan

For pretty sake:

1. 蘇州 網師園, 2. Untitled, 3. Angel, 4. K O T O H A : 'Cherry Blossom Dance', 5. shine on, 6. fan frame Suwon Dance performance Suwon South KOrea, 7. 41: Blossom, noun, 8. صـنع فـي إـسبـاـنـيـا, 9. Makiko with Fan

Created with fd's Flickr Toys 

Zoe Arnold

Creatively I know what I am capable of, this is beyone what I can do. Some things require a skill and a technique that will only come with practice and the aquisition of those techniques by study. The work of Zoe Arnold is refined, vist her site for examples of her drawing, jewelery and artifacts.

Out there somewhere

There must be a space where it is possible to be who you really are. Somewhere between being what your loved ones need you to be, being what the world requires from you and what is physically dictated by nature, there must be a place of simply being.

By constantly satisfying external demands, you eventually drift away so far from your soul that it becomes impossible to return to who you really are. It gets cluttered and layered by objects and expectations. Convention requires conforming.

You have to fit in.

It starts with: “don't think too much”,

then: “don't care too much”,

then: “don't feel too much” and

“don't be too much”.

The rules never stop, you kept thinking: “I will rebel, I will be. I won't change!” When you are young you believe in who you are, and for a time you manage to persevere, but gradually your defences get broken down. If you are odd, different, unacceptable, eventually the crowd pointing fingers telling you to conform becomes overwhelming and without wanting to, you begin hearing their music, marching to their drums.

You are always out of step though, not quite in rhythm and you always feel like you are making the big picture look a bit lopsided. The harder you try the more out of whack you feel, until finally, you are drugged beyond recognition, nodding your head and smiling, waving on command and being 'just so'

You constantly feel lost, and you are. Lost to yourself, lost to who you are and what you are and without a map to get home to your soul. I can't advice you how to get back, I can't shine a light on the way. I am lost, I know I am out there somewhere but I have taken too many of the wrong 'right turns' to find my way back. My only memory, and reminder of who I am and who I should be is my dream self. A creative brilliant goddess, completely free to breath and be. Completely me.

I need a map.

I need a light.

I need a guide.

I need to dream and remember.

I need to be.

Enno De Kroon

You have to love this brand of creativity. Who would think of using egg boxes as canvas? This is the kind of inspiration that will get you off your butt and creating :-) Fantastic what people get up to, visit this Flickr Photostream for more.

My first promotional spot on Etsy

I don't know if it was luck but my item appeared in the showcase while I was trying to find it in amongst the over 2000 spots on the vintage showcase space. This is my first Etsy promotional spot and I hope it works and I actually sell more things. I really want to sell things I make but I've been healthy for about 5 minutes this year. Hopefully things will get better soon.

Please don't send

Please don't send chain letters, chicken soup for the soul or any other thing that you think is beautiful and just has to be read. I don't want cheering up, encouragement or motivation. I don't want to know that other people are worse off than me and doing fine. I am already depressed and you may just be responsible for me chewing through my own wrists.

Don't send sad stories about children that are sick or abused or neglected. My heart already aches for all children and the lives they lead. It aches for the scars mental and emotional that are placed on them daily. It aches for the fact that I can not hold them and wipe their tears away.

Don't send me images of wrecks, disasters or anything that jars my soul. I don't want you to share your macabre nightmare interests. I am already interested in weird people and their strange behavior. I do occasionally see disasters on the news and I try really hard to avoid it. In fact I try to avoid a lot of things so you are wasting your time by sending me these things.

Send me lots of jokes. I love to laugh and it is good for my health. Send me funny pictures and funny stories. Send me something that I can send on without feeling guilty that I am filling someone's mailbox with junk.

Send me your thoughts and ideas about how you see the world, send me news of your well being. And if you feel down or depressed, you can ask for comfort. I can handle that. Send me photos of your life or just a note to say hi.

I don't need the thoughts, games, letters, images or gifts forwarded from strangers. You are my friend, my network, my contacts, it is you I want to hear from.

Before you push that forward button, please think of this plea.

No time to write

To depressed and miseralbe to write so I am working on the shop, check out all the new things:

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade WillowRowan.etsy.com

Henry Darger

I have long been a fan of selected outsider artists and interested in outsider art. Juan and I watched Coraline tonight. It is right up my ally although R raised eyebrows at some of the creepier characters. It got me looking at some of my favourite and more creepy wish-lists on Amazon that of the dark animators. If there is one thing I like more than a doll it is a dead dolly. And the stop-animation creepies are right up there with my fav's but more about that later. I stumbled across In the Realms of the Unreal - The Mystery of Henry Darger 

What a fascinating character and what fascinating art he produced. Henry Darger  spent his childhood in an Illinois asylum for feeble-minded children and his adulthood working as a janitor. He lived solitary existence,but his imagination was bright and intriguing. When he died in Chicago in 1973, his landlady discovered 300 paintings and a 15,000-page illustrated novel (The Realms of the Unreal) in his room. In it he tells the epic story of the virtuous Vivian Girls leading a child slave revolt against the evil Glandelinians.

I love finding new art and new artists.

These are a few of my favorite blogs

Since I am in such a dismal physical state I thought I would share some of my favorite blogs...

First up Naturally Nina:

Art and Ghosts

My favorite artist  for the longest time has been Louise Robinson of Art & Ghosts. We have many prints of hers in our collection and I am in the process of hanging most of them. I found this wonderful new work called 'Charlotte's Dream' on her blog tonight, I can't wait to add it to our collection it is just so beautiful.

Make your own day and click on the link below

Charlotte's Dream - Art and Ghosts

Going to the Doctor

When you have a chronic illness and a small child I suppose it is inevitable that he may want to fix you. After all, you are not always a playful and fun mom. Most of the time you are pale, sweaty and achy mom. When Juan was about two years old he started "fixing" me. He would take his crayons and marbles, and press them in places that are achy or tender. He would use different colors and then take his crayons and make little "notes" on me. For some of the procedures I needed to close my eyes. He also put his hand on my throat, told me to close my eyes, then he would close his eyes and "fix' me for a few minutes.

While we were in Durban I bought him a doctor set. He doctored everyone, my mother, my father, me and everyone that would sit down and let him. He listened with his stethoscope, looked in our ears and throats, took our temperature and gave injections, pills and plasters. At night before he closed his eyes, he would say "Juan a doctor".

More recently he started saying "I want to go to the doctor" whenever he wanted to change the topic. I took him with me today because I feel like something the cat dragged in and he has had a cough for a few weeks but he has not been ill. He watched everything the doctor did quietly and carefully. After examination, the doctor gave him a cookie.

He looked the Doctor in the eye and said: " I am a doctor"
The Doctor looked him in the eye and said: "Wow, I am a doctor too!"
He then told me his mother was a  radiographer at a hospital and he has been doctoring people since he was four years old.
Juan just smiled knowingly.

I've often wondered about people who know what they want to be all their lives and then go on to be just that.

I'm still not sure...

Why I love dolls

My eccentricity regarding my passion for dolls and my doll collection is a source of some confusion and amusement to most people. Maybe if I share why I love dolls through the eyes of other doll lovers, it will be understood better.

Please click on the links below the mosaic to visit the dolls on their home pages, and see more work of the individual artists and their dolls.

1. A glorious smile makes it all worthwhile: Pleasant, moody, and loving, 2. ..how deep my despair is~, 3. Sayuri... water in her eyes..., 4. Little Day Dreamer, 5. 8, 6. My new chocolate girl :), 7. "NO MORE SISTERS!!!", 8. Wink for me ;) - ADAW 5/52, 9. Ophélie, 10. 5 KOWABUNGA!!!, 11. Silver Crown, 12. Macaron, 13. Shadow I Elab., 14. Blackbird singing in the dead of night, 15. Happily exhausted, 16. Wild Red, 17. leaves, 18. "Alice", 19. Epic, 20. Candela

BigHugeLabs: Do fun stuff with your photos

BigHugeLabs: Do fun stuff with your photos

Posted using ShareThis

Sharing daydreams

The concept of Daydreams started as a project of daily meditations in 1996. It seemed that the issues that dominated my daily life became more meaningful to my spiritual progress when expressed in writing. Usually I wake up with something on my mind, sometimes personal, sometimes of the world around me. I set out to find an appropriate quotation to reflect my mood, and use it as inspiration to guide my writing . I still have many on file that has to be edited and the list is growing.

So far my life as a blogger has been restricted by my health. When you feel ill it is difficult to take ye ole brain and consciousness out for display. I have decided to share some of my old writing on days when the muse fails or on days that the body wins. In this way I can create a new record for my old work while creating a new body of writing, photos etc. Hopefully this will encourage more faithful blogging.

Currently all the edited daydreams are here

Today I share with you:
New Cycles


A freedom song

Atieno washes dishes,
Atieno plucks the chicken,
Atieno gets up early,
Beds her sacks down in the kitchen,
Atieno eight years old,
Atieno yo.

Since she is my sister’s child
Atieno needs no pay,
While she works my wife can sit
Sewing every sunny day:
With her earnings I support
Atieno yo.

Atieno’s sly and jealous,
Bad example to the kids
Since she minds them, like a schoolgirl
Wants their dresses, shoes and beads
Atieno ten years old.
Atieno yo.

Now my wife has gone to study
Atieno is less free.
Don’t I keep her, school my own ones,
Pay the party, union fee,
All for progress: aren’t you grateful
Atieno yo?

Visitors need much attention,
All the more when I work night.
The girl spends too long at the market,
Who will teach her what is right?
Atieno is raising fourteen,
Atieno yo.

Atieno had a baby
So we know that she is bad.
Fifty fifty it may live
And repeat the life she had
Ending in post-partum bleeding,
Atieno yo.

Atieno’s soon replaced.
Meat and sugar more than all
She ate in such a narrow life
Were lavished on her funeral.
Atieno’s gone to glory,
Atieno yo.

Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye

African Women's Poetry

Stella and Frank Chipasula

There are a few feelings that this poem evokes in me. We let our lives fall into a pattern and once it takes on form, we let it lie there without stepping out and saying we want more. We don’t just want what is predestined. I think that we often see bad patterns in other people’s lives but we don’t have the courage to step in to suggest a change. Apathy is what is killing our society in the 20th century. Individually it is impossible to change society as a whole but it is possible to touch one life at a time and make the world of difference. When we see a child or a woman is in a situation where their lives is miserable or worthless we need to speak out. When people are racist or cruel we need to speak out. We can not sit by and say: “I don’t want to get involved.” Every time you do that, you are destroying a part of your society, a part of who you are. We can make changes in the lives of others, we can make changes in our own lives. Our lives and death need not just be a part of a repeated cycle.

First written 26 May 1997
edited 7 September 2009

New look

My new look blog is here I hope you like it. Please feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think.

Thank you so much to Amy from Twiggsley, after I purchased the design from her Etsy shop she got it up and installed for me in super fast time. My new look Etsy shop design is hot on it's heals and I should have it up and ready by next week.

I will also start blogging tomorrow. Please add yourself as a follower if you are reading my blog.

New beginnings

I have decided to try again, this time with a fresh new look, to be revealed on Monday.
I will manage my blogs as follows

The Dream Factory - My art, writing, photos and life.
Muchka Pantuchka - The Blythes
Interactive Cuteness - My baby
Shopadoodle - My consumer and shopping blog

So far keeping one up to date has been beyond me hopefully the beautiful new design will inspire me to be more consistent.

A link to my etsy shop will also be available and hopefully a link to my flickr site.

I vow to try to keep things happening.