[sterling, copper, enamel, glass beads, graphite & sari silk]
Now that’s what I call color.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love enameling? Well I do. I love it very deeply. Nothing else gives me color like I want color except for enameling.
I had an incredible writing morning here today, perched in a shaft of sunlight in the kitchen, sipping tea and mulling some things over. While writing, I was also watercolor painting which is one of my favorite ways to work color ideas into being. I was also texting a dearly beloved friend about her lost dog and all kinds of life details which prompted me to write about thresholds, the liminal, and moving out of the sphere of darkness and into the sphere of light (there’s a point that comes, in the transition between despair and joy, wherein you’re standing in overlapping spaces and I want to know what to call that space where the two sides meet, that threshold, or how to define it at least, and perhaps even understand what moves me into that space and beyond, and what drags me backwards, against my will, through it again…do you know what I mean?). I’ve been talking about the liminal for eons, or so it seems. I began to speak of it last summer. I thought I was delving into it, but I haven’t really and truly delved until today. Or perhaps my former delving was enormously shallow and today I had a taste of depth and some conceptual task grew itself a set of burly roots. I don’t know. This neck-piece looks like it put the *unk* in FUNK but there’s a serious side to it, one I am gladly and finally delving into.
Don’t you love the word delve?
I have used it excessively here.
I beg your pardon.
I also wanted to tell you that I was sick for a few days with a cold sore. The fact that I consider a cold sore a sickness makes me sound like a fragile and pathetic princess but let me inform you of the tragic fact that I am a rare bird who suffers nasal cold sores and it’s one of the most painful and miserable things I have ever survived in my short lifetime. Thank God I only ever seem to suffer one a year. Anyway, I was knocked out for a few days and only left the house for a ride in our friend’s beautiful old Willys Jeep in the Idaho sunshine. Have you ridden in a Willys Jeep? It’s so wonderful. Everyone you pass on the road stares at you and you can tell they all want to be riding in the Jeep you are riding in. You have to press your elbows against the armrests or you’ll fall right out because Willys don’t have doors or a roof and sometimes no windshield either. It’s a very fresh way to ride the roads. But, what I was going to tell you is whilst sick, I began reading a Terry Tempest Williams book and now I have half the darn thing underlined with blue ink and about a thousand paragraphs quipped and quothed in my journal and I officially love gophers.
Gosh. This post keeps getting weirder.
Also, whilst hiding my gigantically and terrifically sick nose from the inhabitants of the planet Earth I made a beautiful little buckskin purse with fringe. It is so darling. You’re going to perish when you see it. I’m really into the cowboys and indians look right now and seem to be sleeping in my cowboy boots and doing a lot of squinting in the sunshine and spitting of chaw juices. Just kidding about that spitting part. My sick nose doesn’t allow for spitting right now and my lady-ness doesn’t allow for it any other time unless I choke on a bug while running on the mountain.
Gosh. I think I might be hyper.
The last thing I wanted to tell you is that our bundle of turquoise flooring arrived on Friday and it’s divine. We made a good choice. Rob cut and shaved over 2000 olympic rivets in the Airstream today and tomorrow he is going to lay floor. Don’t that just put a whopper of a smile on your face?
Enjoy your Sunday night, my sweet doves.
I hold you in my heart.
xx
yes, i know just what you mean.
the experiences of this past month have held me in just the overlapping space you describe.
your neckpiece illustrates it most beautifully.
i love it excessively.
and there is nothing at all weird about your post.
it sings loudly of hope and renewal.
xx
I do feel hopeful and renewed. You always have a hand on the general pulse of my life. I love that about you. It’s funny, being sick forced me to really slow down a bit and I’m reaping the rewards of it now.
I’m keeping you in my heart, dear one.
x
enamel colours.
turquoise flooring.
you in a willys jeep.
that book.
delving.
all this: a whopper of a smile brought onto my face.
xx
Ooh! Glad you got a whopper! 🙂
xx
ohhhhhh those colors.
They’re great colors. They’re not quite so neon in real life…but almost.
Its a venn diagram of liminality….holding the space…ha!….happy you are feeling a bit better!
Pretty much! You should see how many venn diagrams I painted yesterday. It was obsessive.
…or perhaps a lemniscate of sorts, with wings. Those COLORS! If I wore it, I would walk into things as I would always be looking down at my chest. (Wait. That doesn’t sound right. Um, looking down at it nestled on my chest. Nope…yikes. You know what I mean, right??)
Happy days, Jillian, you and your poor wee nose. (Wincing in sympathy.)
xx
…do you wonder whether the liminal, the space between, is where our ‘I’, our true self resides, that place of perfect balance between light and dark…?
Or a pink and blue snitch.
And let me tell you something about your chest comment =– I think this is the reason why I love to wear big rings. I can see them right there on my hand:)
Your thoughts on the liminal are appreciated too — I don’t know…it’s kind of like a place that doesn’t have gravity.
Chroma-licious indeed.
I’m not sure I’ve reached that precipice of change yet. I feel myself getting nearer, clawing up earth and sod when I’m dragged back, and then charging forward again. I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I reach that ledge…I hope I jump.
Be well you lovely, hyper woman!
Oh…but isn’t that just life….the bouncing back and forth, the clawing to establish ground and then the easiness of being swept forward.
Sending you love, as always.
xx
What awesome pieces these are (including the one posted on Monday)!!! Rich with color. *Love* the prongs on the yellow/pearl pendant.
Thank you, Ketra.
I appreciate you so much.
you know how i feel about your enameled pieces : )!!!!
🙂 Yes I do, you sweet thing.
i love everything about this post : )
The COLOR!!! Amen…
Oh! Who doesn’t love a post like this one?!
I know I do. Those colors are fantastic. I love the next one as well. So perfectly springy!
I knew you would like TTW. She’s pretty fantastic. So are gophers.
Can’t wait to see the inside of that beautiful airstream. Give RW a high-five; 2000 rivets in a day?! The man isn’t messing around.
Have a wonderful monday evening!
B
color! and terry tempest williams is amazing, wonderful, fantastic. i have loved every one of her books, and just bought the latest. can’t wait to break down that spine and underline everything.
completely made me chuckle, this post did. & think about liminal — & that i just finished another book by marilynne robinson. i’m sure you must have read her? i finished “gilead” this time. so touching/moving. so many good lines in there. it made me think about a line she wrote about ‘a thousand times a thousand good reasons to love this earth/life’ (i paraphrase) & yet, when i get pushed to the limit, it doesn’t quite seem enough… & it becomes a long armed stretch to wrangle the good back… to pull that fragile string back into a ball of wondrously good earth experience yarn. to hold close those few, dear, moments of respite.
sorry about that trail of thought going where it wanted too. i’ve been thinking on these things too 😉
& also, how i’m PINING for another JL piece. PINING i tell you.
xxxooo