The textural stitching in the black areas that surrounds these rows of seed shapes is progressing. This is the third piece in my Seeds of Compassion series. The long dense lines of stitching create an appealing texture, so while it is slow to execute, I love watching the transformation of the whole surface.
Because the stitching is very repetitive and physically demanding, when I woke this morning, instead of running directly to the computer and coffee pot, I stretched with the excellent Gaiam DVD a.m. & p.m. Stretch with Madeleine Lewis. One of my pledges to myself is to spend more time stretching and lengthening the muscles that exercise and my active days contract. It felt soooooo good. I of course felt supremely virtuous to actually get up and DO IT.
I stitch for a while and take frequent stretching and walking breaks. On one break I carried out contributions to our compost bin and then picked fresh lettuce, green peppers, roma tomatoes and yellow squash from Bob's gorgeous garden. I feel like I'm living a chapter from Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle as I experiment with new recipes for our bounty! Tonight's dinner will be fresh corn from the garden and veggie burgers made with tons of veggies including our basil, carrots and yellow squash. The recipe is from a July 22 Boston Herald article titled: "Where's the beef? We search for Hub's best veggie burgers." This one, called The Druid's Veggie Burger, got rave reviews. I'll let you know if I agree!
Today's postal delivery brought a wonderful reference book, writing on the wall: word and image in modern art by Simon Morley for the lecture I'm starting to develop about my explorations into language as visual imagery. I also found time to start gleaning images from my files to accompany my presentation.
Glancing through the book makes me proud of all the research I've done over the past few years; how many of the artists and works I recognize! I honestly didn't know more than one or two of these artists when I first developed my own interest in this subject three years ago.
So I'm stitching, playing uplifting CDs, being good to my body with stretching and healthy fresh foods and feeling as though I am creating an absolutely wonderful day for myself. Hope you are finding some ways to be good to yourself today too!
No comments:
Post a Comment