serendipity

birds of hope mosaics

"It is better to create than to be learned, creating is the true essence of life."

-- Barthold Georg Niebuhr

 Play isn't just for children.  Adults need it too.  It allows for creativity and spontaneity.  Bonnie Katz, an amazing artist with a passion for mosaics, stopped by my studio earlier this week to share with me her Birds of Hope project.  In response to the earthquake in Japan, Bonnie is creating a thousand mosaic stones, each with a bird.  It's a spin on the traditional Japanese belief that one's wish will come true when a thousand paper cranes are folded.  

She's asking others to participate, so she brought with her a basket of stones, bits of ceramics and fragments of glass.  I made one bird and two others that relate to the notion of peace, harmony and good health.  I want to make more, both for her project and to ring my herb garden.  

 

big blue in denmark

 

"Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from our parents and they from their parents.  It is in our hands whether our children and their children inherit the same world."  --  Richard Branson

I've been poking around on the Internet looking for images of Big Blue (aka Adjust the Thermostat) in Denmark.  And look - there she is!  She's not too worse for wear given that she's been to Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles and now Copenhagen in the past 2 years. 

I love the layout of the globes around the city.  Aren't they visually striking? 

 

For more, take a look at this blog.  You can also learn more at Cool Globes Denmark. 

a prayer and a thank you

 

"Overwhelmed by my own life, but severely humbled by it's ease compared to some."  -- Melissa Chakmakian

I can't imagine the horrors currently being experienced by the people of Haiti.  I watch the news and check for updates every few hours, hoping and praying.  I have no physical connection to the country, but I owe much to its culture.  The voudou drapo (voodoo flag), such as this one by Haitian artist George Valris, was my initial point of research as a young art student and the primary influence for my collection Visions of Paradise.

Contrary to the stereotype perpetuated by Hollywood, voudou is not a dark magic, but a religion blending traditional West African beliefs with Christian ones.   The drapos represent certain saints or spirits and call upon them for help.  

Help is needed now.  You know what to do.  Give blood.  Send a financial donation to the Red Cross International Response Fund.  

Cool Globes Makes Front Page - In London!

 
"The good news is we know what to do. The good news is, we have everything we need now to respond to the challenge of global warming. We have all the technologies we need, more are being developed, and as they become available and become more affordable when produced in scale, they will make it easier to respond. But we should not wait, we cannot wait, we must not wait."  -- Al Gore

There I was in London on the Tube (subway) pretending to not read the newspaper of the fella sitting next to me, but of course, I was.  Featured on the front cover of the December 7, 2009 issue of The Times was a picture from the exhibit Cool Globes:  Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet.  Though my globe didn't appear anywhere in the paper, several other globes were.  They were being used as "bullets" to highlight facts and figures from the UN Conference on Climate Change.  Wow! I was stunned. I wanted to do a jig.  Instead I settled for nearly accosting the fella reading the paper explaining to him why I was so excited.  At my stop, I went straight to the newspaper kiosk and bought a couple of issues.  

The next day I received an email from my dad telling me he spotted a globe in The Denver Post!  He was such a proud papa.  The increase in publicity is probably due to the fact that the globes were in Copenhagen during the time of the conference.

  
 What I love about this exhibit is the emphasis on solutions rather than complaints.  Each globe provides a solution, big or small.  My own globe is called "Adjust Your Thermostat" (aka Big Blue) and features a large 32lb / 14.5K sweater.  It refers to the simple idea of putting on an extra layer during the winter rather than turning up the heat which saves on both energy and money.  An easy win, win.