Choices

Every day we get to choose. We are a combination of our choices from the beginning. I have always been an artist. I have had a calling in my soul for as long as I can remember to create. Even as a little girl growing up in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania, I lived with the magical world surrounding me. "Being an artist is not practical." "You need to really be focused." "Stop daydreaming." "You are not good enough." I still hear it all each and every time I step forward to create, but the scoffing voices are getting quieter. I pay very little attention any more. I look at what I do...make dolls, critters, pin keeps, and I love them. I know those who purchase my work love them too. Many do not. I was once told, "I'd be hard pressed to like anything that you do." I was shocked to be told that...then I smiled. It is about the creative muse, not the critic. My biggest complement was from a gentleman who continually came to buy my dolls. One day I asked what he did with them...were they gifts? He laughed and said they decorated his office. He was an engineer. He said he was collecting a group of creatures to help him keep perspective of his own work. He said that all of his purchases had formed a dysfunctional family with way too much inbreeding! When he looked at them...he smiled and remembered what was really important...SIMPLICITY. He said my work made him smile, especially a rabbit I had named Festus...he was sure he had turned into a Blue Grass fan because of Festus's face!  No greater complement than that!
    So I say choose to create and let nothing stop your journey. I am 65 years young and I am finally starting to "Get It" Choose all that is good for your Soul. Choose to be unstopable. Choose to dream. Choose to use God's gifts. I choose to be a Folk Artist......Blessed Be !

Benji Comes of Age

I haven't written since we had Benji move in with us. I really have been speechless. He is like living with an ANIMAL!  I know that is hard to believe, he is just so darn cute. I have been captured by this ball of fur and I no longer have a life of freedom. He consumes everything, I mean literally. Benji eats every thing that has the misfortune of falling on the floor. It might be a morsel of food, today's mail, a photo, a paycheck, Benji is not choosey. It enters his mouth and come out in slivers of what used to be. He is my constant companion as I sew, paint and create...he creates as well. I designed a beautiful angel with delicate wings...he ate the wing pattern. I wrote a story for one of my Simply Primitive offerings... Eaten....I feed him chewies, he eats my linen thread. I talk to him endlessly about manners and he eats my used tea bag. My Primitive offerings have a whole new look to them...aged by little teeth... and puppy mouth.  I seldom yell anymore...but I do laugh a lot. I did cry when he ate my hearing aid, I must admit, but he never heard me, he was off to a new adventure...chasing a kitty. I am glad to have this fur ball in my life, mess and all. I just have the feeling like I am living with an ANIMAL...and that surely can't be..can it?

How Do They Do That?

I started this blog two years ago and I thought that I was doing well with two posts. Then I had a second to think about it...How could I possibly write a blog...I am nobody...I am somebody here...in Upstate NY. I am a fabric Folk Artist AKA doll maker, critter creator and sewing fanatic. I sell my Primitive creations in several shops in the Finger Lake Region. I am well known...comfortable in my own skin.....but out there in BLOG land....I don't know...I can't do that..hence the two year lack of writing.
Well, what possessed me today? I thought there must be more of me out there...people who have not a clue about blogging. I know you are there, secretly reading and wishing that you too could do something cool, creative, noteworthy. Why not me? Why not you? I ask that you join me on that journey and come along....maybe we can create together. Lord knows I can really use the help. I want to upload a little Kitty moving photo from photo bucket. I thought that it was cute...did all the things they told me to do and was told to "Create a blog" Dah...I thought I was! I will continue to strive toward the kitty and succeed at a later date. Come along and blog with me.....