Desert-y photos & Blog Anniversary

One year ago I began blogging, thanks to seeing the blogs of my MIIS MATESOL classmates, Yuki and Jeff. At first I was shy about this whole thing--being revealed on the internet--but have come to enjoy the friendly interaction and community I've met, especially on Flickr.com. And, the uses for CALL (computer assisted language learning) are endless. I, myself, have experienced a great leap in my French, Spanish, and Japanese language by communicating in writing with my friends on Flickr who use Japanese, French, and Spanish. In addition, one can read the native speakers' comments (on Flickr) and learn from this written, yet casual language usage on the blogosphere. Viva flickr, Viva blogger.com!

teapot no. 67

Still life with breakfast dishes, watercolor sets and cactus garden.

Teapot updates

teapot no. 66:









teapot no. 65









teapot no. 64






















teapot no. 63













This morning over tea (2 weeks ago)









Mosaic no. 2 showing teapots no. 37-66.


You can view Teapot mosaic no. 1 here and the entire 100 Teapot Set to date, here.

107 degrees today, but cloudy

Remember that little book about a frog and a pond that was only pictures? You could make up the story and write in in the blank space under the illustration.

What do you think is happening in this picture? I already know. I'm asking you.

It's supposed to be 108 F (42.2 C) tomorrow!


p.s **I drew the above sketch with a Japanese mechanical pencil on a fluorescent yellow post-it note**

Recycling, reusing...resourceful!

Presenting my short visual lesson on interior and exterior decorating with style and resourcefulness for next to nothing. We can find an abundance of the things we need (and do not need) in yard sales, dumpsters, thrift stores, and from friends, etc.

Here are some recent finds for my current Tucson home:




I found this chair next to a dumpster on the Saturday that was really Friday. It's now under my ramada on the front porch.













Purple wooden desk with an old blue metal chair from Shankara's yard sale.








This blue dresser makes a good stand for my flute. My flute needed a stand.














Laundry basket from a thrift store.



























I liked the orange flower-like lamp bottom with stand that looks like bamboo all the way up, so it went home with me.








The paper shade gives off a warm golden glow when the lamp is turned on.








The papasan rocker is from a yard sale five years ago that I let go of when I moved to Monterey. I found the tray table at Casa de los Ninos thrift store; it's all wood and the sliding parts are spring loaded. I think it was made in the 50s because the manufacturer's sticker on the underside looks like it is from the 1950s.









I found this mini chest-stool-seat at Shankara's sale.









Jesse needed a piece of furniture to eat her food away from Yuki's reach. This not-so-elegant piece has added benefits: the secret hiding place for Jesse in the bottom and the top that lifts off for storage. The Japanese calligraphy on the wall says hakusetsu or shirayuki (white snow) and was written by my calligrapher friend, Inso, from Pacific Grove, CA.
















My new drinking glasses. Three different colors of textural glass in pink, blue, and green with raised ovals, lines, dots, and curvy lines. They're not too small or too large and they're fun to drink out of. Fifty cents each at Casa de los Ninos--you can't beat that.








I needed a shelf or something to put between my little O'Keefe & Merritt stove and the fridge. I found this cabinet with shelves inside. Jesse likes it, too.








We have a small pond right in front of my house that we keep filled up for the visiting and resident birds, but it's always nice to have extra little bird baths for our feathered friends. I've placed this shell-shaped bird bath beneath the salt cedar (tamarisk) trees in an area that stays shady for most of the day. Already, I've seen the quail family and some doves enjoying the water.
































At Casa de los Ninos I found a bedspread from which to make covers for my newly acquired UA bleacher seats (two for $3, one for $2). The bleacher seats have padded bottoms and backs and fold up compactly. I sewed covers for each of the three seats that still allow for the folding action. Since I like to sit low and near to the ground, these little seats are perfect for the small tea table that my neighbor lent me until I find or make my own little tea table.





Jesse enjoys the little seats, too, but the real reason she is sitting there is to snatch some kim from the table. Kim is Korean style laver seaweed, similar to Japanese nori, but seasoned with sesame oil and salt.












With some of the extra material, so far, I've made coasters and the small pouch below.

























Viva dumpster diving, gleaning, reusing, sharing, gifting, and trading!

Buddha head

Here's the story:

Today I thought it was Saturday all day until my neighbor Carol came home and I told her the story of the buddha head. I went out this morning (thinking it is Saturday morning) to go "yard sailing". I wanted to find a few items for my place. Oddly, I only saw two yard sales. At the second sale, I greeted the three women and started looking around. I recognized one of the women as a former barrista at Bentley's Coffee House, a favorite local hangout. Soon she brought out some sage and asked if she could smudge me. I smiled. Definitely a Tucson thing--smudging. With the scent of sweet sage around me, I found several items I could use: a purple wooden desk, a blue wooden chest of drawers, and a funky old floor lamp. On the purple desk were two turtles, one a carved piece of onyx and the other a little ceramic turtle that looked familiar to me. Sure enough, i turned over the familiar looking turtle to see my name and the date (2001) inscribed on the turtle's belly in my clay signature--a piece of my former life as a pottery instructor. I told Shankara (whose sale it was) that I made the turtle. She said, "then we have met; you are Nicole from the Zen rock garden." Shankara is moving to Albuquerque, hence the need to let go of things; I am creating my home space again and in need of some things. Back to the Buddha head. Shankara reminded me that we had met in the Zen rock garden and that I had told her to take whatever she wanted and to leave whatever she wanted--this was an integral part of the Zen rock garden art installation. One of the items she took, and that was in her front yard along with the familiar looking turtle, was this clay Buddha head I had made (by carving a mold). Sometimes things return. Sometimes they don't. So, I snapped this photo of the Buddha head that made a reappearance. I left it in Shankara's garden. Maybe she'll bring it to Albuquerque; maybe she won't....
How I found out it was Friday today and not Saturday, is that I expressed to Carol my surprise that I found only two yard sales. "That's because it's Friday," she said.

Want to know more about the Zen rock garden/art happening? Read my July 28th, 2005 blog entry.

Ciao, amici.

Mele kiki bobo

I am in the desert again. Yuki, Jesse, and I are all content and comfortable in our little, quiet desert community of adobe houses near horse property (stables), the rillito (long, mostly dry river bed that goes for miles and miles with jogging and cycling paths on either side), and the 30-acre nature park down the block.















I plan to be here at least through September, with a lot of work to do between now and my MATESOL portfolio submission date in mid-September. So-o-o, I've decided I need to focus and concentrate on my work. I may not post here for a few months. Or, maybe I will find a few minutes to write after I re-establish a portfolio work routine.



Wishing all my friends, relations, and readers mele kiki bobo. I read this Zulu (?) phrase, which means: be courageous, be compassionate, be creative, on Trevor Romain's website. Trevor Romain, who was born and raised in South Africa, is one of my favorite illustrator adults because he is dedicated to children, artistic creativity, and to nurturing love and open-heartedness no matter what. He writes an awesome blog, too, peppered with his unique paintings and drawings.


























Where desert and ocean meet.
Adobe on old redwood board embedded with Monterey Bay sea otters' cast off abalone shell pieces, Asilomar seashells, and bits of a broken dish. Made at Song Mountain, Hearst, Mendocino County, California.

Ddo manna yo (that's Korean for "see y'all later").


*******

Signing off from Turtle Land.

Crrrash update

Ha-ha-ha--Time to recycle these haiku gems (below).

It's fun to laugh and feel the immense humor of it all.
Luckily, Norm, the computer guru at school, retrieved my data today from my hard drive. So, I'm not off the hook yet--I'll have to finish my portfolio afterall (or, as my friend Paul calls it, that pesky portfolio) :) !
Not sure yet about the status of my crashed iBook, though. I should know more tomorrow. I'm chanting healing mantras for it--and you can, too. I'm also fantasizing about the "better" "new and improved" "fast and powerful" Macbook I will somehow manifest if my little iBook has to be e-recycled....
Gratefully, I was able to save my Beethoven symphonies and Yo-Yo Ma music from my iTunes library, plus some other favorites.

Okay. Here's the haiku.

--------------------------------------------

The Web site you seek cannot be located,
but countless more exist.

--------------------------------------------

Chaos reigns within. Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

--------------------------------------------

Program aborting: Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

--------------------------------------------

Windows NT crashed. I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

--------------------------------------------

Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

--------------------------------------------

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful. But now it is gone.

--------------------------------------------

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire. The network is down.

--------------------------------------------

A crash reduces your expensive computer to a
simple stone.

--------------------------------------------
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data. Guess which has
occurred?

--------------------------------------------
You step in the stream, but the water has
moved on. This page is not here.

--------------------------------------------
Out of memory. We wish to hold the whole sky,
but we never will.

------------------------------------------------

Having been erased, The document you're
seeking must now be retyped.

--------------------------------------------

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
--------------------------------------------

Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

teapot no. 60

teapots 56, 57, 58, & 59

I painted teapot 59 this morning entirely with my left hand and without my glasses--even the writing! First I wrote with a Conté pierre noire drawing pencil, followed by a watercolor brush pen. As I give myself more opportunities to practice writing, drawing, and seeing with my non-dominant left-hand, I develop better motor control and balance. Writing/drawing left-handed doesn't feel as difficult anymore. And, drawing without my specs allows my myopic eyes a chance to see at close range in their "natural" environment.







teapot no. 58









teapot no. 57













teapot no. 56

Check out my growing set of 100 teapots.

teapot no. 55

Another left-hand experiment.

it's the light

Seeing, in Three Pieces

Somehow we must see
through the shimmering cloth
of daily life, its painted,
evasive facings of what to eat,
to wear? Which work
matters? Is a bird more
or less than a man?

There have been people
who helped the world. Named
or not named. They weren't interested
in what might matter,
doubled over as they were
with compassion. Laden
branches, bright rivers.

When a bulb burns out
we just change it --
it's not the bulb we love;
it's the light.


~ Kate Knapp ~

Wind Somewhere and Shade

teapot no. 54

Made with construction paper cut-outs and glue stick; cut with an exacto blade.

teapot no. 53

Black Sharpie marker on a brown paper bag, colored in with colored pencils.

Teapot no. 52 - tea in black

Teapot no. 52 - tea in black, originally uploaded by tortuga del desierto.

Kaimei sumi brush pen in a Volant Moleskine journal.

Teapot no. 51 - tea & ak-mak

Teapot no. 51 - tea & ak-mak, originally uploaded by tortuga del desierto.

Kaimei sumi ink brush pen in a Moleskine Volant journal.

Crash wham bam plop

My iBook crashed. I'll know in a day or two if the data can be pulled off the hard drive. Now I have to decide, do I replace the logic board as was suggested by the Apple dealer, or do I get a whole new iBook? Either way, I'd have to use credit...just more debt to add to the debt that I'm already indebted for. As my friend Kathy, said, "it's endless." What is "it"? Everything!
We have to brush our teeth every morning, wash ourselves everyday, clean up over and over, make food everyday...that's just how things are. So, I may lose some data (but the technician may be able to save it). The really important things I cannot lose: all the people, beings, and nature I love, the big sky, breathing in and out, smiling and laughing, and enjoying this very moment. Really, I am indebted to the whole world for my very existence--and that makes me smile.