ICAD #28 to 34 plus one for the 4th of July

#28 

Still working on my long list I've been poeming and writing essays about. It's worked out so nicely with ICAD2 which has helped me to see possibilities where I'd likely NEVER have seen them BEfore!! Another variation on Embrace Life with leftovers from my series of Under the Sea paintings.

#29

Reach With Imagination has BEcome a thoughty thought-provoker for me. As you can see above and BElow.

 #30

Ultimately, my thinking was to simply poem each line in my Gratitude, something I've been DOing for 5 years. Actually, the poeming I've only been DOing since April 2011 where I accepted the first of many [and growing] challenges. It surprised me and continues to how much I love poeming just off the top of who knows what. I've enJOYed Very Much having these lines to work off of. 

BElow is a card with the second 4 lines. It just happened that I wrote 3 sets of 4-lines with the 4th, 8th, and 12th BEing LEARN. It seems to me Now that the LEARN was just the encouragement I've needed to BEgin learning WITH others DOing things like ICAD2. I guess it DOES take a village...

#31

The next 2 are the first 2 lines' poeming efforts of mine. As I have taken this very slow and deliberate pause of ICAD2 + Poeming, I am finding many ways to "utilise" the poems and "illustrate" them, too.

#32

 #33

BElow is a photo of me, oh so many years ago, in a wee playhouse. Initially I'd prepared it as one of my ICAD cards, NOT REALLY thinking I'd use it, but then I decided to go ahead and share it anyway. Of course, BElow that is my tip of the hat to Independence Day here in the US. It was fun to get a bit out of my comfy little zone and play with our flag ICAD-style.

 #34

#34+

Painterly Edition Photo Art Friday, June 29th - July 1st

I don't know that this is quite so painterly as some, but I like it and am choosing to just go with it. It's a photo of my sweet Gracie on her 5th birthday, just after a serious haircut, at the Dog Beach in Jupiter, Florida. 

At that point we didn't yet know that we could actually go on the beach a mile from home as long as we stayed North of the signs. 

I've another blog, http://366dazeofgrace.blogspot.com where each day I tweak one my millions of photographs of Gracie with the intent to have a perpetual calendar when 2012 is no more. It is a great way for me to keep learning and practising and NOT get overwhelmed. Though I only used Picasa to tweak this one, I like the painterly feel of the ocean and how Gracie's delight is written right in her whole BEing's expression.

Always a JOY to participate in Photo Art Friday [this time ON Friday and NOT Sunday night!!] and see what others are DOing, perhaps my most favourite part!!

ICAD 2 ~ #23-27

I canNOT adequately express the fun and encouragement that ICAD2 is bringing to ME. These 5 are yet again on my 4.5 by 6.5 "cards" which I guess are meant for scrapbooking but surely fill my purposes.

I am taking a list of 50-some, mayBE just, NOT sure, lines I wrote when I was putting together my Manifesto a few months back for A Year With Myself www.AYearWithMyself.com. Now I find they are giving form and direction to ICAD2 for me.

Sweet.

Anyhow, these all got digitally fiddled with as well in Picasa, the first 4 with Infrared effects, and the last with Thermal, so I am finding that I am learning on a variety of levels about a good many things simply by participating.

Photo Art Friday 22-24 June 2012... "Vintage-ish"

I am in a growth spurt, and it's just plain funny to watch myself try to get where I am going ahead of when I will, I hope, reach there!!!

I'm trying [yes, yes, Yoda, there is no try, but!!!] to wrap this birdbrain round layers and finally LEARN to use PSE8 which I got for Christmas in 2009!!

I spent a fair bit of Saturday engaged in the intent to "LEARN me some Photoshop" and when it was "when" time, I treated myself to playing in Pixlr Express which I understand only marginally more but which affords me to do things I simply can't yet manage in PSE8 and are BEyond the scope of Picasa. 

Today I decided to take this photo of my son from 1983 and make it "vintage-ish" or so I think!! I love the photo, it catches something about him that I can't quite put into words, and the spot where it was taken is one that is very special for me.

I wanted to PLAY at Photo Art Friday again as I am loving how these various challenges are getting me to stretch and then share. Thanks, Bonnie, for the necessary nudge to get me moving forward!!!

My ICADs #19-22

 ICAD #19

 ICAD #20

It's NOT easy to put into words how VERY MUCH I am enJOYing participating in ICAD2. It's done something rather extraordinary to my days, my writing practises, and my ideas about making art.

 ICAD #21

 ICAD #22

ICADs #19 to #22 seem to BE magical stepping-off points for me. I'll admit that I love taking a very simple piece then playing about with the framing options on Picasa. I never really knew how that worked on Picnik, or mayBE I just didn't try to understand it. 

Whatever the case, ICAD2 is a patient teacher for the ME who wants to learn HOW-TO use so many of the digital fiddling tools and toys that are Right Here in my wee lappie!!!

Sincerest thanks yet again to Tammy for her brilliance!!!

ICAD #16, 17, & 18

First 4 Lines for My June 2012 Poeming As An ICAD

This ICAD thing is simply AWESOME!! I mean, I sort of thought it would BE, but until yesterday I really didn't fully recognise its brilliance. I might add, Tammy's brilliance.


So true the little thoughty bubbles of her Encouragements... for instance: 

"If you haven't started yet, you can JUST START. Call today DAY ONE. It's a 61-day challenge."

Love that so simple run round the nattering brain that sometimes runs on empty BEtween my ears!! 


Anyhoozle, last week I had a gigunda realisation that I could take my current poeming challenge and weave it into ICAD and trick myself into creating a wee art-and-poeming book. At first I did it with writing on my index cards and then, over the weekend, whilst I was here in the Wee Cottage entertaining the unexpected guest who occasionally drops in for a few days, P.A.I.N., I had an actual lightbulb moment!!!


Here's what THAT was all about:

First I used an actual 3x5 index card, collaged with the first line...

And then, as I thought some more, I decided to use these 4.5 by 6.5 "mats" I have as Index Cards and Voila!!

So then I did the same thing with Line #2...

Anyway, Pain hasn't left yet. Today's my birthday. And I am simply tickled that I have found this most entertaining...

I'll BE back in a few days to share the next few lines and adaptations of my ICADs.

Thanks so much for this inspiration, Tammy!! You've made a HUGE difference!!

Savouring the Silence of Solitude

Life is da bubbles... 

Ó 2012 Currie Silver, Wee Cottage Wonders

Danielle LaPorte has something she calls ANSWER THE BURNING QUESTION and I've only recently learned of it. 

There was a time when I would ask a question at the end of my daily Gratitude. I think a large part of the reason for DOing so was to ensure some meaningful engagement with others. I'd been living solo awhile and my conversations with Gracie are, well, sometimes exhausting, since I am the only one of us who uses words...

However, Now I love my Solitude and its Silence is something I savour. This painting is actually a detail of a larger painting I have been working on. I often think in lyrics when I am painting or fiddling with my art digitally. Perhaps this is due to my almost always having music on here in the Wee Cottage, and yet...

Lately I have been noticing the sweetness that is quiet. I am able to hear my own heart beating and sometimes, for no reason whatsoever, I see Silence sitting BEside me. As a friend would. If a friend could fit inside this tiny cottage, that is!!

I am surprised that I have made friends with this "thing" I used to abhor. That I am more likely to BE marinating in quiet [save for the air conditioner coming on when it chooses to] than lost in music, an audiobook, or some other noise distraction.

It is Silence that awakens both the artist and the writer inside of me. It makes a space for me where I fit "just right." That is BEyond delicious. I have long felt I needed to apologise for taking up the space I DO. For BEing.

Danielle shared 11 wonderful quotes for this Burning Question, all of which speak to me in resonant ways. However, this one, 

In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.~ Rumi 

speaks to me most deeply.

The past 6 years, for me, have been [and still are] all about Letting Go, then Letting Go Some More. It is through my willingness to make space for Letting Go that I have found the friends I have, in Silence as well Solitude...

My "relationship" TO Silence has BEcome one that I have WITH it rather than the one I used to have... fighting against it. Avoiding it. Disrespecting it. Filling it over-full of noisy chatter and distraction.

We're still in pretty much the honeymoon stage, Silence & I, and yet already I can see that I'm over the moon with it. The funny thing is, Now that we've "found" one another, I canNOT imagine what all my avoidance and resistance were about.

How about YOU?! Where does Silence stand with YOU, in Your Life, Now? 

Very grateful I am, for Danielle LaPorte's Burning Question http://www.daniellelaporte.com/burning-questions-series/whats-your-relationship-to-silence/, for Jess Morrow of Invincible Summer http://jess-morrow.com/2012/06/01/whats-your-relationship-to-silence/ who got my attention through writing about it on HER blog, and for this BE Currie blog of MINE where I am coming out to play in all sorts of ways, little by slowly, discovering the breadth and depth of its possibilities.

[I am still learning how-to link and link-back and what have you, so this is why I have those big honkin' links instead of the nice pretty ones I see elsewhere. I'm willing to keep DOing it wrong until I get the knack of DOing it right. Any help with that would BE much appreciated!!!]