Resting Sunday

Today I'm trying not to spin, weave, knit, because my neck and shoulder are asking to rest. 

I'll walk and think.

Yesterday I made this, no idea what to call it, some sort of fryup. Spiced tuna, steamed broccoli, red lentil crumbs, bound with an egg, fried. Served with the rest of the apricot sauce 

You need plenty of spice here, and I added baharat to the already spicy ingredients. With the sweeter apricot sauce, good.

And since the very hot day Friday brought on the lavender scent, 

I cut a bunch for my neighbor. 

I do this each year, except last year there were no flowers at all, and I wondered if it had died. But this year it's back looking as fine as ever.

I was thinking recently about poet Padraig O'Tuama and his thoughtful newsletter, about our perception of time and other things. 

Here's a great new thought from him, which I'll pass on in his own words

And I have an example of art making something happen, not to me, but to an observer of my work, which then affected me.

This was years ago, when I had a local solo show titled Four Sisters, made in copper wire, black gesso and  metal upcycled items.

Most of the pieces suggested three sisters and an observer. None of my sisters made any comments on it though I had sent pictures of the pieces in the show.

Here's one, most of the show sold to collectors, so only a couple are here 

Then, years later, sister Dogonart said they'd all gone out for coffee and to look at the pictures. She said they kept wondering why it was called four sisters when they could only detect three people in the various works.

Then she said it suddenly dawned on her that the fourth was relegated to being an outsider, observing the group. The artist was the fourth, outside looking in. She was dismayed and said you must have felt you never had sisters. 

I suspect that's why I never heard from them about it, didn't even know they'd looked at the pictures. They got it.  They just didn't know what to say to acknowledge it. But one sister reached out, much later, as a result. 

That was the power of art, which words and my personal reaching out for many years,  had never achieved. It wasn't my intent at all. I was just creating a concept based on my experience, as artists do. So that came as a bonus.

In another context, here's an ink and wash if Four Sisters. 

It takes a bit of looking to find them all, a metaphor for the life of a large family, of which this was only half.  And any of these sisters could be any other, depending on circumstances. Identities and relationships are fluid. 

Do you have any experience where any art form, music, theatre, dance, painting, created an epiphany for you? Maybe you'd like to share? 

Happy day everyone, I'm off to walk in the sunshine. Trala!