Tradescantia, pedal pushers, and Rx victory

Yesterday finally, after eight days of back and forth and checking and pushing, and my referring eye doctor, not the one who was supposed to call in the Rx,  sternly telling me to keep calm (!) the Rx finally arrived. 

At least two of the three did, one back-ordered. So I can start breathing again. After this the actual procedure will probably be a lot less stressful. Anyway, so far so good. Handsome Son will pick up the stuff. 

This is also showing up in the groundcover, lovely spiderwort, aka tradescantia virginiana

Sparks of brilliant blue flowers. It's one of those flowers, like daylilies, you can either spot everywhere growing wild, or buy and plant. It's also one of many discoveries aka thefts, from the New World, made by John Tradescant, here

I love how solemnly they say he's the father of JT jr !  Anyway I'm glad the namers acknowledged Virginia in the name since that's where he plundered it from, back when Europeans thought the Americas were there for their browsing benefit, rather than the native land of ancient peoples.

And yesterday, largely as displacement activity before the arrival of the text about the Rx, I finally did one of those jobs you think about for months, nay, years,  then polish off in twenty minutes.

These are supposedly capris, but on arrival turned out to be more like high waters, brushing the top of my socks. I've been wearing them while planning to fix them.

Simple enough. Cut off several inches, hemmed up, done.  Much more useful now.

Then I finished the second sock of, I think, Pair Seventeen, did the finishing, and started sorting colors for the next. 

These have  shaker stitch tops, and an elastic insert to keep the shape,  so it doesn't stretch out in use.

I always mean to take an interval between pairs but once the needles are vacant suddenly need to fill them again.

A passage from The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas in progress, struck me as so applicable to studying the technique of art

It's about  familiarizing yourself with any artwork in order to really experience it.

I know writers who make a practice of writing out passages of favorite authors just for the insight into how they did it. It's done to learn, not imitate, like playing scales to develop finger expertise.

I've done it by copying Picasso drawings just to get into the vision and it's very demanding. You come away with such respect for the artist. Even copying is demanding, imagine conceptualizing in the first place. 

During the Fischer Spassky chess tournament, the games were published as played and Handsome Partner and I, chess players back then, replayed them as they came out, marveling at the insight and anticipation of each player. We were plumb wore out just replaying, never mind doing the actual original thinking.

Copying art for learning now and then is fine, but not for thinking you're making art. The art, all its life and energy, lies in the maker's original concept.  

Dusting off the teaching soapbox now and retiring it to the corner of the stable where my hobby horses live.

Maybe I'll stitch a bit of my vest while listening to a Mrs Pargeter audiobook today

I love Mrs Pargeter, so funny, and the cast of characters never fails. 

Art also, never fails to keep a person on the rails. Drawing, the guardrail of daily life.

Happy day everyone! Grateful for guardrails and the ability to know they're there.

Birthday drawing and other small things

Yesterday was a lovely day for sitting outside and drawing, cool, cloudy. And the daylilies are coming into bloom. They're a symbol of human and animal life -- each blossom lasts only a day, but there's a succession of them, and the parent plant goes on flourishing indefinitely.

So it seemed right to celebrate Handsome Partner's birthday with a drawing of a daylily he used to know, in my favorite drawing tool, the fine point black Pilot pen.

And while I was out there, to see this visitor on the marigolds

And a bee scoping out the daylily, huge area for him to work

While the self seeded Thai basil seedlings get to work

There's a lot of life in this little space

And while I'm still pursuing the eye doctor to get the Rx called in, hasn't happened yet, a week later,  stress levels high over this, I'm reading this

The cover image, Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon, is appropriate, since it's described early in the narrative though not by name, but unmistakably.  One of her deliberately naive passages.

I saw this painting many years ago at a joint Picasso/Braque exhibit at the old MOMA, and was stunned by its size and power. The color alone is enough to knock you down. 

In fact I had to go sit down to recover, and wasn't able to take in much of the rest of the huge, significant,  show.  

This is why I like to go to art exhibits alone, so I can leave when I can't take in any more, quite often after seeing only a couple of works, even if it was a long trip to get there. 

I can't wait for the new Princeton art museum building to be finished and opened, short trip to see small and wonderful exhibits, on a campus filled with great outdoor sculptures.

Still reading the Winterson art essays, and with a Maisie Dobbs audiobook to accompany Sock Ministry knitting.

Hoping for Rx success today..

Happy day everyone, press on, push voter registration and help the good guys, applaud the G7's clamping down on Russia's economy to help starve  terrorist Putin's armament funding.