Photo-a-day: 365 Nov/Dec

Day 244: Little hands play sweet music

"Music is my religion."
-Jimi Hendrix

Day 245: "I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another."
-Brenda Ueland

Day 246: Well, this is certainly not something you'd expect to fall out of one of your child's diapers - a live spider from a folded diaper inside a sealed plastic bag, inside a brand new box. I don't even have much of a fear of spiders (surprisingly, luckily!), but it sure scared me, and I'm glad I wasn't just pulling the diaper straight out to strap on the little guy (I ID'd the spider as some type of jumping spider, of which there are over 3000 species, MOST of which are not highly venomous, but they are listed as the most common spider to bite, and their bite feels like a wasp sting - if you don't have other, more serious reactions to the venom - but a wasp-like sting to the nether regions sounds like no fun, either). While I'm glad it wasn't a more scary creepy-crawlie (black widow, etc!), a freaking SPIDER falling out of your kid's diaper is kinda terrifying. I hope to never experience it again. Needless to say, I did send a LONG, descriptive email to the company responsible...

Day 247:
"Where every something, being blent together turns to a wild of nothing."
-William Shakespeare

Day 248:
“It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall no farther.”
― Sylvia Plath

Day 249: “The haft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagles own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.”
― Aesop

Day 250:

"You know those little snow globes that you shake up? I always thought my brain was sort of like that. You know, where you just give it a shake and watch what comes out and shake it again. It's like that."
-Gary Larson

Day 251:

"People are like stained - glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within."
-Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Day 252:

"The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises."
-Leo Buscaglia

Day 253: Snow falls on Tree's Soul - In color

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!”
― Ted Grant

Day 254: Portrait of Ice

"I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you."
-Frida Kahlo

Day 255:

"I keep pinching myself to make sure I'm not dreaming."
~ Yvette Mimieux

Day 256: Almost finished...
Reaching the end of a long project - seeing the light at the end of the tunnel! And yet...

"The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the germ of a new work."
-Berthold Auerbach

Day 257:

“There is nothing more difficult to master than repetition. If you do it badly, it's clumsy, stupid. When it's well done, it's like a little echo, like waves, poetry itself.”
― Laurence Cossé

Day 258: Starting a new holiday tradition! Lotus Biscochitos: layered with slices of lotus root - it has a mild flavor, and looks like snowflakes Yum!

“It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.”
― D.H. Lawrence

Day 259: Clark's Mural II

Finally done with my second commissioned mural for Clark's Pet Emporium. This one's going in at the Menaul store. Figured I'd take an awkward selfie for scale

Day 260: Coelophysis Christmas

Happy Holi-days from New Mexico's state dinosaur at New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science for Clark's annual Christmas party

Day 261: Stir Fry bouquet - baby bok choy and eggplant

"There are always flowers for those who want to see them."
-Henri Matisse

Day 262: Cabbage, Cubed

"We turn the Cube and it twists us."
-Erno Rubik

Day 263: Devotion

“In this part of the story I am the one who
dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

Day 264: Yucca Winter

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.”
-Andrew Wyeth

Day 265: A new creation for a show next year - this one's a chakra wall (or window) hanging - the prints are translucent so look awesome with light shining through them. Working on other wall hangings, small ornaments, lamps, night-lights, and box-framed prints

Day 266: Studio BLUE has a new resident - this cute little axolotl now inhabits the tank at BLUE! He (or she) was growing much slower than the siblings it was sharing a tank with, it had to be moved somewhere else as to avoid being eaten. It's front right leg was bitten off by a sibling, and it has now fully re-grown! A symbol of reinventing yourself - perfect for the yoga studio!

Day 267:

"I wasn't always this introverted."
-Syd Barrett

Day 268

Day 269:

"Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand."
-Mother Teresa

Day 270: Jewel Fruit

THE SUNRISE RUBY - (excerpt) by Rumi

In the early morning hour,
just before dawn, lover and beloved wake
and take a drink of water.

She asks, "Do you love me or yourself more?
Really, tell the absolute truth."

He says, "There is nothing left of me.
I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, or a world
made of redness? It has no resistance
to sunlight."