it’s not a complex piece of music. it’s a line out of my heart at the moment in time i was recording it. it’s the mystery that surrounds waiting. it’s the depth of biding one’s time. it’s the expression of sitting tight and holding on, of not-knowing. it’s the tentative simplicity of before…before the time of getting to the end of waiting. it’s the time of anticipation, of advent – the time of emergence, of arrival, of birth.
it’s not complicated. it’s just waiting.
download JOY – A CHRISTMAS ALBUM on iTUNES or CDBaby
we played a game on the roadtrip back from boston and time spent with our beloved boys and family and friends. our on-the-road-many-hours-to-pass game was “if i were first lady/first man, my platform would be….” we spoke about what we would choose as our impassioned work, the reasons we would choose that very important work and how we would try to support it.
coming back – after thanksgiving gratitude and in the beginning of this beautiful holiday season – to this painting morsel of HELPING HANDS and the full image of david’s deeply touching HELPING HANDS painting, i can think of no better platform than that of those two words – helping hands.
as i look at a few of the throw pillows i designed through the months of our FLAWED CARTOON postings, i remember some of the stories i told in those posts…what the FLAWED CARTOON sparked in my memory bank or made me think of. you are what you eat reminds me, once again, of my big brother – and the words he had written on his sticker-decorated-painted-verses-nylon-string guitar. so much possibility!!! makes me think of my sweet momma and her determination to drive her electric wheelchair downstairs in her assisted living facility to dinner all-by-herself. face your giant a sign of the times, fearless – each of us brave, every single day. i will try to see i to i an honest attempt at kind, gracious co-existence. and dream. of course, dream.
this is week 42 of our STUDIO MELANGE. and as i look back through all the writing and thoughts and designs and merchandise, i relive each one…reminders of time flying by, of days passing, of the ever-importance of our heart-stories.
i hope you might find a pillow you can’t live without in this week of throw-pillows-to-purchase-as-gifts-this-holiday-season. but if not, i hope you find a writing that resonates with you and reminds you of the value of your own stories.
so. many. throw pillows. and so much design fun. these collections represent a smattering of our two-artists-making-stuff-for-humans product lines, a vast array of tote bags, mugs, prints, laptop sleeves, phone cases, blankets, beach towels, cutting boards, coasters, shower curtains, and yes, throw pillows.
as we rapidly approach the holiday-gift-season, we thought we’d enter the pool of possibilities and just offer up a compilation of some of the merchandise that is available in our names. perhaps it will be just the right thing you need…for you or someone else. either way, it’s a pleasure to look at our five society6.com store sites and see how very many lines we have designed through the time of this melange. the learnings have been vast; the feedback and every single sale deeply appreciated.
happy holidays from two artists who love to do art. xoxo
i love the unicorn on the daily calendar wendy aka ben aka saul gave me, but the thing i really pay attention to are the words of wisdom it offers me day after day. sometimes it makes me laugh aloud; sometimes it makes me really think. later in the day i recall a bit of the message, but i can’t recall how the unicorn was standing or if it was flying or rearing up or ….
i think that’s the way with other similar images…like our CHICKEN MARSALA. CHICKEN is our little made-up boy, a cartoon, who showed up for the first many months of mondays as a part of this melange. CHICKEN always had a message morsel – a CHICKEN NUGGET – and it was that message that seemed to resonate with his audience.
taking some of those words of wisdom or expressions, i designed ‘words-only’ products (as well as products with CHICKEN MARSALA on them.) with the shopping season upon us and everyone seeking something unique as gifts, the next few weeks we’ll revisit some of those products so that you can see what you might have missed.
this is throw pillow week. you can find these by clicking on the box above or by clicking HERE. when you get to the society6 site, you will find these same simple images and lots of others – including images with CHICKEN MARSALA – on coffee mugs, travel mugs, laptop sleeves, phone cases, hoodies, t-shirts, tote bags, blankets, towels, coasters, even shower curtains. it was a blast designing all of these product lines. i hope that we can help you in finding just the right thing for someone special…or maybe even yourself.
happy holidays with love from me, david & chicken marsala.
it was election day and i was passing through the denver airport, walking from one end of the united airlines terminal to the other. i knew that later that night, i would be tuning in to the results of the midterm elections and would, undoubtedly, read a plethora of articles on my news app that would sadden me. the divisiveness is palpable, an uneven heartbeat in our country, a dis-ease that is rampant.
i passed a bank of telephones (the ones that you put coins in to make phone calls) and above each cubicle was a poster. i read each as i walked past. i was much further down the terminal when i turned around to go back. lincoln’s words captured my attention and i wanted to pass-it-on as the poster says. “a house divided…cannot stand.”
it made me wish for what should be simple things: dialogue. grace. equality. kindness. unity. and yes, civility. they are all there. in us.
i had landed in denver, took the little plane for the small airport in the mountains. The Girl picked me up and we did errands in town, because telluride is an hour and a half away and there is no target or starbucks or any chain store there. when we got to the little house she just moved to and shares with three others, i looked for something to cut the stems off sweet flowers so i could place them in a facsimile of a vase. having not unpacked all the way, and knowing she was also not all that familiar with her new place yet, i knew that i should just make do with anything that cuts. i grabbed a large knife off the counter and starting sawing. the only thing wrong with that is that i sawed my left pointer finger as well. ouch! i did everything to make it stop bleeding but it was stubborn and kirsten and i wrapped it in bandaids and paper towels to wander around town. yowza.
i wasn’t going to mention it to d – the cutting-stems-with-a-big-serrated-knife thing and all – but couldn’t resist looking for a little husband-sympathy. so after another hour or so, i texted him. he texted back, “we are twins. my left index finger. i sliced mine hours ago…” what?!?
we have this beautiful print in our home, a simple calligraphy by my big brother….it reads, “when one weeps, the other will taste salt.” hmmm.
i’m thinking this is just a fancy term for procrastination? you know, those moments when you have a list-of-things-to-do and you do something NOT on the list. to be honest, i ALWAYS add the things i ended up doing TO the list so that i can cross them off. there is something i find so very satisfying about crossing things off. even if i haven’t gotten to the crux of what i need to get done.
d says that i work in a circular manner. i suppose he’s right. but i swear it’s a woman-thing. we are spinning many plates at the same time, keeping them all in the air, and, although everything will eventually get done, we move from one thing to the next and then circle back. i know very few gals who – in an OCD kind of way – stay cemented to one task until its completion without punctuating it with others.
when The Girl and The Boy were little i was constantly moving from writing at the piano to reading books aloud to playing with matchbox cars to making business calls and back to the piano….many layers all at once. i remember having a phone conversation with one of the VPs of barnes and noble when they were placing one of my albums on the listening station wall. in the middle of this phone call, you could hear one of my children in toddlerhood – i will not mention which one – in the background, beckoning me from the bathroom, yelling, “i finished! i pooped!” the VP heard it too and he was gracious enough to tell me he would hold on. it’s a mom thing, right? those spinning plates.
we work differently, d and me. we are both productive, but i’m guessing he would oft label me productively avoidant. eh. he just doesn’t see how i accomplish that ever-growing-ever-crossed-off list in my head (or on paper, for that matter.) it’s amazing what i can accomplish when i am “supposed” to be accomplishing something else. i know you know what i mean! #allwillgetdone #whatdoesitallmeananyway?
reverse threading 