Tea Stands for Tuesday. 4/26/22

Sunflowers are everywhere this year.  Many in support of the Ukraine.   I think I will have my tea in this little one cup tea set.  It has been in my cupboard for awhile.

hand painted individual tea set

I thought I would be fun to add a poetry reading to the tea party.  Sip your favorite drink and read along with me.

THE SUNFLOWERS
by Mary Oliver

Come with me
into the field of sunflowers.
Their faces are burnished disks,
their dry spines

creak like ship masts,
their green leaves,
so heavy and many,
fill all day with the sticky

sugars of the sun.
Come with me
to visit the sunflowers,
they are shy

but want to be friends;
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young -
the important weather,

the wandering crows.
Don't be afraid
to ask them questions!
Their bright faces,

which follow the sun,
will listen, and all
those rows of seeds -
each one a new life!

hope for a deeper acquaintance;
each of them, though it stands
in a crowd of many,
like a separate universe,

is lonely, the long work
of turning their lives
into a celebration
is not easy. Come

and let us talk with those modest faces,
the simple garments of leaves,
the coarse roots in the earth
so uprightly burning.

I'm visiting the Tea Party at Elizabeth's blog.  Elizabeth recently had a birthday (Happy Birthday Elizabeth) and she is celebrating with sunflowers too.

Tea Stands for Tuesday 4/19/22

When Tuesday comes around it means it is time for a Tea Party at Elizabeth's blog.  She has an interesting post this morning so check it out. 

Edit:  OOPS, I found out I left the wrong link for my page but have corrected that.

In the Before Time (pre pandemic) I used to be faithful about going for a walk most days.  It is time I returned to that practice.  Slowly, not as far and not as often to begin with.

I like to walk to Peet's to get my coffee.  They offer you a free cup of coffee when you buy your beans.  I take my coffee across the street, sit on a bench and people watch for a bit.  A nice break before heading home.

I will leave you with some poetry this morning.

Talk about Walking

By Philip Booth 

Where am I going? I'm going
out, out for a walk. I don't
know where except outside.
Outside argument, out beyond
wallpapered walls, outside
wherever it is where nobody
ever imagines. Beyond where 
computers circumvent emotion,
where somebody shorted specs
for rivets for airframes on 
today's flights. I'm taking off
on my own two feet. I'm going
to clear my head, to watch 
mares'-tails instead of TV,
to listen to trees and silence,
to see if I can still breathe.
I'm going to be alone with 
myself, to feel how it feels
to embrace what my feet
tell my head, what wind says
in my good ear. I mean to let
myself be embraced, to let go
feeling so centripetally old.
Do I know where I'm going?
I don't. How long or far
I have no idea. No map. I 
said I was going to take
a walk. When I'll be back
I'm not going to say.

Happy Easter

 Wishing everyone a Happy Easter.

Tea Stands for Tuesday 4/12/22

Hello friends,  I'm always happy when I can show up for the tea party at  Elizabeth's blog. 

I've been away without wifi for awhile.  It means I have more time for art though.  I'm on a book making journey.  Not big bound books, little booklets I guess I'd call them.  Here is my first experiment making a booklet using envelopes tucked together.  Some long time ago I bought what I thought was a package of blank cards but it ended up being a package of 4x5 envelopes so I had them handy.

Front of booklet.  I used a napkin and a pencil stroke here or there

These pages are bits of gelli plate prints I made earlier

The bird is stamped on an ATC and tucked into an envelop "pocket".  Over that is a teabag, just attached at the top so it kind of floats when you open the page.  The right side is a copy of an old postcard and some more gelli print bits.

The back of the book has a smaller napkin piece and the yellow is a gelli print I made using a stencil.

This is the book standing up.  And if you squint you can see my water bottle behind everything.  Had to squeeze in my drink.

The booklet isn't quite finished.  I may use it as a birthday card with a special message for someone or perhaps write a quote I - a few words on each page.  

I like trying new things and hope you enjoyed my booklet process.

Welcome April

 

pen and ink

A Bird

by Emily Dickinson

A bird came down the walk,
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.