Duskies

Out here in the canyons of Calimesa, we have a name for the tarantulas that seem to turn up everywhere - Duskies. One of my neighbors found one crawling up his mobile home and took it to the local pet shop where they treated it like a pet and told him all about the Duskies. These giants don't really bite - they have some hairs on their bodies that have barbs and they can eject those into your skin.
Duskies drink water too. They need it like most other creatures. When my neighbor brought the Duskie home, he put it out by our fountain and he said that the Duskie got down by the water and drank a long drink.







As for qualities that all spiders have, they can each spin seven types of silk. Each is used for a different purpose. The silk is strong too - so strong that it has many uses in industry.
I have yet to find one up close and personal, even the ones that were put out by our fountain. Apparently they hide during the day mostly and come out to hunt in the dark of night. It is actually good to have them around, as is the case with many types of spiders, because they keep the overall insect population down.

There are many art forms that have been inspired by spider webs. One of the forms is spiderweb quilts. Here are some of my personal favorites. If you look at them hard enough, they will seem like the real thing. Remember too that if you want to see a larger view of a spiderweb quilt, you can click on the subject

Little Roadside Memorials . . .

   Many times I have driven on back roads and have seen little memorials alongside the road, sometimes in the most barren and unlikely places. They are tiny works of art, sad little reminders of life that is no longer. Sometimes people come and put things on the little memorials - toys, plastic flowers, and other little things. Some of these little memorials have the names of the people on them in some way - perhaps painted on, and some have more elaborate name plates on them.

   I have always been curious about the birth of this tradition. The Hispanic culture has its Dia de Muerte, and many other cultures actually have celebrations during the year remembering the dead. Even elephants, as they pass through areas where their ancestors have died, stop to tenderly pick up the bones and feel them and then put them carefully back where they were.
   There is something very touching and harking back to a gentler time when each stage of life was something worth remembering, and something that was treasured.
   “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. 
   "It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”  ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

 

Old Friends . . .

"A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world." ~Lois Wyse

   Cleaning out my files, I found so many letters I have saved through the years from friends and relatives. Many of those people are gone from my life - perhaps a divorce many years ago or a death.  But they are all folks who touched my life in so many ways, and I honestly cannot bear to get rid of any of them. Some friends suggested that I use them in some art projects, so that is what I will do.  As I run my hands over each letter, it is as though  a moment in time is captured forever. I do not need to read the letters, for I can gain my sense of my friend just by that comforting touch. I will laugh silently to myself, or perhaps a tear will come from my eye as I remember some truly touching time spent as we perhaps cried or shared a sorrow together.

   Letter writing is truly an art. There was a genuine joy in waiting with anticipation for the postman to come, then looking into the mailbox with a sense of getting a treasure.  The letter was generally carried to the house, where I delayed its opening a little longer, perhaps fixing a cup of coffee or tea to sip while I read it.  And then I would open it carefully, and pour over those words.  I would look at the handwriting and somehow understand if my friend or relative was well or not, even if the words went unwritten. Each word had a meaning beyond what was actually on the page. Some words carried a color within them that I was clearly able to see, and others perhaps a flavor or a scent, or an emotion unspoken and yet coming through clearly. 

   I am so happy that I have those sweet memories.  I am so glad I can look back on my life and time spent with those friends and others - it adds a richness to each passing day. I am going to look forward to sharing the art I create from "The Art of Writing." The colorful mailbox is mine and I painted it in this way about a month ago with the help of a little four-year-old grandson of a neighbor. If you click on any of the photos, they will become larger for viewing. The hands are from a 2006 journal quilt I made and somehow they seemed appropriate. They are photo transfers of my actual hands, and originally, the hands acted as a clasp for a quilt that opened to expose a different scene. I used the hands art because it reminded me of the hands carefully opening a letter to expose a little of the soul of a good friend.

Giving a Life to Those Who Have Died . . .

"Sometimes love lasts a moment.
Sometimes love lasts a lifetime.
Sometimes a moment is a lifetime."

   Before the advent of the Safe Surrender for unwanted newborn babies, many babies were discarded as people might discard a sack of trash. They were put into garbage cans, toilets, and other unsavory places such as the side of roads. California had no Safe Surrender. Babies that are found in this state are simply cremated, with the ashes kept for several months and then they are cast into the pile of ashes of all sorts of people who died and who were not claimed.
   It is estimated that prior to Jan. 1, 2001, some 500 babies passed from this earth in California as castaways. Some had been abandoned; still others had been killed. Not all were newborns; the oldest of the children buried in the Garden of Angels in Desert Lawn Cemetery of Calimesa, CA, was five years old and killed apparently by his parents. (The photo to the left is one of my many art cards I have made. This one seems to fit the story really well; I avoided using photos out of respect for Debi and for the children. You can google the cemetery to see photos. You can click on the photos for a larger view.)

  The Safe Surrender law was brought about by Debi Faris-Lujan, a housewife with three children of her own. One evening in 1996, she heard a television news story about a newborn baby boy found dead in a duffel bag alongside the San Pedro Freeway. She was so touched by the sad story that she set out to find the child and bury it. Not knowing what she would face, she set out and would not give up in her quest to get the child and give it a decent burial.  Before the burial, however, she had found another baby boy and a baby girl as well. So that first burial August 26, 1996 involved three babies Debi named Matthew, Nathan and Dora. (This is another of my art cards that somehow seemed appropriate for this writing.)
  This wonderful woman gave her own money with her husband to buy caskets for the babies, and ultimately the two bought more plots as well. Later, she would win the lottery (I don't know if it was the big one or not, but she donated much of the money to more burial plots for the babies). Debi Faris-Lujan, who now lives in Arizona but returns to California every month, is founder and director of Garden of Angels and Safe Surrender for Newborns, P.O. Box 1776, Yucaipa, CA 92320, 909-229-0123.

   To date, some 95 babies are buried in the cemetary. Each baby is not only given a name, but wrapped in a newly made blanket and it is held by Debi before it is placed in the casket made for it with a little soft toy and flowers as well. There are funerals for each child, often with others in attendance. Sometimes white doves have been released into the sky, In that brief and final moment or moments, that tiny person becomes a real person who has mattered in this world. (I picked my art quilt, "Wabi Sabi," as the third and final piece of art. Wabi Sabi is a philosophy of the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.)