Wednesday and Thursday...my days seem to meld together in harmony...

It seems that the moments seem to flow into another moment of creation. I am collecting several long 4 to 5 yards panels of hand dyed fabric for my installation. No this is not to say each piece comes out exactly like I assumed they would be with the ability to over dye and hand paint the fabrics again ...there is a chance to manipulate the final images. I have been adding another hand painted layer of colors into the bark of my trees..slowly and painstakingly one brushstroke at a time. Do you ever find your self lost in a simple process of painting and lose track of all time? I know myself enough to begin with a dry brushing technique and then a wash of colors...they will penetrate into the fibers and appear on both sides of the cloth when they are installed into the tree tops. That is my plan for today...my intuitive way of applying the dyes is always a surprise but as I check on several blogs I realize we are all exploring personal avenues for making our marks. I am working for an impressionistic, fluid approach in my color placements so it does take a leap of faith and patience in waiting to cure the batch of fabrics. most of my reference books give advice and recipes for dyeing 1/4 of a yard and up to a full yard. I am working with intensity to get the dyes to flow onto large, moving wind sculptures. That is where "Whispers in the Trees" sort of floated into my subconscious. My journey is one brushstroke at a time with the mixture of pure , bright colors at a time.

Last night we studied "Life on, in and under a log" ...a continuation of exploration of life in our Dawes Arboretum. Hopefully many will attend the activities and opportunities to see and discover the many chapters of the life inside Dawes. Next week is the Easter Egg hunt scheduled in the courtyard so I am praying for the continued Spring weather warm temperatures. I need to complete the candy eggs this weekend. I finished and delivered the wedding invitations to Kari Ann and Brent ...hopefully they were very pleased as I did think they ended up being an elegant, simple invitation for their upcoming nuptials. They are ready and have the envelopes addressed and were able to stuff them and had them in the mail today. I came home and decided to just go to bed...rest is just a s important as good nutrition when I attempt to complete this large commission.

I have four washes to do tonight and dry them in a very hot dryer before tomorrow morning. I found some leaf skeletons on my meditation walk today. I saw the snake friend Mr. Squiggles again today but he was too fast for little Justin to capture him once again. I gave his mother Abby a copy of Seth Apter's new book...she is on the verge of recognizing that she had everything she needs already...to be the artist in her life now. I went to pick up a couple extras at Michael's arts and crafts on my way home and took Roxie in to meet the crew. She peed through the shopping cart....whoops that is one place we have not worked on for her housebreaking lessons.

It is time to do my next load of ART!!!!! I hope you enjoy the photos! Imagine and Live in Peace, Mary Helen Fernandez Stewart
We had a quick spaghetti dinner and Ken worked on his school assignments.