August 2008                          Issue 18        

in this issue............

The Mermaids

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the wall hangings, the stone carvings, new paintings

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"To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."

- Emily Dickinson

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The Paintings

Reclining Nude

otherwise known as

The Venus of Smithville

Well, you might as well know that The Venus of Smithville started out to be a painting of ROCKS,

just like all the other paintings, but the rock idea "landslided" into the reclining nude idea

 around the time that I was realizing that it was exactly 100 years ago (in 1908)

 when the Venus of Willendorf was discovered (in the hamlet of Willendorf, Austria),

on August 7, right around the time of my birthday.

So you could call the Smithville Venus version a commemorative piece!

yay Venus of Willendorf!

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still....... the Landscape Paintings will not be denied.....

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 "I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,

and I have been circling for a thousand years,

and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song." 

-excerpt from "The Seeker," a poem by 

Rilke in his *Book of Hours* (translated by Robert Bly)

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The Mermaids

 (sculptures cast in resin and decorated with found objects)

Song of the Mermaid Queen

As I went down to the coast on the Isle of Iona

And as I looked out upon the turquoise sea

There on the rocks a shining in the clear light

was the shimmering form of the Mermaid Queen.

Her tail was aglow with a thousand rainbows

Her silver hair with shells and jewels adorned

She looked at me with eyes of emerald

 and said

I am the Mother from whom all are born.

I am the Spirit of the Ocean said she

I am the Mother of Mystery

and you, as all humans, are one of my children

For, as you know, all life came from the Sea.

*

Oh remember my child that the Sea is within you

and within you the knowledge of all that life can be

And if you know this then you will know Me

For I am at the heart of your Divine Destiny.

*

Oh Great Goddess of the Ocean

Grandmother of the Sea

You who are the Keeper of the ancient Mysteries

I honor you and the wisdom you carry

And honor the part of you that is in me.

*

And with that she smiled and vanished 'neath the waves

And though her form was gone

the Light around her stayed

And many a time I will think of Iona

and remember the words

of the Mermaid Queen.

*

-actually this is a beautiful song by Lisa Thiel (1990)

(located on her "Journey to the Goddess" CD)

The first Mermaids.

This is Number 3. 

She will soon hold some kind of a staff in her right hand.

I don't know... I think she is a bit too shiny, actually.  

I like the shine- those pearlescent paints- but not so much on her face and skin- I like it better on the tail.

So she is still "under construction".

But you get the idea of where these mermaids are going.

This wax version of the Mermaid is going to the Bastrop Foundry to be weighed.

The Dollmaker wishes to have at least one mermaid cast in bronze,

so the procedure for that is to make a wax version and weigh it

so that the Foundry guys can calculate how much bronze will be used

in the "Lost-wax" process. 

To make a mold for a bronze casting, the original wax figure is melted away,

leaving the mold empty. Then it is filled up again with the molten bronze.

This is a whole new "ball of wax" for the Dollmaker

who  is now.... the Mold-Maker ....

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Let's talk about Mold-Making for a minute- this is for those who think it's easy.

Now, the best friend and cunning enemy of the novice Mold-Maker, is  a substance called

Mold Release.

Mold Release. Sounds like  "mushroom spore".    (LOL-that's a joke)

We may not know what this magical substance is, but! It comes in a can- so we spray it on.

All we know is that without it, the mold rubber will stick to the clay model.

Without it, the mold rubber would stick to the final resin figure.

Without it, the mold itself might actually tear while removing it, at the hands of the frustrated Mold-Maker!

However, spray on the Mold Release  and the mold comes right off- voila! 

and you have a happy mold and a happy product and a happy Mold-Maker.

All well and good, right...?

Here you have your cast resin figure, all nice and perfect and you go to paint on it...

ah...... The paint will not stick!

The paint will not stick because there is still Mold Release on the figure.

Now we are REALLY wondering- what IS this stuff!?

(this polysiloxane polymer, ether and halogenated hydrocarbon....)

(Dollmaker goes cross-eyed)

All we know is- it's is not water based,

because we already went to the sink and washed the Mold Release off

with soap and water and a toothbrush!

 it's clear, so we think we washed it off...

but it's not off. Oh no. It's still there.

Then when we went to paint our nice clean (ha) mermaid oh sure the paint goes on alright,

but then we look away and when we look back, we spy a blotch- a little place-

usually right on the cheek or at the end of the nose- 

It will invariably be someplace very noticeable...

where the paint has just- gone away. There's a bald patch- where the paint used to be!

  This was the problem all along with the blotchiness. Mold Release.

So, after we have bathed the mermaid in every solvent known to man,

we ask Bill. Ok Bill- what is this stuff!?

We learn that Mold Release is basically a wax- a spray-on wax.

Which mostly comes off with some kind of De-Greaser. ..

However, this is Bill's suggestion on how to get around the Mold Release problem

(and he's been doing it for three decades)-

How to treat the surface of our mermaid figure......

 Just spray PRIMER on it.

That's it? Yeah, that's it. 

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The Storyteller Card from the Sacred Path Cards

representing "Expansion"

When the Storyteller Card appears,

 "you are being asked to listen to the words of others

and apply their experiences to your life..." 

"The Storyteller Card always asks us to stretch beyond our former capacity

and to be the creators of our own Medicine Stories.

 Each experience told or re-told will assist another in applying it to his or her life."

The storyteller card also says:

"The wise listener does not need to fall from Horse

in order to understand the ground is hard."

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A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life

depends on the labors of other men, living and dead,

and that I must exert myself

in order to give in the measure as I have received and am still receiving.

-Albert Einstein (1879-1955)  Physicist

yay, Einstein.

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The latest Woo-Woo Story.......... 

those who fear Woo-Woo, stop here and do not read on....

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Wednesday, August 20, 2008 

Something Happened in the Willow Tree 

I was in the backyard looking up. Okay I was out in the backyard looking for magic.

You know, the problem with magical occurrences is that they are often so fleeting. 

Like today, this magical golden beetle landed on my arm and I mistook it for a fleck of

 something gold from my workshop- a stud, or a sequin- even though, two seconds later, 

 just before it took off flying away from me forever, I recognized that it was alive

and didn't squash it at least. Bye bye oh magical golden scarab. Darn!

It is also more than a little annoying when magical occurrences happen and cannot be

 verified, because nobody else was present to witness the once-in-a-lifetime

never-to-be-repeated-again extraordinary and beyond-belief

but-it-really-happened kind of event.

So, having said all that...

It was an evening shimmering with a kind of  watercolor radiance.

A mind-boggling sunset and the sky alive with marching  mammoth cloud formations.

 As I was musing, an "eye" opened up in the clouds,

right over the shed and under the pine branches-

 the clouds do this circular churning dance and an eye-in-the-sky will often appear

 right in that same spot, boink- suddenly you look and there's an eye

looking back at you-

clouds, like turtles, are deceptively quick, but I digress...

So I was just standing there- absently staring at the delicate Willow Tree,

both of us shadowed by a big low cloud. I wanted very much to write

but haven't felt inspired. I was waiting like a shuffling old woman at a bus stop

for the magic bus to come along. My magic antennae were out- way out. 

 I knew the writing would all come effortlessly- I would become the Storyteller-

the Twisted Hair- smiling inwardly as I risked going "out on a limb"

to tell the truth about the magic.

Assuming that a person can just go out in the backyard and wait for the miracle

with an expectant air, I stood there, open and ready for the great outpouring-

whatever the Universe might want to demonstrate.

Just then, as I was staring into the branches of the Willow, a very strange thing happened -

The breeze died down and the Willow Tree went limp. As I stood there watching,

just one branch- a small one- suddenly jerked down,

as if something invisible had stepped on it.

Then, another small branch just a little further up in the tree jerked down,

as if  it, too had been stepped on- or as if something had leaped up from the first branch

to the second. Then a third branch just above that one jerked down,

as if something had taken yet another step up toward the top of the tree. 

 And then, nothing. That was it. That was IT!

Not one of that tree's other five hundred small branches or ten thousand long delicate

 leaves had moved the whole time this was happening.

During that whole three seconds. Three seconds is a generous estimate-

with this sort of rogue magic there's no time to gather your wits or take notes

and no explanation is forthcoming.

You can't go to the back of the book and find the answers written there, upside down.

After a while, I realized I was still holding my breath.

I began to breathe again and began pacing slowly around the tree,

never taking my eyes off of it. Having gazed upon that Willow tree for years

and never having seen anything invisible jumping about among the branches-

now I stared with a kind of blind-worm brain-fused ecstatic hope,

for what, I could not imagine.

Since there was nothing else I could do but observe, I observed what happened when

the wind picked up again. When the wind blew, it would lift the tree gradually

from one side to the other- sifting through the branches,

the wind coaxed the whole tree to dance- Willows are so graceful anyway-

they really are lovely to watch in the wind. But the "step-up" action was not repeated.

 Whatever caused the branches to jerk downwards while moving in an upward direction-

it was not the wind.

 My mind raced up and down through the corridors of it's archives

and came tottering back with an empty tray.  I stared at the clouds,

the all-too-familiar dense murkiness of doubt creeping toward me- did I really see that?

 Was that real?

OH no you don't! 

Give me a sign, I mentally projected out into the vast unknowable Universe.

If this was real- if this was – something-

let me know  because I do believe I just witnessed something most extraordinary.

At that moment, a cloud was directly above me, and a raindrop hit me,

and another and another. It reminded me of my gratitude for the rains we have had

these past few days, and I looked straight up and shot thoughts of "Thank U!" to the sky.

 All at once I realized, the sun was still shining and it was raining-

why- maybe- maybe- I looked to the east,

 where the rainbow would be, with the sun behind me,

and, whadayaknow! There it was-

A Rainbow- my sign.

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It has been said that our certainties assert our limitations...

meaning, the more certain we are of something,

the more we have limited ourselves to that viewpoint

and screened out other ideas which might be valid and useful to us....

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So, anyway, whatever I saw remains a mystery for now....

I don't even have a theory... I'm just waiting...

Maybe the next time the magic bus speeds on by me

it will at least be visible.

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"...the Queen of Infinite Space, Our Lady of the Stars, and Lady of the Starry Heaven.

 Nuit represents the infinitely-expanded circle

whose circumference is immeasurable and whose center is everywhere..."

-Wikipedia on "Nuit"

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The Wall Hangings

More "Expansion" into the "Dream-Time" with the

 DreamTime Wall Hangings

The Dollmaker is having way too much fun with these!

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The Stone Carvings

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free,"

said the sculptor Michelangelo about a statue he made.

Limestone (Austin chalk)

carved from a gastropod fossil-

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Stone carvings

 are being used as models.

Stone carving in the center

on the right is a plaster cast, on the left a resin cast

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Stone carving in the center- all others, plaster or resin or concrete

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A rising tide lifts all boats.

-American proverb

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Announcement- Doll Classes

will not resume this fall. There will be no Doll Classes this fall.

Possibly in the winter of 2009....

due to the "Expansion" of the Dollmaker....

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"...the Storyteller inside of you can bring the excitement of being alive to any situation.

Each of us is a bridge to new understanding. We can remind friends of happy memories if they are feeling down.

We can share an exciting idea and give birth to creativity. We can speak from our hearts and show others our appreciation.

We can spin a tale that brings new insight and purpose to those who have forgotten how to weave their dreams.

In every instance, the caring and sharing of the Twisted Hair or Storyteller is one way to remind ourselves and others

 that  the future lives in us now."

-From the Storyteller/Expansion chapter in the Sacred Path Workbook by Jamie Sams

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Til next time.....