Vase-O-Dilation : When the Empty Vase is Full

 The small Satsuma vase, circa 1930’s perhaps, with its craquelature glaze, gold detail and lovely cascade of autumnal maple leaves,  keepscompany both proximate and at a slight remove with two friend vases, the little masterpiece of jonquil leaves and an early 20th century Australian pottery piece with generous geometric intersect of spherical body and planar rim, might be filled with flowers.  These three are in no way empty when they stand alone, proving that the addition of flowers, while their ostensible purpose in life, is an ephemeral joy, while they remain independent beauties. 

A Card in the Hand : Sign Away, Sigh Away

Lately I’ve been making sets of cards, for lovely people that I know,  at first this was a by-product from snipages for collages, but there is nothing like a series for compulsion.   And as it turns out, they mostly get sent out into the world sans script, so they can be that lovely thing, potential.

And then, the crayons felt a little left out, and insisted. 

 

Sea Glass People in Houses

 Here the Sea Glass person busts a move, one can imagine the clatter of glass bones, the glazed intake of hte middle distance, the slight percussion of a wink, glass is hard to catch in action.  This collage of sea glass, includes a foot from Koh Samui, but mostly shards of water  polished pieces gleaned from Sydney beaches, the odd ceramic shard from corners of the harbour  where water and shoreline agree will be a trove.  Each glass piece has its history, of what it had once been, where it’s been and who it was that once upon a time left it behind. 

Pull Out All Stops for Ferry Stop Spirit House : Canal Days in Bangkok

The long narrow ferries of Bangkok’s canals, frequent, bustling, complete with both driver and conductor, scoot along the waterways, and if the driver judges, with a shrewd glance, the water level’s a bit on the high side, flicks a lever, and the roof comes down about eight inches, causing newbies like me, to flinch, even though my modest height means, I’m really in no danger,  and making the local women to giggle, and did they actually give me a little reassuring slap ?  In any case, the Spirit House adjacent to the ferry stop, resplendent with its thoughtful offerings, might be to the canal spirits or  more terrestrial spirits, but in any case I like to think they too might have got a laugh from this. 
 

Desk Follies: Let Sleeping Snakes Sport Wings and Fly Away

 The detritus of desk, work in progress, bits kept in case,  remnants of wonder that hover waiting to be part of the perhaps of something else, this morning yield a small tableau, a  cross-purposing of disparate forms, and while the winged snake will need to wake and the hornet wings fly on along their finite aerodynamic path to decay,  it must be okay to momentarily, dream of flight as one.