Banbury

This is Banbury, from Ride a white horse to Banbury Cross. The old verse I found goes "with birds as her halo and bells on her toes, she shall have music wherever she goes." Her eyes look real . . . they are "oiled marbles" and I ordered them from a place on the web called Rainbow Turtle.

As you can see from the sketch at the right, I planned to have a bird halo and rings on her "toes" . . . but I never quite found anything that looked satisfactory. I loved the way her sculpted head turned out and couldn't bear to add something that didn't begin to match it.

Big Foot Bird

I've found an online class with Marlaine Verhelst that starts this fall. It's all about "Making a Bigfoot Bird".

That will be THIS fall. I'm already enrolled in a Dutch Touch class (taught by Marlaine and Ankie Daanen) at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville, September 20-24th, NEXT fall. I made my Banbury Horse with an online Verhelst class in '07.

Frank McCourt

Frank McCourt died Sunday and, among other things, he must have been a helluva teacher according to the posts put up by former students. I read Angela's Ashes and 'tis, but never got around to Teacher Man. That's now on my list.

The Time Traveler's Wife

I'm trying to finish The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I'm on page 451 out of 536. Not much time left (no pun intended) for a plot twist that will make the effort worthwhile. This is only the second time I've read about time travel--(if you don't count H. G. Well's The Time Machine--which I probably SAW instead of read, anyway).

I was able to break a 3-year "reader's block" with time travel fiction after hearing Diana Gabaldon speak at a book fair in Edinburgh during the Festival (1999). I bought the first book of the Outlander series (published in Britain as Cross Stitch) while I was there. The book fit the atmosphere which was comprised of: the Military Tattoo; bag pipes playing day and night (we were housed at the University of Edinburgh during a bagpipe contest); Rizzio's blood on the floor at Holyrood House; and Scottish thistles grabbing my pant's legs as I climbed Arthur's Seat--from whence King Arthur will come whenever Britain needs him.

Worth Noting

Descriptive sentences from The Time Traveler's Wife. "A crow flies across the grass. Its shadow flies under it, and meets it as it lands under the window . . ."

Also a good phrase from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society loaned to me by my friend Lydia a few weeks ago. Something about feeling like a tuba among the flutes. Nice.

Colin's "postage stamp"

I stayed up really late making prototypical art for postage stamps. My subjects were two of my husband's (Gary's) great nephews.

This is Colin, who is seven years old and in second grade. You would assume he was at least nine or older. It's easy to forget he's so young when you talk with him. He, too, was an artist last summer. Unfortunately, he tells me he no longer has time for art.