Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Rise up!


I am profoundly disgusted with the recent developments in our governing system. The idjit men in charge have decided to defund Planned Parenthood. What's next? Public school?

Whatever their reasoning it comes right down to allowing a woman to own her body. Completely own it and thus be able to decide exactly what happens to it.

I will uphold a woman's right to choose what is right for her and her body. The vast majority of women make their choices wisely and with considerably agony and forethought and will hold those choices forever in their hearts. Many women are blessed with partners that will support her but those who do not need a safe place to explore their options.

I'd rather that no woman every had to consider an abortion. I want her to have access to sex education and birth control. I want her to have access to STD testing. I want her to be able to get screened for cancer. I want her to feel like she's more than the sum of her parts. I want healthy, happy women to bear healthy, happy babies and to be able to raise them, feed them, educate them and send them off into the world able to contribute to the greater good.

These powerful politicians scare me. I see evil in their eyes. Recently I've been reading a historical fiction book about WWII and the Nazi SS was characterized as men with no intelligence and no skills who only desired power. Given any sort of power they quickly resorted to brutality. They had little humanity and less conscience. They beat and brutalized and murdered hundreds of thousands in their quest for power.

Sounds like quite a few of the current crop of Presidential wannabees. We cannot give that type a foot in the door. It's already too late to some degree but it's not time to roll over. It's time to fight.  I call on women to wake up and realize that we are more powerful than we think. We can still vote. We can vote these bastards out. We can protest and call them on their idiocy in loud voices.

We can make choices for our bodies, our children and their wellness and education, for the health and beauty of our environment, for simple humanity untarnished by greed and the lust for power.

Please look in the mirror and see how powerful you are and how powerful we are if we decide to step up and take that power. No woman would choose to send her sons and daughters to kill other sons and daughters. No woman who has watched her child entranced by a butterfly would choose to devastate wilderness for the sake of oil. No woman would see her elders forgotten in sterile nursing homes.

Think, vote, speak up.

Always.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Summer of Friendship

Meanwhile, back at the ranch/homestead/mountain lair, all is smoky from several gigantic fires in the area, 1000's being evacuated from the Butte/Amador fire. We daily count our blessings and know that it would be so easy to be in the same situation, just one tiny spark. Insanely, our vigilant fire departments are almost daily having to attend to illegal camp fires, thereby proving idiots walk among us. Rain cannot come soon enough.


Photo by Shannon Prieto - 9/10/15

I am naming this the Summer of Friendship. I've been blessed to find myself surrounded by a lovely tribe of geeky metal working, fun loving women and feel for the first time in my life that I'm accepted and celebrated for who I am in the company of women. It's a fine thing and if my life can be compared to a bowl of Salted Caramel Gelato then they are surely the Fudge Sauce and Toasted Almonds on the top.

Do we grow into our acceptance of others? I'm not sure if aging allows us to simply be who we are or if we get better at picking the right people to hang out with. We learn that some people are more like Habenero peppers, they enrich but you only need small doses, while some are more like French Roast, in which a daily slurp is almost mandatory.

I think of the history of my life and marvel that I've gotten to this most excellent place, peace and acceptance, rich and varied relationships, exciting and exacting work, with so much more to look forward to and I cannot help but smile.

Always...


Mad for Leaves...

I've been on a leaf run for a couple of weeks.

These morphed from plain to FABULOUS, even if I do say so myself.

Fine silver, cut into rectangles, folded over, cut into vague leaf shapes, hammered with a riveting hammer, heated to anneal, opened up.
 Starting the shapes.
 Kind of ugly and scary at this point.
 Smoothing the edges, bend a little bit here and there, yowsa, much better. From here lots of sanding and polishing.
 This set got stems, but the next batch won't as I prefer the extra movement a simple drilled hole provides.
Some enamel alchemy, mixed some dark red on top of the gold and got a really successful color.
Hmmm, what would look good with this? Need shiny, some irregular citrine, some Mandarin garnet and we'e good to go.
 Finished, sold the first day out, sent to the Midwest to a very beautiful, vibrant lady.
Here's the next batch, in the polishing stage. Open Studios is fast approaching and I want to have some new work ready.

Always...