Dibbles and Dabbles

 

          Dibbles and dabbles.

          A little of this and a little of that.

          That’s what I think of when I think of my art. I’ve tasted a lot of creative mediums over the years. Crayons. I think we all had crayons and coloring books when we were little. I remember once I colored a couch, or maybe it was a chair, in my coloring book. I colored it two crazy colors. Something like pink with green apple piping all the way around it. I thought it was interesting and showed it to Momma. She was not impressed, not that she made any disparaging remarks. She just said, “Mm-hmm,” and I went on my way.

I had pastels when I was a young teenager. Then I found boys and pot and didn’t do any more art. In the eighties I was inspired by my cute little redhaired sister to get back into art and I dabbled in inks, moved to colored pencils, then oil paints.

 I spent the next fifteen years drinking and stopped doing art all together.

Around 2005, Mike’s brother Cork got me into stained-glass. I went on to dabble in copper jewelry, wire work, making metal flowers from tin cans, ladybugs, book boxes, air-dry clay, concrete clay, fairy houses, and lately, watercolor paints.

What a journey!

As I look back, flitting from memory to memory, I realize it hasn’t all been without sins and regrets. Do any of us get to live our lives without sins or regrets?

Regrets? Maybe. I’ve met people who claim to have none, saying, “Everything I’ve done, everything that has happened to me, has shaped me into the person I am today — and I like the person I am today. How can I regret that?”

Sins? No. From the time we’re eighteen months and stand before our parents and defiantly say, “No!” when asked to do something. Disobedience. A sin.

“Did you take a cookie?”

“No.” The evidence of that lie may very well be found in the crumbs lingering around our tiny pink mouths.

We sin from a time before we even know what a sin is.

I heard a podcast this week. I’m not sure who was speaking, since I listen to several preachers. The message has left me with a good way to handle past sins and regrets.

“Once you have confessed a sin to God, you don’t need to confess it over and over.”

This is exactly what we tend to do when a past sin keeps coming to the forefront of our mind. We don’t “feel” forgiven as we wallow in the regret of that sin and re-confess it over and over.

“To continually confess a sin is to not believe God when He says in 1 John 1:9: ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,’” he quoted. “Instead, use this as an opportunity to praise God! To remember and thank Him for ALL He has forgiven us for!”

Turn regrets into praises is an idea I found intriguing and shared it with a friend who also faces similar struggles. She was thankful and that gave me the idea to share it with you, just in case you needed to hear it, too.

          I started a watercolor that is maybe a little ambitious for me. I got this far and can’t decide where to go, or even if I should go any further. I shelved it, waited a couple of days, looked at it again, and shelved it again.

          Needing a confidence booster, I decided to experiment with a different way of doing my book boxes. I love the texture when I coat them with wall paste but it gives me a problem in the hinges. The plaster chips off no matter how many times I sand it.

          What would happen if I didn’t use it at all? I wondered and tried that this week on one of my rejected boxes, one that’s put together a little wonky and I don’t care if I mess it up. I miss the texture but I think it’s probably okay to do them without. Now I have to decide on a color for the inside.  

     

          My best old friend, Trish, shared a project with me that she’s been working on.

          This isn’t anything new for her, in that she has been making tissue box covers for a long time, but the half cross-stitch pattern is new and I think it’s just beautiful!

Who doesn’t love butterflies!?

Trish attends several functions every year where she sells nearly everything she makes.

Besides half cross-stitch, Trish also is a dibbler and dabbler. She crochets and paints as well and the next time she visits, maybe we’ll make fairy houses or concrete frogs for her garden or tin can flowers for her fence.

West Virginia has just had another flood that took out the bridge Trish and six or seven other families have to cross to get to their homes.

“This is the fifth or six time it’s been washed out in the eight years I’ve lived here,” Trish told me. “Twice within two months one year!”

The problem is that no one, not the county, not the state, wants to claim responsibility for the pipe that runs under the road, which is what washes out.

Trish sent me a few other pictures of the flood in her area.

The ball field.

I don’t think anyone’s driving under that train bridge.

If Trish lived next to me, she wouldn’t have to worry about her bridge washing out and we could make art all the time!

But, her family lives nearby, and family is precious — as Trish is precious to me. 

Tiger was on my desk. He went from lounging to immediate attention in a jolt. I looked at him. His gaze was fixed outside the door.

A bird? I wonder and swiveled around in my desk chair. I didn’t see anything. I turned back to the computer. Tiger crouched low and jumped from my desk. I lingered for a few moments, finishing what I was doing, before I turned to look. There, outside, facing Tiger through the door, was the feral black and white cat. My movements set Raini in motion. She knew something was going on.

“NO! RAINI, NO!” I yelled, but it was no use. She scrambled across the linoleum floor and dashed through the pet flap in a flash. There was nothing I could do as she chased that poor kitty around the side of the house. A few minutes later, she was back, and I can only guess he got over the fence and she didn't catch him.

I’ve been sneaking out in the mornings and looking to see if he’s in the cat house. Twice this week he was. Spitfire was with him, sleeping on a shelf. The feral’s been sleeping under a table on some old pillows covered with a rag rug. Spitfire hears me and jumps down onto the table. The feral only picks his head up and looks. I’ve not spooked him enough to make him run from the room. I like that he knows he can come here for safety, food, and shelter. 

Mike and I went shopping this week and he took a road he doesn’t normally take. You know what that means, don’t you?

Road pictures!

          Let’s call this one done!

          Done!