Power to the Poppet!

Skye Poppet

by Mercy

Blogging takes you places and connects you with people you would never expect in your three dimensional life. Take Mercy for instance. She is one of the most courageous people I've ever met. She appeared on my radar screen back in February 2009...

Mercy said...

Hi, i just randomly stumbled across your blog from my own.
your art is so inspiering, everything you have created that i can see makes me happy.
what are your influences?
i want a studio like yours and just wanted to let you know im gonna be your online stalker from now on.... peculiar of stalkers to introduce themselves but i thought it would be polite.
you have an eye for a differnt kind of beauty.

February 25, 2009 7:10 PM

The stalker line got me!

So I clicked to see what Mercy, this little duckie, was all about.

Here's a hint...

And Boy did she talk.
I read and I read and I read about things I'd never heard anyone express. What she wrote was startling and sad and brilliant and harsh and hopeful and she stole my heart.
I've been following Mercy's blog for nearly a year now. It has been an uphill climb for her. I am amazed at her progress and I find myself feeling so proud of this girl who lives thousands of miles away.

Self Portrait at 20
by Mercy

She stole my heart again this week, when she showed me Skye (see the poppet above).
"I made a poppet", she said.
"What's a poppet?", I asked.
"It's like a Voodoo doll, but good", she said, "You send hugs through him."

Do a Google search and you'll find lots of poppet info, but none as good, in my opinion, as Mercy's idea.

Skye is a real guy. He has leukemia.
Mercy's response to the news of his illness was to make a poppet version of Skye to send to his mother.
Skye's mom is too far away and unable to be with her son.
Thanks to Mercy, Skye's mom can now hug her poppet son and send immediate hugs his way.

I LOVE Mercy's idea.

What do you think?
I want to know!

POWER TO THE POPPETS!

Love and all good things,
Ronnie

Get Going!

Let Go Go On

by Mary Engelbreit

As the new year begins I always find myself inspired. A clean slate! That OLD YEAR is GONE!

G-O-N-E gone!

Out comes the legal pad and pen and the list begins. At the top...

Fitness:

Dust off the Elliptical trainer,

the Yoga mat,

and set the Tivo to record Gilad and his merry band of skinny Hawaiian girls sweatlessly exerting themselves on the beaches of Oahu!

It's January 4th.

So far, I have Tivoed several installments of "Total Body Sculpt with Gilad", moved the suitcases (left there after our Summer trip to Hawaii) which blocked my path to the Elliptical trainer, and literally (cough) blew off the dust from my Yoga mat.

All righty then!

As soon as I finish my first blog post of 2010, I will turn on the Food Network and do 30 minutes on the Elliptical. I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy New Year Everybody!

Love and all good things,

Ronnie

aka Joe's stove operator

Happy New Year!

encaustic painting
by Susan Najarian

Happy New Year everyone!

This is one of my absolute favorite times of year. The holidays are over, it's the first day of a brand new year full of promise and possibilities, the days are getting longer here in the Northern Hemisphere, and Spring is coming!

"Cheers to a New Year
and another chance for us to get it right."
~ Oprah Winfrey

I want to start the new year off right by thanking a wonderful new blogger I found a few months ago, Susan Najarian, from the blog Blackbirds & Bumblebees. Thank you so much, Susan, for the gorgeous painting above, which I won in a give-away over the holidays! I love it! Please visit her blog to see more of the little gems she creates in her home on a beautiful island near Seattle, Washington.

I adore birds, and the colors and textures of this painting are incredible. It's done in encaustics, which is a form of painting with pigments and hot beeswax. Encaustic painting is an ancient art which was done around the Mediterranean as far back as hundreds of years before Christ. I saw a demonstration of it a few months ago at a local art supply store, and I have tremendous admiration for encaustic artists.

Don't you just love crows and ravens, too?

Did you know that the average lifespan of crows in the wild is 14 to 24 years? They are monogamous, and both parents raise their young. They can fly 30 to 60 miles per hour, and will eat anything. Gregarious, adaptable and extremely intelligent, crows were regarded by indigenous North American cultures as benevolent tricksters. The Inuit people have a myth about how a crow brought daylight to the world. They are so smart that they can count to 6 and have been taught to play a bird version of soccer in Japan.

Our cat, Skitzi, likes to make sounds like a crow, rather than meow. And our dog, Beau, tries to chase crows when he sees them flying overhead. We are a crow loving bunch!

"For last year's words
belong to last years language
and next year's words
await another voice.
And to make an end
is to make a beginning."
~ T. S. Eliot

This year I'm looking forward to focusing more on art in my blogging, my own as well as other art and artists I find noteworthy or interesting. I'm also looking forward to continuing the many precious friendships I've made here in the blogging community, and I'm looking forward to meeting more new and interesting people.

I think it's going to be a good year!