Starting to look a lot like Christmas ....

Are you ready? I'm not.

Baking to be done soon, 

shopping for the ingredients even sooner

 if tomorrow is not too late? 

and still i roam about the yard and select and collect  flowers and leaves

 to help me celebrate and share  the joy of the season.

 I make these floral arrangements and think they might be the Christmas card of  the year after arranged and photographed and cropped and printed and addressed and stamped and sent,

so far they are in the camera and in a photo place in computer.

Then i come across a poinsettia that made it through the year and is now re-blooming

 in spite of the fact that i only cut it back once.

Red is so red this time of year!!

 Then there are the painted fabric Santa figures of fabric i call old Nicks.

I have made these for about 30 years now since i found their likeness pleasing to me

 in an early American folk art style. I put them out yearly

 and sometimes the white Santa stays out all year.

This year i drew, painted, quilted and sewed up some pillows featuring the

 Monstera leaves .The above is the painting before the quilting. 

Strawberry guavas and leaves 

in the Christmas colors minus the snow! 

Soon i will be baking and  

sharing  my apple crisp from the Tassajara  bread book 

from the 1970s

 with lots of fruit and nuts and ginger and spices

 as i like to improvise as i make food depending on what is in the pantry and fridge,in season, 
 and  on the counter.

And don't forget the whipping cream!!

A vintage Hawaiian print of anthuriums  

Be most  well and have a happy and  healthy holiday season wherever  you are!

aloha, sonja

wordless wednesday/christmas cactus

Thanksgiving 2016

                                                      I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving !

                                                                     Be Well, Sonja 

Hallelujah

It has been a strange time as of late and today with the news of Leonard Cohen's passing, i find myself without words once again. Perhaps a song is what i need, to share and sing. Among the many, many  renditions i listened to today, it is KD Langs' version  i share here.
I love that she is singing barefoot at the Winter Olympics.
                                                   
                                                                  https://youtu.be/3q7TRVOM9KQ

be well.

https://youtu.be/3q7TRVOM9KQ

this is one of my favorite lyrics that i have in the column on the right side of my blog
that resounds with me and is well worth repeating

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."

Leonard Cohen

wordless wednesday

Shine On !

Shine on! 

Here are a few more flags of hope that i made recently.

It is a wonderful process of sifting through pieces of painted fabrics and torn strips while the mind sorts words to stitch upon them, words that turn my mind to hopeful ideas and thoughts in this seemingly world gone nuts. This process is best for me  with classical music softly playing in the next room or bird song or the sound of wind in the trees or light rainfall are also wonderful 

as is silence.

Shine on .  "And we all shine on!" 

i can almost hear John Lennon singing this...

After words have been selected and embroidery threads selected from the nest they have become in colorful storage, i sit and stitch with a large eyed needle and all six strands of floss. Big stitch, back stitch, stem stitch, it has been awhile and i am rusty with the names so i just stitch over the light penciled letters. When words are done i add colorful torn strips of my painted fabric at bottom with a simple tacking . One of the strips will attach  with simple knots to the painted chop stick that i thread through the large sleeve at top of flag that i make before the words are stitched. one of the wonderful aspects of these flags is that there are no rules, only do what comes to mind  with what materials are handy and just see what results!

 BE Kind!

Let Love, Shine on, Grace and Kindness find their way to where needed.

So, how do you center yourself in this busy world?

And is art a part of your way?? 

be well, Sonja

.  "And we all shine on!" 

i can almost hear John Lennon singing this..

Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)

Amazing Orchids

It is that time of year when these orchids bloom in the mock orange tree.

The common name is the  black orchid.

i find the color more of a maroon to my artistic eye.

 (trichoglottis brachiata)
They have a heavy honey fragrance and

they attach to the mock orange tree and put out roots that twine around the branches.
What an amazing show they put on at the end of summer!! 

 

 i hope you have a moment to sit with nature and enjoy the beauty all arounds us.

Have a fine weekend!!

Today it is a fine time to sit with mother nature and all her bounty and

 breathe in deeply!

be well, sonja

wordless wednesday.....

wordless wednesday

May your July be in full bloom!...........

After the fair is over...

Thank you to all new and returning folks that stopped under my tent at the  Haleiwa Arts Festival last Saturday and Sunday  to see, to say hello, to shop, to talk story  and to purchase and to carry home my small art  in the little hand painted bags i made before the show for you!  Mahalo to all for sharing this last weekend that for me was full of Bright Moments under the warm and wonderful Hawaiian sun!   Aloha,Sonja

one "making a idea visible" project and Haleiwa Arts Festival 2016

This is what i started with recently ,

some strips of fabric remaining from previous painting sessions and projects.

I layer them to resemble a land/ocean/sky scape i have viewed and painted often.
This a one way i start my studio sessions, to warm up my engine of imagination

 and to loosen up my creative muscles.

Next i pinned the fabric strips to a background and stitched them down,

rough edges  using zig zag and straight stitches. i used a bunch of different color  variegated threads that each color change informed me.

This composition might become a postcard or part of a journal cover or the beginning  centerpiece of a bag or purse, or perhaps a case for keeping something, like glasses, business cards safe.  

and like the sunsets which changes constantly, none of these small works are the same.
Well, i made a journal cover from this composition. for a small marble journal.
 These are, of course, refillable when notebook or composition books are full of words or sketches,

It's that time of year for the Hale'iwa Arts Festival once again. Each year i  have new work to show in the fabric arts and because i am an imaginer, i  sometime work in a series.One piece will have some of the essence of some idea seeds  and it builds on what came before,  in  the next step or problem i set up and how i solve it that time. i  came across a sentence  recently that said something like 

" art is that thing you cannot describe being the most important." now that is a sentence  to pondering while i "unsew" a section of  a quilted bag  where i went off the road...

I work with cloth, and paint, and stitch and imagination with intuition to  make  that which comes from the imagining of the maker, me .it is a form of connecting, expressing some thing the maker feels and then attempts to translates it to a physical form or piece that  others can see. Perhaps that is a dialogue without words.

 With only  12 /days left for preparation for
 Haleiwa ARTS Festival,
 i am attempting to finish  up some of my start ups to take to the show
 July 16 and 17th at Haleiwa Beach park. 10Am -6pm Sat. 10 to 5 Sun.  I am in  booth #113
near the front of the show, near info and water and first aid booths,
 same area as the last umpteen years.  

Veteran War Memorial fronting Hale'iwa Beach Park.

Have a great weekend and fourth of July!!
be well, Sonja

Wordless Wednesday 6/29/16

A hat full of miracles 

a sky filled with  wistful clouds....

Ain't nature Grand 

i say it out loud!

Fragrant Friday

Fragrant Friday and fabric

Continuing my white flower fragrance appreciation

 and

 procrastination of quilting a rather large quilt (for me) on a domestic machine,

I had to go out again today to photograph a magnolia tree in bloom.

The large, almost a dinner plate size leathery petals open and

 the flower gives off a lemony citrous fragrance.

Divine! 

The tiare is also in the same family as the gardenia, rubiaceae, which includes coffee arabica. 

Day old Tiare still give off a fragrance light and sweet while resting on an old chair.

I love the crackle texture of this comfortable garden chair cradling the flowers 3 .

Tiare and pua keni keni share a jar of water.

The pua keni keni start out creamy white, then turn almost ochre thou still  vary fragrant.
Perhaps that is why it is commonly known as the perfume flower and is also used in lei making.

Plumeria  blossoms make great leis or garlands
or if you have just a few, floating in water.
Ain't nature grand!

Now maybe i can go back in  studio and finish up a quilt still under the machine from last night.

Here is a corner of the hand painted fabric backing i am working with today.
The count down to HAF  Haleiwa Arts Festival is .... 35 days left !
be well, see well, Sonja