Small stones......big picture

Reading last evening* from "As I Lay Pondering" — I came upon a sentence that really struck a beautiful note for me —

........check it out over at diannawoolley.com

Has anything changed?

.......You'll find out over at diannawoolley.com













featured art is 8"x10" mixed media/encaustic collage

Woohoo - Blogging at Dianna Woolley.com

You know by now that I can truly not make up my mind where to blog from one day to the next - yet, today, it seemed clear to me to send you to diannawoolley.com        I hope you click and enjoy!

 8" x 10" Encaustic - "Pathways"

January Collage Winner

 

Artist Dianna Woolley

"The Fine Art of Collage" 

Thank you for visiting my website in January and for joining the email list at

Artist Dianna Woolley

I promise not to bug you too often but will let you know from time to time what’s happening in my art world and specifically in my studio!*  So, that said……

WIN THIS COLLAGE IN JANUARY ……blah, blah, blah, you say – WHO WON?

“Tattoo Tilework”

….. the randomly picked winner is -

Jane Kaminsky

Congratulations Jane and thanks to all of you who participated!

*two of my 24"x 36" pieces are currently  being exhibited at Washington State University's Tri-Cities....

The Glory......

"The glory of God is the human person fully alive"!*

–  Irenaeus, 2nd Century bishop of Lyon –

The quote is from Irenaeus, the exclamation point is from me:)

Celebrate - Live it! II

16" x 20" Mixed Media Collage - Tattoo Tilework

Win this WOOLLEY COLLAGE* 

I wrote of my 2012 words of the year and shared the concept of celebrating this big year in my life with a friend who asked me the other day "how's the celebration coming along?"  So today, I thought about that - HOW am I "living it?" Switch off now if boring is too much for you:)  

-Yoga practice and running are better than ever
- I actually got in a couple of 10K runs in the last week - btw - I always take a BIG rest after those long runs.  The runs aren't exactly "easy" - I'm afraid I grimace inside a little when someone projects on me that everything is easy for me because I'm a runner?
-We celebrated New Year's Day with friends for brunch after church.
-We've had three last minute serendipity dinners here in our remodeled kitchen/family room and that's a resolution that I've made and broken more than once in the past.  Friends are so important and should be celebrated often!
-In nurturing friendships, I've special lunch dates coming up on three occasions - one to celebrate a friend's dear mother's 90th birthday.
-This weekend we've had the pleasure of attending Walla Walla's first winter Chamber Music Festival It's been a doozy with guest performances of "Project Trio" from Brooklyn, NY.
-We celebrated with a young couple at a reception for their 30th wedding anniversary, side by side with their children who were just past toddler age when we first met them here in WW - now a freshman and senior in college.
-We've met and made new friends that we look forward to knowing better.
-We fly this week to Minneapolis for a family wedding of a nephew and his beautiful bride........I know, who gets married in January?! in MN........well, it's part of life's grand celebration and we'll be there with family, missing and counting those who aren't able to attend but so happy to live into another celebration.
-I'm painting alot and enjoying the exhilaration of completing works that I really love!

So yes, I'm happy and thrilled to be celebrating and living this life of mine - 2012 - and hoping that you're doing the same.  It'll look different for all of us but recognizing our moments of joy and sorrow as celebration rather than routine may make all the difference in lives of thanksgiving and honor to our Creator.

*visit my website in January 2012, join the mail list, and you become eligible for a random drawing. winner announced 2/2/12

Small Town - "BACON & EGGS"

Small town, Walla Walla, WA - 30.0 pop. - greater communities together 50.0.  I used to live in the New York City/CT area so yes, this is small town America.  I found out again today just how small a town it is......

Several weeks ago now, I misplaced a pair of new leather gloves.  I say misplaced because I knew I hadn't lost two at the same time —slipping out of a pocket onto the ground, etc. — a pair wouldn't have gone that way.  I had a picture in my mind of placing them somewhere and with that picture I've looked everywhere, in the same places.....many times!  Pockets, purses, jackets, drawers, cars - front seats, back seats, in the cushions, at church - you get the picture.  Yesterday I decided the gloves were gone.  Heading to Minnesota next week, I determined that I'd better head to Main Street today after yoga for a pair of gloves - hopefully on sale!

Then forgetting the glove issue for the moment,  I entered the yoga studio and my teacher said she had a message for me from her friend Raquel, and from Raquel's friend, Michelle............before she could finish, I said — the gloves??!!!

You see while my husband and I were trying out a TERRIFIC NEW CAFE here in town several weeks ago — it's called "BACON and EGGS" — I was so busy congratulating said Michelle and her partner, Michelle, on the opening of their amazing new place that I left the gloves on the bench where I'd been seated.  With a tummy full of delectable breakfast and a delish take-home scone to be eaten later that day, I was much too comfortable to remember the glove thing.  Fortunately for me and my gloves, one of the Michelles noticed and snagged them for her Lost and Found drawer.   She and I've only visited during yoga classes we used to be in together, and in the fall having spent a weekend at a women's retreat in Leavenworth, WA, we still don't know each other's last names, addresses, and certainly not email contact information.........

.......and yet, not REALLY knowing each other, I heard about her cafe and couldn't wait to try the food; she knew I was thrilled with what I'd tasted and that I'd surely be back for more but in the meantime, she put a message out into the universe thinking that I might receive it some way and voila - I did.  Picking up my gloves today and snagging a fresh scone at the same time, well, that's the sort of thing that happens in a small town and it's very nice.

BTW, if you live in or near this great little town of Walla Walla, my spouse and I highly recommend a visit to "BACON and EGGS" - as I said above, delicious, imaginative, fresh food, good coffee, delicious baked every a.m. scones and other breakfast breads.  Give it a whirl - it's on Main Street close to Whitman's new sports complex.  Enjoy, enjoy and tell them "Dianna sent you:)"!

Celebrate - Live It!

The Twelve Days of Christmas were alive and celebrated in our home until Friday, the a.m. of Epiphany, when as we Christians like to recognize the wise men of the East finally arriving to see the blessed child and his family in their humble stable surroundings - thus ending our Christmas time expectation season of the holy birth. 

At our house, the decorative outdoor lights are now down, the Christmas tree is poking out of its "too small" box in the garage, the creche Penguins (oh yes, it's quite cute that scene of the blessed penguin mother with the baby Jesus peeking from underneath her robe), the more grand and formal creche now miraculously packed in its styrofoam forms and boxes.  I say miraculously as each year when I prepare to return the figures to their places for storage I'm certain there's no way these things will ever conform to the styrofoam formed places from whence they came!  I usually call up my childhood habit of "speaking" to inanimate objects as I promise the creche figures and crystal angels that the year will fly by and that they'll be out of their boxes again very soon.

It was a very nice holiday season for us - though we missed our kids being here, and other assorted in-laws and outlaws unable to travel - still a blessed time for us.  We recalled and recounted the Christmases where and when we've been together and marveled at how fast the time of our lives has flown by.  It's not sadness or regret, but blessings that we recalled.

And now the year 2012 - a date in time we could have only laughed at as children - so far away, a time for really, really old people to be living......surely we would never be old, even if we lived until 2012! 

So with joy and eagerness we/I greet this new year.  Yoga classes are under way, invigorating training runs are happening about two times a week, Renovare get-togethers resume, as do Board committee meetings, a family wedding in Minneaplis soon to be celebrated, warm sandy beaches of Maui on the horizon, an e-workshop with "clarity" as its goal, the Seattle Rock n Roll Half Marathon, another one woman show, an Encaustic week long workshop, the Senior Games in Utah, a trip to Italy and a cruise, and oh, the wonder of all things to come yet unnamed or unimagined........2012 is going to be a great year!!  I plan to Celebrate and to Live It!!

2012 Word for the Year

                   

 CELEBRATE

2012

This year could be comfortably lived reflecting on the accomplishments, the occasions, the joy, the experiences of my wonderful year 2011.  So, rather than placing too many plans on the table in the first month of 2012 in order to outdo my 2011, I plan to CELEBRATE the past, the future and the NOW of 2012.

What word(s) will describe your past, future and the NOW of 2012?

Happy New Year!

  "Tattoo Tileworks" - 16"x20"

Pretty one, smart one, or the baby?

Pretty one, smart one, or the baby?

My siblings and I grew up with Mother's identifying descriptors for each of us......one was the pretty one, one was the smart one, and one was the baby.  Breaking the mold of our perceived places in the family order has been an interesting process and one each of us has faced in our own way.

Although it's really taken years,  I think by now, I hope anyway, we've ALL found out we were and are the pretty ones, the smart ones and, of course, understand that we were ALL the baby at one point or another in the family.  

All of this is to say that we grew up with those roles and it took some time for each of us to recognize the we were made up of many attributes/characteristics other than Mother would have imagined.  She always said she believed that we could do anything we wanted - well sort of - but it took us a long time to shake that doubt that was always represented by our "personal" descriptors repeated again and again from childhood to adulthood.

So on this almost Happy New Year 2012, I stop to wonder if Mother was still with us in this life if she could pick from a hat and identify which of us is the author, the painter, the woodworker......all artists?  How did that happen?!  I project that Mother would be very proud of her pretty one, her smart one, and her baby!

Pretty one, smart one, or the baby?