Category Archives: creativity

Chiseled Features

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Art comes in many media and creative techniques. These three faces were carved from logs with chain saws, with final touches added by chisel.

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The first two represent lumberjacks. And the third is none other than Sasquatch (Big Foot) himself.

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These large carvings are on display at Camp 18 Logging Museum in Elsie, Oregon. Photos showing a more distant view of the lumberjacks can be seen in this post on my sister blog, “What Rhymes with Stanza?”

The Daily Post weekly photo challenge: Face

A Smashing Success

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I’m going to make a hole in a window

You’re going to break a window?

Not break a window. Just put a hole in one.

So smash it, you mean.

Yes, it might look smashed.

What will you smash it with?

Does it matter what smashed it?

If you want to smash a hole in a window, you have to hit it with something.

What would you use, if you were to smash a window?

Me? I’d use a baseball. Maybe smack it hard with a bat. You could hit it from clear across a field and no one would know it was you.

People will know I smashed this window.

See, that’s why you use a baseball or something. Make it look like an accident.

So, an unfortunate baseball incident?

Exactly.

 

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“The Unfortunate Baseball Incident”

S  S is for Smashing.

Jetsam: Lightening the Load

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Flotsam, Jetsam & Lagan: sounds like a prestigious law firm, doesn’t it? Or maybe a 1960s folk rock group? But no, these terms have a more nautical theme.

I’ll let dictionary.com explain:

Flotsam — 1. the part of the wreckage of a ship and its cargo found floating on the water. 2. material or refuse floating on water. 3. useless or unimportant items; odds and ends.

Lagan — anything sunk in the sea, but attached to a buoy or the like so that it may be recovered.

Jetsam — goods cast overboard deliberately, as to lighten a vessel or improve its stability in an emergency, which sink where jettisoned or are washed ashore.

⊕⊕⊕⊕⊕

I won’t be channeling my inner pirate here; I get seasick in the bath tub if I take my eyes off the horizon. The thought of people chucking things into the ocean intentionally is also rather sickening, but I’ll save that for another post.

The point of this post is:

 Life is like a shipwreck.

Wait, that doesn’t sound quite right… Anyway, I’ll wade in with my analogy:

Sometimes we go about life having taken on a lot of unnecessary “odds and ends,” and when we get hit with – “stormy weather” shall we say — we founder and end up floating about, all wet. The “useless and unimportant” baggage we were needlessly hanging onto bobs about pointlessly in the waves nearby as we frantically dog paddle and wait for rescue. That’s flotsam.

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Sometimes we get the “ship” kicked out of us and lose our footing on dry land, but we manage to take stock of what happened and what’s important to us, and we can devise a plan for how to recover from our losses. That’s lagan.

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And then there’s jetsam, when we rid ourselves of the unnecessary baggage that’s weighing us down, impeding our progress, or endangering our stability. And having done that – and continuing to do it – we sail through situations that might otherwise have sunk us.

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I’m striving for jetsam; lightening my load of unnecessary stress, worries and material “stuff.” It’s definitely an ongoing process. Stuff seems to seek us out at every port, clinging to us like barnacles on a boat.

Okay, swabbies, I think this ship has sailed. I’m off to the galley for some chow. I suddenly have a hankering for fish and chips.

J  J is for Jetsam.

The I’s Have It

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i8Inertia: I want to make a stained glass panel for my soon-to-be-born grandbaby. But:

  • I haven’t done stained glass work in a long time and I’m pretty rusty;
  • I’m downsizing so I don’t want to go out and buy a lot of new materials;
  • I don’t want to end up making something that looks horrible.

Inquisitiveness: What could I make that would be fairly simple, using materials I already have on hand, while challenging my perfectionism?

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Idea: I have a sample box of multi-colored rectangles of glass. I have lead came. Straight lines are simple.

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Inspiration: When I lay out the sample pieces, they remind me of a patchwork quilt. I could make my new grandbaby a “quilt.” That’s a grandmotherly gift, right?

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Imagination: What if I added a symbol of some sort? Something meaningful to me that would make the “quilt” more personal… like… a nautilus! [You’ll have to wait for the “N” day to find out what makes the nautilus meaningful to me.]

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Implementation: Get the lead out (literally), and go for it!

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Insight:

  • I’d forgotten how much fun it is to do stained glass and I want to take it up again;
  • simple designs can be just as effective as elaborate ones. I don’t have to plan big projects that require a lot of materials;
  • when my grandbaby is old enough to appreciate this gift, her thoughts will likely not be about how “horrible” it is. Her thoughts might even have to do with recognizing the love that went into the making of this gift.

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Incredible!!!!  ⇒ The way that I feel for having overcome the inertia, impediments and insecurity I felt before taking on this project!

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Isla: The name of my first grandbaby.

I  I is for Incredible.