Monthly Archives: June 2011

note from damuse

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Just one day after writing this post about living outside of my comfort zone and welcoming new experiences, I found myself having to rely on the kindness of strangers when a car accident (my first ever) temporarily spun my world off its axis. Not exactly the new experience I had in mind . . . I was lost and trying to turn around on an unfamiliar road, hit by a drunk driver who fled the scene and was later found and arrested.

EMT personnel, volunteer firemen who went above and beyond their duties, police, the strangers who stopped to help, the other stranger who got the license plate of the driver, emergency room doctors and nurses, new friends . . . I am grateful for their warmth, experience, calm and passion for their work.

It isn’t always easy to surrender control and trust. Harder still to look at the situation and embrace the messages it brings with it – and there were many, both metaphorical and literal. Someone told me it will be a chapter in my book.  Maybe.  Right now I am just grateful to be alive. DAM will be quiet for a few days while I sort things out and heal. See you soon . . .

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reflections on house and home

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I am drawn to the theme of house and home and revisit it often on DAM.  Not surprising since I have moved three times in the last four years, each move part of the learning curve as I navigated new terrain like risk-taking, letting go and remaining open to possibilities.

Currently I am living in a semi-nomadic manner, stepping outside of the box of expectations attached to a woman at a certain stage of life (50+). A rather big learning curve for this homebody.

New opportunities, friendships and experiences are mine for the taking and although at times it is frightening to reach so far outside my comfort zone this has been a powerful, liberating, exhilarating experiment and it isn’t over yet. I highly recommend it.

I sometimes look for physical reminders of house and home as a grounding exercise when I get overwhelmed by my experiment – a way to carry it with me and honor what I have come to know – that a house is just a house and home isn’t so much a place as it is a feeling, a knowing, a sense of belonging.

Laurie Poast’s tiny little houses, pictured here, are a perfect reminder. Poast, an American living in Holland, uses only old-world natural pigments and organic clay from the coast of Spain when creating the objects that fill her shop.

For me these humble, charming structures represent the profound impact simplifying my life has had on my outlook, approach and experience.

I don’t know where I will settle and put down roots again but I do know that I am already home – and I am certain you can’t find it with a GPS system or a map.

Perhaps our paths will cross someday as I continue on my nomadic journey. I’d like that. I’ll be the one who embraces change and the wisdom that only comes with age.  How will I know you?

Etsy shop

Read an interview with the artist here.

Hope your journeys this weekend end with the thrill of coming home to your true self.

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tanya lyons looks at dress as shield or shell

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Is changing how we feel as simple as changing our clothes?  Are you aware of how you feel when you wear different outfits – do you feel the same in your sweatpants as you do in your little black dress? Tanya Lyons has chosen the dress form to explore the idea that what we wear impacts not only how we feel, but how the people we come in contact with feel when they see us.

 

Golden, hot-worked glass, brass mesh

Fuyu, flame worked glass, monel mesh, recycled lace, cedar branches

Armour, blown glass, stainless wire

The artist creates life-sized, free-standing and wall-hanging dress and kimono sculptures. Lyons peers inside our psyche to look at how clothing becomes either a shell or a shield, pulling those around us in or pushing them away. The dresses are fabricated from metal mesh and adorned with clear glass elements that act as “a carrier for chosen thoughts, feelings and memories.”

Tanya Lyons Glass

 

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rod mireau’s reclaimed wood sculpture

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Inspired by the bits and pieces that make up machinery, Rod Mireau uses reclaimed wood and hardware to build “forms on the edge of recognition, forms that conjure a space between fact and fiction, past and present.” The sculptures appear to be both organic and engineered at the same time, leaving room for wide interpretation by the viewer.

 

Measuring Wavesplywood and tarpaper

Oscillating Lines

Titans, pine, particle board, tar

Filter Wheel

Mireau’s website and Flickr stream offer many more images of his work.

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woodrow nash: tribal african nouveau

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“It is the absence of the eyes that draws you in” says Woodrow Nash about his figurative ceramic sculptures. Haunting, thought provoking, captivating and utterly beautiful, the figures are influenced by his African roots and European schooling – he calls the style tribal African Nouveau.

He has a portfolio full of beautiful images, however most are too small to really do justice to the art. This video shows the work more effectively.

Woodrow Nash at work

It is an added bonus to listen as Nash gives a tour of his studio, describing his inspiration and process in detail and in good humor. The second video is equally appealing.

More Woodrow Nash

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