Dancing Crow Designs

end of March

well.

March lasts a long time. Somehow I forget it has 31 days, and that those 31 days come at a tough time of year for me. Although the absurdly warm weather was fun. And the lovely, isolated snow storm at the beginning that set me off on this particular path for the month. And the days are getting longer, now the sun has swung across the equator.

I had not expected so much feedback from these circles - the black and white palette and the landscapes really spoke to people. I have given them all away, which is both surprising and wonderful. If you commented, or requested a circle I thank you for your interest and enthusiasm. If you haven't commented, and you would like a circle, drop me a note, or comment, and I'll get it out to you.

I still need to give away some January and February circles. I envision myself sitting at a table in town, once the weather warms up a little, with free art to hand out. I wonder if I need a busker's license for that?

I find myself wondering if you can intuit emotion from motion. The way a crow flaps, they look insouciant just moving away from you, or scoping out a field. Ducks and geese flap with a kind of desperation I completely sympathize with - it looks like their wings barely have enough lift to keep them aloft. Hawks look faintly impatient as they circle and wait for dinner to show itself.

Some birds look less emotive flying. Blue herons look impossibly ungainly and deeply prehistoric.

crows at daybreak

I seem to be at a low spot.

Have some crows. At dawn.

yesterday's moon

Another try at a dark evening sky with a sliver of moon and trees scraping it.

another crow

A crow, on a fence. It needs more contrast, but I like his shape.

Another migraine this morning, although I managed to beat it into submission by late afternoon.  Missing Al, who is traveling.

trees and a sliver of moon

I've been looking so hard for things that are (still) gray or white, and I forgot about all the dark things. Like a night sky, and trees against the moon. So I might be able to make it to the end of the month without color, although it is certainly getting more and more difficult.

crow tail

I do seem to be seeing crows everywhere. And geese. Great long skeins of Canada geese are honking and barking across the sky, following the big river and stopping over in the meadows and marshes along the edge.

casting class

Not choosing actors for parts. Not fishing with thin lines and flies. Not throwing things.

Casting and molding class today, a different class at the museum school. I loved the teacher, we did interesting and exciting things, and this is the first thing I made. It reminded me of pressing shells and sticks into sand and pouring plaster into it. I think I made a dragon that way. It was lovely.

This was pressing a lot of fossils and modern shells into clay, and then making a mold of it. I like the way things overlap. You can see two trilobites, and a lot of coiled shells and several brachiopod impressions.

I felt so odd from napping and waking up badly that even though I made a circle it was very ugly.

one lone crow

The absurd weather continues.

Alice was suggesting things I could put on circles, and I kept saying no, I hadn't seen that this month. And I realized the circles this month are very strongly tied to things I've actually seen. Probably as a result of the original inspiration; the snowstorm at the beginning of the month. Which is why I will probably not make one with a moose, unless a moose crosses my path, or a bear, for the same reason.

Aerin's Young Man joined us for circus - he's strong and surprisingly flexible, but oddly floppy in the middle. Handstands are really strange for him. But it is nice to have another sturdy person around.

foggy woods

While the afternoons have been bright and sunny and hot, the mornings have been close and mysterious and foggy. Not quite so foggy I feel I should install a foghorn on my van, but enough that I go carefully. This morning I rode Nuada out into the foggy woods. I felt like a phantom, gray horse, gray day, slipping through the trees and fog.