Oh Happy Day 0703

Happy Friday, again! This Friday is especially full of fun for me since I’m spending it with my three gifts! I’m thrilled to enjoy a holiday weekend and the extra time to spend playing with trucks, reading stories and pulling things out of Baby Girl’s mouth. Our first little cute tooth is BIG NEWS around these parts! Happy Exhibit A.

Happy Exhibit B comes in the form of a little shameless self-promotion. During the month of June, I had the opportunity to write some articles about color theory for BrightHub.com. They highlighted some of the cultural and emotional associations generally made with each primary and secondary color, and offered considerations on how to use each color in successful design work. It was very interesting for me to research the articles, and I wanted to share them.

Did you know that seeing red causes an increase in adrenaline production, heart rate and blood pressure?
Or, that yellow is universally associated with the sun in almost every culture?
What about the fact that orange is seen as the hottest of all colors in temperature?
Did you know that people tend to be more productive when working in a blue room?
Or, that generally no two greens are perceived to “clash”?
Do you agree that purple signifies eccentricity, artistry and royalty?

Take a peek through the links and add some color to your Friday!

Freedom Rings

Welcome to July, the month in which we celebrate the American Independence Day! With the events of the last few weeks in Iran and around the world, it’s easy to see that indeed, people everywhere want to be free. And, they will exert all of their creativity and gumption in order to BE free–to freely speak, to freely move, to freely be the people they desire to be. When faced with obstacles, freedom-seekers and freedom-supporters are usually undeterred. We saw it in the explosion of proxy servers and “Tehran” Twitter locations through a remarkable multi-national outpouring in support of freedom.

I see it at home with my three gifts. Even at only 10 months old, Baby Girl quickly tires of the mesh confines of her play “pen” (the one that gives Mommy sanity) and sweetly demands the freedom of crawling through the house in search of new and better, more interesting objects to occupy her curious fingers. I see it in Squiggle and Little Drummer Boy in the constant thrill of taking “my turn” to choose the movie, the way home, the toy, or the hug and kiss. It’s the joy of not striving to remain content with another person’s choice, the satisfaction of choosing your own way.

The quote from Albert Einstein that served as the theme for this month’s calendar desktop wallpaper reminded me that creativity, energy and joy can most easily flourish in those who “labor in freedom.” Likewise, sorrow, frustration and silence can be most profoundly heard in those who are free to express them just as equally. To deny either end of the spectrum is to deny the blessing and right of freedom. For those of us who daily labor in freedom, may we spread it with joy. May we exercise it with compassion. May we defend it in even the tiniest of spheres with resolve. In this month, like no other, freedom rings.

Click the picture to download the July wallpaper!

Cloudy

“Kindly do not attempt to cloud the issue with facts.”

~ George Banks, Mary Poppins (the movie)
(photo courtesy Flixster.com)

Tues Ten 062309: Junkspiration Blogs

For this week’s Tuesday Ten Twelve, I’m highlighting design, style, crafting and generally pretty blogs that I’ve been reading this month. These great sources of junkspiration are also very selfless blogs, often highlighting the wonderful work of other artists. Because many of them update several times a day, they’ve been like mini-vacations when I need a little creative jump-start. Please go check them out if you’re window shopping for ideas.

[What's up with the 12, you ask? Well, 10 made the last square dangle down there all by itself, and you know how that makes me crazy :) ]

1. A Field Journal
2.  S.HOPtalk
3. Creature Comforts
4. Sara Jane
5. How About Orange
6. Oh Happy Day (Jordan Ferney)
7. Modish
8. The Bright Side Project ~ This one is completely dedicated to offering a great give-away each day from those committed to helping us look on the well-designed bright side!
9. Oh Joy!
10. The Blah, Blah Blahg
11. Melissa Loves
12. Love. Obsess. Inspire.

Tardy Solstice

It seems I’m tardy with many things these days. My only excuse is the daily occurrence of real life, joyous and challenging as it may be. Saturday was the Summer Solstice, the “first day” of summer, although our already humid 90 degree temperatures in Mississippi over the last week said it was at least a little overdue. Our Saturday was spent enjoying 2009’s longest day at my parent’s home. After yummy food and racing cars and stickered airplanes and much drooling and searching for “flint” rocks (ones I’ve yet to learn how to distinguish) and late afternoon naps and shouting and extra time with Daddy, it was 11:30pm before my three gifts could be coaxed to embrace the night, long after the sun had given up it’s day of “triumph.” Earlier in the week, a friend encouraged me to stare at everyone I love a little more closely these days in light of the unexpected brevity of life. I was decidedly blessed to take her up on the challenge the few extra daylight moments.

I came across a wonderful program called American Life in Poetry, which highlights modern poetry selections with notes from former U.S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser. Our local Arts Council has used it in their newsletter (which I design) for years. I’ve only recently paid closer attention and realized that the weekly offering is made available for free publication. A recent column was very apropos in beautifully articulating the push and pull of day and night this time of year.

American Life in Poetry: Column 220
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

One of the privileges of being U.S. Poet Laureate was to choose two poets each year to receive a $10,000 fellowship, funded by the Witter Bynner Foundation. Joseph Stroud, who lives in California, was one of my choices. This poem is representative of his clear-eyed, imaginative poetry.

Night in Day

The night never wants to end, to give itself over
to light. So it traps itself in things: obsidian, crows.
Even on summer solstice, the day of light’s great
triumph, where fields of sunflowers guzzle in the sun—
we break open the watermelon and spit out
black seeds, bits of night glistening on the grass.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2001 by Coleman Barks, from his most recent book of poems, “Winter Sky: New and Selected Poems, 1968-2008,” University of Georgia Press, 2008, and reprinted by permission of Coleman Barks and the publisher. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry Foundation.  The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.  We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Lovely. I think I’ll search out more of Mr. Stroud’s work. One caveat: Light seems just as unwilling to give up it’s hold on our hearts. On Wednesday, the boys and Hub were out chasing “lightening bugs” in the guise of doing chores for Miss Belle (the beagle). Upon their return, all sweaty and giggling, they informed me they had caught two. Only, one “COULD NOT turn his light off.”

Much like the lights of my life.

Terrible Beauty

I’ve been thinking about this William Butler Yeats poem today in the spirit of green solidarity.

Easter, 1916

I HAVE met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman’s days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone’s in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Author: William Butler Yeats
Online Poetry at PoetryFeast.com

Thank you, Andrew Sullivan, for bringing it to my attention. Oh, and as a gentle recommendation, PoetryFeast.com is indeed yummy.