Really.

Note: The spiffy-cool cuff used here is Jon’s handiwork (and he stayed up well past midnight to help me). :)

The YMCA at Virginia Tech is sponsoring a one day jewelry and accessory show on Saturday, April 26 at University Mall in Blacksburg, Virginia. The event will be called “Bling in the Spring” and will feature jewelry and accessories for the home. The hours for the show will be 10am-6pm …

…Plans for the show include at least 40 booths selling all types of jewelry including both handcrafted and commercial jewelry. In addition, hair accessories, small accessories such as purses, knitted items, belts, and hats and home accessories such as candles, soaps, and small decorative items will be featured. Admission to the event is free and there is plenty of parking at the mall in the free parking garage.

Also, there’s still opportunity to become a vendor, so if this interests you, visit the VT YMCA Bling in the Spring site here to get your vendor application. Admission to the event is free if you’re just interested in poking around for the day.

They’ve turned out much better than I anticipated, this being the first time I’ve tried using Fimo for an actual clay project. Susan warned me about how different its properties are compared to Sculpey (III and Premo). Fimo definitely conditions slower and almost to the point where I wasn’t sure if it’d ever stop crumbling. Even so, the end result was a pleasant surprise, and look NO scorched bunnies!

When I look at them, sometimes I see my mother. At other times, I see my father. I’ve not always liked them, finding fault in the size of my fingers, the shape of my nails, or the often calloused, rough-hewn texture of them. These are the hands of a survivor, a warrior whose strength I cannot always fathom … although it’s she I see when I gaze into the mirror.

They were old when I was young, held me as a child my mother locked away in darkness; they brushed the cobwebs, the spiders and creepy-crawlies from my bare legs and covered my ears when the things that go bump in the night became too much to bear. These are the hands that shielded me from daily blows, my fists deflecting beer can missiles and vodka bottle bombs. It was they who scratched and clawed in defiance at faceless strangers wearing blue and countless men with cruel hands in places they shouldn’t have been. They collected — and preserved — the pieces of my soul that rape and abuse often threatened to scatter.

They’ve helped me forage food from behind the 7-11 to stay alive, digging through dumpsters for outdated sandwiches, bags of chips and unwanted Suzie Q’s never unwrapped. They cradled me at night when I was alone and wrote amusing stories during the day for my third grade teacher. They lied to her sometimes so she’d never see the truth: I never had the courage to pull that trigger again.

My hands hugged my father close when he finally came for me (and would again years later when he finally returned to me). For awhile they were hands that learned the meaning of Christmas, brushed horse after horse: Tezzy and Woody, Maggie and Tommy, Grace and then Sierra. They grew strong enough to hoist a saddle for themselves, spent hours galloping Woody through the hills and little washes of Hansen Dam. When surprised by a flash flood, they pulled four horses through waist-deep water to the safety of higher ground. I was terrified; I’d never learned how to swim.

These hands have been bitten numerous times: injured birds, trapped kittens, and stray dogs needing stitches. They’ve staunched the blood of a dying friend, finding strength of their own when all I could do was sit there and cry, watching him die. They also protected the girls on the playground when Robert Garcia decided the swings belonged to him. For three days they returned home cracked and bleeding, bruised and split, but by the following week our swings had been liberated. Garcia decided it was too much effort to defend his new territory. We held our hands high and cheered for our victory.

These hands never learned to sew or to paint. They’ve struck match after match to cigarette, pipe, and bong, and they’ve sliced long lines of blow. But, they’ve also discarded the paraphernalia each time I realized I could escape that life and be different from the people around me. Indeed, there have been times when my hands had to let go, but more often than not, they’ve dragged me higher.

I must admire them for their wisdom and strength, though they can frighten me with their indeterminate power. They can do things I cannot begin to imagine. Each burn mark and every scar is a testament to the many times I’ve clawed my way through Hell. But, also, they’re a reminder of how lost and alone I feel some days living here in paradise. These hands, they’ve carried a mother spiritually and subdued a father physically. They didn’t shake nor did they fail me when daddy raised his hatchet high and threatened to sever our heads. Throughout those years when he swore we’d mean more to him dead than we ever did alive, these hands did their best to steer my sister’s life and raise her, even though I was a stupid kid and couldn’t possibly get it right.

These hands have never struck the first blow, but they have pummeled and pounded, and they’ve gone in for the kill. They’ve known little of love, of tenderness, or of compassion, but they’ve learned how to play, how to bring beauty to the world, and how to create. When they hug a friend, rub my soon-to-be husband’s hair, or tickle my friends’ kids until their peals of laughter could shatter windows … I’ve no doubt that I’m alive.

Mine are the hands of a warrior, not always gentle and feminine, but necessary.

She’s the product of an A-HAA workshop Melissa lead us through last April or May. I think it was for our May meeting, but without checking my calendar, I don’t know for certain. Hope’s one of those projects that pushed me out of my comfort zone; she’s not very minimalist, which I tend to think of as a direct opposite to altered art. Here’s a peek inside:

Also on my list of firsts is a vessel I created by covering a paper wine box with polymer clay:

and:

It’s rough, but turned out better than I anticipated. The paper rolled up inside is also a first attempt at making paper. I use “first” loosely since I did make paper in a class once long, long ago. Paper making is messy and hard work, with little return, but the results are often very rewarding. I also like to think of it as helping the environment because I reuse junk mail paper (and used coffee filters!) instead of just throwing it out.

So just a few additions. Will add more as time allows.

This last workshop with A-HAA was tough (i.e. a challenge) for those not really inclined to learn how to sew. Thankfully, our shop leader this month, Melissa, did much of the sewing for us. I’d swear my own sewing machine (Jon’s, actually) has fangs and growls at me. It’s a polar bear in disguise. Really.

Regardless of my frustration with the sewing, I strove to finish my art doll, not only to say I finished yet another project, but to delve into a whole new skill set. Now, I get to practice cutting straight lines, drawing them, AND sewing them. Rounded bits come later. The bonus? I’m pretty sure I can make oven mitts now.

So, guess what I got for Christmas. Yes, you guessed it, a TiVo!

Eh, onward and upward.

My greatest frustration (besides wedding arrangements) this month has been in learning to take decent photos in order to post them. Jon is patient; his face never melts around his eyes every time *I* have a meltdown because my “pictures are fuzzy!” And, I am learning. Slowly.

We had super-great fun this past Christmas. We made 30+ Christmas Cards by hand, envelopes included, and some of them turned out spectacular despite a handful of glaring mistakes. Most of those mistakes readily disappeared under hills of glue, tape, paper, and embellishments. Draw a line that isn’t straight enough? No worries, cover it with double-sided sticky tape and pretty ribbon. Tah dah, said line has vanished!

We made apple butter:

And dog biscuits:

And about 4 dozen too many cookies. Nevertheless, it was all good fun and rather fulfilling. I haven’t done a strictly hand-crafted Christmas since about 1995 or earlier and I was beginning to feel too commercialized.

Granted, my artistic abilities have also suffered since then, too. Yes, it’s my fault. Really. I let working at the jail and cleaning up my family’s messes overrule my common sense. The freedom I have now has supercharged my creativity. I’ve had to slog through a lot of emotional baggage. I felt weak and vulnerable for so long that I forgot I could be strong, brave, independent, etc. Now, although I think my art is still timid and unsure of itself, I believe it is evolving in many good ways. For example, I finished a wine box conversion I started, hmmm … 12 years ago:

I find the outside of this box a little too conservative, but I haven’t yet learned how to balance my minimalist nature with the “ALTER THE HELL OUT OF IT, WOMAN” mentality that screams inside my head and demands to be heard (and explored). The inside of the box is my gem. I love how easily it came together with the vision I had before I started. I’ve turned the project into my “letter box”, a place to store my calligraphy equipment. I’m on a roll to overcome that whole, “but I’m a lefty and can’t DO calligraphy!” attitude I’ve been carrying since I was 19 and figured out how damn complicated you right-handers can make my life. :P The WHOLE world was reborn this December when Jon asked the magic question.

No, not that magic question. THE magic question: “Do you have a real pair of left-handed scissors?”

Well, I thought I did. Turns out, I didn’t. Holy wow, what a difference that question has made in my ability to cut a straight line. God bless the man; he’s a keeper!