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Category: Orange Tuesdays

What dreams are making themselves known in your heart?

Cate, my adventurous sister, and me at the West Main Diner the day she left for South Africa
Cate, my adventurous sister, and me at the West Main Diner the day she left for South Africa

My younger sister Cate moved to South Africa!  Stratoz and I took her out for a last PA diner breakfast at the West Main Diner, and then Stratoz dropped us off at the train station and each of us hauled a 50 pound suitcase.  The conductor took mercy on us and helped with getting the baggage onto the train, and we began the hour long trip to the Philadelphia Airport.  We were in a car of commuters, all silent and reading the paper, or working on laptops, but my sister was poised to begin a big adventure.  She gave away most of her stuff, sold her car, left her job, and was a 14 hour plane ride away from leaving her home.

I’ve missed her, but it’s been exciting to see her seize her dreams and take the risk to follow her heart.  She moved to South Africa both to be with her fiance, and to use her new PhD as a professor at a University in Johannesburg, teaching English as a Foreign Language, with an emphasis on English in academic settings.  She is a rockstar of language learning knowledge.   South Africa has 11 official languages!  Fortunately, we get to talk via Skype, and keep connected since trying to describe her experiences in a new country is overwhelming in email.  We both grew up in Canada, before immigrating to the US, and I’ve noticed her accent is sounding more Canadian to me as she is back in the Commonwealth.  She said that the landlady’s dog didn’t recognize his name when she said “Gore-Dun”–he’s a proper “Gohr-Done,”  or some such vaguely British sounding version.

Note, Cate is the one who I described in this post, who wished the whole world would turn orange when we were were little, but I am the one in the orange jacket!  Maybe her wish brought the love of orange into my life, for which I am grateful.

What dreams have you followed?  What dreams are making themselves known in your heart?

 

 

Midas Under the Sunflowers: Orange Almost into Gold

Midas Under the Sunflowers. Photo by Margaret Almon.
Midas Under the Sunflowers. Photo by Margaret Almon.

When I found Midas under our sunflowers, I knew I needed to take photos for Orange Tuesdays.  Midas isn’t mine, but he came with the house, as the yard and porch are his by annexation.  This photo reminds me of the story of Jack and Beanstalk, but Midas has no interest in climbing the sunflower’s stalk, just in napping.  I am also reminded of the story of King Midas and the Golden Touch, who believes nothing more valuable than gold,  wishes that everything he touched would turn to gold, but when his wish is granted, he discovers his whole world solidifying into uselessness: food, water, and worst of all, his daughter.  How quickly King Midas’ wish went awry!

Midas Under the Sunflowers
Midas Looking Indifferent. Photo by Margaret Almon.

Once when we were young, my sister and I visited Butchart Gardens in BC, and there was a bronze statue of a pig, and you could make a wish while you rubbed his snout for luck.  My sister told me she wished the whole world was orange.  I don’t know if her enthusiasm for orange has endured, but I didn’t discover I loved orange until I started making art, and it was the orange glass that caught my eye again and again.  Even better is orange gold smalti, a thin layer of gold under and even thinner layer of orange glass, and no, I don’t wish everything I touched turned to orange gold.  Just a little is enough to bring things alive.  My neighbor Midas has one good eye, which is plenty for hunting, since he brings small “gifts” for his owner.  He got tired of my taking photos and turned his back to me.

Midas Under the Sunflowers
Midas Turns His Back To Me. Photo by Margaret Almon.

 

The Kaleidescopic Beauty of Lantana Flowers

Orange Lantana Flowers and Mosaic Bowling Ball
Orange Lantana Goodness, Photo by Wayne Stratz

I hankered after Lantana after seeing the flowers at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA, and at the Philadelphia International Flower Show.  Stratoz planted one small pot of them this spring, and they have burst forth into a kaleidescope of colors.  It’s like watching the sun set, as the colors change from red to orange to pink, a surprise every morning.  One plant has spread out to surround my mosaic bowling ball, which makes a fine backdrop to all this orange delight.

 

 

Jack Layton’s Words of Love, Hope and Optimism

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

Early on the morning of Monday, August 22, 2011, Jack Layton – the charismatic leader of
Canada’s New Democratic Party –succumbed to his battle with cancer.

These are some of his words he wrote in a letter to the Canadian people.

Optimism: Annette Bamberger’s Quilt Rising Up in Orange

47 172/365 Annette Bamberger's Optimism
Annette Bamberger’s Optimism. Photo by Wayne Stratz.

In looking for my Orange Tuesday selection, I came across Stratoz’s photo of a quilt by Annette Bamberger that  we saw at the 2009 Pennsylvania Quilt Extravaganza, which truly was an extravaganza of beauty.  Quilts spark my creativity with their kinship to mosaic and collage, two of my favorite mediums, and the amazing things that can rise out of fragments, pieces, scraps.  Optimism is by the German quilt artist Annette Bamberger, who has a degree in architecture and worked as a designer and drafter, before becoming a quilter.   I didn’t used to think of myself as an optimist, but as I’ve healed and grown in my life, I’ve found the seeds of optimism in my life.

NB:  As Joules from Lucid Lotus Life noted, the photo by Paul Grecian, Peak Color, would also make an excellent candidate for Orange Tuesdays as well as crazy goodness.

Over at Stratoz:

7 for the Weekend:  Celebrating a 2009 Quilt Show

 

Enjoyment as a Gift for Our Hearts

47 77/365 I approve this message
I approve this message. Photo by Wayne Stratz.

Once a year, Stratoz goes on a silent spiritual retreat at the Jesuit Center at Wernersville, and he took this photo of beautiful orange stitchery, and this slip of paper proclaiming,

Enjoy!
It is God’s will!

What a surprising admonition!  I have heard “God’s will” invoked as involving sacrifice, or doing something painful, or suffering, and that version of God’s will can be corrosive to the heart, especially if enjoying this moment, this world, this existence, seems wrong.  Some of my readers may recognize this in their own lives:  a tendency to dismiss what we enjoy as irrelevant, unimportant, as if we don’t matter.  Or if you are like me, to read this as “Enjoy dammit, or you are failing at joy.”

I am beginning to learn that enjoyment is a gift, and it is acceptable to accept it, and that being open to joy in my life has increased my desire to share that joy with others.  I love being in my art studio, making mosaics, and love sending my work out into the world, to people who find delight in what I make.  One Saturday, at the Lansdale Farmers Market, a woman came into the booth, and stopped to look at my mandalas.  Lori Dudley is a massage therapist, and she saw the story of a massage within my Red Tail Rainbow Mandala, how someone comes in at the red tip, tense in their muscles, and slowly, as the massage unfolds, they spiral into the relaxation and peace of the blue greens.  I loved that story, that vision of my mosaic, and her enjoyment of the Red Tail Rainbow was enjoyment spiraling ever wider.

Red Tail Rainbow Mosaic Mandala by Margaret Almon
Red Tail Rainbow Mosaic Mandala by Margaret Almon

 

Red Orange Starflower by Wayne Stratz

Welcoming Neighbors Home with a Red Orange Starflower by Wayne Stratz

Red Orange Starflower by Wayne Stratz
Red Orange Starflower by Wayne Stratz

Stratoz made a set of “welcome home” starflowers, in the order of the rainbow, for our 5 neighbors across the street who suffered a rowhouse fire in March of 2010, and finally all back in June of 2011.  We were both glad to see everyone home, after the scary evening when we woke up to screaming and smoke billowing from the house directly across from us.  One man had to jump from an attic window, but has healed and is back to work.  Over the course of a year, we watched the slow rebuilding, in fits and starts, from clearing out, to baking soda blasting the sooty bricks which made it look like a snowstorm in spring, to new windows, porches, doors.  To have everyone back is a delight.  And Stratoz’s imagination is a delight as well.  I am always amazed by his creativity and when he told me he planned to make a starflower  for each neighbor’s home, in rainbow order, from red-orange, to blue-violet, as a way to welcome everyone back, I was awed by the thoughtfulness of this gift. What house warming gift have your received that truly made you feel at home?   What was your favorite gift to give as welcome?

 

 

 

Lovers of Orange and Orange Tuesdays

Orange Flower Mandala on Slate by Margaret Almon
Orange Flower Mandala on Slate by Margaret Almon.

I came across Orange Tuesdays from Shengkay’s Randomness Journal,  and was smitten with the idea immediately!  I am an orange person.  I never knew this until I started making art, and was drawn to orange in whatever form from luscious juicy orange, to burnt orange to blazing orange.  I have found that orange lovers in the United States are relatively rare, and when we find each other, we click!  I’ve read that people tend to love orange or hate it, and sometimes I have a twinge of wondering if I should be making all this orange art, but it doesn’t last long, because orange makes me feel joy, and draws those people who find joy in it, and that is a good thing.  So here I go with my first Orange Tuesday!

Update: Shengkay is taking a break from Orange Tuesday, but I am still posting.

Margaret’s Mandalas on Etsy at Nutmeg Designs