Wonder of Wonder, Miracle of Miracles!

I actually accomplished some art this week. Actually, these took me a while to finish at my snails' pace! But finally finish them I did. The first one is an 8" round that I made for Megan. Her theme was POLKADOTS. The inspiration for the piece came from a song by Rufus Wainwright called "Tiergarten". Tiergarten is the word for animal park in german and it is an actual historic park in Germany. I didn't think these would turn out so "fun", but I'm glad they went that way!

These next two pages are for Sandee in our round robin tip-in. Her theme was FAVORITE POEM. Instead of choosing my all-time favorite poem - The Daffodils by William Wordsworth - I decided to find a new poem (to me) that inspired my creativity. The one that really captured me was "Child in Red" by Rainer Maria Rilke. I'll put it at the end of this post since it is difficult to read from my scan. I hope she likes what I came up with for her. I did enjoy thinking about the very few dresses I actually wore as a young girl (I was a tomboy!). And one I remember had red and white checks and I wore red shoes with it. I remember twirling around in it and feeling like such a young lady. And, I kinda still have a thing for red and white and red shoes today, actually. So those moments, as this poem suggests, really do stick with us.

Child in Red

Sometimes she walks through the village

in herlittle red dress

all absorbed in restraining herself,

and yet, despite herself, she seems to move

according to the rhythm of her life to come.

She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,

half-turns around...

and, all while dreaming, shakes her head

for or against.

Then she dances a few steps

that she invents and forgets,

no doubt finding out that life

moves on too fast.

It's not so much that she steps out

of the small body enclosing her,

but that all she carries in herself

frolics and ferments.

It's this dress that she'll remember

later in a sweet surrender;

when her whole life is full of risks,

the little red dress will always seem right. Rainer Maria Rilke