Walhydra first discovered the work of Brian Andreas in the late 1980s, in the Red Piano II art gallery on St. Helena Island off the coast of Beaufort, SC, when she was attending an American Friends Service Committee regional retreat at Penn Center.
[How's that for cramming maximum "product placement" into one sentence?]
At that time, Andreas was painting his remarkable characters and their offbeat, challenging one-sentence stories onto found pieces of wood, using old wire coat hangers and such to craft heads, hands and feet.
Then Walhydra found Andreas' book, Story People.
More recently, Walhydra has been sending friends the cards Andreas produces. Here's one she and Hubby Jim just gave Senior Witch for Valentine's Day:
"I asked her why she never told us about the Ten Commandments & she said she wasn't ever that good with numbers so she loved everything as best she could & I remember thinking who needs all those rules anyway with a mother like her around."
Today Walhydra discovered a website...and a blog!
Here's another story she particularly likes:
Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable & fall asleep & miss your life.
And finally, the print version of a card Walhydra bought today:
Is willing to accept that she creates her own reality except for some of the parts where she can't help but wonder what the hell she was thinking.
Boy, ain't that the truth?!
And so it is.
Blessèd Be.
Walhydra has occasionally added links to her sidebar without really writing anything about them.
Here are a few she thinks the gentle reader might find interesting.
crackskullbob.squarespace.com
Just the name itself is worth a visit, but Ruben Fletcher does great sketches, too, like this one.
"They might be three generations, or three friends, or three strangers. I like not knowing. It brings me into the process. It makes me look harder."
Walhydra recommends exploring this site at length, including the links to Sketchers and Other Artistes. Beautiful sketch work...and a marvelous, dry sense of humor.
Keith Lanpher Photography
CrackSkullBob's site led Walhydra to Keith Lanpher's photography. A wide range of topics. Nice work.
"Yesterday I had a late afternoon shoot on Wallops Island, a beautiful little place on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. I was shooting a portrait for magazine from a tower and after I finished I couldn’t help but point the camera towards some of the winter scenery."
"Made this picture a couple years ago in Portsmouth. I get the concept, but it still seems a little odd."
"I was dog walking recently and found this foggy view in an area near my house called The Hague. Nice the duck cooperated with the composition. I know this is a bit of an idyllic post card image, but that’s what was there, and what’s there not to quietly appreciate?"
Feathers, Geodes, & Old Lace
A beautiful array of image, quotations, found objects, etc. Erica W. Adams has this quotation on her blog profile:
"We must strive moment to moment to practice a taxonomy of different forms of understanding, different forms of change, dependent perhaps upon resemblance and seeming substitutability-- figuration-- rather than on the self-identical category of truth." Gayatri Spivak, Feminism and Critical Theory
There's more...explore.
And so it is.
Blessèd Be.
Oy! Walhydra just had to conk herself on the head, because she forgot to include her best and longest-known Virgo friend, journalist, photographer and computer guru Jay Gross, and his Foto Artista site (and colleagues).
Walhydra wouldn't be Walhydra without Jay's inspiration. (Um...that's meant as a compliment, Jay, in case you were wondering.)
Walhydra and Jay also share in the ancient art of delighting in cats and yums.
"Where the Shopkeeper Would Say"
by Kabir (1440-1518)
I was
looking for that shop
where the shopkeeper would say,
"There is nothing of value in here."
I found it and did
not leave.
The richness of not wanting
wrote these
poems.
Blessèd Be.
Thanks to Wendiferous for sharing this.
