Sustainable Art

I talked a few posts ago about our local artwork we got from our trip to Whidbey Island. I thought I would show you what we got in pictures and video and again provide links to "our artists."

This video contains almost everything we got. I forgot to put the Tapestry in here that we got from Windwalker.
Here is the video, The first picture of the Buddha is from Rob Schouten, he has some amazing art work. Here is his link Be Enlightened Here. Everything else is from Raven Rocks Studio.



The aforementioned Tapestry.


My favorite's are the two paintings. 'Sol' being the large many symbols of the sun! And sun blessings the smiling face sun at the end of the video.

Sol

Buckwheat progress

Well our soon to be garden is coming up strong. We planted buckwheat as a cover crop. If you are new to the idea of cover crops let me just explain that they are to grow and kill before they reach seed. For example, our buckwheat is nearing maturity, we must till it under before it can seed out, otherwise we will have more buckwheat that anyone knows what to do with. Cover crops are used as a soil amendment, to add more back than they take. So in about a week we will mow the buckwheat and get it all chopped up good, then get the rototiller and smoosh (technical term here) it into the ground, where by it will rot and give yummy's back to the soil. Sounds pretty good huh? Some call it "green manure" I like that idea because essentially that is what it is.

We plan on planting cereal rye next, which is more cold hardy and can grow into late November. Then the ground and the snow will take it so I highly doubt we will need to rototill it. But come this spring we will have to. But before we plant that we have to get our garlic, raspberries and other such "fall" plantings into the ground.

Our buckwheat is growing nicely on one side of the garden, there are two reasons for that. 1.) We didn't add as much compost to one side of garden, mainly because we ran out of time and wanted to get he buckwheat in the ground, and 2.) the freaking birds came and had a feast at our expense. I don't think we buried the seeds deep enough into the ground, we used more of a leaf rake to get it in the ground, next time we'll use a thatching rake!

Art

We recently went to Whidbey Island for a trip to visit family. Jacob and I went with the intention of purchasing some of Raven Rocks Studio's glorious artwork. Raven Rocks is run by Jacob's mother Mary Jo and her lovely mate Windwalker! We decided that art can be a sustainable practice too, by taking the "manufacture" out of store purchased artwork we are helping to decrease the amount of resources put into getting that art work home. Let me explain, store purchased art has to be "constructed" somewhere, shipped to a warehouse facility, then purchased by say Wal-mart. Then the consumer has to go to the store, purchase it and bring it home. Surely there are many other steps involved in that process but simplified... there it is. Now purchasing from local artists is a sustainable practice, let me explain my logic. All supplies are shipped to one location, the studio. That large roll of canvas will be used for many paintings but still only shipped once. The same with paint. So we decided it's going to be local art or regional art for us! Plus supporting creativity and artists just feels good!

A great website that Mary Jo turned me onto is called Etsy, this little gem is for artists who make things handmade! It can be broken down into artists from your local city to topics of interest.

Also I took the Handmade pledge, what this means is for the Holiday season, to buy me only gifts hand made by you or others. A website with wonderful links to different hand made sites is Buy Handmade.

Blessings and creativity to artists, so that I may buy from you!

Meditation

I have been saying for a while now that I would love to be "taught" to meditate. Sounds easy right, sit, relax, quiet your mind. NOPE. At least it hasn't been for me, so I happen to find this flyer at Huckleberries about Yoga Twist Studio. I have been toying with doing yoga again, this time at a studio instead of at the school. I think the experience would be much more full filling if I try the studio. Anyway back to meditation, on the back of the flyer they had a 7 week meditation class that starts this wednesday the 10th. I have emailed the instructor to see if there is any space left but I haven't heard back from her yet. I truly am hoping I can do this, I know Jacob might do this with me and I think that would be really good for his mind.