Observations Archives - Inspired By Everyday Beauty

Where do I find the time?

It feels like I haven’t accomplished much art making this summer, but the months have filled with lots of adventures, travelling, exploring and picture taking. Art is always on my mind, so while I was enjoying the great outdoors all of my senses, as well as my camera, were recording sights, sounds and scents. I was storing up the raw material of ideas for future creations. I was filling my reference bank to tap into all fall and winter.

The mystery at this point is what will I create? Where will I start? As usual, I have more ideas and plans than I will ever have time for, but somehow I will just dive in and see what emerges.

Luckily, I have a few specifics to guide me.

*Frosted Window Pane in production* 12″x12″

I am just finishing up some pieces that have been accepted into the Cline House Gallery Merry Mini Exhibition, which opens in Cornwall, ON on November 6. Here is a sneak peek at a “Frosted Window Pane”, one in a 12″ x12″ series.

I am still working on my second sewer fish piece–it’s definitely going to be the longest piece I have ever made. But guess what… all summer I have been seeing new manhole covers and gelling up a new montage in my mind!

The fall will also bring work for two upcoming challenges. The first is for my Studio Art Quilt Association (SAQA) local “Land Between Group” which has decided to start a new challenge based on the theme of Art Connections. This is a pretty broad category and I’m not sure yet where my thoughts will focus.

The second challenge will be interesting. Our Kingston Fibre Artists group has decided to pair up this year for our annual challenge. Artists and their partners will work together to create two 10″ x 10″ pieces using only black and white. One partner will create mainly in white with accents of black and the other vice versa. I have never worked in only black and white, and I will just be getting to know my partner and her art. I expect it will be an exciting challenge and a great learning opportunity.

This summer, I’ve been dabbling in natural dyeing with soy milk, avocado, and golden rod. I’ve been adding to my stash of hand dyed fabrics. On the weekend of Sept. 20, I am heading up to Wintergreen Studios to participate in a day-long workshop on “Found Colour and Natural Dyeing” to add to my repertoire. Who knows what that will lead to, but it will be lots of fun!

As a member of Kingston Fibre Artists I will be joining in a local exhibition to held at the Studios of artist Michelle Reid, 36 Hatter St., Kingston, ON on October 4 & 5, 2025.

Did I mention my balloon work? Ha ha, this is a fun one. A few years ago for a significant birthday, a friend gave me two huge shiny balloons–of course even once they had shriveled and deflated I couldn’t bear to throw them out. Stashed them away, and then early this summer got inspired to create a huge, shiny art piece exploding with colour. Still in progress, but it will be a piece that is pure fun when it’s finished.

Oh yes, and then there is my hankering to do some more work with wool. I have started collecting old 100% wool blankets which no one seems to want any more (still accepting them if you want to toss any my way!). I love the texture of woven wool, and the smooth buttery sensation as it moves beneath the needle. I also have a few old sweaters, well past their best date, some moth eaten some worn through with love. I think I’ll work on matting and felting them to see what I get. Then, I hope to put all of that together into some sort of piece.

I only have one question really. How is it that anyone says they get bored in retirement?? My challenge: finding enough time for all the projects brewing in my mind!

Anti-aging

This year, I started off the Christmas season buying myself an advent calendar from the 1,000 Islands Soap Company. It is a beautiful chest of treasures and samples with one treat to be opened every day in December. For several solid reasons that I won’t go into, I decided it was best to start opening on November 1^st.

On Tuesday, November 5^th, I opened box number five—I stick to only one a day, no cheating—and found a small container of anti-aging cream. My skeptical husband raised an eyebrow, but I decided to try it out and applied it generously during my morning routine.

Late in the day on that same Tuesday, I went over to Shoppers to get my flu shot. When checking in, the woman looked over my registration form and muttered “66”. I detected a surprised tone. I asked, “66 what?, What’s 66?” . She replied, still with the tone, “Your age. You’re sixty six?”.

I confirmed, “Yes, that’s right.”

She confirmed, “So you’ll want the extra strength seniors’ dose?”

Now, I admit that everything is open to interpretation, but my interpretation was that I certainly don’t look my age, could the cream have started to work?…maybe I don’t really need the anti-aging cream?

When I got home, I proudly described the encounter to my husband, who I may have described earlier as being incapable of telling even the smallest lie. His interpretation? “Maybe you better keep it up with that cream.”

Golf Upset

I know I usually post about everyday beauty, but this adventure can’t go untold.

I’m back to golf this summer. After having taken a couple of seasons off, I decided to give it another go and I’ve joined a foursome in a local ladies’ league. It is a small, friendly group and we four have all agreed that we are just out for fun, nothing competitive.

Competitiveness and ambition aren’t the same thing are they? I think there is a possibility that we each have a streak of ambition. Of course, I can only really speak for myself.

Last week, I had a pretty good game, so this week it was only natural that I would want to improve, right? Plus, this week the ‘game of the week’ was best score on a secret hole. How fun! That would take the pressure off trying to perform on any particular hole. In my secret analytic mind, I figured the chosen hole must be number five.

Five is the longest and trickiest hole. A par 5, it starts off high, has bit of a dog leg, is flanked on the left side by sand traps and on the right by a very long marsh. Easy enough though, with a plan. Keep it centered, drive to the corner of the leg, then straight up the fairway to the green. Don’t even think of the water or the sand.

My drive went a little left, but otherwise pretty much as planned. Donna was in trouble though. Her ball had hit the very edge of the right-hand marsh, hard to tell at a distance if it was just in or just out of the water. She was safely off to the side searching in the reeds, so I decided to take my second shot. Somehow, and I’m not sure exactly how, my ball flew right, skimmed her leg, and landed at about the same spot as hers, but definitely in the water.

I went over, to apologize for the close call, and to help look for the balls. As I was leaning into the soggy edge of the wetland, I saw movement in my periphery. It was one of those eerie moments when time both slows down and speeds up. The movement was a cart slowly rolling toward us. The movement picked up speed. By the time I realized that the bag was purple, and mine, it was hitting a ridge at the edge of the marsh. As Newton’s law of movement will have it, even though the wheels had come to a stop, the weight of the clubs continued, ass-over-tea-kettle as my mother would have said, and the whole works catapulted forward landing upside down in what I then determined by the odor of close proximity, was more of a swamp.

OMG! How could that have just happened? I was in shock, and I took a minute to pick out the two balls I had spotted in the shallows. Terri, the first to snap back to reality yelled, “never mind the balls, your clubs are sinking!” Yes, the bottom of the golf bag was just above the surface, detached from the cart, which was also completely upside down. They had come unfastened in the crash. Both were sinking fast. I leaned helplessly toward them, but they were beyond my reach. “Wait!”, yelled Donna, “don’t go in! Someone, give me a pole!” Pole, nine iron, whatever, by thinking quickly, she was able to hook the strap of the bag and pull it toward us. As soon as it was close enough, I eased it out, carefully keeping it prone so I wouldn’t dump its contents aka, my clubs! With the bag, and what looked like most of the clubs back on dry land, my attention turned to the cart which by now was almost fully submerged. Hmm, how deep could this be?? As I eased into ankle-depth muck and grabbed the edge, trying to pull it to safety, I saw first my water bottle, then my visor, then a purple club handle bob to the surface.

My efforts oscillated back and forth between the floating objects and the sinking cart, but all were just beyond my reach. Donna, still on the scene, and thinking more clearly said, “here, let me hold on to you”. Yes Donna, who is approximately 10 inches shorter, and about 100 lbs smaller than me, was holding on very securely to my skirt. Just to be clear, at this point, if I went in, we were definitely both going in. That is teamwork though, and we did it. All bobbing paraphernalia and the cart were successfully pulled on shore.

Meanwhile, Terri had been on deck to hand over poles as needed, but Jackie had been rendered helpless with laughter.

I reloaded my bag on the cart, noted that yes, the brake had been on, verified that our snacks were safe in their waterproof pouch and fished my phone out of its not-so waterproof pocket.

We let the next team play through while we collected ourselves.

It was only later that I realized that while all the distraction was underway, a deer fly had slipped up my shorts and bitten the cheek of my butt—but that is a whole other story.

One thing is certain. At least I’m pretty sure. I am not going to have the lowest score on hole five.

PS Sorry, there is no video footage for verification

Year of the Beaver

By now you know that I am Inspired by Everyday Beauty. Each summer, there seems to be one animal that takes first place for number of sightings on my trail walks, cycling adventures and kayak outings.

In previous years, we have had the ‘year of the rabbit’ when our property was inundated with small and friendly bunnies;

‘the year of the turtle’ when every kayak ride was sure to happen upon turtles basking in the sunshine;

and ‘the year of the snake’ when I spotted water snakes from the dock, garter snakes in the grass, brown snakes on the trails, black snakes on the shores and even a green snake on the trail.

It looks like this year is shaping up to be the year of the beaver. Beavers are usually very shy and illusive creatures. We often see signs of their visits, pointed stumps left on the shoreline and in the swampy areas or piles of limbs built up into dams, but we rarely see the actual beaver.

About seven or eight years ago, we had one right on our lakeshore, and I was able to get lots of good closeup pictures as he methodically munched through our small shrubs and saplings. This was a onetime event though and I hadn’t seen one since.

Admittedly, I have been keeping an eye out this year for a beaver sighting, hoping to get some good pictures for a friend. Maybe I’m channeling mother nature. Or, maybe I am just seeing more of what I am looking for.

Last Friday, we went for a beautiful cycle ride along the local trail. We stopped for a rest at a waterfall and I spotted two abandoned beaver dams at the base of the stream. These dams had been partially removed, likely by the village authorities as they were no doubt causing flooding in the park.

As I was kneeling to get a ground level picture of the dam, something big swooped above my head. I lifted my camera lens and started shooting without even focusing and got a beautiful picture of a great blue heron in flight. I had been so intent on the beaver dam, I completely overlooked a heron on the stream bank!

Look closely or you’ll miss the heron in flight (centre trees)

On Sunday, what was forecast as a sunny afternoon turned out to be cool and overcast, with a bit of wind kicking up some waves. I opted for a long walk rather than a kayak tour of the lake.

While doing the half-way turn around at the municipal park, a woman sitting by the lake called out to me, “Do you know much about snakes?” “Well, not really, but if it was black and in the water, it was likely a water snake!” I was lured in for a look and we both got out our phones and started googling, red, water, snake, Ontario….no images matched what she had seen. We were focusing on our phones, and as an aside, she said, “…I just saw the weirdest thing, there were bubbles in the water and then, I heard funny noises. Could it have been beavers?” I was doubtful. Mid-day, parkland, not much in the way of surrounding saplings or streams.

Then I heard it. A funny mewling sound, kind of like a cross between kittens and puppies crying, and it was coming from the reeds.

*Two heads in the water, and adult beaver and its kit*

I inched closer and closer to the sound and spotted something dark, with little hand-like paws, munching away on the grasses. It was in fact two beavers! One larger, likely the mother and one very young kit. They were well hidden and seemed not to notice me. They seemed to be communicating with both burbling out their little chorus and mother was prodding the young one to swim out of the reeds.

*Admittedly, this looks a little like Loch Ness, but I assure you it is an adult beaver!*

I wasn’t able to get a clear photo so I decided to catch the action with video.

Watch as the adult beaver guides its kit to safely hide under the dock

The mother started nudging and corralling the little one to swim to toward the floating dock. Every time the baby fell behind a bit, she turned to scoop it along. They disappeared under the dock and then the adult came back out and returned to the reeds. As it swam, I could make out its square, blunt head, and I could see its hind legs doing a rapid flutter kick. When it reached the shore, I realized there was a second little one that I hadn’t seen. The routine was repeated as this one was also marshaled to safety.

By now we observers had been joined by another woman and her young granddaughter and it was likely our presence that was spurring the beaver to move her kits to a more secluded safety spot. I decided to back off and continue my walk, content that I had just witnessed a rare and thrilling site.

Noticing

If you are going to be inspired by anything, the first thing you need to do is notice.

It is so easy to move through life on autopilot, going about our daily activities and business without paying much attention to our surroundings. Or, even worse, trudging along purposefully ignoring our surroundings just to get on with what we are doing, or to get to where we are going.

In order to be inspired by everyday beauty, you first have to notice it. The good news is that it is everywhere! It only takes a conscious moment to stop and notice. It might be the scent of your first sip of morning coffee, or the sound of rain splattering on the window while you are in your warm house, or the sight of a toddler’s rosy cheeks. If you stop for a minute to notice and think about the beauty you will at the very least have one pleasurable moment. Best case scenario, you will start to notice and then take a few minutes to think more deeply. What memory does it stir? How does it make you feel? Breath it in and enjoy. Enjoy it fully in the moment, or maybe, make a conscious note of it for use later. Once you take time to think about the beauty, you never know what it will lead you to create.

I almost posted a picture of my lunch today, but I’ll save that for another day. I think you’ll like my Backyard Moon shot better.

A couple of days ago, after spending the whole afternoon at the computer, figuring out how to blog, I packed it in and stumbled bleary-eyed toward the dark kitchen. It had been a wet, drizzly day and our backyard was a soggy, drab, winter mess. But, on my way up the stairs, I looked up and out the backdoor window. There was the most beautiful moonscape. I snapped the picture below on my phone.

A little cropping and look what it has revealed! The gorgeous, inky clouds in the background with a hazy moon peeking through to illuminate the black lace of naked trees.

*Backyard Moon on a soggy February evening*

I’m thinking this one may inspire me to experiment with fiber collage. I’m going to try a wooly textured background with overlay of gauze and needlework—-at least that is the plan at the moment.

I’ll keep you posted.