hot summer (16 x 20)

 

My July has been a bit more eventful than I had wanted.  I was invited to a wedding and finished this mosaic in time for the couple's gift.  As planned, the day after the wedding was my son's going-away shebang because he moved to Denver the next day.  I helped him and his wife drive their cars out over three days.  But just like everyone else, there was the old unexpected stuff that can roll ya'.  It is the same stuff that happens to us all.  The night before the wedding, Rob and I were in a car accident that totaled both his car and the car that caused the accident.  All people involved were injury free.  Then the night of Kaleo's party, we got a phone call saying that my mother-in-law, Corrine, had just died.  

 

So yeah, it is easy to look at an injury free car accident as a good thing rather than an inconvenience that snagged an entire evening in our already overbooked life.  But then how do you deal with losing a great friend/second mom in any kind of positive way?  Of course, I did my share of blubbering.  If I feel it, I'm gonna express it.  That's me.   There is no way to advise someone how to look at this because everyone has their own beliefs.  What worked for us is knowing that at least her long struggle was over.  I try to compare it to my son's move to Denver.  Yeah, I will miss him but why would I hold him back from happiness?  I wouldn't.  I am so freaking grateful to have had Corrine as another mom.  I have known her for almost 30 years and we had zero fights.  That is a tough act to follow now that I am a mother-in-law.  I will always have a billion fun memories of her.  It is easy for me to feel peace about her crossing the rainbow bridge because no matter WHAT is over there, it is better than laying in a hospital bed.

 

I thought the Denver move was horrible timing but in the end it was perfect timing.  Everything unfolds as it should.  I have to remind myself constantly.

it's not easy (being green) finished!

 

Here is how this 16 x 24 mosaic came together.  Susquehanna Art Museum asked for a work of mine to be in their VanGo! exhibit for a year.  The work they asked for was sold.  This year's theme for the exhibit is monochromatic and I often go that route anyway.  I had a mosaic half way worked through in my head so I told them I would love to make something specifically for this exhibit.  I was looking for an excuse to make a circuit board and trying unsuccessfully to fit it in my upcoming venus mosaic.  Instead, while thinking of the monochromatic mosaic, it all clicked.

 

I was thinking about how the things I think actually direct my life... how thoughts can be rewired just as circuits can...  I was thinking that one of the things I find difficult in mosaic is that I cannot easily change anything about my work once it is finished.  I felt like I needed to figure out a way to make part of this mosaic interchangeable. So the glass drops in the tube above the circuit tile are loose and can be poured out and rearranged or even switched out for a different color.  Eventually, they may be blue?

 

Yeah, the whole piece is about thought and reflection.  There are references to how we see ourselves - the different distorted mirrors.  There is a pic of a great thinker, Buddha.  There are all kinds of references to thought in the form of thought bubbles represented by dots and bubbles everywhere.  Of course, all this, the circuit board, and being able to change your thoughts (the glass drops) are all more symbolic than I usually work.  Even thinking outside the box is represented by the thoughts extend into the white border.  The life saver is self explanatory.

 

BTW, no, I am not Buddhist.  I was asked.  I don't have to be Buddhist to appreciate the wisdom of Buddha just as one does not need to be Christian to know that a lot of problems could be solved by following Christ's example.  I believe that, "We are what we think." even if it may be a fake Buddha quote.  I believe that, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."  This work will be for sale in a year... MAYBE.