Rusty Pups are Four Years Old Today....Already!

 

The day we brought them home they started chewing sticks

Today they prefer to chew or move much larger bits of fallen trees all over the garden!

Rusty Pup Brandy loves rolling all over her chosen stick of the day.

Strange 

Normal dogs prefer to roll in interesting dead things or animal droppings.

Not our Brandy

Rusty Pup Ginger is the explorer, our protector 

especially when I'm alone with them.

They bark at anything new like a fallen tree

or a recycling bin on the curb

or a lawn mower parked in a new spot.

But they are enthusiastic greeters of any human beings!

They would really like to be lap dogs but my old bones can't take their weight!

They have a friend called Michael who brings them toys

Needless to say....they adore him.

These are the first Rusty Pups we've adopted that are gentle with their toys

Previous Rusty Pups have eaten any toys offered them.

It is a great joy to have them in our lives

Happy Birthday girls!

Just Play or Perhaps Beginnings?

In my year of silence not knowing if I had anything worth saying

I filled my cup with play

mostly unsuccessful

but that's not the point is it.

Touching cloth keeps my tanks full!

Challenging myself to exploring colours I normally shy away from.

My hands often picked up greens.

It is easy to return to old favourites....

....easier still to come up with dismal choices!

All who know me know I cannot work with blue

Well, I probably can but I resist anything blue

And now I have to make a piece for a show called Blue!

Trouble is whatever I come up with must be nearly 100% blue.

Not be easy for me.

A couple of clever friends have suggested that I use my normal colour pallet and then dip the finished piece in an indigo vat.

Could be an interesting experiment

Using lots of different fabrics and threads

They would all take the dye differently.

Hmmm.

Pink...not my colour either

Back to the comfort of greys and browns

Working with new new colours hasn't been my only play.

Taking apart old work

Is a slow unpicking process

A meditation

 Wondering if they have a new story to tell.

Today my Little Brother Arrives from the UK

 

Malcolm is just a couple of years younger

But he’s catching up fast!

We both have grey hair and wrinkles now.

Seventy years ago swimming kept us cool in a hot clime.

Malcolm’s  life‘s ambition back then was to burp as long and loud as anyone else!

Mine was probably to be a princess or perhaps a mermaid.

As a teenager Malcolm became a rower…..I remember Henley Regattas.

I was more interested in art than sport.

For his gap year he travelled and worked his way across Australia

About that time I was already in love with Handy Hubby!

Our first baby boy arrived by the time Malcolm married Flick.

Funny that we had three handsome boys and they had three beautiful girls!

The Rusty Pups love visitors!

They understand family visits create important memories.

In The Middle Of The World Opens in Kenora

Judy's The Forever (side b)          Penny's Whispering Cairn
 

Today the stitched works of my friend Judy Martin and me are once again hanging together.

Our show In The Middle Of The World

can now be seen at 

The Muse Gallery

224 Main Street South

Kenora, Ontario, Canada

Eternity (side b). Judy              Beaver Moon Dreaming.Penny 

This time around all three of us who have worked so hard on this project

will be in Kenora May 11th - 15th.

We will be in the gallery in the afternoon of May 12th

and

That evening we will be doing a talk and walk through.

Overhead the Sun (side b). Judy                  Winter's Edge.Penny

It has been so long since we three have actually been together

so I am really looking forward

to joining both Judy and our curator Miranda Bouchard

up in Sault Ste Marie.

From there we will drive to Kenora

along the north shore of Lake Superior.

Reconnecting with the girls will feed my soul

as will the beautiful rugged scenery of that part of the world.

It will be amazing!

I hope you also have big plans to look forward to!