Run Through The Wringer....

....I'll tell you right now folks, I don't think there will be artistic content in today's post. Acerbic humor maybe (hopefully!) but I feel as though the art has been drained from my body. I feel like I should be living in the above photo----in this grey, windblown, desolate shack with the bottle trees out front.

They are, as far as I know, a Southern Thing. I have always wanted one. The original purpose was to ward off bad spirits. Blue bottles would have some water put in them, and they would be hung in quantity from trees. Evil spirits, being inquisitive, would go into the bottles and not come out. The modern bottle trees--and yes, you can ORDER one.....OY!--are just a variety of bottles usually on a rebar welded shape. Not the same.

With the goings on lately, I think I could have used a yard surrounded by real old fashioned blue bottled trees. And maybe a moat and a few bear traps. Can't get into it right now, but I am sure that some evil spirit has sucked the artistic soul out of me and I am a black and white walking shell.

Today is the first day I have had off in, oh my gosh, I don't know how long and I wasn't going to post but discovered I had a new follower and thought "Get thee off thy lazy pouting rear and DO IT!" So a very hearty WELCOME! to my new follower and usually my posts have more depth or at least a good rant or sometimes, if we're all lucky---ART!!!!

I know I am rambling today---the photo I posted is a favorite of mine. I don't know why other than it expresses a long gone era and it has a quality of, hmmmm, almost that feeling when you walk by a cemetery at dusk. There is mystery that you want to investigate but not too much. There is back story but you're not sure you want to know it. It, in some ways, reminds me of the poorer areas of my grandfathers farm in Virginia, where he moved when the TVA took the land they lived on . I do recall he built a small, small house (we would call it a shack by today's standards) until the family could settle and get a proper home built.

Maybe that is what I see in this---a legacy of people surviving anything.

Which of course circles back to me and my whining. And that's what it is.

I think I will go cut roses off my old fashioned shrubs and bring them in. And then go to the wet studio and clean things. Purge. Throw things out. Start anew. Burn some of my candles to clear the air, smudge the place. Do whatever necessary to refresh my inner artist.

On the other hand, since two of those things involve FIRE, maybe I should just get a spritz of air freshener and call it good!

I love seeing firemen in all their get up, riding those big trucks.......but not in my driveway! LOL!!!

So from me to all of you, may you be protected from everything that dries your creativity, may I be your little bag of gris-gris, shielding the inner artist and drawing away the distractions.

And may you step out of the black and white and into the world of full color creativity!

Now get thee off thy rear and go have a productive day!

Or make gris-gris and send me some........