terriloui

Several big life changes began in late Fall 2018, hence the 3 year absence of any postings on art, the studio, creative adventures.

I have space and interest to begin again. Like many in the fog and seclusion of pandemic 2020, I went outside for relief and inspiration. Phrases from an old children’s book came to mind, “…a hole is to dig… maybe you could hide things in a hole.” I saw holes in the yard, on my walks, I photographed them and decided to selectively fill them.

Outside, I saw plenty of colorful natural materials to work with growing in the yard or falling from the trees — buttercups, violets, black walnuts and holly berries.

I decided to buy myself a good condition, used hard back copy of A Hole is to Dig, A First Book of First Definitions, written by Ruth Krauss, illustrations by Maurice Sendak in 1952.

The first time I encountered this book was long after the household interest in reading it had waned. The girls were still young, sharing a bedroom, with matching antique twin beds, but they’d moved on to listening to us read the Narnia or Hogwarts stories aloud before bed time. In 1999, as a new step mom, I would help tidy up and arrange their bookcases, packed with board books and large picture books that they used to read. Sometimes, I’d pause and read. All good titles, many classics, many Maurice Sendak books like this one, all well-read and residing in the house before I’d moved in. 

The “girls” are 31 now, all those books are gone. Some were given away or packed and shipped to their adult apartments or were lost in our Dec. 2018 house fire.

Thus, I am filling holes figuratively and literally, attending to 3 years of random, Cycle of Life holes in the yard, our house, my life, my body, my new studio.