Posts tagged ‘weekly contest’

1/14 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Whether you live in a northern or southern climate, you have to admire snow, what with all that “no two snowflakes are ever the same” stuff. Quite a variety of entries for this week’s creativity contest, too! Our winner is Bec Thomas, for a brilliant photograph. Bec writes: “This is a picture taken at Camano Island State Park during a freak snow storm. The ducks were very cooperative about flying at the right time.” Wow, Bec. Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate has been issued.

From Karen Winters, a painting. Love the red! Karen writes: “We don’t have a lot of snow in Southern California, so I had to draw upon other inspiring places. This was my Christmas card for December 07.”

From Kelly Warren, a photo (just try not to smile): “Well, I wanted to write something fun and witty to go along with this, but time just got away from me, so I’ll just share the pic. Here’s a Florida ‘snow bunny’ for you.”

From Cathy Coley, a poem. Cathy writes: “lotsa of thoughts: blizzard of 78, digging tunnels through my parents’ front yard; oct 4, 86? snow dump in the berkshires that shut down campus for days; april fool’s day storm of ’97, throwing k in snow toddler-shaped ‘wiley e coyote’ prints, 3ft deep; sprinkles on eyelashes, shoveling out cars, snowball fights, skiing, you name it. in the end:”

Snow
crystal heaven falling
every birthday, just for me —
silent conversation with god

From Juliet Bell, a series of fascinating images: “These are not exactly snow, but I thought I’d send some samples from photos I took last year of frost on my kitchen windows. I tried to design repeating fabric designs from them with little success. I guess you just can’t improve on such beauty.”

From Brittany Vandeputte, a set of photos with a poem, described by Brittany as: “This is a silly poem I wrote about Sam’s first 10 minutes in a Syracuse snow shower.”

I do not like the snow he sneezed
And I wonʼt walk the stand of trees
In snowdrifts up above my knees
Iʼd rather sit here where Iʼll freeze
Than play outside today.

From Marsanne Petty, another double entry! Hey, Marsanne, don’t make the rest of us look like slackers, OK? 😉

a) When It Snowed In Florida

I’ve lived in Florida my entire life – all thirty years. We’ve visited other states from time to time, and found ourselves with near misses of views of snow. It melted the day before we arrived, or fell the day after we left. But never any exciting views of snowdrifts as high as our heads, or windows being blocked by snow piled high in front of them. No shoveling sidewalks or watching the machines ice the roads so traffic could proceed. Nope, none of that in Florida.

Instead, we have rain. When it’s cold and it rains, we have sleet. When it’s freezing (it really does) and it rains, we have hail. Except one year….

It started on a winter night in 1989, while we were in Valdosta, Georgia, a mere thirty minutes from our house in Jennings, Florida. We often shopped in Valdosta, and this was one of those evenings. My dad, my sister, and I were sitting in the car, waiting on my mother to come out of the store. As we waited, it began to rain. Gradually it turned to sleet. Restless as children are often prone to be, my sister and I begged our father to let us out of the car. After a while, I suppose he got tired of hearing us whine, and relented. We played in the parking lot for a while, and dad sat in the car. Suddenly, he rolled the window down and started pointing. Without us even realizing it, the bits of sleet had turned into tiny, icy snowflakes. Certainly not the fat, fluffy ones like you see in the movies, but snowflakes, nonetheless. We tried to catch them and they melted the moment we touched them, so great was the difference between our body temperature and the iciness of the snowflakes.

Finally, mom came out of the store. We all piled back into the car and, on the trip home, watched with growing excitement as the snowflakes continued to fall. Weather reports predicted the snow would fall intermittently throughout the night, and temperatures would remain below freezing throughout the next day. When we got home, there was a slight dusting of snow on the ground. Dad went and turned the sprinkler on and set it to run over the swing set, so we would have our own personal winter wonderland. We were rushed into the house by Mom, who watched us gaze in wonder as each of our footsteps dissolved the snow beneath our feet.

The next morning was lovely. A mere four inches of snow might not seem like much in most places, but in Florida, it is enough to constitute a thing of beauty. We awoke to a literal snowfall. Of course, everyone was excited. We decided to make an adventure of what could possibly be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

My dad had a huge four wheel drive truck – a 1986 Dodge Ram. The most fabulous blue color one had ever seen. He bought it brand new at the Dodge dealership in Valdosta, and was always happy to display the prowess of his truck. We often took it mud bogging in the nearby swampy areas year round, and in the summer, when the Alapaha River went dry, we took it riding in the slippery river sand.

As we drove from our house to my grandmother’s house, there were cars stuck on the roads and in the ditches. The ice on the roads was simply too much for them – it was too slick, and the Florida drivers had no idea how to handle it. Dad pulled them out, using his four wheel drive.

My uncle had the great idea that we could ski on the roads, since they were covered in ice. Of course, no one had any skis, but with warm water practically year round, we had plenty of equipment for water sports. The two items chosen were a large yellow inner tube and a hydro-slide – a board similar to a surfboard, but instead of depending on the waves to move you, the rider sits on the board and holds a handle attached to a rope, and is pulled by a boat in the water. My father pulled each of us down the highway on the inner tube and the hydro-slide, treating the icy roads much like the warm rivers we were used to.

My aunt, shown here, was a major sun worshipper back then. She loved the beach, craved any amount of time she could spend at the beach, the river, a lake, any piece of sun that she could subject her body to. Her desperation was evident in the playful way she posed that beautiful white day. She wore a tank top and a towel, lying on the hood of her snow covered Camaro, with the words “Beach or Bust” written on the windshield.

Several of us kids walked down the dirt road to a nearby creek. It was iced over, but still flowing beneath the thin layer of ice. Being a rural area of the state, the creek ran under a wooden bridge with a small guard rail which consisted of a 1×6 board placed on blocks. We built our first snowman with snow gathered from the bridge and the guardrail. He ended up being about six inches high and rather sloppily made, because there wasn’t much snow and it didn’t want to stick together very well. Unfortunately, that was also the last snowman that I’ve ever built up to this point.

Although on occasion, there have been reports of snow flurries throughout the years, none of them have touched our area the way the snow did in 1989. None have transformed the sunshine state into an honest to goodness winter wonderland. Living in Florida certainly has its benefits – large amounts of warmth being one of them – but it also has its moments of magic, of memories that can never be recreated, simply because of the location. It’s doubtful that I will ever have another delightful winter day like that one, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t wish for it now and again.

—————————————-

b) “Both my husband and I have lived in Florida our entire lives. He went to work out in New Mexico this year and he said it was a lot colder there than it was here in Florida. It snowed on him (not his first time seeing it) but he built this snowman and sent the picture to me, so that I could see what a “real” snowman looked like. The resolution isn’t fantastic because it was from his camera phone, but I still enjoyed the picture.”

From me (Miranda), a poem composed while waiting for my daughter at the dentist’s office — my two little ones amused themselves for the most part and I was actually able to draft most of this, a meditation on sleep deprivation.

~~~
The fatigue is a snow sky
wrapping me in grainy film
a whiteness that shares no secrets.
Snowflakes pepper my skin
my sense of self
with pinprick holes through which
my breath escapes, leaving me sightless
heavy and numb

This week’s prompt: “Wool”
Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

1/07 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Quite a constellation of terrific entries for this week’s creativity contest prompt: “stars.” Our winner is Debra Bellon, for this beautiful poem:

You might have been born in Byzantium
child of mine, my dark-eyed child
and not in some grey suburban room
with the blinds half closed,
the 6:03 commuters sweeping past,
as though somehow unaware
of this, our sacred moment.
You might have known empires, palaces, elephants, kings;
built temples on secret mountains, followed
the summer moon through all the winding
shadows of the unmapped earth.
Or is it only another mother thinking, in disbelief,
that somehow, years ago, you were not so much as an idea
you of the endless sea
you of the bright star

From Jennie Johnston, a gorgeous quilt entitled “Blanket of Stars.” Jennie writes: “I pulled up these photos of a piece I did in 2005. This was a gift for a friend’s baby girl. To this day it is the first image that comes to my mind when I think of stars. The idea of being wrapped in stars stuck with me for a long time and there is nothing nicer to be wrapped in than a blanket. It was one of my first medium scale quilting projects. The stars were appliqued in many different ways. I hoped that it would be colourful and fun enough for a kid, while being interesting enough to stay with her as an adult.”

From Marsanne Petty, two entries! An image and a short prose piece. Welcome to Creative Construction, Marsanne 🙂

a) Last year my mother and I went to a nearby town that has a huge mansion and they had decorated it for Christmas. In the ballroom, they had made a virtual winter wonderland — filled with snow, several white and silver trees, dozens of small white birds, and an actual snow queen. I really loved it, but of course, I don’t have a ballroom, so I made do with my dining room. I purchased a white tree and decorated it with all ornaments of silver, white, and glass. It turned out really lovely, in my opinion. I had some fake snow around the tree and oodles of snowflakes. This star was one of the decorations on that tree. I bought it from a store over in Jacksonville that was going out of business and they had tons of ornaments on sale. So, this is the first year my little silver star has been used, but I think that it has enjoyed the season.

b) The Stars

“The stars,” she thought. “If only I could reach the stars.” Her heart pounded as she lay in the bed near the window, the curtain blowing in the warm summer breeze.

Her head hurt and she only wanted to escape the pain. Throughout the years, she had made every effort she could, she had tried to make him happy, tried to make sure that anything she said wouldn’t set him off again. Of course, it never worked.

Neither did the halfhearted disguises she tried to implement to hide his hatefulness, his disdain for her. The long dark hair that she let drape casually over the sides of her face, covering her cheeks and the inevitable bruises left by his individual fingers. The long sleeved shirts every day of the year, to cover the marks on her upper arms where he grabbed her to slam her against the wall. The jeans to cover her legs where he kicked her when she was down. Everyone knew it was a futile attempt to hide insanity – his for treating her the way he did; hers for taking it for so long.

She no longer knew what to do, only knew that it had to come to an end. The catalyst had come –- a trip to the emergency room that couldn’t be avoided –- a shattered wrist. Of course, they all had questions and she answered them the best she could, all the while protecting him. Three days they kept her –- two surgeries on her wrist. A hope that she would one day regain full usage of it, but no promises from the doctors. No one could promise her anything.

They sent her home with a prescription for painkillers and something to help her sleep. Her wrist would be in the cast for four months. He was scared to come visit her, scared to come pick her up; afraid that the police would be waiting for him. Her friend that lived in the apartment above her drove her to the pharmacy and then to the apartment building. Her friend helped her up the stairs and left her, telling her if she needed anything, to please call.

A sixty-day supply of Oxycontin and Ambien. She looked them up online before he came home. Both addictive, both potentially toxic. A story about a two-year-old girl who accidentally took one of her grandfather’s Oxycontin pills. Luckily, her mother found her before she slipped into a coma and never woke up.

He didn’t believe that she had protected him; didn’t believe that no one would come looking for him. He took his anger and disbelief out on her. After seemingly endless hours, he finished his rage and left to go drinking. She crawled to the bed with her medicines and a bottle of water.

“The stars,” she thought over and over. “Safety in the stars. A savior in the stars.” The warm summer breeze bathed her body in comfort. “If only I could reach the stars, there would be no more pain.” Her thoughts fell further and further apart, her breathing shallower. Her last thought was of the stars and the safety they could provide from the evil that her life had become.

When he opened the door, the curtains fluttered in the breeze, the wind blowing her dark hair across her face: an angel bathed in sunlight.

From Cathy Coley, a poem:

Greenhouse Effect Northeast US Winters

I sound like an ol’ Downeaster
discussing the weather — ayup,
and walking uphill both ways through the snow.

I remember lakes that froze so fast,
fish suspended mid-swim
in black ice a foot or more deep.
Walk out to mid-lake, and brush away
dust of a deep-cold snow: tiny flakes,
fairy crystals, the scratch waste of skates,
find a clear view of that frog whose legs
couldn’t pump him fast enough to beat the freeze
to the steady forty-five degree mud bed below.

I remember night dark so thorough,
no street or house lamp cleared
a mountain shadow where eons past
glaciers broke loose and cut a path deep,
left a hanzel trail of boulder deposits,
composite unknown to the region, but familiar
a thousand Canadian miles north.
The lakes, the end of glaciers’ exhausted walk,
where they stopped, sat down, stayed and waited for the sun.

I remember clear dark winter nights, windless and bitter cold.
Skating or walking out to the middle of those glacial pools,
in Adirondacks, Berkshires, White or Green Mountains,
and lying down, face up to the stars,
listening to the creak and crack of old
wood ships rocking on the still Atlantic,
but it was that thick black ice I lay on,
bundled close, my nose stinging, only thing exposed.
I remember looking up at those winter stars, only source of light,
The cold pressing on through layer upon layer,
The night clear as stone, black as the ice,
a mere hint of blue from a million distant points of light.
In the bleakest of January,
the night, the ancient brilliant stars.

From Cathy Jennings, a digital image in Corel Painter, along with a behind-the-scenes peek at its creation! Cathy writes: “here is my stars entry. there is a little story to this. i was working on this on the couch with my cat oskar. he is the kitty in the piece. he sleeps on my head at night. often i wake up with a paw on my face or patting my hair. this is what goes on when the stars are out.”

in the photo of the “helpers,” oskar is the grey one. i needed to get up for a break and when i went back to work on my piece, someone took my spot. the other “helper” is lilly. it takes a lot to get around all the obstacles to making art.

From Kelly Warren, a poem:

A Memory

They lay on the dock
under a blanket of wool
with a blanket of stars above.
Holding on to the feeling,
legs and fingers interlaced,
like lilies floating on the water below.
Hearts beating loudly,
breath held anxiously,
in tune with the rhythm of the night.
Pure longing emerging,
Two souls tightly connecting,
A moment witnessed by the heavens alone.
Star-crossed lovers whose time never aligned,
they experienced a love still blessed.
The gift is the memory…
it’s still etched in the sky,
and in my heart, as I hold my breath.

From me (Miranda), a digital image:

This week’s prompt: “Snow”
Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, January 13, 2009. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

12/31 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Another season of yuletide comes to a close, but not before we enjoy the entries for Noël, this week’s creativity contest prompt. Our winner is Karen Winters, who sent in an utterly captivating — and highly creative — image. She captured something truly glorious. Congratulations, Karen — your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is on its way. Karen writes:

“This image was painted entirely in Photoshop using the liquify, smudge, and other gooey tools. There was no paint brushing in this, nor preset global filters. It was done entirely by pushing around pixels, a few at a time.

“Last year, in late November, a long-time dear friend of mine was remodeling her home and put in a beautiful new front door with a beveled glass insert. We happened to stop by to visit her at a time of day when the afternoon light was streaming through the door, casting scattered golden patterns on her wall. I was entranced with the look of it, and, because I never go anywhere without my digital camera, I took about a dozen shots of it from different perspectives — close up, wide, high, low and so on [see below, left].

“A few days later I opened one of the photos in Photoshop and just started manipulating it using my Wacom pad. I tried several different experiments but this was the one that turned out the best. My friend is a devout Catholic and attributes her recovery from the very early stages of colon cancer, and her husband’s cancer survival in part to the protection of her guardian angel. So I created a representation of that ‘being of light’ — literally — painted with the light that came in her own door every single day. She liked it a lot and I hope Creative Construction readers will, too.”

From Bec Thomas, a stunning photograph: “We had a very white holiday season this year, a rare event in my part of the world. Kids of course were thrilled, all of us that had to drive were a little less thrilled, lol.”

From Cathy Coley, an inquisitive poem:

Noel
At Christmas Eve service we sing
The First Nowell.
My husband asks, why did they spell it wrong?
Same question I asked as a kid singing in choir.
Because the person who wrote the lyrics
spelled it that way.

Further conversation:
Don’t the French spell it
N-o-e-l-l-e?
Only when it’s a girl’s name —
remember Noel Coward?
Son asks, what does Noel mean anyway?
I answer, I think it’s French for Nativity.
Whether I’m wrong or right, the answer satisfies.
Curiosity slaked, the wrapping is shredded.

From Carmen Torbus, two lovely photos:

From me (Miranda): Our annual family tradition on Christmas Eve: decorating gingerbread houses. Well, sometimes it’s a single house that we all collaborate on; other times we each have our own dwelling to work with. This year, in honor of all of the trees that fell during the ice storm at Grandma’s house, we decorated a large stand of trees that tower in sugary glory above Grandma’s little cabin. We thought about sticking a few of the trees through Grandma’s roof, just to make the reenactment more realistic, but in the end, we kept it simple. By the time I took this photograph yesterday, some of the candy had already been pried off — but you get the idea.

This week’s prompt: “Stars”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, January 6, 2009. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

12/17 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Wow! After posting yesterday’s contest reminder, I didn’t have to spend much time waiting for entries — six of them! Very tough to select a winner this week, but someone has to receive the $10 amazon.com gift certificate — and it’s Debra Bellon, for her beautiful poem. Congratulations, Debra!

Waiting
She hears something moving in the leaves:
a rustle, like a velvet skirt twisting against itself
in a cold wind. She does not move, not even
to brush away the snow that has gathered
in the tender indentations of her neck.
Another half-season: rain to ice and ice to sleet,
the days grow shorter, the night stretches out
like the path of a thousand hours.
There is nothing there at all; she walks inside,
stunned by the quiet there, longing for the time
(not long ago) when she watched them sleep,
their lips rounding and flattening
in airy soliloquies.
Of all her dreams there were only ever two that mattered:
the one in which she hurries,
and the one in which she waits.

From Jen Johnson: “Had fun thinking about this week’s prompt; kept bringing back memories of my pregnancies and the waiting therein. Didn’t have the time and focus for a new written submission, so instead I tinkered around with one of my favorite pregnancy photos.”

From Karen Winters, a painting entitled “I think it was the Fourth of July.” Karen writes: “I painted this last summer inspired by our visit to Chicago. The question it prompts is…how many minutes of our lives do we spend waiting around?  Waiting for the light to change…waiting for the barista to fix the coffee…waiting for the car to get lubed…waiting for inspiration to hit…waiting for the big opportunity or the special person that will magically transform our lives. Only the clock at Marshall Fields knows…and it’s not telling. In the past few years, I have minimized the annoyance of waiting time by always carrying a sketchbook with me. Even five minutes can be turned into a drawing exercise that helps keep my eye sharp.  Time is the only thing we can’t buy more of. So it’s a good policy to look for ways to use those waiting moments, even if it’s in restorative, restful reverie.”

From Kelly Warren, a double set of poem and image pairings(!):

From Cathy Jennings, an image created in Adobe Illustrator:

From Cathy Coley, a poem and image pairing:

Waiting
December and the geese and leaves
are finally gone from my lake.
One seagull one cormorant
found warm calm waters
a mile inland from the sea.
I am mistaken about the geese.
It’s seventy three degrees.
A honking call echoes
from shoreline to shoreline.
Grey the sky, grey the water,
the bench and branches, all of it grey
waiting for rain whose forecast
lingers from day on to day
but never seems to wet this dry peninsula.
The black dog barks at another walking, both leashed.
I still wait for rain, watch the clouds
cover sky in gunmetal thunderheads,
wish them to snow
I know will never come.

From me (Miranda): I anticipated writing something about waiting for Christmas, but I ended up waiting for life to return to “normal” after an ice storm hit New England and we lost power and heat for 36 hours. The first day we sat at home by the fireplace, waiting. It might have been fun and relaxing, but the baby was fussy and I found myself trying to entertain two small children in the dim chill of my living room without much inspiration. No coffee maker, no computer. No electronic babysitter. As the day wore on, I realized that we were waiting for something that might not show up anytime soon. And it didn’t. There was a lot more waiting in store, and I found it an interesting challenge to try to enjoy the present moment and not just focus on the wait. I did capitalize on the chance to take some photographs of the frozen landscape. Here’s one of my favorites.

This week’s prompt: “Gift”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, December 23. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

12/10 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

A warm glow — and ominous smoke — from this week’s contest entries for the prompt “fire.” Our winner is Juliet Bell, who sent in a beautiful pen-and-ink drawing from her archives. Juliet writes: “I was never happy with the tree reflection, and I can see now there are other things that need fixing, but I did like the way the fire came out.” Totally dreamy, I say. Juliet, your $10 amazon.com gift certificate has been issued.

From Cathy Coley, a poem (glad this particular scenario didn’t turn out differently!):

Fire

Prometheus’s booty set loose amongst us.
Evidence: a match tip burn on my bed.
Who was in my room,
found matches,
and curious,
struck one for the hell of it
and walked away?

Apparently those invisible devils
Huh, Not Me, and I Dunno.

From Karen Winters, a scary take on fire that I hadn’t even considered:

When I was younger, growing up in Southern California, I don’t remember the wildfires becoming such an annual event, like the tornadoes of the midwest or the hurricanes of the gulf coast. Yes, there were the occasional big fires, like the one that swept through Bel-Air, or the Malibu conflagrations. But they weren’t a ‘given’ with the advent of every Santa Ana wind.

Times have changed. With so many more million people living here it only takes one or two small accidents to spark a firestorm. A welder’s spark. A bird landing awkwardly on a power wire and blowing out a transformer. A carelessly put-out cigarette. A car parked on dry grass where the catalytic converter can cause a sudden flame. And those are accidental starts, we’re not even considering the cases of arson.

When the Santa Ana winds blow in October and November, nowadays the smallest error can cause hundreds to lose their homes and even some loss of life.

I don’t see a solution to this problem. We are out of dwelling space as homes are built among chapparal hillsides. Even with a defensible space, embers fly for miles, igniting rooftops far away.

Several years ago there was a big fire in Ojai. I don’t live there, but we were driving up the coast to Santa Barbara and saw the plume soon after it had begun. I painted this in my sketchbook to remember the occasion.

From me (Miranda): My firstborn son, Russell, turned 18 last night. It was hard not to focus on the fact that I probably won’t be seeing him on his birthday again for quite a while — at least for the next four years. A happy birthday evening, but bittersweet.

This week’s prompt: “Waiting”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, December 16. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

12/03 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Thanksgiving was the prompt for last week’s creativity contest. Our winner is Debra Bellon. Debra writes: “I finally got my internet connection back after moving (took forever!) and I thought I would celebrate by taking part in my first weekly creativity contest.” Lovely poem, Debra. Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate has been issued.

Grace
Suddenly you wanted to say grace
as though it were something you were used to—
ingrained, like the timbre of your mother’s voice, or
the lines imprinted on your long fingers—and not,
as everyone suspected—a kind of mockery,
aimed at unsettling the believers.
When you laid down your head on clasped hands
it was both calm and urgent, your voice
like milk warmed on a low fire
your eyes pressed closed, as though heavy
with visions of something outside—
the tender blackened branches or
the deep soil, turned hard where the frost settled or
the yellow light from distant rooms, where,
bundled in shadows, other people were gathered
to bow their heads and pray, as you did,
for everything and nothing.

From Kelly Warren, a gorgeous image and prose poem:

Thanksgiving night while my family finishes dinner
I look out the door and see one solitary shrimper.
I wonder if he has a family to share a feast with
or if he’s just taking shelter for the holiday,
looking longingly at the homes along the river,
wondering what it’s like to feel the warmth of kin.

From Cathy Coley, a haiku and image pairing. Cathy writes: “Miranda, there is always more sweet potato pie filling left for ‘souffle’ and the marshmallows are always more burnt b/c it can’t fit on the bottom shelf of the oven w/ the pie. Gotta keep traditions intact!”

Mama Stanley’s Sweet Potato Pie
To her granddaughter
Sweet Southern toasty goodness
Taste is passed — not name.

From me (Miranda):

My Thanksgiving was a little too full of simmer and tang — qualities that were nicely exemplified by my roiling cranberry sauce:

This week’s prompt: “Fire”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, December 9. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

11/26 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

A few lovely “silver” pieces for this week’s creativity contest prompt. Our winner is Karen Winters. Karen writes: “When I really want to challenge myself to paint something in a realistic style, I often select a still life that includes a piece of silver or glass. We only know that something is shiny metal by the presence of reflections. And those reflections require us to look deeper and to notice the subtle color and value changes that lie in the peaks and valleys of the intricate surface. What makes an exercise like this so valuable is the process of close observation, a practice that borders on a meditative experience, and can carry over to other things that we paint as well.” Beautiful work, Karen. Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is on its way.

From Cathy Coley: “i had no ideas, except for something vague and rather cliche having to do with the moon. then this:”

Silver
This morning, he announces,
“Mom! It’s snowing!”
just after six am.
I roll over in the dark,
see the sky slowly
rising from dark to silver.
Silver drops float, barely visible.

For the bus’s arrival, he is waiting
humming with excitement
over this small miracle,
yet the ground is only glazed
by cold rain.

From Cathy Jennings, a magical image:

From me (Miranda): I had ideas about what to create for this prompt, but as the time slipped away, I settled for photographing one of my favorite possessions — my silver charm bracelet. Each one of the bracelet’s charms represents something — there’s one for each of my children and my husband, as well as reminders of my creative self: a pen, and a cup of paintbrushes. Wearing this bracelet always lifts my spirits (maybe that’s because it jingles softly when I move?)

This week’s prompt: “Thanksgiving”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, December 2. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

11/19 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Lots of layers for this week’s creativity contest prompt, “quilt.” So wrap yourself up and have a cozy read. Our winner is Cathy Coley, who wrote a personal essay with unfettered honesty. Congratulations, Cathy (defending champion!). Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate has been issued.

Quilt

Quilts are heavy. I love sleeping under them, but for me they are weighted by memories of grief and struggle. One person comes to mind whenever I see a quilt because she was an award-winning master quilter and my late former mother-in-law. Her death is still the most visceral for me, and her son gave me a life’s worth of hope and potential, but ultimately we divorced.

She was a woman whose heart was big enough to fight for a little boy who was born into unimaginable neglect at a time when her marriage was dissolving. She fought to adopt a foster child who was slated to be reunited with the parents who had several children removed from their care because of their inability to cope due to severe alcoholism. At the time, the presiding policy was shifting to try to keep families together against the odds of betterment for the children involved. She went to court and succeeded in her bid to adopt the boy she had been caring for determinedly for three years, and who had begun to thrive.

When our wedding approached, she sat me down and asked me point blank if I was ready for this. If I was going to be able to handle all that may come up for him because of his rough origin. At the time I assured her I could love him enough, no matter what, I could be there to take care of him. I had already for two years, and had been very aware, or so I thought, of the depths of his despair and needs. Aren’t we all a little more optimistic about the powers of love in our mid-twenties? Don’t we all think if I can just love him enough, then all will be well? She promised us a wedding quilt, but was still working on it by the time we were wed, and honeymooning in her cottage on a lake in Maine.

Her father’s many acres of land were a generational home we would eventually take our boys to for summer vacations. She and her brother had grown up romping along the lake, her children and his, and then ours did the same. In the October of our honeymoon, the lake reflected the most glorious patchwork of changing tree colors, filling the spectrum from brightest yellows thru golds, bright and deep oranges and reds, even hues of burgundy and plum. The loons’ mournful cry echoed the sentiment of earth’s shutting down for the winter, across the lake. When the quilt arrived a few months after we were married, it was unusual and beautiful – a Japanese window pane pattern in red, beige, pine greens with strong geometric bands of black giving a three-dimensional effect. The only request I gave her for it was to please use strong colors rather than pastels. I didn’t know of her particular talent and skill in that gift of her hands until I opened it and marveled at each tiny stitch, under an eighth of an inch, precisely and lovingly stitched. Later, she would quilt a baby’s quilt for my oldest son. He was nineteen months when she passed.

By then, she was already twice through battles with breast cancer, to which she eventually succumbed. She flew us down to Florida in her final days. In her house were several examples of her handiwork: a beautiful throw on the sofa, a decorative element on a marble table, a back room with bits and parts of progress, shelves of colors waiting to be sewn, paper plans, wooden rings, loose and taught with fabric. Each piece finished and unfinished was museum quality.

Her son was unable to cope with the loss of someone he always credited for saving his life. The sight of her in such a depleted state was unbearable for her multiple stroked second husband; for her mother, aged ninety, who had had quadruple bypass surgery months before our wedding, and made it from south Florida to the wedding in Boston a few years before; and too much especially for her youngest son.

I had a little remove from the situation, and so was left to care for the others. I won’t go into the excruciating details, but much was too much for me to bear as well. She had worked until the week before and was gone by the following. I was alone with her when she made the decision to die. She looked herself square in the eye in the bathroom mirror, as I bathed her after a traumatic incident. She looked at the state of her self, her family, and knew it was time. She could no longer care for everyone else, now she was unable to do the simplest tasks in self-care. She looked in the mirror and said, “So this is it.”

That afternoon, I watched by the window for the hospice worker’s arrival. I stopped her outside and said no one else in the house is capable of making this decision. I told the hospice worker that she was ready to go, but couldn’t as long as the others were with her. After a private discussion in the back room between them, arrangements were made, pieces were put in order, and she put her last stitches into the quilt that was her life, neatly, precisely, as in everything she did. We were put on a plane back to Boston while she went into hospice.

At her funeral the following week, so many women, quilters, came to us and spoke of her quilting with such reverence. They said it was a shame she couldn’t be at this last county quilt show. Her last piece was on prominent display, already the winner of the show’s competition, even before her death. They all insisted we should go see it. We arrived at the show, came around the corner. Displayed upon the first of many temporary panel walls, was the most beautiful quilt I have ever seen, even to this day. Not just because of the circumstances, it was genuinely the most exquisitely executed piece of art. A king-size traditional wedding ring quilt — a white background stitched intricately with millions upon millions of stitches, interlocked green rings in the foreground with perfectly puffed borders, meant to be given to the first grandchild to be married, on their wedding day.

From Juliet Bell: “I don’t suppose this qualifies as creative, unless you count the watercolor from which the squares are derived. But…I confess to a compulsive addiction to doing this, and the prompt set me to it again.” I’m pretty sure this qualifies as creative, Juliet!

From Jen Johnson: “I’m going to dust off an old piece to send for this week’s prompt, since it came immediately to mind. This one has actually appeared in print, in an earlier version (in Once Upon a Time, the magazine for children’s writers and illustrators). The file for this draft is dated 2003, before my kids had been born — interesting to look at it now, from the perspective of a mother, especially after making my son’s quilt. (Still working on one for my daughter!)” Jen also sent in a photo of the very first quilt she made: “Machine pieced and hand quilted, put together on a whim without a pattern. It hangs over our bed. (In earthquake country, it is a comfort to have something soft over your head as you go to sleep!) I was working on this at the time of writing my poem.”

The Poet Pieces for Cover

Day after day, the page remains as blank as a bedsheet,
so she puts aside the pen and selects a new between.*
She threads the needle — thinking of it as a dash
worthy of Dickinson —  and she muses upon her material:
a scrap of calico cut from her mother’s apron,
a seersucker square from her father’s summer suit,
a paisley print from her sister’s skirt,
a flannel plaid from her brother’s shirt,
silk velvet from her favorite dress,
the denim from a threadbare pair of jeans.
Several bolts of discount cotton and all manner
of misfits rescued from the remnant bin —
linens, cambrics, rayons, chambrays, corduroys,
damasks, jacquards, jerseys, woolens, organdies….
She takes whatever cloth she can get
and starts another crazy quilt.

There was a time when women did this
of necessity, re-used each scrap of fabric,
put the pieces together as best they could
because the pieces were all they had.
They called it piecing for cover, making blankets for the beds.
Winter was coming, and their children would be cold,
especially at night. They had little time for frivolous things,
no time for wishing that words would come
when they are called, as though words were
obedient children. Perhaps her words
are too well-behaved, she thinks,
for lately they are neither seen nor heard.
Perhaps she’s whipped them into silence
and is an unfit mother. They have taken
all her words away, swaddled babies
stolen from her grasping arms by a barren midwife
and left on some stranger’s stoop in late December.
She could sense their lexical shapes but nothing more
beneath the swaddling bands, yet she is sure
that she would know them if she saw them. She looks
for their faces in novels, in magazines, in skinny books of poetry.

Bending her head, she knots an end of thread and wets the tip
against her tongue, imagining her writer’s block
as an actual block of old fashioned ice —

enormous, opaque, surrounded by sawdust.
The dimples on the familiar thimble
reassure her nearly numbed thumb,
and she tells herself the block will melt.
It always does. Creativity is all about
entropy, and every thought will thaw
to the liquidity of language if given time.
And time she has. Words don’t grow up
and leave home. Her babies will be taken in and cared for
until she can bring all of them home.
and give each one a proper place to live.
For now, she makes a quilt, piecing for cover,
each patch a paragraph, each seam a sentence
in the archaic language of her ancestors’ needles.

* a “between” is a specific type of needle, often used for hand-quilting

From Brittany Vandeputte:

Quilt
The quilt in the closet was given to my great-grandmother by her grandmother when she was born.
And now itʼs mine.
Blue pinwheels dance across bone white. Tiny pinprick stitches by my great-great-great grandmotherʼs hand.
How many times did the needle graze her finger, I wonder?
How many of her loose hairs were woven unseen among the thread?
What dreams did she dream for my great-grandmother as she sewed?
103 years of dreams.
And quilts
Of her very own.
The other quilt is Mamawʼs
Made especially for me.
She knew me well, my great-grandmother.
No staid blue pinwheels blowing across bone.
For me there are stars and flowers, pinks and purples and yellows.
A garden for me, made by her hands, pricked with her blood, tangled in her hair.
And full of dreams
For me.

From me (Miranda): When my firstborn son was about two years old, I made him a quilt. No pattern; I just made it — sewing machine for the piecing; hand tufting when it was all put together. While my quilting skills are entirely amateur (maybe “maverick” is a better word?) and I never did get the batting quite right, I did have a lot of fun in the process. I also included a few scraps of material that my mother had used in a quilt she made for me when I was a child, and I love that continuity. My son’s quilt is now faded, stained, and a little tired, as it’s seen a lot of use in the past 16 years. At some point I told myself that I’d make quilts for all of my kids, but I’ve never made another. Better put that on the “someday” list, with a few underlines. I’ve got a lot of work to do….

This week’s prompt: “Silver”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, November 25. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

11/12 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

I was struck by the depth of the entries for this week’s contest prompt, “self-portrait.” Our winner is Cathy Coley, whose photograph has a striking, unflinching quality. (Anita Davies and Bec Thomas’s images have the same unapologetic strength.) Cathy also earned extra points for her acrostic, and for braving the wilds of Photoshop. Cathy, your $10 amazon.com gift certificate has been issued.

From Anita Davies: “An old sketch I’m afraid but it’s a start, didn’t know about these little weekly prompts you do…Great stuff!”

From Juliet Bell:

Self Portrait
In solitude like
leaves falling upon still water
she finds herself.

From Bec Thomas:

From Jen Johnson: “A half-serious (but true to life) entry this week. An hour past the deadline, too, but I’ll send it in anyway, just for grins.”

Self-portrait
Too harried, this week,
To even set a timer
And smile for the lens.

From Kelly Warren:

When I look in the mirror,
I see my mother.
When I look at my children,
I see my self.
My green eyes turned blue,
my blonde hair turned red,
yet the same little twinkle,
the same little spunk,
the same great wonder,
the same boundless spirit.
building the courage to become…my self.

From me (Miranda): A pencil drawing from 20 years ago — back when I habitually drew eyes larger than they should be — and a photograph from yesterday. I admit that I was already moved by the honesty of this week’s entries when I began contemplating my own. I wanted to accomplish the same starkness. I’m not sure I did, but the photo I ended up selecting was the only one I could stomach. It was an oddly interesting exercise — and I felt very adolescent, photographing myself in the bathroom — but I’m glad for the experience. (Unfortunately, my new red hair doesn’t look very red here. I’m going to have to go a shade brighter, next trip to the salon!)

This week’s prompt: “Quilt”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, November 18. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

11/05 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

A nice show of hands for this week’s creativity contest prompt. Our two-time defending champion is on a streak! Jen Johnson wins again. Go, Jen! (Is this like that dude on Jeopardy, or what?) Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate has been sent. Jen writes: “I’d thought I knew what I wanted to write as soon as I saw the new prompt last Tuesday, but the week got in the way with no writing at all. So here we are, Election Day, and this morning I found myself scribbling lines on scrap paper while running around after the toddler. The poem below is the result of about an hour’s much-interrupted scribbling. And given my Mama’s Magic Studio motto –- ‘Where Handmade Magic Happens!’ — I just couldn’t resist sending you my ‘avatar’ photo.” Just goes to show what you can do with an hour. I appreciate that Jen used a rhyming pattern without veering into cuteness, which is difficult — and I like the timely election reference.

Hands (The Personal is Political)
Tap the keyboard,
Knead the bread,
Paint the canvas,
Make the bed,

Knit the sweater,
Wrap the gift,
Braid the tresses,
Mend the rift,

Wield the hammer,
Sweep the rug,
Tend the bruises,
Squeeze the hug,

Push the stroller,
Mold the clay,
Burp the baby,
Show the way,

Cast the ballot,
Skip the rope,
Thread the needle,
Pray for hope.

From Cathy Coley, a lovely pairing of past and present: “A new poem and an old drawing exercise from high school: 3 views of my own hand. 25 years apart.”

mother’s hands
in many pots, but most
importantly rubbing backs,
smoothing tears,
running through
baby fine and thicker hair
lifetime source of comfort.

From Juliet Bell, a treat for everyone! “Hands -– now there’s an interesting prompt. I’m a palmist. Hands are far more than magnificent tools; they are an encapsulation of who we are, our personalities, our foibles, our talents, our ups and downs, and so much more. They are a window through which we can see our unique magnificence. I thought I would use this prompt to diagram and highlight some of the features that creative people will most likely find in their hands. As you read, please note that this is very general, and as in astrology, it is the full combination of all in your hand that fills out the picture of just who you are as a unique individual. You will want primarily to look at your dominant hand as this is the one which shows what you are doing with the talents you brought into the world with you (shown in the non-dominant hand).” [Click on the image for a larger view.]

1. The head line will likely curve down toward the moon area (blue). The farther down it slopes, the more you draw on your unconscious, the more creative you are likely to be. The more horizontal the head line, the more you will want your creativity to have a practical application (make money, for instance).
2. The Apollo or Sun finger (ring finger) will be significant. This is the finger of self expression, love of beauty, and artistic endeavors. It will likely extend beyond the halfway point of the top phalange of the middle finger; there may be a line or lines on the hand extending toward the mount (base) of the finger. The longer the line, the more that artistic self-expression is part of your personal destiny. Many shorter lines above the heart line indicate a lover of the arts.
3. The Mercury finger (little finger) will show the role communication plays in your life, and the degree to which you may have commercial success. If it extends into the top phalange (top crease) of the ring finger, then it is long. This indicates that communication is a vital component of your creativity. This will often be demonstrated by a need or desire to put your work out there for the world.
4. The Jupiter finger (index) will indicate ambition and leadership (among other things). If this finger is as long as Apollo or longer, then you are very ambitious, and will show much drive toward accomplishing your goals.
5. The will portion of the thumb (top section) will show your ability to accomplish your goals as opposed to just thinking about them. If it is in good proportion to the rest of the thumb, or longer, then you have the will power to do what you need to make things happen.
6. The finger tips will show the way in which you attack most of what you do. The more pointed the finger tips and nails are, the more you rely on gut feelings; your ideas and feelings come to you and you act on them. The more squared your finger tips and nails are, the more reasoning your approach will be, and the more practicality will flavor what you do.
7. The fingers themselves indicate your orientation to the world. The smoother the fingers, the more spontaneous you will be; knotted joints will slow you down, cause you to ponder before taking action. The length of your fingers in relation to the palm is significant. Fingers longer than the length of the palm indicates a love of detail and minutia, a thinker, slow to speak and act. Short fingers indicate a talent for seeing the big picture, and a quick mind — quick in thought and action.

I hope you found this fun and validating.

From Kelly Warren: “This is my first attempt playing around with Adobe Illustrator. The words in the background are the lyrics to one of my favorite Sugarland songs. I’ll leave the rest up to interpretation.”

From me (Miranda): I got so carried away with Election Day that I forgot my own advice to create a contest entry before the eleventh hour! After a moment of panic, I came up with an idea that I was able to execute on my laptop while watching the election returns last night.

This week’s prompt: “Self-portrait”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, November 11. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

10/29 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

The dreamy entries for this week’s creativity contest were irresistible. I found myself utterly paralyzed and unable to select a winner — and this post might have been eternally delayed if I hadn’t had a visit this morning from a dear friend and colleague who came by to drop off a new project. You can credit her for the new prompt, as well as for tipping the scales toward our defending champion (aka last week’s winner), Jen Johnson. Jen writes: “Fun prompt! Got me thinking about how my mom always swore one shouldn’t talk about dreams before breakfast, and it took off from there.” Beautiful work, Jen — your repeat $10 amazon.com gift certificate is on its way. For my part, clearly it’s time to line up more of my guest judges. This is hard work!

Love Charm
You are the endless dream
told before breakfast,
shared with deliberate intent
of it all coming true.

You are petals from daisies
plucked one at a time,
an apple skin peeled all at once
and tossed over the shoulder.

You are pennies saved
and flipped into a fountain,
an eyelash wish
blown from my fingertip —

it floats there, between us,
between dream and waking,
caught on the current of breath
before it falls.

From Karen Winters:
There are day dreams, night dreams, “dreams” that are heartfelt wishes and many other kinds to explore. And even our pets, it seems, have dreams. If you’ve had a dog as a member of your family no doubt you’ve seen them making running motions or even small vocalizations as their eyes dart back and forth beneath closed eyelids.

So, my entry this week is a page from my Moleskine sketchbook, entitled “Dog Dreams” — which features an imaginary interpretation of what my American bulldog (girl), “Ripley” sees when she slumbers.

Dreaming can be a powerful tool in our creative life, which I learned when I interviewed Patricia Garfield (author of Creative Dreaming) for shows on Dreams and Nightmares on ABC’s 20/20 newsmagazine.

It was Garfield’s influence that prompted me to start keeping dream journals, a practice that I’ve carried out for decades, with varying degrees of devotion. These days, my dreams are my nighttime studio in which I work out solutions. I let my unconscious do the work while my body rests. It’s not uncommon for me to wake up with a picture in my mind that I have “seen” in a dream. So if someone asks me how much time a day I spend on art, I can actually say “practically 24/7.” However, unlike Ripley I do not dream of bones, gophers and kibbles. At least not yet.

This sketch was painted with a Japanese ink brush pen, which gives a wonderful thick and thin line that is as responsive as a paint brush.

From Cathy Coley:

Dreams
You slept between us,
little warm breath before dawn,
a tiny cry, so unusual from my happy baby.
Heart breaking, I considered waking you.
Another whimper and cry, a few more,
I imagined what may be going on
in your mind, so complex already.
Were you frightened, pulled suddenly from my arms?
Did you miss the dog, your dearest companion?
Was something happening to your big brothers
you felt helpless to do anything about?
Something about daddy?
He patted your belly and shush’d.
Waking you to comfort kept crossing my drowsy heart.
I thought, you’ll learn to deal with worse than this:
a night cry you’ll soon forget, if you knew at all.
Maybe you will be wiser than I,
resolve the problems of your dreams before waking.
You quieted and settled.
Furrowed brow smoothed back to round innocence
as the sun slowly rose, bluing the window from black,
Better without my intrusion to your sleep.

From Kelly Warren:
I’ve been thinking about this week’s creativity challenge ever since it was posted. I’ve thought about my dreams, the slumber-wrapped type, usually full length films in my case; I’ve thought about writing a bit of poetry or verse talking about what dreams I’ve dreamt or have yet to dream; I’ve thought about old loves that still haunt my dreams and wonder how and where they are; and I’ve thought about dreams I had in my younger days and paused to consider if they’ve come to be. But in sitting here tonight, working on jewelry for my show this weekend, listening to the girls’ laughter as DH gives them their evening bath, it hit me: I’m living my dream. Sure, I’m strapped for time….always have been, always will be. If it’s not the current things I have going on, I’d undoubtedly come up with something else. My plate is simply designed to be overflowing; I’m starting to accept that now. But really, what have I to complain about? I live in a beautiful home on the water, I have a very patient and supportive husband who puts up with all my hair-brained schemes, and I have two beautiful little red-headed daughters who light up my world every day. And while I may complain about the daily grind from time to time, I have a good job and a rewarding career that most of the time I enjoy, while others are losing their jobs left and right in these times of stock market crashes and dwindling state funds. I’ve certainly been through my share of sadness, maybe even more than the average, but who hasn’t had a touch of tragedy in their lives? Maybe I’ve been blessed with a happy spirit, I don’t know, but I’ve always been able to find a tiny bit of sunlight in every storm cloud. So I choose to believe that, yes, I am living my dream. It’s all in how you look at it, don’t you think?

From me (Miranda):

For the past 15 years or so, I’ve had a recurring dream. I call it the House Dream. The theme is always the same: I am visiting a new house that I’ve just bought or am about to buy. In each dream, the house is completely different and utterly concrete to its last detail. As I tour the house, I discover that there is a huge section of the house that I didn’t know about — a bonus wing, or a massive underground living space, or that an upstairs bedroom opens out onto a shopping mall — and that the previous owners have left behind things of value that are ours for the taking: useful clothes, jewelry, books, or furniture.

In the process of exploring the house, I can’t believe my good fortune. I’m in awe of this incredible place that I’m going to be living in. It’s really too good to be true, I tell myself — I must be dreaming again. But no, this time it’s real. The dream is so vivid that I always fall for it: the design of the faucet in the kitchen sink, the pattern of the carpet in the dining room (there was that one where the dining room was the size of a modest restaurant and the pope was coming for dinner; staff were preparing for the visit and setting all the tables with cream-colored linens, pale gold utensils, and large ornate plate chargers — meanwhile the carpeting was dark green and printed with a floral pattern; perhaps not worthy of His Holiness); the pattern of a lace curtain in a bathroom window, the wood grain of a child’s bunk bed built into the wall. And then, always before actually moving in, I wake up. It takes me a moment to realize that yet again, the House Dream was just a dream, and I am back in my own boring bedroom.

Naturally, I’ve thought a lot about what the House Dream means. At one point I decided it was a metaphor for my own creativity — that I have everything I need right now in order to create; I just need to find it (that “bonus wing”). I’m not sure if that’s right. In the meantime, I look forward to my next nocturnal house tour — although I don’t look forward to the crash of re-entry, and the sucker punch of knowing that I fell for my own fantasy yet again.

This week’s prompt: “Hands”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 10:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, November 4. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

10/22 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

The best way to describe the “apples” entries for this week’s creativity contest? Try this: BUMPER CROP. Our winner is Jen Johnson, who submitted two poems. “It’s been such a joy to read the weekly entries!” Jen wrote. “I have the best of intentions about entering every week — well, most weeks anyway; as I mentioned in my [recent] comment, last week’s [‘tears’] just was too overwhelming to contemplate given where things were. Ah well. Anyway, I couldn’t resist the temptation to dust off two old poems to submit for this week’s ‘apples’ prompt. I’ve had a longtime fascination with the Eden story in all its manifestations, and over the years it has prompted many poems and scraps of writing. Here are two very different pieces.” (You can get to know Jen a little better over Breakfast.)

What Adam Never Knew
No one has blamed the gentle pull
of dappled light on ruddy skin
suspended; even one small apple
has attraction, sure as sin —
we reach for what we are denied.

How could I kiss him then, or speak
of what I knew? No. I was meek:
I made him bite from my own hands,
I cowered at his sharp demands,
and, knowing that I should, I cried.

He said to blame it on the snake;
I needed help before I’d take
such swollen fruit, he said. Of course
an explanation meant divorce,
or death, or worse. And so I lied.

As any woman knows, or should,
these little lies can change the world.
Would I explain now if I could?
The bitter salt of God’s own sex unfurled
with apple’s taste. I thought I’d died.

And so they blame me for a fall
that never fell. I cannot tell:
can’t speak of hunger’s throaty call,
can’t say that fruit seduced me well,
my belly full of God and pride.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Divination
Before she ate the apple,
she pinched the twiggy stem
between her grubby thumb
and two slender fingers.

It dangled from her hand
as if her arm were branch,
her body tree, bare feet
rooted to the ground.

Before she took a bite,
one hand cradled the fruit
while fingers held the stem,
twisting it around.

She said the alphabet,
a letter for each turn —
was Eve astonished to keep
twisting after “A”?

Click on any image in this blog post to view larger.

From Cathy Jennings, a brilliant digital image created in Adobe Illustrator:

From Brittany Vandeputte, an evocative prose piece with two photographs:

In Western North Carolina, where I was raised, fall meant apples. In October, the burgeoning red and yellow leaves stood like road signs, both marking our way and beckoning us to the orchard. My family has grown apples for as long as anyone can remember. First, a few trees were planted at the Homeplace when the land was settled in the 18th century. And then when the Homeplace was lost to a cunning in-law in a civil war poker match, the farm land became a commercial apple orchard.

We were fortunate that the apple growing relatives never forgot that we were kin. Every year, when the apples were ripe, my grandfather and I would climb into his bright red pickup truck and bump along the backroads to Edneyville and the cousins’ orchard. My grandfather had an open invitation to pick the apples there and some of my earliest memories are of him driving the bed of the truck under a pair of shady branches where I would sit while he procured me that first Golden Delicious of the season.

My grandfather was a simple man, and apples his connection to those he loved. You couldn’t visit without one being offered. Jesus had loaves and fishes, and my grandfather had Red and Yellow Delicious. They seemed to multiply in his care.

It has been more than twenty years since my last visit to the orchard. On Saturday, I felt its call once again. Instead of the orchard of my childhood, we visited a nearby farm that opens to the public every fall, drawing tourists with pumpkin patches, hayrides, and a corn maze. Picking apples was an afterthought.

But from the moment we stepped into the orchard, Sam’s expression changed. He has always loved apples, but he’d never seen them in such abundance. He was awestruck. And then I handed him that first freshly picked apple. As his face broadened into a smile, I marveled how something so small could be so important.

From Cathy Coley, a bushel and a peck!

Apples

It has been about a hundred years since I sketched, but listening to all the visual artists on the freeing quality their arts add to their lives, I began to miss doing so myself. So here is a sketch of my forlorn love. Not bad for an exercise in recalling the stickiness of pastels. I loved rush-layering the colors during baby c’s nap.

I have a complicated relationship with apples. As a kid, I wasn’t a great fan of them, but red delicious were always in the fruit bowl on my mother’s orange counter. Mealy, but pleasant, usually, and a very tough skin. Just don’t let them sit too long in the bowl. Yuck. As a college student in western Massachusetts, I began a tradition of annual apple-picking and pie-baking, MacIntoshes and other thin skinned varieties were the perfect complement to the plain homey crust and cinnamon, allspice, cloves, maple syrup, molasses and sometimes oatmeal fillings. Throw in a Granny Smith for extra snap in the flavor. I baked them for breakfast, made veggie chili with apples, put them in everything and crunched them like crazy until the bags from the orchards were gone. My kitchen scented the neighborhood.

After I moved from Boston out into the far suburbs northwest with kids, I found myself living in a valley known as Apple Country. Autumn, always a well anticipated season, became like Eden. The yellows and reds and oranges bloomed magical in the hilly wooded landscape. Turn a corner, and there’s an orchard. Sudden open green with craggy old trees bursting in ripe red and gold, so laden with apples the branches dragged to the ground. Perfect for bringing the boys apple picking. It was a favorite event mid-late October, and sometimes even in September for our family, with loads of picture taking and freshest apple crunching, right from the trees.

By my mid-late thirties, hiking through the orchard sent me coughing and blaming the probable use of pesticides for my discomfort. Then, one afternoon, as I sliced apples for a pie, I began coughing in earnest. That was the last pie I baked. Almost overnight, or so it seemed, every apple became a worse threat to me than the witch’s for Snow White. No kiss from my fiancé would rescue me from this throat closing sleep.

Jump ahead a few years to the present. We have moved from Apple Country to coastal Virginia, and I’ve chalked up apples as a strictly New England experience. Occasionally we buy bags of apples in the grocery, for the bowl on the kitchen counter, but I have to stay clear of them. I water down baby bottles of apple juice with my head turned far away, and don’t allow my boys within 4 feet of my face when they have a glass or have just had one. It’s very sad. My husband and mother-in-law are big pie fans. Come the pie baking rounds beginning at Thanksgiving, when the apple ones are in the oven, I am cloistered upstairs and all the downstairs windows are open and fans blasting a hurricane wind of apple, cinnamon, cloves and allspice out into the neighborhood. I really miss the wholesome apply bounty of this season. My wish is that someday soon, my fruit allergies go out the way they came in, and shut the door behind them.

From Bec Thomas, a photograph: “Here is my selection, I actually had time to send one in, yay me!” And yay for us, that we get to see Bec’s great photograph!

A beautiful poem from Jennie Johnston (not to be confused with Jen Johnson, above!): “I’m so glad that I have finally been able to enter. Apples just filled my mind for a few days and out came this poem.” Great to see you here, Jennie!

Our World in an Apple
My son, it is the time of apples
as you sleep, curled
rosy cheeks, round and full
the dishes sit in dissolving suds
leaves fall,
cold rain pounds the ground
and I think of you
how you have changed me
how you have opened every part
the nooks and crannies of my soul
how with this opening
I am fuller,
better
deeper
than before
inside apples are five pointed stars
your smile, your temper, your laughter, your hands and your eyes
yes I am open
I am susceptible
I am vulnerable
I care more
about everything
my maiden could be withdrawn
she could turn away
she could stay inside her dream
as mother I love in the raw
my heart pulsing in one of your hands
while in the other you hold our world
reflected on an apple

From Juliet Bell: “I’m busy making ornaments for the Christmas season. This apple is made from a watercolor I painted some time ago. Prints are mounted on both sides of Birch plywood, then cut out, and varnished. Only after I finished the ornament did I remember the prompt for this week.”

From me (Miranda), a painting. I had a nice, fat, gallery-wrapped canvas (gift from my mother) and knew I wanted to paint it lime green. Then I used an apple half as a stamp with several layers of acrylic paint. I needed some texture, so I used some green tissue paper to build up the apples. I’m pleased with the result, but especially the process. I had some ideas, but I really didn’t know where I was going — and that was just fine.

This week’s prompt: “Dream” [prompt provided by 17-year-old son]

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, October 28. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.