This morning the thought came up: find beauty in small things.
Finding beauty in small things magnifies the beauty each cycle of day and night holds.  It magnifies the beauty that life holds.  We need only hearts that open and eyes that see.
The fragility of life, its ephemeral nature, gives us pause, brings beauty into focus.
This is what my latest botanical weaving represents: beauty in small things, life's fragile, ephemeral nature, bringing beauty into focus.
Please take a moment to pause, and see what you can see....
"Oaks" is 37"x19".

Greetings! As you well know, Spring is bursting out all over.  However, this morning I want to take you back in time to December 15, 2016, for the weaving I want to show you today was inspired by a scene I witnessed on that date. To wit:

What a glorious sunrise this was!  And I was moved to try and capture it with yarns and twigs and a collection of amber beads I had stashed away in my studio.  Here's the final product -- you may recognize it from an earlier blog, when I was pictured at my work table twining the fringe.  I call it "Mesa Sunrise".  53"x29"

The recent rains have plumped up Earth and her greenery, suffused the air with scents of growth and decay and all manner of chaparral scents, including the various sages' pungent
This little weaving, 18"x13", was extemporaneously woven on Monday when the sages were calling for my attention.

Greetings!
At the insistence (dare I write "persistence"?) of my friend Nina, I am posting close-ups of yesterday's image of "Manzanita Reverie".
With these you may better appreciate the subtlety of the weave structure, not to mention colors, plant textures, ....ENJOY!

From the OED:
REVERIE:  1) joy, delight, wildness, wantonness; 2) fantastic, fanciful; 3) a daydream.
Yes!  That perfectly captures the essence of this happy piece, which I have entitled "Manzanita Reverie". Those bits of plant that you see wantonly arranged in the body of the weaving pictured here (more clearly if you enlarge the image) are manzanita catkins.
I collected them late last fall. They were all over the great rounded manzanita plants which practically cover our hillside, and they simply called out to me to include them in a weaving.
Of course, manzanitas are not the only native California plants we have here; hence I've woven in sages and everlastings and asters and grasses and poppy pods at the top of the piece, and then inserted a row of sweetly fragrant salvia clevelandia leaves along with that vibrant red stripe just below center line.
I have my friends Jill and Beryl to thank for the rough-spun natural flax yarn I used as a major component of the weft, and I have my friend Carolyn to thank for the coral bead embellishment on the fringe.  Overall measurement: 24"x24".
May this reverie of mine bring you much joy!

Friends are such a blessing in life!
My friend Nina shared a quote with me from a passage she read in "Art and the Artist".  Here's an excerpt:  "...a piece of art is just a piece of the heart of the artist.... The expression of a piece of art is the expression of the life of the artist."
So it is with me.  Every time I gather plants for weaving I feel as though I'm gathering a part of my heart, a part of myself, to weave into something beautiful and endearing and enduring.
I currently have two works in process, one of which is close to completion, and I'll share a photo of it on my next post after it is finished and ready to hang.
For now, take a peek at my other work in progress, "Chaparral Sunrise".

Greetings! It's a new year and a new weaving!  This one's called "Wildflower Whimsy".
When I was gathering materials, I also gathered the qualities of wildflowers that came to my mind: freshness, fullness, innocence, wildness, harmlessness, simplicity, artlessness, gentleness, naturalness.  This botanical weaving is an expression of all of these, with innocence and simplicity perhaps more readily evident.
The fine gauge pale yellow warp yarn, and the open tabby/plain weave structure,  present simplicity and innocence.  The mixture of colors and textures of the additional yarns, as well as the flowers themselves, evoke the range of qualities I called upon.
And as I wove from top to bottom, I cut away an inch or so of the warp, symbolic of the bit-by-bit loss of natural habitat for these adorable and yet vulnerable treasures.
Next week: "Chaparral Sunrise". Meanwhile, be well and happy in pursuit of your passion!