Fiber Arts Friday Carnival

This photo of a covered wagon that's falling to pieces in a pasture near Thistle Cove Farm. It's a shame, really, because I would have LOVED to save that old wagon!


I'm a bit surprised myself that I remember to post a Fiber Arts Friday Carnival entry. Around here, we go like our feet have wings and it's easy to forget to eat much less remember to post on a specific day. I'm thinking I do so poorly at remembering Fiber Arts Friday Carnival, I should bow out and post as I remember...then, I'd probably remember every week! That's how my brain chooses to work -smile-.

Are you familiar with KC Willis? She's the art wrangler over at Lipstick Ranch and have you ever heard such a great name!?! A few weeks ago I purchased her DVD and am grateful to KC for making it available for purchase. I live in the rural hinterlands and the excellent professional quality of her teaching is only available via her DVD.

KC, you're a wonder!

She's making available studio retreats at her place in Colorado...be still my pounding heart!...I SO WANT TO GO!!! and the small sized classes ensure personal attention where your inner creative "cowgirl" is unleashed and you don't even have to climb into the saddle!

So, you don't want to be a cowgirl or you're not artistically inclined? How about this...KC makes art that celebrates w-o-m-e-n. Not just women but women who built this great USA of ours, women who got their hands dirty, who carried a rifle in their hands, who hunted supper, who planted gardens. Those strong, sturdy pioneer types whose blood runs in my veins and whom I look up to and remember with great fondness. Women who avoided housework by going outside...HEY! that's MY kinda woman! I've long said, "hire someone to do housework so I can go to the barn and muck stables!"

In speaking about her art, KC said, "One of my favorites is an image of a pioneer mom, just a Western-settler, sod-buster type. The mom reflects, "They look to be the men to be heros, but we were the women who raised the boys who became those men."

Were truer words ever spoken!? I like the fact KC celebrates real women and not those painfully bone thin women fostered upon us by Madison Fifth Avenue in their advertising campaigns. Real Women who would NOT allow their neighbors to go hungry, women who know what a pot of soup means to a hurting body or a fresh baked pie means to a hurting soul. Women, like the Velveteen Rabbit, who are R-E-A-L.

The work of our hands has long been under-appreciated or, at least, that's my opinion. Women's work is fleeting...a nourishing meal, a warm quilt, a kiss on a skinned knee but all those things that add up to a life well lived. Generally, our work is not that of constructing buildings that last a hundred years or more or of laying down train track. Yet, it's exactly the work we do at home that allows the world to carry on without falling to pieces. The work that Real Women do daily without much of a pat on the back or a nod of the head except and until a woman like KC comes along and says, "let's make art at Lipstick Ranch!"

KC talks about how she was raised watching Hoss and Little Joe; I well relate to that. I was raised watching them and others. In Sunday School a few years back we were talking about heros and someone said, "Isn't is too bad children don't have heros anymore?"

I looked at the woman and said, "Don't you have heros?"

She looked startled and said, "Why no. I'm a little old for heros." "

So," I told her, "that's why children don't have heros. The adults don't have them so the children can't follow."

She looked puzzled. "Do you have heros?"

"Why, yes I DO! My heros are Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Billy and Ruth Graham and my Mother and Daddy."

By now the puzzlement was written all over several faces and some looked a bit uneasy at my, perhaps, lack of sophistication. But, you know what? It's I who feel sorry for them! To be so concerned...afraid???...of what someone else thinks of you. To be hero-less because someone might look at them the way they looked at me?

NO, thank you sir! Thoreau said, "men lead lives of quiet desperation" and I find that to be true. Sadly true. So, if you can't make it to Lipstick Ranch, check into the DVD and if you can't get the DVD, make your own heart...errr...ART -smile-.

It's never too late to become the friend you've always wanted.

Blessings ~ KC ~ DVD's ~ Lipstick Ranch...'cause I just LOVE the name! ~ heros ~ heART ~