It may come as some surprise to many of you that I have sort of a foul mouth in real life. I try to keep that out of my writing, because I don’t generally need to drop the f-bomb to get my point across here. It’s when I’m speaking that I find that particularly satisfying. The only time I really run into trouble is when I’m filming videos, and something goes wrong. I’ve become very adept at editing the muttered cussing out. I also have to remember to dial it back when I’m around my friends’ grandchildren…
Anyway, this dark circle journal project I’m doing right now practically requires me to unleash the trash mouth at regular intervals, because we are all a bunch of foul-mouthed women, and we have a nice, safe, tiny little private group in which to speak freely, without worrying we’ll offend any of our respective readers. It was bound to creep out into my work at some point, since I’m now working in other people’s books, and trying to do things that are somewhat connected to the relationship I have with them. Cuss words and all.
Exhibit A: this page in Katie’s book. She uses this expression regularly when she’s surprised or excited or overwhelmed or it’s a day ending in Y. And every time she does, it makes me chuckle, so I wrote it on a scrap of paper, thinking something might come of it. Then, our merry band started playing with Luna’s drawing of Sister Mary Whatsername, and patron saints started getting stuck in my head. Whirl that together, and this page is the result. This morning, Katie dubbed this piece Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment. She’s actually based on a prayer card of Saint Catherine of Sienna.
I think this sort of sums up my reaction to my week. I’ve been idea-free all week, other than doing this piece. I haven’t come up with a new project, or a class idea, or even new collage sheets. My brain is just in the Bahamas or something. Also, it’s been really stupidly hot this week, so I’ve had the shades closed and the air conditioner on, which always makes me want to put clean cotton sheets on the bed and take a nap.
Actually, that sounds like a really good idea…