Update about blogCa

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Back at the gardens

 

On the Community Garden side of the horse's pasture.


A very productive looking garden patch.


Another garden with many little seedlings planted.



After several inches of rain last night, it was good to see the water had gone down on the Swannanoa here...when I drove along the same river down in Asheville later that day, it was still rushing higher than normal. I guess we are close enough to the dam in Montreat, our water comes more slowly.



I'm thinking of mustard.

It's so nice to see well organized beds.

Can you see horse number two?

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Rainy day with hail

 The days I'm not out walking, I'm not always putting photos here on blogs. I spent hours trying to straighten out my furthest reaches of my ancestors the other day. Well, they knew who they were related to, but some other trees at that site have some different people and even imaginary ones.

Other than that, I wish I were being more creative, but am not, unless you can count occasionally making new and different things to eat.


I purchased a small bunch of carnations at the grocery the other day. They cheer me up on grey days spent inside!


I do drive around various places, and here I found beautiful sheltered Azaleas close to home...the building houses apartments in my complex.

When  the thunder storm hit suddenly yesterday (Sat.) I looked out and saw hail landing (and bouncing) everywhere...here looking like little pellets. Glad it was over soon, and didn't get any larger!

A while later I had combined a new dish with various ingredients that were on hand. Though it called itself chili, it didn't have beef or beans...and the sauce was only slightly tomatoey. The brown-rice shells were over cooked (though I did follow the recipe on the bag) and there were other problems...but you better believe I'll eat the left-overs. The spices and the home-made cashew milk were winners!

I  did drive around and catch some pretty blossoms nearby.


Highland Farms has a good reputation in our area as a full service retirement community - from Independent Living to Assisted Care to Nursing Care. In the last few years it's ownership changed to Givens, which owns another retirement community in Asheville.


This little jaunt to find blooms was the same day, before the rain finally hit. This shot is neat because of the sun rays across the grass...at least I think that's what it is. Perhaps the grass is dying in streaks.




Monday, March 29, 2021

While spring bumbles along a female artist of Tarot Cards

There are frequently wood bees attracted to the frame building in which I live...though it's now clad almost everywhere by some kind of plastic sheathing that looks like nicely painted wood siding...leaving a couple of posts on balcony and front porch showing as bare wood. That's where these bees drill their holes.

But that's just what's due to happen here soon.

Let me go back in time, to when I was much more interested in Tarot reading. Not sure where that interest went...possibly behind some psychic cladding of my being.

I just read an article which I'm clipping and posting below...about art on Tarot cards. The artist isn't as well known as I wish she was.

Meet the Forgotten Female Artist Behind the World’s Most Popular Tarot Deck (1909)

Posted: 26 Mar 2021 01:00 AM PDT

As an exercise draw a composition of fear or sadness, or great sorrow, quite simply, do not bother about details now, but in a few lines tell your story. Then show it to any one of your friends, or family, or fellow students, and ask them if they can tell you what it is you meant to portray. You will soon get to know how to make it tell its tale.

– Pamela Colman-Smith, “Should the Art Student Think?” July, 1908

A year after Arts and Crafts movement magazine The Craftsman published illustrator Pamela Colman-Smith’s essay excerpted above, she spent six months creating what would become the world’s most popular tarot deck. Her graphic interpretations of such cards as The MagicianThe Tower, and The Hanged Man helped readers to get a handle on the story of every newly dealt spread.

Colman-Smith—known to friends as “Pixie”—was commissioned by occult scholar and author Arthur E. Waite, a fellow member of the British occult society the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, to illustrate a pack of tarot cards.

In a humorous letter to her eventual champion, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, Colman-Smith (1878 – 1951) described her 80 tarot paintings as “a big job for very little cash,” though she betrayed a touch of genuine excitement that they would be “printed in color by lithography… probably very badly.”

Although Waite had some specific visual ideas with regard to the “astrological significance” of various cards, Colman-Smith enjoyed a lot of creative leeway, particularly when it came to the Minor Arcana or pip cards.

These 56 numbered cards are divided into suits—wands, cups, swords and pentacles. Prior to Colman-Smith’s contribution, the only example of a fully illustrated Minor Arcana was to be found in the earliest surviving deck, the Sola Busca which dates to the early 1490s. A few of her Minor Arcana cards, notably 3 of Swords and 10 of Wands, make overt reference to that deck, which she likely encountered on a research expedition to the British Museum.

Mostly the images were of Colman-Smith’s own invention, informed by her sound-color synesthesia and the classical music she listened to while working. Her early experience in a touring theater company helped her to convey meaning through costume and physical attitude.

Here are Pacific Northwest witch and tarot practitioner Moe Bowstern‘s thoughts on Smith’s Three of Pentacles:

Pentacles are the suit of Earth, representative of structure and foundation. Colman-Smith’s theater-influenced designs here identify the occupations of three figures standing in an apse of what appears to be a cathedral: a carpenter with tools in hand; an architect showing plans to the group; a tonsured monk, clearly the steward of the building project. 

The overall impression is one of building something together that is much bigger than any individual and which may outlast any individual life. The collaboration is rooted in the hands-on material work of foundation building, requiring many viewpoints.

A special Pixie Smith touch is the physical elevation of the carpenter, who would have been placed on the lowest rung of medieval society hierarchies. Smith has him on a bench, showing the importance of getting hands on with the project. 

For years, Colman-Smith’s cards were referred to as the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck. This gave a nod to publisher William Rider & Son, while neglecting to credit the artist responsible for the distinctive gouache illustrationsIt continues to be sold under that banner, but lately, tarot enthusiasts have taken to personally amending the name to the Rider Waite Smith (RWS) or Waite Smith (WS) deck out of respect for its previously unheralded co-creator.

While Colman-Smith is best remembered for her tarot imagery, she was also a celebrated storyteller, illustrator of children’s books and a collection of Jamaican folk tales, creator of elaborate toy theater pieces, and maker of images on behalf of women’s suffrage and the war effort during WWII.

Outside of some early adventures in a traveling theater, and friendships with Stieglitz, author Bram Stoker, actress Ellen Terry, and poet William Butler Yeats, certain details of her personal life—namely her race and sexual orientation—are difficult to divine. It’s not for lack of interest. She is the focus of several biographies and an increasing number of blog posts.

It’s sad, but not a total shocker, to learn that this interesting, multi-talented woman died in poverty in 1951. Her paintings and drawings were auctioned off, with the proceeds going toward her debts. Her death certificate listed her occupation not as artist but as “Spinster of Independent Means.” Lacking funds for a headstone, she was buried in an unmarked grave.

Explore more of Pamela “Pixie” Colman-Smith’s illustrations and read some of her letters to Alfred Stieglitz at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library’s collection.

via MessyNessy/Hyperallergic

Related Content:

Divine Decks: A Visual History of Tarot: The First Comprehensive Survey of Tarot Gets Published by Taschen

Salvador Dalí’s Tarot Cards Get Re-Issued: The Occult Meets Surrealism in a Classic Tarot Card Deck

Carl Jung: Tarot Cards Provide Doorways to the Unconscious, and Maybe a Way to Predict the Future

Ayun Halliday is an author, illustrator, theater maker and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine. Follow her @AyunHalliday.

Meet the Forgotten Female Artist Behind the World’s Most Popular Tarot Deck (1909) is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on FacebookTwitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online CoursesFree Online MoviesFree eBooksFree Audio BooksFree Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.


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Sunday, March 28, 2021

That pear tree and then some...

 Remember a week or so ago, we found blossoms about to burst on a tree which was similar to the Bradford Pears? 

Here it was...about March 17, 2021





And here it was on March 23, 2021




And as we walked off the bridge of the spillway of Lake Tomahawk, we saw some Lenten Roses...

And Vincas...blue flowers on vines.


And what look to be related to Lilies of the Valley also...not exactly snow drops either.


My friend pointed out that each petal had a tiny green dot right at the end of it. And they were usually just one flower on each stem.
I checked on "Name that plant" and it's...

Leucojum

Genus
Leucojum is a small genus of bulbous plants native to Eurasia belonging to the Amaryllis family, subfamily Amaryllidoideae. As currently circumscribed, the genus includes only two known species, most former species having been moved into the genus Acis. Both genera are known as snowflakes. THANKS Wikipedia!


Saturday, March 27, 2021

Ancient wonders visits

 Today's suggestion for Sepia Saturday

What does this remind me of?


A dwelling dated to 1123 AD, Dominguez Pueblo...near Delores CO.




Parts of the Pueblo still remain, between the parking lot and the entrance to the museum...so everyone has to walk by it.


Looking away from the museum, and the pueblo, there is a great view of the river valley. I think the mountains in the distance contain Mesa Verde.

A simple looking building, which houses an extensive collection of artifacts of the Pueblo/Anasazi inhabitants from their 2000 years here.






Pretty sure this is Ute Mountain, to the west. At times it looks like a reclining Native American, especially from my son's house in Cortez CO.

Can you see the cat?


I liked that I visited the Anasazi Museum in Delores CO when it wasn't crowded at all.


This was part of my trip out west which started with a friend's offer to drive me to New Mexico...and I rented a car to get to Taos and Santa Fe where I met my son and his partner. What a great adventure, and I came home totally broke! That was part of the joys of 2019.  (Before pandemic.)

Joy of joys, between pandemic and leaving my passion for pottery, I still find amazing things and people  crossing my path. No six degrees of separation here! Hi to fellow Sepian blogger Mike Brubaker...I just went (Thurs.) to the library here in Black Mountain to have AARP do my taxes. The woman helping me started talking about her husband's pursuit of identifying people in photo post cards, after mentioning a connection in art, and before we knew it we were introducing ourselves as very well connected to Sepia Saturday...as Mike is none other than her husband!

That made me wonder how long I've been involved with Sepia Saturday...will try to figure that out next!

And the answer seems to be Jan. 2015 as my first foray into Sepia Saturdays. Most enjoyable reading others' posts, and comments on mine! Thanks everyone!

Friday, March 26, 2021

Update on the indoor blooms


 







These last blossoms have certainly been long-lived. I'm pleased to have their color when looking at the still grey and brown outside the window. But I'm aware those maples are thinking of  making leaves, and soon I won't see the mountains beyond for another 5-6 months.