Featured again!

I got another email today saying I was featured in an Etsy Treasury - this is the third one so far...Not that I have sold anything on Etsy yet, but it's cool to be featured.

This was the piece selected:

Etsy Main Page

I was featured on Etsy's main page in the Treasury! I didn't even know until some kind lady emailed me congratulations. Unfortunately, but that time the treasury had expired and I couldn't see it at all. So I don't know what the theme of the collection was...

This was the piece they featured:

Who Am I?

I am struggling to define myself as an artist. My earliest memories are of me drawing, yet somehow or the other I managed to side-track myself into everything but art, work at everything but painting. When I did paint it was only because an exhibition I wanted to take part in was looming, and I had no choice but to make good my acceptance. Then there'd be a long dry spell again. Not that I didn't enjoy it when I painted. I loved it. But it was always something I accommodated into whatever else I happened to be doing. So everytime I did paint, something different would come out, like a whole new beginning. While this was great for exploring a variety of approaches, I'm not sure what it all sums up to in the end.

Now I'm trying to find myself - pick up all those little threads and weave something personal out of it. It is very daunting, but exciting too.

While I was thinking this, I drew this picture. The scissors were lying in front of me, so I drew them. They are very badly drawn, but what the heck.

Baby Signing

I am trying the ASL baby signs again with the little BabyKitten - after too long a gap (months). But her progress has been amazing! These are the ones she has started to make:

milk
pee pee or poo poo (same sign of toilet)
mommy
daddy
baby
girl
doggie
water
food
ball
book
apple
cheese
more
please
shoes
spoon
butterfly
fish
bath

She understands these, but doesn't do them yet:

egg
cheerios
up
down
boy
kitty
birdie
home
happy
sad
car
flower
bee

Quite a few, when I list them out like that. Of course, I'm learning myself!

Kazuo Ishiguro

When I do read any book at all, I'll read at least two at once, but I've never read two Kazuo Ishiguros at the same time. Until now, that is.

A long time ago I'd read his Remains of the Day, which I remember as a dream-like story that was funny in a tragic way. Incidentally, I really enjoyed the movie as well, something very rare if I liked the book.

The two novels I'm reading right now are When We Were Orphans, and The Unconsoled. One is downstairs, and one up, so I'm kinda alternating between the two depending on where I happen to be. I read them in snatches. Not a good idea. WWWO's protagonist seems to be skidding towards disaster, oblivious to his distorted memory. The Unconsoled reads like a nightmarish Alice In Wonderland, and it's getting bizarrer and bizarrer and all it's tunnels and dead ends are making me claustrophobic.

Next time I'll remember not to double dose on Ishiguro, so that I can do him justice.

Breastfeeding Week - August 1 - 7

Our weekly carried a tiny piece about the benefits of breastfeeding in honor of Breastfeeding Week. It was too small and too focused on newborns. But it was there. I talked to the editor of a local chain of newspapers here about writing a column on Attachment Parenting and bresatfeeding but he wasn't thrilled with the idea. There's such a dire need for education in this area, though.

I have had new mommies tell me they switched to formula because 'breast milk is useless after the first few days', or weeks or months (rare) and veteran mommies look at me disapprovingly for 'still breastfeeding!?' and for refusing to give BubbleToes commercial baby cereal. Sometimes I feel the only support I will ever find is in virtual groups and communities on line. No one in my immediate vicinty seems to support a natural way of bringing up the baby, and many are antagonistic to it.

There's tons of good information about this on the internet, but very little of it is disseminated by people who have the power and opportunity to do so - doctors, people who run pre-natal classes, and grandparents.

DaddyBoy always tries to stop me from speaking about this. I may offend someone! OK - it's possible a few feathers may get ruffled. I think it's a risk worth taking if it means even a few people opened their hearts and minds to the difference it would make to their kids, and as a result, the whole society.