Two Crow Feather Woman

Once upon a time (all good stories begin there, except those told to me by my oldest daughter. She begins all stories with “So.”)

So. There was this faerie that lived in the sagebrush land. She liked the desert and the desert creatures, and she could often be found sitting on a rock shaded by a quaking aspen tree, next to a trickle of water. In her youth, she was a beautiful faerie with delicate gossamer wings and flowing long hair. She faced no hardships and no long winters of the soul, only the hopeful days of youth.

But winter came to her. The darkness that creeps into our hearts as we age and as we face ferocious opponents took their toll on her beauty. She had her throat slit by barbed wire. An enemy took a swipe at her head with a hatchet. Age ravaged her skin. Her hair thinned and receded. Her wings were plucked during an escape from a predator. She lost her lover, her family, and most of her contemporaries.She battled illness and defeated it.

But through it all, Mitzi never lost her dignity and her soul. She reached into her heart to find strength she did not know was there. A deeply spiritual creature, Mitzi found faith to rise above her circumstances.

This is the almost-finished-Mitzi. She has a kestrel companion by the name of Kyree. She maintains her poise and grace with the serenity of someone who has had to reach deep into the dark places. She does not laugh often, but her lips curve slightly upward in a contemplative smile and her sense of fashion is flirty and joyful.

Mitzi is a survivor.

I will most likely be donating the finished Mitzi to a charity auction to benefit other warriors. Stay posted for more on that.

I just have to finish her chair, the one she sits on while she watches the seasons of the high desert go by. And when that is finished, I will announce her destination.

This starts with a mystery. My friend, Linda, moved out of her house over a year ago and let the bank have it. After many months on the market, it finally sold. I was excited: new neighbors?

Alas, no. A remodeler had purchased the house and was “flipping’ it. She was nice enough as she did her work and gave us her phone number in case of emergency, but she wasn’t a neighbor.

She sold the house in December. And it sat empty. New blinds went up. Yard work happened. But no one moved in. I was certain it was a rental, but no ads appeared in the paper or on Craigslist. A month went by and no one moved in. A second month has almost passed and no one has moved in, but the yard decor has grown and there’s a satellite dish on the roof now.

Yesterday, I found a note on a paper napkin tucked between my front door handle and the door frame. “Call me about your mailbox. I want to replace the post.”

Well, Yay. My mailbox is an old rusted out piece of metal attached to a post that has dry rot right at the base. When you touch it, it wobbles dangerously. It has been like that for 8 years. The neighbor’s mailbox rusted through and the door fell off.

I offered to share in the cost of the post, but he would have none of it. He just wanted to put in a new post and he had to buy a new mailbox, but he wondered if we wanted to buy a new box, too, or trust the rusted one to stand up to the transfer to the new post.

Let me just say I have always wanted a new mailbox. My husband has stonewalled me because he knows I’ll probably paint flowers on a new one. And suddenly I have a neighbor who is offering to put in a post and I can buy a new mailbox and he will attach it for me? My husband doesn’t have to listen to me nag and whine? And he doesn’t want any money for it?

I died and went to Heaven.

I also went to Home Depot and bought a mailbox for $18. A white one, so I could paint on it. I just told my husband I was going to “paint the street number on it.”

His look told me that he thought decals would work better than paint, but I already had a plan.

I decided I was going to paint my animal “totem” on the box.

I don’t exactly believe in totems, but if I have one, it is in the family corvidae. I suspect it is actually Raven, because of the Raven that met my daughter & I on a recent trip to Nevada to deal with some serious issues. Raven appeared at a California reststop and posed for the photo I now use us my banner for this blog. And the visit to Nevada went as Raven would have liked it. I cannot blog about that, but Raven is a clever bird.

So are crows. And crows remind me of my mother in a round-about way (hence this blog).

I have always liked crows except when they are dive-bombing a raptor and cawing raucously. I very much like ravens when I am up in the woods and they lift off from a tree, croaking and turning to watch me. Ravens warn you in the woods of other things.

It’s a longer story than that, but suffice it to say: I think if I had an animal totem, it would be in the family corvidae.

I like it. I could add another feather, but the mailbox isn’t for my alter-ego. It’s for my husband and I. The average passer-by who can see all the bird feeders (and birds) in the yard will assume we just like birds (and they would be right). My husband might roll his eyes, but he would have to notice it first.

My neighbor won’t have a clue.

Oh, yes. It’s a rental. The man who is putting in the mailbox post is the new landlord. He didn’t advertise the rental but is renting it to coworkers. He doesn’t trust Craigslist.

They put in a bird bath, so I hope my new renter-neighbors love bird.

Quiz: if you had an animal totem, what would yours be? Do you know? Do you have the faintest clue? Do you believe in totems?

And bonus question: what is Raven’s status among Native Americans?

I’m probably going to jinx this project, but it’s coming along so nicely that I just had to share a couple slightly blurry photos.

She’s still very much in the beginning phases, but I like what is happening. I named her Mitzi tonight. She doesn’t look like any Mitzi I have ever known (not even the four-legged ones) but Mitzi seems right for her.

The plan is to create a living room around Mitzi. My biggest problem with the concept is that I do not have the storage room for the finished project and I will absolutely have to try to sell it. Selling things is not my calling. I absolutely abhor the process of selling, including selling myself to prospective agents.

But Mitzi may push me over the edge of introversion and into you-have-to-do-this-or-star-on-the-next-episode-of-Hoarders. Not that I am hoarding, but I am afraid of the “M” word:

MARKETING.

There, I said it. I wrote it. It is as ugly as a monkey. Or an earwig. Or a cockroach. Or Public Speaking.

I think I will unravel the yarn hair and cut it, but it has to wait until I have Mitzi fully dressed.

She will (most likely) be in red. I may (yet) change my mind. The process goes like this: I pull out my swaths of cloth and Goodwill silks and ugly shirts. I will pull out my box of scraps of fabric. And I will hold Mitzi up against it all and await her opinion.

By the time I am ready to choose the clothes, Mitzi will be forming an opinion. She is already creating a history. She has had a long, hard life and yet has been able to overcome every obstacle thrown at her. Her head had been split open and her throat has been slit. She has the scars to prove it.

Mitzi is a very, very old soul. And a very wise one.

I have great dreams.

I was going to do a lot of art work and post it here.

I was going to have a burst of energy and creativity.

Instead, I just dream.

I have two oil paintings started. The blue sky is dazzling. Not so much anything else.

I am stuck on an elf figurine. I have an idea that may work. I started working on it (again) tonight.

I had a flash of an idea earlier today about how to make my elves. That, too, will have to wait to see if it will work. I have to trash the old ideas first.

I am not so patient.

I used to be patient.

My grandson was up in the loft a few days ago. He will be 4 in a couple weeks. He noticed Zith and Godot for the first time in his short life. I could see the question mark on his forehead. “What is that?”

“That is Godot,” his grandmother replied.

“What is that?”

“That is Zith.”

He did not pursue the subject. Perhaps he needs time to mull over the idea that his grandmother lives with strange creatures. It is hard enough to understand that his grandmother likes large, barking dogs.

Someday I will paint my grandsons. Someday.

Right now I am stuck in dream world. If anyone has rock solid advice on how to move myself past this point, I’m listening.

Oh – and I am actually working on that elf idea. Maybe will have a successful creature to post by the end of the weekend. OK, end of February.

Large and barking. Pooka Dog.

Harvey.

I still have to coat everything with clear spray paint, but my wooden Santa display is just about ready to go out into the yard! Of course I will follow-up with photos of the display set up, but it isn’t happening tonight. I will wait until the weekend (mostly because it is dark outside when I am home during the week).

Rudolf is the oldest. He was originally just stained wood, finished with Varathane (which yellowed).

He measures roughly 17×17″

Donner was bit more difficult because the piece of wood didn’t even resemble a reindeer. Or anything “Christmasy” at all. But I needed another reindeer, right? And after a few scribbles on a sketch pad, Donner took life.

16.5×11.5″, not really much smaller than Rudolf when you realize Donner is bowing.

The sleigh was so easy to “see”! It just happened. Chatty Cathy and the Teddy Bear take me back to my own childhood (I still have the Teddy Bear that posed for the one side but Chatty Cathy bit the dust. My first cousin in Idaho still has her Chatty Cathy).

The sleigh isn’t very large compare to the reindeer or Santa, but keep in mind that it *is* Santa’s Sleigh and is, therefore, magical. It can hold a lot more than it looks like it can hold AND Santa, too.

11.5×11.5″ Almost perfectly square.

Santa was the last. At first – and for many years – he was an Elf in green but that just didn’t seem “right”. So this year when I updated everything, I pulled out the red paint. And – oh-my-gosh! – he looks like a real Santa Claus! Now why didn’t I make him Santa in the beginning? Pure stubbornness. Or my kids would have made fun of me.

Oh, heck: my kids never believed in Santa. Sad, but true. I don’t know how *I* raised such little heathens, but there you are: they never believed in Santa Claus! And you know what? Santa still brought them gifts. He paid me to sign the gift tags.

Me? I have *always* believed in Santa. When I was ten, I remember my big brother showing my sister and I the sleigh tracks in the snow on the tin roof of our home in Winnemucca, Nevada. There were very clearly two lines where the snow parted and the sleigh touched down.

I don’t remember any reindeer tracks. Come to think of it, on a tin roof, you’d think we would have heard the reindeer. We could hear Jacob the black-and-white tom cat when he walked on the tin roof. But those darn reindeer didn’t make any noise. It must have been the “reindeer pause”.

Santa, contrary to popular myth, does not need a chimney. He can come down a dryer vent or a heating vent. He can just magically appear (because he is a first cousin to Leprechauns, I am pretty certain). He touches the side of his nose and he’s down in the house with his bag of toys for good little girls and boys (rhyme intended).

Santa is 17.5×10″

He has a ruddy nose and cheeks.

He’s making a list and checking it twice.

And he exists, even if you refuse to believe (like my children).

I have not kept my resolution to update this blog once a month. I have excuses.

Winter is a better time to get serious in the studio: in the summertime, I am too distracted by my garden.

My dad died in May. Between grieving and dealing with the estate long distance (my brother dealt with most of it but I had to make two long drives to and from Nevada, plus there was all the paperwork to file), I haven’t felt like updating websites.

But I haven’t been without inspiration. And I do have some projects in progress.

Inspiration. I gather it, file it, and save it for some future date.

Photo by Chrystal Wilcox.

She emailed it to me with a note about how she knew I would find a faerie in the rigor mortis of the moth. Rigor mortis = Latin, “stiffness of death”. There’s something delicate and alive about this dead moth.

Oxymoron.

Photo by Bob Dalbey.

He said he felt like the tree was staring at him.

I call it “Hallowe’en Tree.”

Raven. the Trickster.

An Omen of good fortune on my last drive to Nevada, Raven is the larger cousin of the Crow. If my Mother was Two Crow Feather Woman’s inspiration, then my father is the Raven, my Totem.

Perhaps.

Today, I found surprising inspiration in an unusual place. I found it in the dirt and road grime on the back of a utility truck. At first, I thought someone had perhaps created it on purpose, but as I followed the utility truck down I-5, I realized it was an accidental design. The truck took the same off-ramp as me and I considered taking a photo of the design. The light changed and I followed him through.

Then we stopped at a second light and I realized I was being given a chance. My camera was in my open purse. We were stopped. I had 30 seconds to snap a photo.

Do you see it? There’s a wild horse on the back of the van. His eye, his ears, his nostril, his mouth – they are all very clear. His mane flows wild and loose. He looks like a ghost in the smoke, a phantom in the fog, an etching in the dirt on the back of a utility van.

Can’t see it? No worries. *I* can.

And I am going to paint that horse very soon.