The First Shrine #6

It's amazing, when those inspired moments happen and you just know you have the right tools, ingredients and materials for a particular project.

The first funky teahouse, built with single walls out of popcicle sticks and cut with scissors and an Xacto knife, looks exactly that funky. It's so funky, David made me take one of the pictures down.

Thanks to better tools (the tiny Xacto miter box and three tiny saws), better materials (tiny Basswood and Balsawood lumber), not to mention a higher skill level (the artist having discovered double wall construction in small scale building), my Zen Shrine has stability.

I discovered that tracing paper makes a good substitute for rice paper and I can print bamboo on it with my Canon printer. This was a magical moment - when I realized I did not have to dig out my Sumi-e painting tools and grind some ink in order to get the bamboo effect on those shoji screens. I also printed tiny silk banners on Dharma Trading Co.
printable, paper-backed Haboti silk. More about that in the next post.

There is a lot of trim still to do, a see-through roof (perhaps with a glass skylight for better interior viewing) and a little tiny paint job on that platter and the lantern.

Overall, I am happy with the tiny Zen Shrine, so far.

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GB's Love Notes

Writing notes is an art lost to the generations after boomers. It's quicker to send an email, or even a text. Or, perhaps a wave and a "Thanks!" on the way out the door is enough.

My mother was a perfectly imperfect human in many ways, and I have forgiven her, in absentia of course, for all the weird things she did, like make me wear tunics to school in the 7th grade to cover up my well developed you know whats.

But she was a class act. I say it that way because it was one of her pet peeves. She thought that if you had to mention it, you weren't. But, she was.

She drilled mega doses of manners and niceties into me that I cannot ever discard or let go. I thank her for things I take for granted:

knowing how to set a table
chewing with my mouth closed
opening doors for others
honoring elders
leaving a place better than when I found it
and
the art of the thank you note.

I supppose I have to thank the Dominican Nuns

for teaching me cursive writing, even if they did try to make me right handed.

I'll thank my father, while we're at it, for teaching me the art of inquisitiveness and a love of words.

In an earlier post, I mention the Studio in a Shoe Box of my childhood, filled with paper dolls, valentines and tiny plastic scissors. The box is bigger today, but the idea is the same: be prepared.

 These envelopes were made from a 4x6 template from old books, magazine and songbooks.

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