Melting Ceramics

The art of Livia Marin

Graveyard Mushrooms

The rainy summer has brought forth a plethora of fungi. I have found some lovely specimens amid the headstones in the woods.

Weird Wednesday ~ Vampire Plant Talks to Its Victims

image source

It has been discovered that a parasitic plant named Strangleweed actually 'communicates' with its victims as it feeds on them. Strangleweed wraps itself around its host and punctures the plant's stem with appendages and then absorbs nutrients from the host. 

It is at this point that the Strangleweed sends ribonucleic acid into the host giving instructions to the host plant's DNA. These instructions tell the host plant how to grow, thus changing the host plant's DNA to make it weaker and to lower its defenses. These changes allowed the Strangleweed a better opportunity to feed on the host plant.

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Cement Eclipses

The art of Isaac Cordal

Roadtrip ~ Florissant Pioneer Cemetery

Florissant Pioneer Cemetery is located a few miles to the southeast of the town of Florissant. The town was originally a Ute Trading Post and had a post office as early as 1873. The cemetery was incorporated in 1874 and was one of the first in the Pikes Peak backcountry.

This cemetery is located on rolling terrain immediately to the east of the Florissant Fossil Beds. The oldest section of the cemetery is located on the top of a knoll immediately after entering the gate. The newer graves sites - it is still in use - are located down the hill. It is a beautiful location with tall pines and aspen as well as wildflowers.

Unfortunately, many of he headstones have been damaged and repaired (like the one above). While others are still missing pieces. The Pikes Peak Historical Society maintains the cemetery and does what it can to repair the tombstones. 

Trail Cam Anomaly?

Over the course of the summer, on visits to our property, hubby and I would discover our bird feeders raided of food and often laying on the ground. On one occasion the wire feeder was mangled and the hummingbird feeder had a puncture hole in it.

To find the culprit, we installed a trail cam. Our first batch of photos, taken over the course of a week, provided us with lots of images of blue jays at the feeder and a lovely visitor.

[Date and Time stamp is in the bottom right corner of each pic]

But we had a couple of night photos with an odd image. A deer - we think it's the same doe because of the notched ear. But the glowing image which moves from left to right is odd. There was nothing in the tree which could reflect any light and if it was a bug, then why weren't more seen? 

What do you think? 

Urban Geodes

The art of Paige Smith

Weird Wednesday ~ Thought Controlled DNA

There is a commonly held theory that a person's DNA determines that person's looks, behavior, and thought processes. 
Stem-cell Biologists, Bruce Lipton, PhD has found evidence to the contrary. He states that, "It's actually our beliefs that select our genes, that select our behavior."
Lipton has found that cells can survive without the nucleus, which contains the DNA. He also states that in every cell there are genes whose sole purpose is to rewrite and adapt genes to specific purposes; a person's perception of their environment helps to rewrite their genetic code. Thus a positive environment (or what is perceived as one) will encourage growth and blood flow, allowing a person to think clearer, be healthier and happier.
Remember, You ARE what you THINK!

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Cave Digger

The Art of Ra Paulette

The Practicality of Art

Art. To what purpose does it serve? 

You can Google that very Question and receive 169,000,000 results and if a person was to ask another person that very question, To what purpose does art serve?, there would be more answers than a person might care to count.
Art should cause a person to think, to relax, to feel affirmed, to appreciate beauty, to pause and ponder, to encourage, to appreciate the sheer talent and vision of another. I'm sure you can add your own description of what art does. 
And I would love to hear your thoughts!

With the re-evaluation of Life has come the re-evaluation of my art. To what purpose does my art serve. 
In the beginning, I wanted my art to bring a smile to a face, to make the audience feel like they had met an old friend. I enjoyed creating small folk-artish figures and other tokens of realms unseen by the mortal eye. And while I still want that, I have found myself questioning the actual items I was creating. 

As I clear the clutter, I look at things with a new eye. I have come to realize that so much of what I have made was 'dust collectors'. Items that were fun, that brought a smiles to faces. But they were small bits and bobs that could somehow make themselves at home with the dustbunnies and cobwebs. Was my art collecting dust? Does it sit on a shelf visiting with its neighbor whilst the vestiges of time marched on?

With a more purposeful LIFE, I have felt a need to make more purposeful creations. So, I have begun to delve into something I have always wanted to try. Concrete. My interest began decades ago whilst lusting after garden ornamentation. I gathered books and read.  A few times in those many years, I had tried my hand at some aspect of the craft but without a bit of guidance, I became frustrated and didn't delve much further. 
Until recently. It began last autumn when I made sculpts of leaves for a local decorative concrete guy. This then led me to being taught the art of mold making and the art of decorative concrete work.

My main focus is Faux Bois. Here are two benches which I recently made. My very first two faux bois benches. They were fun. And even though these are a bit primitive, an artist needs to start somewhere.  While the guy I work with has no experience at Faux Bois, he does know his concrete and that is what I need to learn.
Concrete is going to fulfill that need I feel in my art - to be creative but yet functional. I foresee a lot more work in my future.

Wire Worx

The Art of Derek Kinzett