Laura Kenney, Morning Routine Well, it was quite the weekend. Saturday started out with a visit from Laura Kenney, Artist who popped in for some sari silk. I had a kick butt moment forgetting to snap her photo so I could post it on a blog. For those of you who may not have heard of Laura, she is a fabulous rug hooking artist producing whimsical pieces, sometimes with a message, sporting clever titles that never fail to conjure a smile.
I’ve been following Laura for several months on Facebook waiting for the piece that speaks to me so I can comment “Sold”. My friend bought one of her pieces called Weighty Issues, a woman with head bent down, standing on scales. I loved it! Some people just have that extra something special and Laura’s is definitely one to watch as she climbs up the ladder of artistic success, quickly skipping rungs on her way to the top. Her pieces show in galleries around the province, hanging alongside names of note.
Her humour and bold colour sense is unique and pleasing. I hope she did well at the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival this weekend. I would have liked to check it out but I had to keep the shop open for the Mahone Bay Pirate Festival and Regatta. I’m listing her website link if you would like to check her out. http://www.laurakenneyrugs.ca/
You can also follow Laura's work on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/LauraKenneyArtist
Working Sunday was rough. I had a very late trip to the airport Saturday night and didn’t get home until close to 4:00 a.m. Got to bed around 5:30 and then had to rise at 9:00 am to prepare for work. I would have given a small toe to be able to sleep in but that wasn’t in the cards. I dragged butt around the shop until 5:00 came…it was a very, very long day. A lot of interesting people popped by the shop, a family from the US that were a delight so I was kept entertained but I was never so happy to see the end of a work day.
I came home to a delicious steak on the BBQ and then a spot of TV. It was wonderful to put up tired feet and watch a good movie. I was on the fence about working the Natal Day holiday and hubby pushed me over to the 'stay at home' side, reminded me I hadn’t had a day off for a month straight. Although I felt a bit guilty I finally acquiesced and stayed home, more for his sake than mine.
Now, with lots of time on my hands I made a delicious omelet and green fried tomatoes for Monday brunch. Slice the tomato thick and fry in butter with a bit of brown sugar and cayenne pepper. So delicious! After cleaning up we talked about doing this or that, maybe driving down to Green Bay so the pups could play in the ocean but I hummed and hawed and finally decided to just have a staycation day. I was out of sorts, fiddling and didn’t know what to do with myself. All I’ve done is work both day and night for the past month and having nothing pressing to address left me out of sorts. I’m not a lady of leisure, I’m a hard working woman and knowing there were orders to get out at the shop left me feeling a bit guilty. It felt wrong to just sit and twiddle my thumbs. I whined a bit and then drifted off to sleep and had a small nap in the chair by the window as the sail boats breezed by in the harbour.
Later we went out to the garage and I was struck by the number of spider webs and pods hanging around the windows, a sure indication that the eight legged critters weren’t too far away. So that set the order of the day and we vacuumed out the entire building from top to bottom, ridding the place of hundreds of pods and a matching number of spiders. If all these colonies had been allowed to hatch it would have been the perfect stage for the sequel of Arachnophobia. Undesturbed for months, they multiplied like rabbits, building webs over all the windows and leaving piles of dead bodies of unsuspecting bugs that happened their way. I was amazed to see the numbers and equally creeped out. I don’t like spiders much, especially after one killed by sweet Louis so I put the pups in the house and we went to work annihilating the free loaders. Like I said before, indoor crawlies are immediately disposed of, my small world isn’t big enough for us to share a domain. The spiders didn't have a leg to stand on, or eight in this case!
We sucked them up in the shop vac and to make sure they stayed, I stuffed a rag in the end of the nozzle as visions of a great escape played in my mind. Spiders like their space, the reason why you see one per web, very respectful of one another because crossing the lines means a hasty meal for the bigger of the two. I'll try not to think about what's happening in the confined space of the vacuum bag as they fight to dominate territory.
To shake off the afternoon's massacre we treated ourselves to dinner out. We invited Shane and his girlfriend Ashley and headed to the Grand Banker in Lunenburg. They have the best burger with aioli sauce and a fried egg. Tender and juicy, just the way I like it. All in all it was a lovely day, spent with the people I love.
I’ve been following Laura for several months on Facebook waiting for the piece that speaks to me so I can comment “Sold”. My friend bought one of her pieces called Weighty Issues, a woman with head bent down, standing on scales. I loved it! Some people just have that extra something special and Laura’s is definitely one to watch as she climbs up the ladder of artistic success, quickly skipping rungs on her way to the top. Her pieces show in galleries around the province, hanging alongside names of note.
Her humour and bold colour sense is unique and pleasing. I hope she did well at the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival this weekend. I would have liked to check it out but I had to keep the shop open for the Mahone Bay Pirate Festival and Regatta. I’m listing her website link if you would like to check her out. http://www.laurakenneyrugs.ca/
You can also follow Laura's work on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/LauraKenneyArtist
Working Sunday was rough. I had a very late trip to the airport Saturday night and didn’t get home until close to 4:00 a.m. Got to bed around 5:30 and then had to rise at 9:00 am to prepare for work. I would have given a small toe to be able to sleep in but that wasn’t in the cards. I dragged butt around the shop until 5:00 came…it was a very, very long day. A lot of interesting people popped by the shop, a family from the US that were a delight so I was kept entertained but I was never so happy to see the end of a work day.
I came home to a delicious steak on the BBQ and then a spot of TV. It was wonderful to put up tired feet and watch a good movie. I was on the fence about working the Natal Day holiday and hubby pushed me over to the 'stay at home' side, reminded me I hadn’t had a day off for a month straight. Although I felt a bit guilty I finally acquiesced and stayed home, more for his sake than mine.
Now, with lots of time on my hands I made a delicious omelet and green fried tomatoes for Monday brunch. Slice the tomato thick and fry in butter with a bit of brown sugar and cayenne pepper. So delicious! After cleaning up we talked about doing this or that, maybe driving down to Green Bay so the pups could play in the ocean but I hummed and hawed and finally decided to just have a staycation day. I was out of sorts, fiddling and didn’t know what to do with myself. All I’ve done is work both day and night for the past month and having nothing pressing to address left me out of sorts. I’m not a lady of leisure, I’m a hard working woman and knowing there were orders to get out at the shop left me feeling a bit guilty. It felt wrong to just sit and twiddle my thumbs. I whined a bit and then drifted off to sleep and had a small nap in the chair by the window as the sail boats breezed by in the harbour.
Later we went out to the garage and I was struck by the number of spider webs and pods hanging around the windows, a sure indication that the eight legged critters weren’t too far away. So that set the order of the day and we vacuumed out the entire building from top to bottom, ridding the place of hundreds of pods and a matching number of spiders. If all these colonies had been allowed to hatch it would have been the perfect stage for the sequel of Arachnophobia. Undesturbed for months, they multiplied like rabbits, building webs over all the windows and leaving piles of dead bodies of unsuspecting bugs that happened their way. I was amazed to see the numbers and equally creeped out. I don’t like spiders much, especially after one killed by sweet Louis so I put the pups in the house and we went to work annihilating the free loaders. Like I said before, indoor crawlies are immediately disposed of, my small world isn’t big enough for us to share a domain. The spiders didn't have a leg to stand on, or eight in this case!
We sucked them up in the shop vac and to make sure they stayed, I stuffed a rag in the end of the nozzle as visions of a great escape played in my mind. Spiders like their space, the reason why you see one per web, very respectful of one another because crossing the lines means a hasty meal for the bigger of the two. I'll try not to think about what's happening in the confined space of the vacuum bag as they fight to dominate territory.
To shake off the afternoon's massacre we treated ourselves to dinner out. We invited Shane and his girlfriend Ashley and headed to the Grand Banker in Lunenburg. They have the best burger with aioli sauce and a fried egg. Tender and juicy, just the way I like it. All in all it was a lovely day, spent with the people I love.
Now back to spiders…..I may not appreciate them in my home but for some reason I like them in precious metals and Swarovski crystals. I received my first spider brooch as a gift about 20 years ago and that started a long reign of purchases. I don’t know when it became an obsession but I’d often find myself up until 1:00 or 2:00 am to snipe the final bid on Ebay. That should have been the sign things were out of hand.
But...253 brooches later, I had to force myself to stop, take stock and pull the brake on that insanity train. I vowed I would wear a different one every day to get value out of my money but for some reason that never happened. Maybe I didn't want to loose my title of the Crazy Dog Lady to become the Weird Spider Woman. I had mixed reactions when wearing the odd pin and in retail it doesn't pay to have customers running and screaming out of the store.
Not wearing them presented questions. What is the use of a brooch if not to be worn? What purpose do they represent in a box, gathering dust in my bedroom, forgotten as if they don’t really matter? And that's when I realized, if the truth was to be told, they don’t. On the large scale of things they register very little. It became painfully obvious it wasn’t the brooch, it was the acquisition that attracted me, having to have it at all cost as if life hinged on that current purchase.
There was a tough lesson to be learned and I did a lot of soul searching to find it. That was the last time I felt compelled to purchase things that really served no purpose. I was buying them for comfort, as most obsessions are based. I justified having it at any cost, as if all life hinged on a successful bid. I was obsessed, no other word best describes how I felt. In the past I had the same preoccupation with blue willow dishes and later beads, although in all fairness, I bought the beads to make and sell jewellery as a business, not just to covet them...but I did go overboard.
Having to have it, covet it and then once it arrived it lacked the emotional luster that drove me to buy it in the first place. After the initial unwrapping it counted for little and then I had to move on to the next acquisition to try and get the feeling back. A costly fixation that was fueled by unhealthy emotions dredged up from my past. I felt out of control, sometimes ashamed and hid the fact of what I was doing, like an addict and his drug, so I had to take a long hard look at myself and the reasons that might be behind this behavior. I was able to dissect and breakdown the feelings that forced me to need unnecessary external things. After I cracked the code, I felt so much better as the driving force behind this obsession devoured way to much of my time and money.
Those days are now gone and I’m quite relieved. I wonder how I even found the time to hunt down and buy all that stuff. When needed, I am now able to find comfort within me, no longer chasing a hollow, temporary fix. I keep the spider collection as a reminder of my new indifference so I don’t fall back on old habits of seeking comfort through inconsequential items.
But...253 brooches later, I had to force myself to stop, take stock and pull the brake on that insanity train. I vowed I would wear a different one every day to get value out of my money but for some reason that never happened. Maybe I didn't want to loose my title of the Crazy Dog Lady to become the Weird Spider Woman. I had mixed reactions when wearing the odd pin and in retail it doesn't pay to have customers running and screaming out of the store.
Not wearing them presented questions. What is the use of a brooch if not to be worn? What purpose do they represent in a box, gathering dust in my bedroom, forgotten as if they don’t really matter? And that's when I realized, if the truth was to be told, they don’t. On the large scale of things they register very little. It became painfully obvious it wasn’t the brooch, it was the acquisition that attracted me, having to have it at all cost as if life hinged on that current purchase.
There was a tough lesson to be learned and I did a lot of soul searching to find it. That was the last time I felt compelled to purchase things that really served no purpose. I was buying them for comfort, as most obsessions are based. I justified having it at any cost, as if all life hinged on a successful bid. I was obsessed, no other word best describes how I felt. In the past I had the same preoccupation with blue willow dishes and later beads, although in all fairness, I bought the beads to make and sell jewellery as a business, not just to covet them...but I did go overboard.
Having to have it, covet it and then once it arrived it lacked the emotional luster that drove me to buy it in the first place. After the initial unwrapping it counted for little and then I had to move on to the next acquisition to try and get the feeling back. A costly fixation that was fueled by unhealthy emotions dredged up from my past. I felt out of control, sometimes ashamed and hid the fact of what I was doing, like an addict and his drug, so I had to take a long hard look at myself and the reasons that might be behind this behavior. I was able to dissect and breakdown the feelings that forced me to need unnecessary external things. After I cracked the code, I felt so much better as the driving force behind this obsession devoured way to much of my time and money.
Those days are now gone and I’m quite relieved. I wonder how I even found the time to hunt down and buy all that stuff. When needed, I am now able to find comfort within me, no longer chasing a hollow, temporary fix. I keep the spider collection as a reminder of my new indifference so I don’t fall back on old habits of seeking comfort through inconsequential items.
Sorry the picture doesn't do them justice as they are quite blingy and beautiful.
Spider brooches were worn by the Victorians for good luck, and was a stunning example of the their enthusiasm for the natural world. A lot of the pieces I've acquired are antique, some vintage and others brand new. Several stamped the Czech Republic are fairly ornate and have a bit of wear, an indication they were popular accessories. Some are solid precious metals while others are plated and the rest just common metals. Several designers today have a spider or two in their collections, Heidi Daus, Kenneth J. Lane and Joan Rivers to name a few. For the most part I have them colour coordinated by the case, anal that I am. There are many pins I've drooled over encrusted with diamonds and other precious stones priced in the thousands but they were way out of my price range.....my budget was more about beer than champagne.....
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