Inspiration Avenue Challenge: A Mother's Hand

Happy Mothers' Day to All

Inspiration Avenue, hosted by Shelley and her mom, Loretta, is challenging you to participate in something to do with a mother's hands.  Loretta says...

Did you know that the word hand appears in the King James Bible 1296 times? Now that definitely shows us how important hands were to God, our creator. Don’t you know He put a lot of thought into creating our hands, knowing all the things they would do for us in our day to day activities?

Being uninspired, but loving the picture of my mother and me in 2000 just before she died, I used it as a tool to try and draw my mother's hands; in this case, it was her left hand.  

I had always loved her hands.  Those bright red fingernails were one of her fashion signatures.

This is the sketchbook drawing:

And here is mother's (cropped) left hand.

It was a true art challenge, but it was a way to say "Happy Mother's Day" in a fond remembrance.

Please go here and join in the challenge.

also for ppf

Mud Man Figurines

Yesterday I was cleaning off the patio, recovering a foot stool, watering plants...the usual springtime sprucing up routine.

That old jade plant to the right of the rocker atop the mosaic table top I made three years ago was brought outdoors, cleaned, watered and examined.  Too leggy, not enough light.  Perhaps a summer on the patio will help that situation.

On closer examination, the mud man sitting on the soil (above right in picture) was also taken out and scrutinized more closely.  I cleaned it, looked at his hands, his back, the shrub in front of him, and wondered what the mud man was trying to tell me.

The mud man was whipping his back in self flagellation.  What was behind the "mud man" and how did he come about?

This is what I found Edensong:

The figurines are commonly known as mud figures or figurines, mud people, mud men, mudd men, or mudmen. 

Over 1000 years ago, Chinese artisans during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), were creating landscape bonsai, miniature landscapes in a tray, a practice known as Pen'Jing.  To capture the realism of a favorite countryside or mountain scenic view, the artists added rocks and planted small trees in a large ceramic tray to simulate the panorama on a smaller scale. These were intended to invoke a harmonious feeling to the viewers. In an effort to capture the illusion, the Chinese artisans used figurines of people, animals, huts and temples, which gave an appearance of great age and size to the miniature forests. 

Figurines have had a place in bonsai as a visual contribution. Pen'Jing, nearly a lost art form, is experiencing a revival in modern day China and is once again popular with Chinese bonsai enthusiasts. The prosperous Manchurian Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1912) began declining at the end of the 18th century. The successful export market for fine china was impaired by excessive competition for the wares.  Pottery and figurines dominated the Chinese export trade well into the next century.  Mud figures  thrived, as they were different from ordinary figurines.  They were made individually by hand and involved nearly all members of the village. 

 Mudmen were brightly glazed figurines of men, women, wise men and old sages, seated or standing, holding flutes, scrolls, pots, fish and other objects of mystical importance or sometimes fishing.  After completion of  the rice harvest and the dry season set in, villagers turned to figurine production to stimulate the economy. For smaller ones, the artist just picked a small piece of mud and in no time made a figurine out of it by using their two fingers. 

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My little mud man was purchased several years ago at a local nursery and cost around $10-$15.  I'll be on the lookout for more because they intrigue me.  Ebay has quite a few authentic ones (and reproductions) if you are interested in purchasing a mud man.  You can tell yourself a story of what the mud man is saying to you.

Go Shopping for Mud Man Figurines

Sparrows and Lilies of the Field

...joining in with Floss at her blog to write about the The Thrill of What You Already Have...

This will be an introspective post, so sit down with your coffee as you are invited to take more than a minute to read about a virtual friend and what she has written here about needing a summer job to help the dormouse and her husband get through the summer on a more even note.

After reading what the dormouse wrote, it stirred me into thinking about how God takes care of us in ways we can't even imagine.  This is what she says in part of her post and in quoting scripture:

I have spent a couple of nights lying awake worrying, ... I need to bring my worrying mind to rest and try to trust God... 

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

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The "thrill of what I already have" is a powerful memory of my mother in the late 1960's.

To set the scene: she and I lived in a small, conservative Texas town.  She was divorced, coming out of an almost catatonic 18 month depression (remember, we did not have psychiatric drugs back then save for electroshock therapy).  We had just moved out of her parents' home where we had lived for two years, completely dependent on them. We had very little money, living in a small and very old rental house made of stone.

The memory which I want to recall as most impressive, however, is that of mother saying many times that if God could care enough to provide food for the sparrows and to clothe the lilies of the field in glory, that He would certainly take care of us.   And He did.  She died in 2000, and He continued to take care of her throughout her life, as she had always trusted.

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Certainly not all of what gives us a thrill is on the physical plane, as this particular memory still gives me pause.  I think of mother speaking of the well being of the sparrows and the beauty of the lilies when worry begins it insidious way of worming into my soul, and I am always comforted.