Red Hair and Black leather, my favourite colour scheme...

hmmm...  So I got this email yesterday from mypoints.com (if you're not already registered you can register here) that let me register for a free trial over at emusic.com with a ten dollar credit... (and then when you cancel the trial they give you another 5.00 credit) so I downloaded some music I've been really missing, old Til tuesday, Jewel, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Tori Amos... a copy of Richard Thompson's 1952 Vincent Black Lightning (where the post title comes from)  and I made art to my old music last night... and a lot of neat things came about...

Sooner or Later you're going to have to take a big breath and just spreadyour wings

Music has always been important to me-- it turns a bad mood into either angry energy or a better mood, it makes a good mood feel brighter... singing is like being able to put my own hands around my heart and give it a good healthy hug... lyrics are the poetry I know best  (excluding a little carl sandburg, ee cummings, t.s. eliot, and w.b. yeats)  And this particular batch of music  is all connected to other people in my life over the years...  Til Tuesday was the soundtrack to my recovery from a devasting relationship in the mid eighties.  Jewel was the soundtrack to me finding my voice again in the late nineties.  You get the picture... and as you can see from the above, so did I.  The background collage for this piece had been sitting around for over a week waiting to speak to me of the girl that lived there.  It stayed silent... but then... "he made me feel so second best... I never should have let him do it.  but when he makes his pretty mess, somehow you just fall into it... Have mercy on him, the love that I gave him is gone.  Have mercy on him the love that I saved for him is gone... He wasn't just another touch; he was something I created.  And though I loved him much too much, I never thought my love was wasted"  and all the thoughts I've been having about making SHE ART (Christy Tomlinson) versus making my art kind of gelled into this post Pop faerie girl who knew... just knew that flying was a possbility. 
"pray your gods who ask you for your blood, for they are strong and angry, jealous ones, or lay upon my altar now your love...I fear my time is short, there are armies moving close, be quick, my love...  is it that they fear the pain of death or could it be they fear the joy of life?  "  and thereby the wings of cracked paper in a dead brown were born but shimmering with a copper fire, full of light and motion (gotta love Stickles)

"I have given, I have given and got none, still I'm driven by something I can't explain... It's not a cross; it is a choice, I cannot help but hear his voice, I only wish that I could listen without shame... let it rain"  and this only makes sense to me (and one other person on the face of the planet but i doubt that person will be reading this) The little red ribbons tied around the ceremonial shanks of hair... red for the colour of love, the colour of blood, an homage to the girl who loved and was wounded deeply.

"she has learned to play in a world today where nothing else matters, but it matters: we've got to start feeding our souls..." and there is the bird on her arm, taking flight, showing her how to spread those wings...

"i never was the fantasy of what you want or  wanted me to be... don't judge me so harsh little girl..."
and that's why she's a faerie, the fantasy of wings, of magic, of flight that is more than just the whisper of wings, but the beating of them. 
"we thought just for an instant, we could see the future, we thought for once we knew what really was important.  coming up close everything sounds like welcome home, come home...'oh by the way don't you know that I could make a dream that's barely half awake come true?' I wanted to say, but anything I could have said, I felt somehow that you already knew..."   and so she has that line from Kellie Rae Roberts' book, because sooner or later, that dream that's barely half awake, comes true...

Christy Tomlinson's  She Art workshop is worth it... every penny, every hour, and every bit of scrubbing your hands clean from playing with ink and mod podge, and using textiles to make texture masks... it's worth it if you've never made art at all before, and it's really worth it if you're making art but struggling to find your own style, your own voice... It took a little more than the course for me, it took digging out the soundtracks to the time in my life when I was sure of my voice... and all I can say is... Don't you know that I can make a dream that's barely half awake come true?