Boot Hill

Boot Hill it's a place I go often when visiting my Dad ~ It's the perfect guesthouse.  It's across the courtyard not connected to the main house.  One wall is mostly windows to breath in the beautiful landscape, to watch the birds, listen and see the coyotes.  It's the landscape I long to go back to and it keeps calling me and the call is getting louder to go HOME. 

I created this Metal picture for Boot Hill, for the next time I do go HOME.

 No matter Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall ~ it's always beautiful.

Shovels!! You Know I LOVE Em'

My first customer to ever buy one of my shovels was my welding teacher, Wayne!  He bought the first 3 out of 4 that I made.  I was so excited ~ I couldn't believe my welding instructor was interested in what I was doing.  His Sister's name was Rose and he bought this one especially for her.

I laugh at these two now, but I guess whenever you're starting on something with no training there is always a learning curve.

After my first few classes of learning the HAZARDS of welding and the possibility of explosions and fire I finally got to get busy with the business of welding.  We were suppose to find a piece of steel and weld these nice straight beads of weld that looked like fat worms.  Well, I did that for about 2 mins and of course was bored.  I don't do well with those types of lessons so, I went to the scrap pile and gathered a bunch of scraps so I could do the instruction, but in a different manner, so I welded my pieces together and did the worms on the petals.  This was my very first welded piece..... Crude but it held!  I was the only one in class to leave with a project that day ~ the all male classroom just sort of stared at me.  I must of had some dirt on my nose or something!!   :)

The second week into class I was introduced to a "hand held PLASMA CUTTER"..... and the heavens opened and my heart beat faster and there were angels singing Hallelujah!  Seriously!!!!  My instructor showed me how to turn this machine on, how to ground it and said "whatever you do.... don't put your fingers in front of the flame if you want to keep them", then said "have fun"!  Well the next day, Friday, I had to have my own plasma cutter and went out and bought one ~ From that moment on I've been cutting out shovels and steel.

I came back to class on Weds after my big purchase with my first piece of Art - My cut shovels!  My instructor was floored and from then on he sort of let me do my own thing.  No more practicing welding techniques for me.

I've sold a lot of shovels since then ~ here are a couple of my favorites.

I love church windows and this one was a challenge because trying to cut intricate designs close together is really difficult because the cutter cuts at about 2500 degree Fahrenheit and fries everything in its path and the surrounding area.  You have to move fast and try to be accurate.  I've learned a lot since this one.

This was for my best friend ~ she found an old scoop shovel on her property and gave it to me.  I didn't have the heart to sell it, so being the horse woman that she is and an Irish Lassie I gave it back to her with the Irish Symbolic image of EPONA, the horse goddess.

 This one gets the most attention ~ DIA DE LOS MUERTOS ~ Day of the Dead.  It has a crazy candelabra on it and it truly fun, fun, fun.

This one is another favorite and I gave to another friend who's always helping me with garage sales and always willing to dumpster dive in the worst of places with me.

I have such fun making these and I've got about 40-50 shovels in the shed that need to be cut so I'd better get to it! 

Foto Fun

I've always loved Photography and at last look I had over 22,000 pictures on my computer.  I've been staying inside playing with Photoshop, which I truly muddle thru and couldn't recreate what I do to one picture because I have no idea what I did to get the effect ~ All I know is I love playing around with my many photo's.  So here are some before and after photo's of some I've been working on.  I hope you enjoy!

BEFORE

 This dragonfly comes around everytime I take my dogs swimming ~ today he poised for many pictures.

AFTER

I took this one at the Tower of London in England ~ the Crows there are huge!

AFTER

 This is the Penitente Church that is just up the road from Georgia O'Keefe's

house in Abique, New Mexico

and a Hollyhock from my Mom's Garden

AFTER

This is a beautiful abandon church in Lamy, NM built in 1924

AFTER

A beautiful hummingbird in my backyard

AFTER