Mummification? It suddenly seemed wrong to invade this beautiful, tiny thing. It wasn't mine. The kittens were watching it from the porch when it took it's fatal turn. Hummingbirds are one of our favorites.
We didn't bury it either. That seemed wrong too. It was so pretty and so close to life, stopped en route. We tried an alternative that is somewhere in between. I'll post about that next spring.
I really want to draw it and I wanted to share it with Kate so she can write about it. Maybe what is intriguing to me about mummification is a power I already have, to immortalise. Dan said that to him the the story is what is intriguing. Where was it going with a blade of stiff grass still in it's beak? Hmmm...

Painting is possessed of divine power, for not only does it make the absent present, but also makes the dead almost alive.
Leon Battista Alberti

There are two sorts of beauty; one is the result of instinct, the other of study. A combination of the two, with the resulting modifications, brings with it a very complicated richness, which the art critic ought to try to discover.

Paul Gauguin

Cemeteries

of fun and Love and Laughter...for we are only temporary custodians of beauty

I think cemeteries are very romantic. Grave markers give little pieces of stories, stories but more from feeling than from words. Cemeteries are places of tragedy and beauty, of life and of death. It's about what is temporary and permanent.

"I like gettin' old." Patti Smith

Patti Smith, by my definition, is very beautiful. That beauty is in her eyes, it's written on her face and I hear it in her voice. From what I've read/heard, she's lived her life hard and with meaning.

I read that Patti devoted herself to her family for 17 years, only making one album during that time. She chose that. That's pretty cool.

Few people could leave the public eye for as long as she did and return to it so seamlessly, but her road back has not been easy, as she's gained her wisdom over hardships that would destroy many people. RollingStone

Patti Smith is on my list of heroes. She's an artist who has inspired many.


An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch. Patti Smith