Last week on Art With a Needle

You may have noticed that I'm posting found poetry only once a month instead of once a week as I did in 2018.  I've noticed that after I have been doing a particular form of daily or weekly art it's hard to let go.  For instance, I used to post a "photo suite" -- five or six photos on a single theme -- once a week, for four years.  Finally I decided it was time to stop, but couldn't bring myself to go cold turkey, so I dropped back to once a month for another year before I was able to let go.

After a year of weekly found poetry, following a year of daily text, I didn't want to put in that much time every week -- but I still owned (own) a huge pile of poetry bits, painstakingly searched out and cut out and filed, and the thought of abandoning those dozens of hours of work was more than I could bear.  So I'm doing found poetry once a month.

Sonja left a comment:  "Love the words inspired by your art, or was it the other way?"  Almost always, words first, then a big search for an appropriate image to go along with it.  Fortunately in addition to a huge pile of poetry bits, I have a huge box full of pictures left over from three years of daily collage, so after I have composed the poem I look through my box of pictures to find one that goes with the words.

Here's my favorite miniature of the week:

Whenever I go to the beach I look for shells with holes in them, and this shell had been lying on my counter for a long time.  The iridescent blue beads seemed like sea treasures, nestled in the shell.