Friday, May 28, 2010

Do you remember the time?



Just when we were starting to feel a sense of normalcy again post Katrina, BP sideswiped us again with this horrific disaster. It is so hard to post shiny happy discoveries and newly created ETSY items when the sense that our community is shifting towards some unspoken abyss is in the room.Never a one to take token media observations at their word (hey this is the house where pirate radio tried to take a choke hold on the airwaves one week after Katrina only to be scared off by the Gretna PD), I ventured down to see for myself what was going on.

Grand Isle was frighteningly quiet. Not a soul combed the streets except for news outlets and army vehicles. Fresh signs detailing holiday rentals, parties to come held deflated balloons and the sense of energy expended for naught.Like a canceled birthday party or runaway bride, the town known for its memorial day festivities had the air of impending doom as if cancer had just been declared.

The beach, usually strewn with families, hungover revelry,the feckless enjoyment of the sea sight was festooned with white tents and white suited workers, organized and prodded by olive drab butlers.It was straight outta Margaret Atwood. You would expect the sea to be birthing aliens, three headed lochness monsters, detritus of science fiction nightmares. Instead it was murky sand.

The bags looked to be filled with sandy lab experiments gone wrong, molasses spilled over burnt cornbread,the earth's tears.

I've always tended towards dramatic observations myself. Tears come to me easily as do reckonings that are lumpy and uncomfortable. This sight and the consequent thoughts remind me of a diagnosis, a waiting for the hangman, 16 hours on a highway with no clear knowledge of where we are going or what we are leaving. This place wrenches you with love and horror. It tests your faith and hope. It leaves you slack jawed and wordless-thrown into the unknown.

Monday, May 10, 2010

New Designs and Old Ideas from down de bayou



I've been trying to get some of these designs out for Spring before Summer actually hits down by de bayou. We've had a brief cool spell- mornings and evenings have been great. Well until the winds changed this evening and that awful burning oil smell hit.



Thanks everyone for crossing your fingers for me last week. Everything went just fine just waiting to see what happens.Or if nothing does. Either way, I'll let yall know when I know more myself.



Until then I am working on these designs and phasing out some of my other collections. We're trying to hit the beach before the oil comes further inland and some other travel and interesting summer plans.

I've been working on a book proposal off and on the past year. I'm going home in the next few weeks and hope to get my mother's help with the outline. She's been a librarian for almost 45 years and of course reads constantly. My hope is to phase out some of my designs, stick with the ones that are working and spend more time writing,so we shall see.

I'll keep you posted when more details become available. See yall later, K

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Getting Ready for my Big Day


Well I have something coming up. I cant talk about it because it is jinxable. Jinxable as in please cross your fingers as it is something I have wanted for like forever, like 15 years forever or maybe just ten years because it didnt seem possible at all 15 years ago.



And like everything else that seems to happen these days, it came up spur of the moment and because of ETSY, so wow thanks to that wonderful place this is possible.



And now I have to go deliver all of these things and I wont be able to get good pictures because it has been raining or windy or we've had an oil spill smell wafting through the air so the outdoors has been off limits.

Well so here goes and please cross your eyes, fingers and everything else for me! Hopefully some good news will come, but if not, it's still wonderful that this was possible, like really really, so yay Bayou Salvage.

xoxoxo, see yall later,
Kerry