Fiery Heart Designs

Welcome to my website. I lean left, over analyze, decide with logic over sentiment, embrace asymmetry, get the heebie jeebies, exercise too little and know my birth certificate lies. I am also frequently distracted, fidgety, forgetful, or dazed and dismayed.  I am an artist, dabbler, writer, web designer, and certified gadgophile.  I have had as many as five blogs going at a time covering a wide range of subjects. This current re-invention of the remaining two blogs (Fiery Heart Designs and Onedia in The Ozarks) is necessitated by the need for a more structured life both in my studio and in daily life.  I work from my multi-media studio and occasionally from my chair in front of my favorite news channels.

I write guided only by my interests, my own sense of good manners, my moral compass, my conscience, and my agility of wit and words. I see my world as a photograph which I capture when I can.  I believe in speaking my mind even when my voice trembles or my finger hesitates on the enter key.  I write about topics that matter to me, that tweak my interest, raise my hackles, or tickle my funnybone. This may include the occasional rant or even a rambling post with no focus.   I started blogging in 2006 introduced to it by my daughter, a talented freelance writer and literary translator.  As my interests find new compass points I either shifted the focus of my blog or started a new one.  I love writing and I love examining ideas, researching, and throwing my thoughts out for others to bat around.  I enjoy sharing my artistic endeavors and the results of my experiments, reading, learning and practicing as a continuously learning artisan.  Although I refer to myself as a metal clay artist I am also a jewelry designer and website designer.  I also dabble in other creative media.

I do not depend upon results of my artistic endeavors for my livelihood.  I like to sell my creations to fund the next creative exploration and because it pleases me to know that someone else appreciates my ideas and creations enough to hand over enough green to pay for a couple of  fine dinners.  I enjoy knowing that my work is giving someone as much pleasure as it gave me in making it.  When the art turns into work I back off.  It loses all charm.  By some standards I am not an artist perhaps and I resist calling these hobbies or crafts because I am not a fine craftsman and I have never been able to think of myself as a hobby person.  No, I am a woman whose brain is constantly bombarded with ideas. Some ideas must form words and phrases and eventually paragraphs that I struggle to make pleasant to the ear and intriguing to the mind.  Other ideas become websites or jewelry or small scale sculpture.  Some ideas get trampled by all the others competing for front row attention.  The Buddha tells us that,  “An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.” My mind and my spirit demand allegiance to this instruction and ultimately, the ideas that return to me over and over must emerge in some form of tangible expression.

In October 2011, I exported most of my older posts to again switch the focus because in September, 2011, I discovered (was diagnosed) that I have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). This discovery explains much about why I frequently feel so dazed, distracted, dismayed, and disorganized.  I am discovering what this means for me in the present. Learning how to live more successfully with it in the future and reflecting how it brought me to this point.  I thought I needed to write often about my discoveries and the challenges of learning new ways of doing things.  Since ADHD and especially adult ADHD [1. Many adults who go undiagnosed well into their mature years.] is frequently misunderstood as are the people who have ADHD, I felt my writing openly and candidly would both inform and raise awareness.   I find however, that there are plenty of people doing that. Besides, along with the challenges I face because of the ADHD, I am rewarded with a creative and curious mind that thrives on learning and loves the words available to communicate ideas.  The Buddha tells us “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.”

This blog then will unflinchingly reflect my interests and reflect the mind of an Absolutely, Definitely, Hopelessly Distracted Artist, Dabbler, Writer, Web Designer, and Gadgophile!

I design my own WordPress themes ….this is one of them.