Thank you so much Kirk, your prayers most welcome. The pain is just really doing me in, not to mention inability to do anything at all. I think that huge crock sounds like a terrific buy and would make a neat fountain. I bet it's beautiful and can't wait to see it. Totems are very addictive and fun. I have made 4, and have stuff to make a few more. Two of mine are cobalt, one is milk glass, and is the lead crystal type glassware. I can't wait to get my amber one done next. It won't be very big, but that's the fun of totems. You can make most any size. I even have a tiny one that's only about 10" high. Pix of all in photobucket album, so you've probably seen them before. Karen Here is a link that might be useful: sangaree_KS

Kay-Luvs, ya done good ! That plate is really beautiful. I think the Family word is my favorite thing tho. It will look great with your photos. You'll have to share a picture of that wall when done. I hit Goodwill and found some neat stuff too, will have to get pix. I still haven't decorated for St Pats yet, I bought stuff last year for first time, but don't have a lot. I decided not to get more right now since Easter so close to it, and I really want to haul out all my Easter goodies. I went overboard last year on them I think. LOL. I did stop in Dollar Tree today to see what they had for Paddy's and virtually nothing to my surprise!!! But some ladies in there buying silk flowers to decorate for Easter they said, and they are skipping the Green this year cause of the two being so close. Hmmmm....... nah,I can't do that to Brat Cat when he loves the leprechauns so much. hugs, Karen

I love your plates. I bought a set of blue solid color dishes last week at Goodwill. I started to pass on them because I didn't want that many. There were 4 each of DP, salad plates, and bowls. They had been stacked together and taped with masking tape, but someone had pulled them apart. However the long piece of tape was still on the DPs. They were marked $5! I took them to the front to see if they were really only $5 for all of them and yep. So, I brought them home! I also found some red ones that were in a beautiful brilliant red. They were at the sale where I bought my new glasses cabinet over the weekened. I passed on them because there were so many. I need some red and would love to have some more patriotic pieces. I did find a BEAUTIFUL set of red, white and blue dishes that featured the Lone Star and were so Texas looking. I passed on them and then went back to the TS after sleeping on it and they were gone. I might try using red chargers with my blue plates and add in some white for a patriotic look. I think I will give it a try for Flag Day this weekend. DD and I bought DH a new gas grill and so will be playing with it a lot. So, a Flag Day outside meal is in the making.

I'm sure you saw the NYT piece on her. Natural forms, such as seed pods, seem to have been an inspiration. She taught at UC Santa Cruz, so I don't think an Oregon collector is such an oddity. Zarina Hashmi acquired a B.Sc. (Honours) Degree from Aligarh Muslim University in 1958. She further went on to study printmaking with S. W. Hayter at the Atelier, Paris between 1963- 67 and wood block printing at Toshi Yoshido Studio, Tokyo in 1974. Her exhibition in New York a few decades back was particularly well received. She has been awarded residencies at Art-Omi in Omi, New York, and at the Womens Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York. In 1985 and in 1990, Hashmi was awarded the N. Y. F. A. Fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Artists Books. She has taught at Bennington College, Cornell University and University of California at Santa Cruz. Her work is represented in collections like the Museum of Modern Art, Victoria Albert Museum, and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. She has had several solo shows which includes the retrospective, Counting 1977-2005, with Bose Pacia, New York (2005), Cities, Countries and Borders, Chemould Gallery, Mumbai, India; Chawkandi Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan (2004), Maps, Homes, and Itineraries, Gallery Lux, San Francisco California (2003), Home is a Foreign Place, Korn Gallery Drew University, Madison, New Jersey (2002), Chawkandi Gallery Karachi, Pakistan (2000), Homes I Made, Faculty Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz (1994), House with Four Walls, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, New York (1992) among several others. She has also had several group exhibitions which include Fresh Talk Revisited: New York Artists from Fresh Talk / Daring Gaze, Asian/ Pacific/ American Studies Gallery, New York University, New York (2003), From the Two Pens / Line and Color in Islamic Art, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA (2002), In Conversation, Gallery Espace, New Delhi, India (2001), among several others. She has several received several award in the course of her practice, like the Presidents Award for Printmaking, India (1969), Japan Foundation Fellowship (1974), Residency Award at the WomenÂs Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York (1991), the Residency award at the Art-Omi, Omi, New York (1994), amongst others. Working extensively in the abstract, minimalist idiom, Hashmi constructs symbolic maps that chart journeys and dis/locations, both physical and metaphoric, inscribing memories and experiences through the geometry of borders and ÂShadowlinesÂ. The Atlas of My World (2001), for instance, is a woodcut, which represents not just borders on a map but the barriers one crosses in life. "I started with the border that has most affected my life  the border between India and Pakistan. I decided to make an atlas from existing maps and draw the borders that I have crossed from country to country." The House with Four Walls is a portfolio of prints, through which the artist has revisited her childhood in Aligarh. The last series in this set is, The Home is a Foreign Place. While her works are rooted in this milieu, they have progressed to considerations beyond personal nostalgia and memory. The Images of Delhi (2000) comprised of three layouts: one recalls Lutyens Delhi featuring the Chandni Chowk, another, the walled city of Shajahanabad and the third is just a wavy line.The complex layered history of these three DelhiÂs is evoked through a cluster of intersecting roadways, illustrating how the synergy of an accumulated culture vitalizes Delhi today. Her retrospective, Silent Soliloquy (2006), Singapore, brought together a large body of lithographs, woodcuts, threadworks, pin drawings and etchings on paper, made in the 1970Âs. Weaving Memory, Bodhi Art, Mumbai (2007) draws upon the poetics of space and the politics of cultural migration to inscribe her memories of the people, places and things she has encountered. The artist lives and works in New York.