Saturday, June 19, 2010

#80 - I Am the Batter & Ripple Sketches


Holland's "8 and Under" All Stars
Photo by Amy LV


Last night was one good game for the Holland "8 & Under All Stars".  Watching these young boys play baseball, I feel my own blood rush with excitement, and the drama of one-batter-at-a-time keeps families and friends happily hopping and cheering.  After yesterday's game ended, my friend Bonnie asked, "Why don't you write a poem about THIS?"  Thank you, Bonnie...I did!

Students - We all have things that work us up.  For good or bad, nervous or excited...big emotions stir the spirit.  And from this spirit-soup, poems rise as steam.  So watch and listen to yourself.  If you get all worked up about something, know that others probably do too.  Therein lies your poem-connection.  This is what both readers and writers hope for: a connection.

Now, for something completely different and important.  Yesterday, many thanks to Toby Speed's Twitter post, I learned about Ripple Sketches.  Artist Kelly Light has come up with one way to support helping the animals in the gulf.  She has invited artists to create and donate small works of art.  Her blog, Ripple Sketches, explains:

"Each sketchcard on this blog is $10.00. The $10.00 is a donation to help the animal victims of the Deep Water Horizon Gulf Oil Spill. Every penny is donated. The two Non-Profits that are benefiting are The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center. You can purchase a card if you donate directly to one of the non-profits and email me the confirmation and your address to ripplesketches@verizon.net. The artist will mail you the signed card."

Yesterday I "bought" two small and exquisite works of art, and you can see them at Cathy Delanssay's  Goutte de rosee and at Shirley Ng-Benitez's Shirley's Illustrations.  I encourage to you visit Ripple Sketches and join in this well-planned, good-hearted, and artistic effort.  It is sad and inspiring to look at these lovely sketchcards, all donated by generous artists.

(Please click on COMMENTS below to share a thought.)

4 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness, Amy, thank you! It is with great pleasure that I contributed in my small way to the ripple effort..and you are so wonderful to support the cause by your purchases! Many thanks! My computer completely died on Friday and I believe I had received an email from you - I'm sorry but I can't access the email anymore as it's on the computer..if you could kindly resend it, it'll go to my server again and I can pull it down. Thank you again - and your watercolor will safely head to you tomorrow am. By the way, isn't Cathy's piece the most amazing thing?!! I, too, am a fan of hers and it was great to discover her work on the ripple blog. Hope we can do a lot to help the efforts out there in the Gulf.

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  2. Shirley,
    I will send you an e-mail!
    A.

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  3. A HOME RUN!!! Two, actually. One in your poem, and the other is Ripple.

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  4. Thank you, Mary Lee! I agree that Ripple is a home run - completely. Today I "bought" the two shell watercolors. Sigh. I hope your summer is lovely and full of books. (I am lost in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO!)
    A.
    You are a home run in blog friendship.

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