A most beautiful excerpt from my favorite new book, “When Women Were Birds” by Terry Tempest Williams.

“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”

( canvas collage by CATHERINE MASSARO, “Bird on the Wire”)

You can change your entire outlook on life today. You can change your point of view on every move you make by considering this.

It’s not HAPPINESS you should count on in life.

It’s CHANGE.

I can count on the weather changing –  and look forward to the seasons.

I can count on getting older – as I watch my grandaughter grow and thrive.

I can count on life being a puzzling challenge – and proudly finding the pieces that create the picture of my life.

And for now…right now, I can count on the sun rising daily and setting each night. And with everything I do in between those hours I can count on change to guide me through each second, minute, and hour of  my life.

(photo by Catherine  Massaro –  sunrise over the Grand Canyon)

Antique malls are my most satisfying shopping venues. I can’t remember the last time I went to ‘the mall’. Oh, yea, for a gift card from Penny’s for my mom. One of the things I hear often as I check out is, “My, you have quite a variety of items here!”

And it’s true, my interests are many and varied and range from collectible treasures to well, just the weird and abandoned.

I love, love , love this incomplete set of glasses with screen printed California landmarks. I got them cheap because, as you can see, one is missing from the set. And that’s O.K. with me as it gives me something to hunt for when I’m out. However, if you happen to see these anywhere when you are out, drop me a line, I’m looking to complete the set.

The hardest thing to see is what is right in front of your eyes.

(featured photograph by Catherine Massaro)

You all know how the old adage goes –

  Fences make good neighbors.

I just smiled big when I saw this fence on a road trip.

Can’t we all just get along?

(Photograph by Catherine Massaro)

Damn it’s hot! 

Go bite some water.

(photo by Catherine Massaro)

” You do not pass through this life, it passes through you.”

(photo by Catherine Massaro)

There are so many good art books out there. One of my favorites is, THE VIEW from the Studio Door, by Ted Orland. It’s a book on how artists find their way in an uncertain world.

Here is an excerpt that I found particularly valuable to me.

“…When it comes to making art, our intuition is often light – years ahead of our intellect… we sense the meaning of the world unconsciously and capture that meaning through our art – and then have to wait for our intellect to understand what we already knew.”

Something I learned in my last body of work, featured in this web site (TO END IS TO BEGIN) was to go with my intuition and not second guess either my motive or the outcome of the work. I just started doing it – one after the other for over a year and a half. It was only the following year that what I had created became clear to me. They still reveal things to me everyday.

( feature photo – Studio Massaro/ NV – interior, by Catherine Massaro)

To make a photograph, you have to be there.

(featured image- photograph by Catherine Massaro of Sand Mountain Recreation Area in Nevada)