Snake 4 of 49

This is MY snake. I’m thinking zig-zag. It needs a zig zag down the back, and it has to be in browns, those colors I need so much at this moment. Since I’m still not sure if I can control the technique to give me a vertical pattern instead of a twisting pattern (the belly of the first three snakes spirals around instead of being a straight line) I decide to vary the zig zag so that it will look ok in the spiral variant. I feel very good about this snake, it is soothing. It is also a completely repeating pattern, one thing all the way down the length of the body. The “original” had a central zig zag with aggressively multicolored flowers on it. But this one is more in line with the dream I just had.

Well, look, it turns out that I figured out how to do the straight lines. I didn’t quite expect that. As I’m working on this one, it again comes to me in my sleep, I suddenly understand how the head is done. Jim, visiting, idly threads some beads on a needle. He’s made the neck pattern, and I’m exactly at the neck. Since I’ve been trying to figure things out, I decide to accept this as an answer; he does belong involved with me and my work. I can include him, or he’s actually already included, in whatever this process is. I do the head on this one, and then the head on snake 3.

My friend C__ invites me Thanksgiving weekend to walk around some acreage he’s thinking of buying. I take this snake with me, throw it in among the leaves, the moss, the dry winter branches. It belongs here. It also feels like me.