Tamsyn Walker’s take on Waxing Poetic

“When I receive a gift from Waxing Poetic,
the feeling is absolutely incredible.”

Tamsyn Walker, the youngest of 3 sisters, just graduated High School, is currently touring Europe, and here, talks about what she loves most about Waxing Poetic, her sense of style and a fun little Q&A.



When we interviewed each sister, we asked them the same 5 questions.
Here are Tamsyn’s answers.

1. What would you call your personal style?
i.e. Preppy, Bohemian, Glam etc.

I don't have a specific style. My clothes aren't retro, bohemian, preppy, or anything like that. I kinda just mix it all together. However, I would say that I lean to an edgier look trying out some more daring pieces every now and then.

2. Who is your greatest style icon?

There are so many great style icons, it is really hard to say. I have currently been obsessed with what Cara Delevinge has been wearing.

3. If you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one thing with you, what would it be?

I probably would want a satellite phone so I could call for help and get rescued. Not very whimsical but very practical!

4. If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?

I would go to dinner with Cleopatra. I think she is an incredibly interesting historical figure that did a lot for a women in her era.

5.  What is your favorite quote or line of Poetry?

One of my favorite quotes that has always stuck with me is, "Fear is stupid, so are regrets."- Marilyn Monroe

I Madonnari

Madonnari is Italian for street painter. Each year, artists and children gather at the historic Santa Barbara Mission to bring various large-scale works of art to life using only their hands and chalk.  Funds raised from the festival go toward the Children’s Creative Project and people come from all around to enjoy the food, music and art! This year, we participated for the first time.  With our deeply rooted Italian heritage and love of culture, the festival felt like a great fit. Botticelli’s Flora from Primavera was adorned with a Bee Brave Honeypearl necklace and rendered in an impressionist style. Ciao!

Dear Graduate:

IF you haven’t read this by now (or even IF you have),  a wish for you…

If 
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you 

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, 

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 

But make allowance for their doubting too; 

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, 

Or being hated, don't give way to hating, 

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; 

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; 

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 

And treat those two impostors just the same; 

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken 

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, 

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 

And lose, and start again at your beginnings 

And never breathe a word about your loss; 

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 

To serve your turn long after they are gone, 

And so hold on when there is nothing in you 

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 

Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, 

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, 

If all men count with you, but none too much; 

If you can fill the unforgiving minute 

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, 

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

A Sister Story: Pondering Graduation Gifts

Watch as the sisters share with you about the Waxing Poetic gifts they received for graduation!
Sisters Ella, Georgie and Tamsyn Walker each share the story of their individual journeys, and the personal style they cultivate through their Waxing Poetic collection. When the Walker sisters aren’t hanging out at their Santa Ynez Valley, California ranch, they are travelling the world, studying abroad, working in the city and getting ready to go off to college. This is a look into the lives of three sisters, with three very different personal styles and three big things in common: their authentic expression of giving, their zeal for life, and their tight loving bond with each other.

A Sister Story: The Walker Family

http://youtu.be/Lsuv4mt9W8s

Sisters Ella, Georgie and Tamsyn Walker each share the story of their individual journeys, and the personal style they cultivate through their Waxing Poetic collection. When the Walker sisters aren’t hanging out at their Santa Ynez Valley, California ranch, they are travelling the world, studying abroad, working in the city and getting ready to go off to college. This is a look into the lives of three sisters, with three very different personal styles and three big things in common: their authentic expression of giving, their zeal for life, and their tight loving bond with each other.

Here the Walker sisters collectively create a Mother’s Day story necklace for their Mom. Watch the video to see more, what pieces they choose and why.

Song "We Come And Go" by Jaret Campisi

Our beautiful, Brave life.

All of us, even the most peaceful, passive, seemingly weak of us, have a brave self inside of us, that is usually freed up when crisis hits, or when we feel trapped by what we view as limitations.

Bee Brave Pendant in Rose Quartz

Sometimes we temporarily forget this birthright.  So God gives us (or we create) breakdowns of all sorts, and we either witness them or experience them ourselves, and know again that we are stronger then we think.  And once we taste this bravery, we want it, all the time.

When we design, we are always drawing on our experiences of this living bravery, so as to create reminders, small treasures and markers, of our dreams. The bravest ones, the truest ones. The dreams that are the most authentic expressions of who we are.

Some people are not called to be brave in an overt way, but develop a brave self over time.  Others, like Joshua King, discover this earlier (at 3 years old he was diagnosed with Leukemia).  His story and positive attitude really spoke to my heart.

He has adopted the motto, “Be Brave,” which is an anthem we all love here (and we are in good company with the legions are Sara Bareilles fans dancing in the streets!).  She has connected with him in such a fantastic way… and helped this amazing boy realizes one of his dreams, which is to sing Sara’s song of the same name with her:



Wishing Sara the best of luck at the upcoming Grammy awards this Sunday night… and sending much love and thanks to Joshua for showing us pure spirit and love.  Two incredible, living reminders of this beautiful, brave life we are all living.

Find out more about some organizations that have supported Joshua and guide and help families who are dealing with pediatric cancer: http://bebrave.me/resources.html

#sarabareilles #sarabfans #bebrave #beebrave #sarabgrammys #grammys #theblessedunrest

Small Hands

Brianna Colburn, my dear friend (and Waxing Poetic’s official poet), performed a sublime reading of one of my most favorite poems during dessert one evening at a small dinner party I was hosting.  Her tender voice, along with the empty space of the most beautiful pauses, echoed the frailty so beautifully rendered here by E.E. Cummings.  The metaphor of small acts and small ways as transformative and powerful… like many, many small drops of rain…  always keeps me conscious of the beauty and potency of the tiny and true.

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

E.E.Cummings

You can also find this beautiful poem in Woody Allen's “Hannah and Her Sisters”… a “wooing” gift (oldest trick in the book I think!) from Michael Caine to his sister-in-law, with whom he is in love:



With love,

Patti

WAXING POETIC HEROINES: DOROTHY

Dorothy Gale's open hearted, cheery and optimistic outlook all along the yellow brick road to the Emerald City inspired us!  Making friends on her journey, her bravery to conquer that wicked ol' witch and the notion that it may have all been a dream, is wondrous and keeps us hopeful of a place called OZ, somewhere over the rainbow...

The Music of a Most Touching Thank You

Please, more cartoons! Amy’s simple, home-made thank you card.

Sometime last year, John and I hosted my old college friend (hence, but maybe not that obviously so, Jersey girl) Amy Berridge for an extended weekend.  Amy always brings stories and her (now) well-travelled mandolin.  And denim, fleece, toys for Lulu, an appetite, and pure down-home-ness.

Amy is an amazing writer, who set off to Canada after college (a place probably not chosen by accident, since her favorites songwriters Joni Mitchell and Neil Young hail from the place) for a graduate degree, and maybe more importantly, some focused mandolin home-schooling and musical roots steeping.

I have enjoyed so much good music over the years with Amy.  She is just one of those magical people.  Mostly off grid.  But tuned in.  Aware of her place on Earth.   A student and a true believer. A fan and a participant.  An prarie-economist  as well, who often speaks of prepping for the “revolution.” Jokingly, guns and goats and guitars. Survival. But then she laughs and tosses all that aside and moves back into moment, and we go deep into whatever we are listening to (or playing).

She has the most amazing ear, and the most amazing heart.  A few days after she left us, we received a  package which held three things: a simple pasted-on cartoon card, a CD of mix-tape-type tunes, along with her famous, super-enjoyable “liner notes”… some songs that reminded her of our visit.  

The gift: Amy’s liner notes

This isn’t the first gift of music and time and place I have received from Amy.  It is just the one that represents this last trip.  Always anticipated, her gifts of music and prose and joy and wonder are more than just received and read: they are well played and preserved (like any good piece of correspondence that defines a time and a place would be).  They are a travelogue of our friendship, in a way.

To get off “autopilot” when sifting through mail by way of receiving this kind of “gift” of a thank you from a friend is like a return to life.  Time to pause, and read and enjoy and care again.  And revisit a weekend, and mark it for keeps with music and interpretation and memory….

I’d probably post this on Amy’s social media outlets if she had them, but she is decidedly staying off all of that.  She prefers an email. Or a phone call. Or an actual visit!  So, we will get planning some real time together soon. And wishing the same to all of our friends.

Xo,

Patti

P.S. Here is one of Amy’s picks, Django’s Minor Swing (and if you like this, Django Reinhardt on Pandora should make you happy too):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpmOTGungnA