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Annie Olson

"Artist Musings"

Come into my shell with me! My "Artist Musings" will give you an insight into my inner workings and why I create these faux shells and other works of art.

Annie Olson

Updated: May 4, 2021

I can still “see myself” sitting in a stuffed chair in my tiny bedroom. My folks had the big bedroom and my grandma had the other large one.


I was probably only four or five. This was way before Velcro. ( In fact, Velcro was a word in our crossword puzzle today. ) So in order to hold shoes on kiddy feet, shoestrings were used. And like any good strings, they knew their job was to become a tangle of knots to fascinate a child like myself.


I just loved to curl up in that soft friendly chair. I look down at my shoes and find my fingers and eyes invited into the puzzle below.


At the time, I was way too young to ponder why I loved this activity. But now over 70 years later, I have no problem answering the why.


I seem to have been born with a desire to solve dilemmas, enigmas and such. Taking great pleasure in attempting to solve the unsolvable.


So of course I am well aware of The Gordian Knot and Alexander The Great. Of Alexander solving the puzzlement by destroying It.


To solve it, he had to kill it.


He used his sword to cut all entangled strands into pieces. I’m reminded of Humpty Dumpty and all the king’s men unable to put him back together again.


Now this is only a story. So I have no idea if it is true of The Great Alexander. But this gives a window into me. The deeper me.


I close with a suggestion. Go to YouTube and put in The King and I and Yul Brynner singing the song "It’s a puzzlement."






A song I heard when I was young watching the movie The King and I. One of my favorites.


How I see our world. A Puzzlement.


Pink Eagle (Annie Olson)

Updated: May 4, 2021

I wrote this after listening to the beginning of the Trial of former president Trump. This is what I find myself wondering. Eliciting these questions. I do not have answers, only questions.


When I watched the (just now as I type this, Delegate Stacey Plaskett from The Virgin Islands). Spoke of Trump’s Cavalry.......


“We are the Cavalry!”



My Indian ears hear this. And I see the United States Cavalry ordered to kill Indians all over the West. Incited to kill children, women, old people too. Not just healthy Indian men on horses with guns. Violently!


Not by accident the word Cavalry is used by Trump and his Followers. Our history of using the Cavalry to get what we want.


With that in mind, here are my thoughts today.


January 6, 2021......I watched The planned Massacre take place live. Afterwards, I found myself wondering. Wondering why they were unable to find Vice President Pence. Why they were unable to hang him. Wondering why they were unable to find Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Wondering why they were unable to blow her brains out.


Do any of you reading my words, realize how painful it is to type this?


Could it be The Hand of God, Our Creator, prevented The Mob from hanging Mike Pence and prevent Nancy Pelosi from being shot in the head? Protecting almost everyone on both sides.


Protecting The Mob Itself and Trump from a Much Worse Outcome. As bad as it was, it could have been so much worse. I think we need to be so grateful it was so mild in comparison to what could have taken place.


I can FEEL the fear of Native Peoples. The Cavalry incited over and over again to slaughter these Human Beings. Not nits, children of lice. Incited to do this so we could gain More Land to build America upon and with.


I plead with each one of you Senators to find Former President Donald Trump guilty of Inciting his Followers to stop the Certification of the Election. By Inciting The Mob to take over The Capital January 6, 2021.


May The Hand of God help each of you to do what needs to be done. I pray for the protection of each of you and your families. A prayer I wish wasn’t necessary.


If you acquit Donald Trump, it’s as if you too are that Very Mob that Trump Incited with his own words.


We need to use Insight to tame the Wild Beast of Incitement.


Pink Eagle (Annie Olson)

Updated: May 4, 2021

Two days ago I went to see a doctor. Nothing unusual about that. I first went to him a few months ago because my thyroid numbers were off and I started taking a small tablet every day. Still nothing unusual. Except at our first meeting, I must have said something that clued him in. Clued him that my way of seeing was unusual. I don’t recall mentioning much. Except growing up here and my first marriage to an Alaskan Native. Sharing that living in Alaska helped a lot to alter my way of seeing.


Well, this recent appointment was enlightening for both of us.



After the medical concerns attended to, I asked him where he grew up. He said Holland. Then asked where I went to school here. He’d somehow remembered I was from here. Then he asks me. “Do you recall Fred Bertch? He was my grandfather.” Yes, he was my math teacher. What a pleasant surprise.


Now before this, I’d brought with me a shell to give him. And I also had brought an Altoid tin with my clay in it. I planned to show him how I made the shells. Finding myself sharing about Unity in Diversity. My doctor caught on right away. We both knew his grandfather would love these shells and the wisdom they could teach.



With everything so dis-unified here in America, we agreed how much people need to grasp seeing this concept of unity in diversity taught through art.


Then he said to me, “What you’re teaching with this clay, making these shells to express this idea, it needs to be known nationally.


I’ve heard this before. I remember Virginia Ferris, a close friend, saying something similar. “You’re famous, but people just don’t know that!” Something I’ve known for a long time. So their words are heard by a prepared psyche.



Myself in that same yearbook, 1960

It was as if the words we spoke were directed. In such a way, that we were actually the ones hearing ourselves. Our inner selves revealing themselves.


The veil between the physical and spiritual is so thin sometimes. For a few minutes this veil was lifted.


I told him I’d write this for my website. I told him I wouldn’t use his name. But he said, no. Use my name if you want. He so realized as I do right now as I write this, the need to say it.


These shells I form are so ready to teach whoever will listen. The Great Mystery has designed our world in a special way. Diverse ways meant to come together in order to find solutions. By uniting in such a way, that their diversity stays intact.


I know this probably doesn’t make much sense. Things like this are next to impossible to

express with words. Maybe as it should be. But I’ll close with this thought.


Take notice of conversations you have with others. Aware that once in while the veil will lift like a mist. For a brief time. And leave you too in this place. How am I to write this in words?


Pink Eagle (Annie Olson)

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