What I've Been Doing

I have been drawing and feeling creativity return the last couple of days as the temperatures cool and I can breathe again. Fall feels like it is in the air and I am rejoicing that a change of season is coming.


This drawing is a sunflower. I love drawing them with their long orange- yellow sloop-y leaves and their rumply brown velvet centers.













This is a piece where I let my mind wander while watching television and drew as an after thought just to see where the adventure took me. I think it is rather like a flowering globe with a river of butter running through it.








This is piece of freeform embroidery and other stitch work done on wool felt. I do not draw a sketch of what I am going to do prior to just sitting down and beginning. No drawing on the felt either, I just start cutting pieces out. It's a bit like an out of body experience as I never know where I will be led.

I am glad for the cooler temperatures we are having today and it was exceptionally pleasant to wake up to rain! Delicious, inspiring, lovely rain! I know everyone is supposed to love summer but for me, I just want to get through the hot days of August when everything is the same shade of dried up across the landscape and I just long to breathe in moisture laden air.Fall is around the corner and I can hardly wait.

An Old Picture - Well Not That Old!

This picture was forwarded on to me by my son who is currently visiting his half sister Paula and her family in Utah. It was taken on a winter's day long ago when Jacob was so much a baby and his niece Emily, was even younger than he was. We were all so young then, beginning our lives as family and friends. My hair was dark, my glasses big and there are genuine, heartfelt smiles on our faces. There is love there and hope and dreams and wishes for the future. It was a good reminder to see today!





There is Eric ( Phil's son ) and his wife Heather, Paula and her husband Nathan, Emily, Jacob, Phil, Michael, my oldest son when he was still in high school, Ashley, Eric's daughter still a pre-teen, and me. What a crew! What a memory!

Too Hot!

It has been so unusually hot here that I have alternated between being super drowsy and napping to be drowned in sweat! I am not a pretty sweat-er and it has made me very unmotivated. Even my little front porch frog has been wilted with the heat!

I promise more blog entries are coming on the scene soon. I feel my mojo coming back now that cooler temps are being forecast!

Easy on Sunday

Dabbling in the studio, finishing this little drawing and taking Jake out for a cheeseburger and apple pie, this Sunday was mellow and relaxing. The weather was cool and gray, the day moved slowly, taking its own sweet time to feel accomplished. I like a day, especially on a Sunday when I can find a moment to slow down, talk to Jake, finish little things like sewing on lost buttons, pulling a weed or two, petting all the dogs, even having Zip for a visit. Sweet.


A relaxing day in the studio, I did not do anything too thought provoking or challenging but just concentrated on making a few things to fill in my empty cases in the shop. These are Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona that I strung up, one with red coral. I came across them in the warehouse today while pulling inventory for the next couple of shows. The color is dramatically blue, a color that races across the sky to fill it in with beauty. I know, the picture looks green but it is just the lighting. This turquoise is magic, I promise.



I missed posting for self portrait Friday so I am adding this photo of myself. I am not sure what happened when I took the picture; maybe I was shaking or I moved but I love that it looks like I have stars in my eyes. I always want to think of myself as someone who could and does have stars in her eyes.

Bird is the Word

The latest drawing in my traveling sketchbook. I seem to have this thing for birds.... even though this one looks more like a Pennsylvania Dutch distlelfink bird. Now that is a word!

Not Much Ado About Anything!

I have a passion for indigenous folk arts from around the world. I love the idea of people decorating the common everyday objects and items they use in their daily lives. I have studied and painted folk art for just about 30 years. I can paint almost anything in just about any country's style of folk art from flowers to pastoral scenes, from faux chinese painting to russian florals.

So now I have an equal fascination with folk arts made from found, used or trash items. This sun, currently adorning the outside wall of my studio, is from Haiti. It is made from a used oil barrel. The Haitians fill a barrel with newspaper, light it on fire to burn out the residual oil, then remove the bottom, cut up the side and begin designing. Their images are usually of nature, sun, birds, flowers, plants or of people; angels, mermaids, children.

I appreciate that the artisans use " at hand " tools or tools they have created. I love the whimsey in their designs and I am glad that a space was donated to them after the earthquake so they could work again. Their livelihood has not been lost in the destruction of Haiti and they can continue to create from nothing images that bring a smile to the face of people across the world and me.

I am going to be watching for the aurora borealis tonight in the darkened skies over PT. They are supposed to be visible but I think clouds may get in the way!

Self Portrait Friday

At this age in this fine summer of 2010 I can honestly say that I am becoming accustomed to my face. Somewhere there is a song composed with this phrase. Self portrait Fridays, when I remember them, have become an interesting exploration in how I look now. I no longer see the 18 year old me, although I feel that inside. I see me, as I am today. Not perfect, not done, but someone's wife, mother, grandmother, friend, employer, cousin, sister, neighbor. I am all these things to others and to me, I just am - accustomed to me.



Plums! We have the first ever tiny wine colored plums from our dwarf tree! I think the tree must have loved our wet spring and early summer. I did not plan on having any fruit again this year so the tree has pretty much become a feeding spot for hungry birds but .... we have plums!