Froggishness

Another down-and-back trip to the city was on the docket for today. I needed some supplies for next week's workshops in Crested Butte (namely leather for making journals), so off I went. It was a nice day for a drive and traffic was light (a bit of a surprise during the summer tourist season).

Errand running took a total of 90 minutes (which was less than the time it took me to get there), so once again I managed a little time at the zoo. (Okay, so I was efficient about errands because I wanted time at the zoo.) Cheyenne Mountain Zoo has a nice, new little exhibit about the challenges of amphibian conservation- complete with a tank chock full of semi-cooperative American bullfrogs.

I finally came up with an answer to one of the most exasperating questions I receive whilst sitting in front of an animal exhibit with a sketchbook in my lap and pencil in my hand:

"What are you doing?" asks a bystander.
"Baking a cake," say I.

The new linocut block is drawn and I'll get the little bits carved for the first color this week. I'm not sure if I'll start printing right away, since I'll be gone all next week to teach workshops, and I don't like to lose momentum once I start. We'll see how I feel this weekend.

Art (Sleep-) Walking

Hooray! We survived another great Salida Art Walk weekend.. tired, but happy.

Earlier in the week Roberta Smith, Lisa DeYoung and I set up a display of handmade books at our local independent addiction-feeder, The Book Haven. Once we figured out what we were doing with our assortment of books and book-making gear, we put together what we all felt was an attractive collection. Unfortunately I could never get a photo through the window that didn't have the rest of town reflected as well, so you'll have to take my word for it from this image taken inside the store.


Proprietor Lisa Marvel invited me to hang some linocuts in the shop, as well. Recognize that crazy thing over the piano?


To complete the ensemble, the DM played for a few hours at the store yesterday afternoon, and promptly sold all of the CDs he brought with him. This afternoon we popped in again, and heard the disc playing on the shop sound system. Very nice!


I sold a couple of linos and a leather journal, so we're both pleased with the weekend results. Several friends from the Front Range made surprise appearances, which made the weekend extra fun. Now if we can just recover some sleep.

Not too likely, since this time next week I'll be heading off for five days of workshop teaching at the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival. I think the Field Sketching I sections are both sold out, but last time I checked there were a couple of spots left in the "II" class, and in the leather journal-making class. Come on up! We've had so much rain this month that the wildflowers ought to be spectacular.

This means, naturally, that there's a whole lot of gear-switching and task finishing coming up this week. AND, in the "of-course-it-would-happen-NOW" category, the DM came home between gigs yesterday to discover a large chunk of the guest room ceiling lying on the floor. It's a long story involving a plaster patch administered before we moved in. Let's just say it didn't hold and add it to the "to do" list. (sigh)

But don't despair... guess what THIS is:


Yup. In-progress drawing for a new complicated linocut. Life is good.

Summer Crazies, Part II

It's Art Walkin' Time!

This Friday, Saturday and Sunday in downtown Salida.

I'll be showing handmade books and linocuts at the Book Haven, along with friends and colleagues Roberta Smith and Lisa DeYoung. On Saturday from 4-8pm I'll be on hand at the Book Haven talking to folks about print- and book-making. Come on by and say hi if you're in the neighborhood.

David the DM will be playing Chapman Stick on Friday at Apogee Studio (5-8), Saturday at the Book Haven (12-2) and Saturday evening at Krivanek Jewelers (5-8). Of course he'll have the new CD, Residue, on hand, too!

Summer Crazies, Part I

The 61st Annual FIBArk (First in Boating on the Arkansas) Festival was this past weekend... an annual event which finds Our Fair City doubling in size for a few crazy days. Sometimes TOO crazy. (A lot of our friends actually leave town during FIBArk... it's not a bad plan.)

It's still new to the DM (his second FIBArk), so we stuck around and went to some of the events. It's really quite nice to live a scant 4 blocks from the Festival, since we could walk down whenever we needed to get out of the house, cruise the scene for a bit, and then wander back home.

So... a few of our personal highlights:

Tenderfoot Hill Climb. Don't even THINK that we DO this race. We just like to watch our crazy FRIENDS do it. You see those dots? Runners. From 1st and F streets, three blocks, cross the river, run to the top of S Mountain, and run back to the starting line. The first place runner usually does the entire thing in under twelve minutes. I kid you not.


The Parade. It's a small town. The parade route is... hm... six blocks long? But every Shriner outfit known to mankind shows up for this thing, along with the usual contingent of outrageous floats and obligatory cute kids twirling batons.

Our friends Jack and Linda providing tandem parade music.


The Salida ballon ride folks firing off their balloon jet. (I couldn't help but wonder what it cost them to do this for several blocks.)


Local band, the Groove Farmers. The DM's partner in "Your Surrogate Cousin" is sitting in on harmonica for this one. (That's Eric on the far right, red hat.)



It was also the opening weekend for the Salida Farmer's Market. Hooray! We picked up a few goodies to tide us over until our share from Weathervane Farm starts next week. Yummy!


The unfortunate end of all this frivolity was an apparently professional hit on three local restaurants in the wee hours of Monday morning.... really quite appalling. The biggest weekend of the summer for many of our small, family-run businesses, all lost. Kinda makes you want to smack someone, doesn't it?

Coming up next? Salida Art Walk in just three more days! Yikes! Are we ready? Of course not.

Woot! Woot!

Guess what this is:


It's one of seven crates of these!


Just arrived on the doorstep... David Tipton and Clanky Frog Studios are pleased to announce the release of Residue! Fourteen original compositions on Chapman Stick.

Well, okay, it probably won't be released until tomorrow, because someone we know needs to set up the order page on his website. But it's here! Hooray!

You might (or might not) recognize the cover photo as Salida's own Sands Lake, taken by me during one of our rare fog events. See? There's a REASON for running outside to record things at the least provocation. You never know where it might come in handy.

Sketchbook date

Crowned crane and hornbills

I had to make another run to the city this week. It's always a major undertaking, since the two large cities nearest to us are 2 and 2 1/2 hours away. A down-and-back trip is common, but grueling.

This time I managed to sneak in a couple of hours to run off to the zoo, sketchbook in hand. I got there early, just before the (people) gates opened, and managed a couple of pages of scribbles before the crowds got enormous and irritating.

The hardest part about drawing in a public place like the zoo is not the drawing, but the people. I'm going to avoid a rant because a) it could get ugly and b) I'm tired, but c'mon, adults! How about at least TRYING to pass good information on to the kids you're hauling around? Despite signs and information in front of every exhibit, it's appalling the sort of misinformation I overhear while I'm working. Adults just make stuff up if they don't know!

Well, kids do, too.

The funniest thing I heard all day came from kids who must have been 5 or 6 years old. A group swarmed around me as I sat sketching in front of the giraffe yard. One boy noticed that some giraffes had darker spots than others, so immediately announced that "Boy giraffes had black spots and girl giraffes had brown spots." The adult with the group responded with, "Really? I never heard that before. Is that true?" To which aforementioned child responded, "Oh, yes. My dad told me. (pause to decide how to back up his claim) He works here. (Another pause.) He takes care of the giraffes. I help him. I feed the giraffes...."

Kid #1 was definitely warming to his topic, and the story was growing when Kid #2 literally did an end run around Kid #1 (and me). Kid #2 insinuated himself between Kid #1 and the rest of the group and said, conspiratorially, "Well. MY dad told ME that giraffes can suck your brains out just by sticking their tongue in your ear. You don't wanna get too close to THOSE things."

Next time I go to the zoo, I'm taking ear muffs. For multiple reasons.

Linocut cogitation

It's pretty obvious there hasn't been a lot of linocut action around here lately, but I have been thinking about the next one in the "underfoot" series. We've had amazing (for us) amounts of rain the last couple of weeks, so it seems pretty natural to look for something green to tackle.

Green. Dare we even go there?

I've been taking some photos and doodling a few sketches, but until this morning nothing really started to speak to me of possibilities. As usual, I seem to be focusing on really complex compositions. Check out these candidates:





I like this last one a lot, but the first two in this series are vertical and I had it in mind that the third would be as well. I'm going to have to cogitate on that for a while. I don't think it works well to turn this one vertically... but maybe.

Of course, I could always just DO it, and not worry about whether it "goes with" the others.

I'm going to go paste 'em in my sketchbook and draw on them for a bit to see what grabs my attention. Other than lunch. Which should be soon. Maybe now.

PS

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