Getting ready for the new year....

Well! We had a holiday weekend a tad more eventful than expected. Christmas day, in the middle of rinsing off the 23-pound turkey (the last one at the grocery store!), the drains in this 100-plus-year-old house decided to stop draining.

Great. Juuuuuuust great.

We wrangled the turkey in to the oven and then spent the next 4 hours doing everything we could think of to clear the line... and doing a lot of cleaning up when nothing worked. The kitchen drain is on the same line with the upstairs bathroom and the laundry room... you can imagine the mess. Thankfully the downstairs bathroom is on a different line, so we weren't completely out of commission. And the turkey turned out great.

Saturday we called in the big guns... and got another mess for our efforts. It took a while to scrub everything down and wrestle everything back in to place, but I am pleased to report that we seem to be functional again.

So how did I celebrate the rest of the weekend? Gutting the file cabinets, of course! And taking a long-neglected walk along the river with my sweetie.

Sum total of studio closet space. It ain't pretty.

This week I'm focusing on making myself more efficient and productive in the new year. I'm lucky to have an entire room dedicated to work space, but in this same 100-plus-year-old house with the dicey plumbing there is a serious shortage of storage space. My tiny studio closet is stuffed to the brim, and every time I want to work on something new or move art around for an exhibition I have to practically empty the entire thing to get to what I need. I also have supplies and art in boxes and bins under tables and on top of tables and on top of cabinets all around the work space. NOT efficient.

It's not a space that leaves me a whole lot of options... it's a big room, but not very flexible. (One long wall is broken up by two doors and a wall heater, for example.) I'm not sure what the solution is, but this week I'm planning to take the time to at least try to reorganize. The hardest part for me about reorganizing is that I don't deal with clutter very well for very long, which is why I purged book cases last week and files this weekend. Make a mess, clean it up in the same day. The closet is a bigger (read: more than one day) matter... but I know I'll feel better when it's over.

I also know I'll feel better because in between the chaos I intend to keep space open to carve on new linocuts. It's been waaaay too long.

A little light on the longest night

It's my favorite night of the year.... the winter solstice. Not so much because I love winter, but because (as most of us, I expect) I don't so much like the dark. Many years ago I banished the whole "new year's resolution" fiasco and starting taking some quiet time on the solstice to review the past year and make goals for the one ahead. Often I shared this day with a friend, and we declared goals aloud over lunch or a fire or a soak in a hot spring.

It can be difficult to take time out for the solstice, coming as it does just a few days before Christmas, but it's time I take for me and that's important.

In recent years we've spent solstice eve in the happy chaos of a big party at the home of friends Susan and Richard. We eat, drink and make merry, and light over a hundred luminarias on the walkway around their house. It's always a festive occasion and Susan and Richard are generous and enthusiastic hosts. They take time for we... and that's important, too.

This year, however, Richard and Susan aren't home. They're up in Denver, where Richard is in the midst of radiation and chemotherapy treatments for brain cancer. Other friends are absent, too... sickness, loss... chronic pain... it's been quite an overwhelming year and a bit of a dark time.

But this is a town full of sparkling people... dark night or no. Earlier this week Susan sent a gentle request, asking readers of her blog to light the darkness wherever they are. A simple request that in the hands of this community spread... well... like wildfire. Those of us who have previously shared the yearly ritual met at Richard and Susan's home this afternoon. We set the luminarias, as always, along the sidewalk and up to their door.


And then.... groups broke off to set luminarias at other homes throughout our town where a little extra light might go a long way.

This evening David and I lit farolitas of our own, and then walked the few blocks back to Richard and Susan's. There we joined a circle of friends sending wishes for light and love and wholeness to friends and family and, indeed, all beings on earth.

The I Street luminarias with a bit of Christmas Mountain rising above.

In the days since David and I returned from our Big Adventure I've done nothing but run around like a crazy woman. I've had contract deadlines to meet and a Christmas Bird Count to organize and all the other madness that goes with this time of year. My friends are away and going through amazing challenges. Have I been cranky? More than a little. I've been caught inside my head and my obligations and my worries, barely even aware of the presence of the Darling Man. I'm sure you know what I mean.

Tonight our community took some time out for we. We filled bags with sand and candles, we laughed and joked and carried on. We thought of our friends. We held hands.

...and on our steps.

Lucky for me it's the longest night of the year. That means I still have time to sit down with David, to declare the goals we wrote while we were away. There's still time to put away the work and the worry and fill the dark night with light. There's still time to hold hands.

Better go get out some more candles.

Is it over already?

One month ago today, we loaded up the Crusier and headed west. This morning I am back in front of my iMac, laughing as I fumble with actions that in November were mindless, but which now are a little stiff from want of practice. The sun is rising, and I am looking out the window at a pale blue sky and snow-covered ground. Toto, we are not on the coast anymore.

I had mixed feelings about coming home. Travel isn't just fun, it's imperative, I think. Different landscapes, different cultures.... getting a taste of what seems normal and natural for people in other places. Watching other people relate to their home places can be delightful and disillusioning, and it certainly made me think a lot about how I relate to mine. I thought often of how long it takes for people to become oblivious to their usual surroundings. When do people get "too busy" to hear the sound of waves, or note the rise and fall of a river? When do mountains and cliffs become just a backdrop or grasslands become just a surface? When does it all become just a playground or real estate?

And what if we never noticed any of it in the first place? I grew up in a suburb that was once shortgrass prairie, but never, in all my school years there, did anyone ever point that out to me. The prairie was just something early settlers crossed to get to the good stuff. (So despite groaning at school buses in the parking lot at Natural Bridges beach on our tidepool morning, I was pleased that kids were discovering the wonder of their home place.)

Definitely not the coast.

We discovered things about the Santa Cruz area that we loved, and things that made us feel so lucky to live in Salida. By covering the spaces in between by car, we have a stronger sense of what lies along one path between us and the Pacific.

Yesterday, as we made our last push for home, I lamented the things I didn't get done, the big internal changes that I hoped to make that still needed more time. David reminded me this adventure will continue to shape our lives in ways that we haven't yet imagined.

Suddenly I am thinking of a favorite line from Tolkien: "It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step on to the path, and if you don't mind your feet there's no telling where you'll be swept off to."

We're home now... but I'm going to keep stepping out the door. This morning's path seems to lead to the post office to collect the mail, but after that? There's no telling.

Last light in Utah, last night on the road.

Proof of incomplete slackerdom

Okay... I can see that I need to get home and get back to work so I have linos to post here. My Googlejuice is suffering mightily!

As forecast, it IS raining... so yesterday I went to the Seymour Center to draw fish and anemones in tanks. I got to stick my fingers in with the anemones... they liked me, they really liked me! That is, if one can judge one's anemononal social status on how firmly they cling to one's appendages.

As proof that I have not been the complete slacker my recent travelogue would suggest I offer some sketches...

Blue rockfish and leopard shark, Seymour Discovery Center at Long Marine Lab

Tube anemones, ditto location

Giant green anemone, Natural Bridges State Beach

View of coast redwoods out the back door, Soquel.

Sorry you don't have the entire details page, too... I don't have much with me in the way of photo editing software, so I didn't mess around with shooting both sides and blah blah blah.

Two days left until departure. We made a hotel reservation for Monday night, so I guess it's official: We're going home soon. Mixed feelings all around.

Highway 1: We practically own it by now.

Sanderlings and beach wanderers, Seacrest Beach, Soquel

I'll bet you thought we fell in to the sea and were swept away by this time, huh?

The Big Adventure is winding down... we have only 4 days before we head for home. (Although, given the current weather between here and there, the adventure may be amping up when we pull out of the Soquel driveway for the last time.)

Believe it or not, it got cold here this week... nights below freezing and days hovering around 50F. At home 50 degrees would feel like spring, but here we've a damp wind and it can be pretty darn uncomfortable. HOWEVER.. it's been below zero at home, so we are absolutely not complaining.

A new concept of "bird bath." Seacrest Beach pier.

So let's see... where have we been... what have we done? 1) Everywhere. 2) Paltry little drawing, but plenty o' gawping. When we last left our heroes, they were headed to the Saturday Farmer's Market in Aptos. Truly delightful for multiple reasons. Okay... for one reason with multiple facets: diverse vendors! Available? A wide variety of veggies and fruits (we bought blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries), fish, dates, nuts, and scads of flowers. All KINDS of flowers. In December. I was most chagrined to find some beautiful potted orchids for only $3 each... if I could have figured out how to get them home without mishap, I would have loaded up the Cruiser. Still... I missed our little market at home in Salida. June seems so very far away....

From there we scouted antique shops (meeting a few novel-worthy characters along the way) and then went down to wander about Capitola Village. (Shops, restaurants, beach, wharf, funny multi-colored hotel... the "usual" tourist fare.) It was a big day.

Sunday I felt a need to catch up on writing, so we set ourselves up with tea and a table at a bookstore in Santa Cruz. Afterwards we strolled downtown and had the most decadent cup of hot chocolate at Marini's. You know you're in trouble when they perch a chunk of fudge on the edge of the cup like a lemon wedge. (They also sell chocolate-covered bacon, but that's another story entirely.)

On Monday we stayed close to home and spent the day looking at goals and plans for the new year. AKA: Reality check. Ooph. There's gonna be some serious settling down to art- and music-making in 2010!

Are you still with me? By now we must be up to Tuesday. AKA: Big Highway 1 Day.

California 1 runs 655 miles along the Pacific coast from somewhere south of Los Angeles to somewhere north of San Francisco. We've actually spent a lot of time on short sections of it, because Highway 1 is just a few blocks from where we are staying. You have to love road directions that are the same for places like Monterey, Carmel, and Big Sur: Get on Highway 1 and go south until you get there.

I'm not sure I have words to describe this drive... although I will say that the DM and I simultaneously had the same thought: We sure were glad his long-time Cleveland self had a year-and-a-half of Colorado mountain driving experience! It's not a scary road, just winding and full of distracting scenery- each curve revealing dramatic new vistas. Once again, though, we scored by being here in December. Yeah, it's a little cold and gray from time to time... but traffic was negligible. It was easy to pull over every time one of us said, "OOOH, stop!"

We kept looking for gray whales, which should be in the area just now, but without practiced "sea eyes" we didn't find any. We DID see a huge group of sea lions hauled out on a beach far below us, their barking, quarreling voices got our attention before the tiny, distant shapes of their bodies.

At one stop we enlisted the help of two young men with heavy packs and a dog who were hiking down the highway. They were 15 miles from their next water stop and already dry, so the DM emptied his water bottle into theirs and we asked for a photo in return. The designated photographer kept backing up until I wondered if we would be in the shot at all. Ah well, WE know it's us.

By the time we reached Lucia we were famished, and stopped at the only open restaurant for miles. You know where this part of the story is going, right? Can you say $21 for fish and chips? Live and learn. Next time we'll pack peanut butter sandwiches.

On the way back we enjoyed a stop at the dramatic Hawthorne Gallery, where Kathleen was kind enough to let me "play" in the jewelry displays and to hang out on the deck with us looking for whales. (It was a quiet afternoon for her, too.) We also stopped in Carmel, which was loaded with galleries exhibiting a disturbingly saccharine repertoire. There were a few artists whose work really stood out (I quite liked the graphic nature of some oil paintings by Gregory Stocks, for example), but otherwise the scene seemed unchanged from one gallery to the next. And not. One. Printmaker.

This morning we were beat, and ready to stay home and record some music (the DM) and make some drawings (me). But the weather forecast for the next few days calls for rain and today dawned clear(ish) and cold, so we squeezed in one more day trip. We went north on Highway 1 this time, just a few miles through Santa Cruz to Natural Bridges State Beach. I wanted tide pools.

There used to be another natural bridge, but it washed away and left a gap.
The visitor center here has some great photos illustrating how this formation has changed since 1900.

There was an ominous sign at the gate stating that the seas were rough and to stay out of the water. The first moments on the rock ledges were pretty nervous-making for me. Huge, crashing waves and slippery algae made me feel jittery, as if I'd had way too much caffeine, but after a while I got used to the (erratic) rhythm and things dried out just a tad. The best pools were, of COURSE, closest to the edge.


We never found any crabs or sea stars, but we did see plenty of periwinkles and limpets and barnacles and tiny crawly things. And anemones!... including this "giant green anemone." (Of course that's its "real" name, what else would you call it?)


Did I mention the sea was rough? That the sign at the gate said not to get in the water? You might be able to guess, then, that the place was littered with surfers...

Since we have no experience of wave riding, we've spent a fair amount of time watching surfers and trying to imagine their understanding of sea and swell. We've decided we're pretty much clueless. But today, as we sat on the ledge watching surfers try to work the heaving, wild water, we were joined by a young man with a camera and an ukulele. It turned out he was a sidelined surfer ("blown-out knee"), keeping track of the action both onshore and off. One query from us about about reading the waves, and he enthusiastically explained why Santa Cruz was so famous for surfing (the orientation of its shore to the prevailing wind and waves), why the waves broke where they did (offshore reefs), why the swells were so epic today (big storm leaving Hawai'i and headed this way). He also gave us a great tip about other places to access this chunk of shore, more tide pools, and the Seymour Center at the Long Marine Lab (UCSC). Would that we had met him days ago! Still, we went over and checked out the lab campus, and the Seymour Center looks like a great place to hang out with a sketchbook if it really is raining the next few days.

If only my arms were long enough to make self-picture taking a little less goofy.
On the cliff behind the Seymour Center.

Whew! I think that brings us more or less up to date. Already I feel my attention tugged back towards home... torn between the feeling that there's still so much to see and do before we head back to the Rockies, and the knowledge that obligations and adventures await us there, too.

From Tuesday's road notes:

Travel is for discovering paths that are windier* than your own.

(* More winding.)

Leafy Sea Dragon Video, Take... Three?

Hey! I think it worked this time! Here are the groovy little leafy sea dragons at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I'll see if I can't convince the DM to do something with the jellies videos, too. :)

Ambient soundtrack provided by the Aquarium. Squawking kid included.

Lions and dragons and artichokes, oh my!

Are these sea lions on the wharf at Santa Cruz, or post-Thanksgiving gluttons digesting their meals? Given the barking and groaning, one might guess the latter.

Zoooom! This trip is flashing past at an alarming rate. Crazy to think we left home two weeks ago... in The Way of Trips, it seems both ages ago and only yesterday.

We spent the Thanksgiving holiday near Auburn (north of Sacramento), visiting friends and seeing yet another view of this massive state. We did all the usual Thanksgiving rituals: too much food, driving in traffic, and even watching football. (Although I couldn't tell you who we watched or how the game was. Watching sports always puts me to sleep.)

On the way home we got OFF the interstate and wandered some back roads through farm country and over the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. Much more our style! I do love being the navigator, and not just because I hate driving in traffic. I love maps... love looking at them, figuring out where we are, deciding where to go, and then discovering all the things about the route that a map doesn't show us. Artichokes, for example. In my mind I knew that they were in the thistle family, but I never imagined what acres of huge, cultivated thistle plants might look like until we drove past some yesterday. I wish we could have stopped to take a closer look because now I have lots of questions. (Such as, do these big, cultivated plants have the same array of thorny, stickery bits as wild thistle?)

We spent Sunday at "home" in Soquel, venturing out only to the grocery store. Ahhhhhh!

But YESTERDAY. Yesterday I hypothesized that the Monday after a 4-day holiday might be a good day to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Probably no school groups on field trips. Probably not many families, as they've just spent the last 4 days together and are probably sick of each other. So off we went.

The view from the Aquarium's back deck... not bad, eh?

I am delighted to report that, YES! It was blissfully un-busy! By mid-day things had picked up, but never really got obnoxious. Delightful!

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has been on my list of places to go for ages, and I wasn't disappointed. "The Secret Lives of Seahorses" exhibit alone is worth the trip... and the DM could have spent all day mesmerized by the jellies.

I didn't take a lot of time to draw (I could have settled in there for days), but I did get some sketches done of the The Most. Fun. Things. to Draw. Ever.

Leafy and Weedy Sea Dragons! Bizarre, otherworldly, and yet somehow completely plausible. A fish that looks like a horse that looks like a dragon that looks like a plant? Why the heck not, I say?




Talk about fun to draw! Always moving, always changing... I had to stop and focus on one thing at a time: shape of head, undulating shape of body, locations of appendages, shape of appendages. In this Leafy Sea Dragon I only drew HALF of the "leafy" appendages. Each is paired along the length of the critter, but I ran out of time and brain cells to stay with it. As I work on this post I am trying to upload some video that we took... but Blogger isn't cooperating very well. I may have to try again later.

Adjacent to the Aquarium is a pedestrian/bicycle trail that runs along the coast through Monterey and Pacific Grove. Just a couple of blocks down from the Aquarium we found these interesting rocks.


Oh, wait! Those aren't rocks! They are harbor seals. Cool.

Another five minutes down the road is the Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary, a tiny patch of woods behind houses, a motel, and a school, that is winter home to migrating monarch butterflies. This was supposed to be the peak of their arrival, but the docent on duty said they didn't have nearly as many this year and they didn't know why. (Climate change, anyone?) Typically they have as many as 25,000 butterflies. We saw maybe a thousand. But like all living things, butterflies are unpredictable. Maybe there are a lot fewer, and maybe they're just hanging out somewhere that no one has identified yet. Maybe both. It's the sort of question that keeps scientists employed, I'd say!

Late afternoon light meant the clusters were mostly backlit and hard to photograph, but it was fun to stand there and watch as new little clusters formed to wait out the night. In this rather pathetic shot, there is a cluster sort of in the light in the upper left. The large dark mass below is a cluster, and to the right, about midway down, another cluster. Really! Look hard.


It was a full and wonderful day... we even wandered through the tiny Pacific Grove Farmers Market... open all day on a Monday? Strawberries are in here, and there was a fellow from Santa Cruz selling fresh seafood, but I missed our market at home. June seems so far away....

After 2 attempts and more than 30 minutes, Blogger still hasn't uploaded my sea dragon video, so I'll have to consult my technology guru (the DM) and see if I need to do something else. Right now that same technology guy is upstairs making hungry noises, so it must be time for lunch. Better go before he starts gnawing on chair legs (or eats all the lunch and doesn't leave any for me!).

Blue ocean, redwoods, hot tunes

Or: David and Sherrie's Excellent Adventure, Part II.

I'm still trying to find my way to a new routine in a new place, conscious as always of the clock and the calendar... I REALLY need to figure out how to let that all go...

But in the meantime....


Last night the DM and I went to a house concert in the Bonny Doon "neighborhood." There are quotation marks around that word because it's probably not the sort of place you're imagining. (Unless you are the person we know who lives in the rainforest.) Despite a dot on the map marked "Bonny Doon," there is no town that we could find. There ARE however, amazingly twisty roads up and down through thick redwood forest. Dark and damp and mysterious forests punctuated by a few bright, clear, open spaces. Great fun, save for the folks who want to drive ridiculously fast through it all.

We had the presence of mind to head up whilst it was still daylight, which turned out to be wise. It would have been a challenge to find the house in the dark, and by giving ourselves plenty of time we were able to do a little sightseeing along the way.


We stopped first in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park and took a walk through the forest. For arid interior dwellers like ourselves, the cool, dark, moss-covered, decay-wafting woods were a delight. I sniffed trees and turned over leaves like some sort of demented squirrel-bird... thank goodness we left the video camera in the car. After the park, and scouting out the location for the concert, we poked around the little town of Felton. Natural foods store, thrift store, restaurant that serves tasty pho, coffee shop, bar that hosts live music, community center... the entire package in two short blocks.

The concert was fabulous... Stickist Tom Griesgraber and Bert Lams of the California Guitar Trio performed feats of musical prowess whilst we curled up on a cushy sofa. I was completely ignorant of the house concert scene before the arrival of David in my universe, but it's an amazing way to hear great music in a comfortable, casual atmosphere.

Assuming you can find the house, of course.

This morning I was flailing around trying to get some materials together for an exhibition deadline next week. Not successful. So we piled in to the car and went on another expedition, this time to find a nearby beach. Which we did. It was an amazingly perfect morning... sparkling skies, crashing waves, not TOO many people. I found a few things to draw, which I'll post tomorrow, and David took a walk along the shore. Whew! That's better. This evening I've finally started to settle down. Exhibit statement is written, although I'll take another hard look at it in the morning. Journal got some attention. A week's worth of email triage was completed.

Hey, look at that! Thanksgiving holiday is two days away, and I've already got my gratitude list well in hand. Of course, I had a head start, since I'm always thankful for all of you. Whether or not you're celebrating this week, I send warm and cheery greetings your way.

David and Sherrie's Excellent Adventure, Part I

Today the Darling Man and I are celebrating our second anniversary in fine style: As I type, he softly snores at the other end of the sofa.

No, really. This is FINE! We have spent the last five days on the road, enjoying perfect travel weather and a wide variety of sights, but we are tired and our behinds are car-weary and it's really quite lovely to just sit still.

Let's catch up, shall we?

Tuesday morning, 17th November, 7:15 am. Car is loaded. Travelers are occupying the front seats. Departure is delayed four minutes whilst the windshield defrosts. See below.


It was definitely cold. Windshield defrosted, we headed west, hopeful that our weather fortunes would improve, at least temperature-wise. There were some icy patches on Monarch Pass, just west of town, but as we descended to the Gunnison Valley the roads were clear.

And then it got REALLY cold.


Yes, that's the temperature gauge in the DM's car. A second before I took this shot it read 1 degree... warming trend continued from this point. We're not sure if the temperature never fell to zero or if the gauge just doesn't go lower than 1. I guess we'll have to wait until February or so back home to find out.

The first day was our longest, drive-wise. We hauled ourselves all the way to Springdale, Utah, at the mouth of Zion National Park, arriving about supper time. Very brief stops in Green River for fuel and lunch, and at the San Rafael Swell for a leg stretch. (And a few obligatory fuel-and-bathroom stops, of course.)

The Swell is... well, swell.

Places like southern Utah make me really regret being a geologic illiterate. I spend an awful lot of time exclaiming, "Look at THAT! How do you suppose it formed?"

After our crazy-long day we rewarded ourselves with an entire day off to do a "highlights" exploration of Zion National Park. It was fun to be back in the Park just a month after my previous trip, and to share it this time with David. Friend Sandy played hooky from work to run around with us, which made the day extra-fabulous. Sandy and I both managed to squeak in brief breaks for sketching in the afternoon, thereby declaring our adventure (at least to ourselves) "productive."

Sandy and Sherrie on the Canyon Overlook trail.

Cresting the Canyon Overlook. This is not a difficult or long trail, and I highly recommend it. (Especially if you've only a short time in the Park.)

Drawing along the River Walk trail.

The next day we made the short hop from Springdale to.... Las Vegas. Yup. We went to Vegas. We walked up and down The Strip (twice), visited (among other "attractions") "MnMs World" and overdosed on the smell of cheap chocolate and four floors of plastic MnM paraphernalia, lost $4.00 at the penny slots, people-watched like mad and bought the second piece for our new collection of tacky shot glasses. (The first one we bought in Springdale.) We took not one photo. As the DM eloquently described: we were there to take in the vibe, and then take a shower to wash it all off and get the heck out of town. Which we did.

I wish I could remember where we saw this wind farm. There was more than one. I liked the white mills against brown hills and blue sky. Didn't get any particularly good shots as we raced by on the interstate, but....


From Vegas we drove to Fresno, California, through haze and dust and wind. Many, many, many miles of corporate agriculture, which I found oppressive and a bit alarming. Probably didn't help that we watched "Surviving the Dust Bowl" just a few nights before we left. All day I thought about how fortunate and happy we are to have our friends at Weathervane Farm growing organic local produce "just for us."

Yesterday afternoon we arrived at our home base for the next three weeks... Soquel, California, near Santa Cruz. The journey was great, but we are happy to be more or less stationary for a while. This morning we did a little exploring of our new neighborhood, and wound up at "Pleasure Point" watching surfers. The morning was hazy and chilly, but now the sky is blue and the sun is shining with enthusiasm.

Surfers, not waterfowl. Although we did see gulls, cormorants, and pelicans.

Tomorrow the next phase of our adventure begins... we'll try to settle down to a little art-and-music-making, then head out in the evening to a house concert in nearby Bonny Doon. (Chapman Stick player, of course.) I'm twitchy to get some images and ideas down on paper, and David's looking forward to "sketching out" pieces for a new CD. Stay tuned!

RTG

There's a big pile of stuff by the door and a long list of last-minute minutiae on the table... I think we're just about ready to get on the road. I'm SO glad I elected not to pack up the entire office, in part because there won't be any room in the car for it, anyway. Geez. I can leave the country for two months with a daypack and a carry-on, but can I drive across three (okay, four) states with less than 60 pounds of stuff? Of course not.

Foolish optimism drove my belief that this afternoon I would kick back and make a little drawing to launch the journey. Right. Hasn't happened. If I end up not sleeping tonight (as is often the case before big trips), I may still get something done, but don't hold your breath.

Despite snow and cold, a few intrepid sketchers joined me for a little local sketchcrawl on Saturday. We ended up crawling through local stores to stay out of the weather, which turned out to be fun! Coffee shop, dog shop (where we tried unsuccessfully to sketch squirming participants in puppy kindergarten), kitchen store, herb-and-tea shop... Drawings were definitely outside the usual subject realm, although you can see that in the kitchen store I did still manage to find some wildlife to draw. Sort of.



We've a looooonnnnnnng day of driving ahead of us tomorrow, but the rest of the journey will enjoy a more leisurely pace. Whew! Catch up with everyone in a few days!

Reality check

We have 4 days left until we depart for places west, and I've been on the edge of panic all day.

We'll be gone just about a month, and despite my best efforts, I'll still have to take one illustration project with me when we go. In my mind this has meant packing up my 20" iMac and all its attendant gear. Art supplies, of course. And what to do about my Etsy store, right smack in the middle of the holiday shopping season? Do I also pack up prints and books and MORE packaging material and....

It's getting out of hand.

Thankfully I just had a great conversation with friend Carla, during which I came to my senses. Taking my entire office with me would mean I would end up feeling compelled to do MORE work as it came in. And that is so not the point of this trip. David's going to work on a new CD and I'm going to work on the Underfoot project and THAT's the point. So... I dragged The Brick (ancient, barely-operating laptop) out from its place as a doorstop, just to make it into an email and blogging functionary. THAT took all night and made me slightly grumpy, but I think everything is working now. The Darling Man will have his far more up-to-date machine with him, too, so if things get too hairy I'll just have to smile nice and beg for indulgence. I'm hoping I can limp along with outdated software and limited memory long enough to get my illustrations done and files shipped out. And that's all. Really. I swear. Then it's sketches and lino reference and maybe even some carving. NO contract work.

I'm afraid I haven't a single image for this post... but Saturday we're having a local sketchcrawl, so I promise something after that. Two more days of contract insanity, one day to crawl, one day to pack... why, I've barely any time left to obsess about things like weather and groceries and what clothes to pack and paying bills and....

Leaf litter linocut

One of these days I'm going to get good lighting and a decent camera and have images to show you that have neither reflections nor shadows across them. One of these days.

In the meantime... we do what we can. A tenth color went down yesterday on the new linocut... tentatively titled "Leaf Litter," although I have a large one in mind on this same theme, so I don't know if I want to use the title yet. This image is 6" x 9."

I have mixed feelings about how this piece turned out. I feel good about the experimenting I did with color, especially the order in which it was applied. In terms of color palette, this is the most diverse thing I've done, I think. I wanted a contrast between warmer leaves and cooler ground tones, which sort of works, but could have been more pronounced. The final color looks a little too much like black... The value contrast is great, but I'd like to have the color a little less stark. It this were a watercolor, I might consider washing the entire "background" with a little transparent color. I could do that here, too... just cut another block... hmmm. Maybe. It looks like I only "lost" 2 prints of the 20 I started with (Aiming for 15), so I could mess around with a couple of them and see if it works.

Final verdict? Reasonably satisfied. Satisfaction with a new image is usually short-lived... I can always find something I'd like to do differently the next time around. Every time I print I either solve an earlier question OR add to the list of curiosities about the process. I think that's part of why I keep working... why any of us keep doing what we do, really. Just enough answers to keep us from giving up, but plenty of mysteries to keep us tantalized and on the trail.

Honored, regarded, regrettted

It's been... a day. The DM played a gig last night until past our usual bedtime, so my groggy self spent a little longer than usual coming to grips with the morning. From my disoriented perch on the sofa I sensed a flutter and heard a thunk. Uh oh.

Sure enough, there below the front window was a bird. I hoped she was only stunned, but over a period of maybe ten minutes she faded, shuddered, and died. It's not the first time I've witnessed death, but for some reason this little passing seemed particularly poignant. How many times a day does such a scene play out unnoticed and un-noted?


Black-throated blue warbler, female. Not a common sighting in these parts. In fact-- she was my first. In action along the river would have been a preferred life-bird experience, but there she was, a little gray-green-yellow mound on my porch.

I imagined her last breath as a tiny, swirling eddy, so small that only the air itself would feel her exhale and acknowledge the loss. Except I was there, too. And as a witness it's my duty to testify...

I saw her. I held her. Honored. Regarded. Regretted.

Almost done...

Color #9 changes the attitude of this image again.... Color #10 will give it a final tweak. I wonder what it will be...

It occurred to me today that this will likely be the last multi-color reduction image until the end of December! Why, you ask? Well! Let me tell you!

The DM and I have taken friends up on an offer to house-sit from about mid-November until mid-December. In California. On the coast. Wheeee! We're treating the adventure as something of an artist/musician residency, so we will be packing up assorted gear for working on linos and new recordings, but we're not going to go TOO crazy. Once upon a time I worked on multi-color linos on an out-of-state residency, and then had to deal with the problem of transporting still-tacky prints back home.

So, for the trip it will be mostly drawings and sketches and thinking about prints... and maybe printing a few single- or two-color linos.

The good news/bad news is that a client project can't be abandoned for a month, so I'll be taking my computer along. I'll have to do work... but I'll get to post, too.

In unrelated news, this little photo is for Iris and Beki. (And Deborah!) Yup, I started trying to knit again. (It was this time last year when the first attempts were made.) Aren't you proud?

Book news!

Earlier this summer artist, neighbor, and friend Carla Sonheim asked if I would be willing to contribute to her new book, "Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun."

I tried not to trip over myself in my rush to say "yes!" It seems like a cliché, but I found it an honor to be included, and even more than that, it was FUN! Carla gave me an "assignment" or two that was right up my alley and, call me deranged if you like, but I loved having playful homework!

Carla's marathon efforts are making the last sprint for the finish line this week, and this afternoon I learned that the book (due in July 2010) is already available for pre-sale on Amazon. Congratulations, Carla, and thanks again for asking me to come along!

The ink thickens...

...but the new baren soldiers on just fine. This might not be only a passing flirtation.

I'm struggling a bit with my little camera at the moment (Too much sand in Zion?), so sorry about the fuzzy, shadowy image, but in the last few days I added two more color passes (#8 and #9) to the little leaf linocut. Crazy, probably, to go from red (for some tiny little pine needles in the final piece) to gray again, but I'm really trying to put this baren through its paces AND mess around with an a-typical (for me) color progression.

I thought there would be just one more color pass, but there might be two. So far I haven't done any masking, but I might want a few little areas of medium gray-brown before I go to the dark. I have a day or two to decide while the ink dries a bit, so we'll see. It's definitely an all-over-the-map sort of color scheme, but I'm still optimistic that it will pull together in the end. Could be that I've just had too much leftover Halloween candy, but that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Kreativ redirection

I find it curious, and somewhat appropriate, that every time I click to open my blog dashboard the browser title bar gives a little spin and says "redirecting." If only a click were all we ever needed to refocus our attention, eh?

My list of posts-to-do is looming large, but writer, colleague, and friend Susan Tweit tagged me WEEKS AGO with the Kreativ Blogger Award, so a little redirect seems to be in order.

The tasks for the award recipient are these:

1. List 7 things that I love
2. Link back to the blog that awarded it to me
3. Choose 7 blogs to award as ‘Kreativ Bloggers’
4. Comment at each blog to let them know they’ve been chosen

So here we go... my Seven Loved Things:

1. Ginger anything. Fresh ginger, pickled ginger, gingerbread, ginger tea, ginger beer. Ginger in dark chocolate. What's not to love?

2. A new sketchbook, second only to a filled sketchbook.

3. Going away, because it means I also get to come back.

4. Fresh lino blocks, second only to completed prints. (I'm cheating, aren't I?)

5. Our farm share from Weathervane, now over for the season and already sorely missed.

6. Discovery.

7. The Darling Man, aka David. This might seem obvious, but...

I lived as a single and solitary person for my entire adult life until David. After he came along I realized that at the ripe old age of 46 I knew how to live by myself (thank you very much), but I didn't know how to live with another person. It seemed as if it was time to give it a try.

The learning curve has been steeper than I expected-- the biggest surprise came when I realized how much of my self identity (and self worth) was tied to my independence. Had it not been for David's patience and sterling sense of humor I would have 86'd the whole idea of redirected status. But he's still here and I'm still here and we're still laughing... so when our second anniversary comes around this month we will definitely be celebrating.

Next, seven bloggers I want to recognize with the Kreativ Blogger Award because their work inspires and informs my days (in no particular order):

Robyn at Have Dogs, Will Travel. She keeps me on my toes, always posting something that makes me think, "Dang. I have to go work more."

Bronwyn at Snail's Eye View. B recently shifted house and life to far north Queensland, and every time she makes a post it's like peering through the looking glass to some mysterious Otherworld. What's not to love about THAT?

Debby at Drawing the Motmot. Just go look. See if you don't feel simultaneously shamed and inspired. I always do.

Amie at Printsy. Amie has her own blog and squidoo lens and a thousand other things, but at Printsy she posts fabulous interviews with printmakers from all over the world.

Annie at Woodblock Dreams. Mind. Boggling. Cage. Rattling. Woodcuts. 'Nuf said.

There are plenty of others, but as usual someone else tagged them before I got my act together.

We now redirect you to your day (or evening) already in progress.

Insider information

The ink is still a little wet to add the next color on the current linocut, so I'm spending some overdue time with my Etsy store, Rio Salida Art, this weekend. A little primping, a little tweaking, and a little adding of a couple slightly larger pieces to the shop now that I've figured out a good way to ship them.

Blog readers get the inside scoop: For the next two weeks (or until I sell the copies I have), both of my handmade sketchbook collections are $5 off. Just thought you should know.

Barenlove, part II

I still have a serious crush on this new baren. Three passes have now been made, and so far our teamwork has been admirable. My original notes said this print would only be 8 colors, but this is 7 and we're at least 2 or 3 from the end. I'll say it again: Plan? What plan?

I'm feeling quite perplexed about this one, to be honest. It seems to have a color life of its own... nothing quite as I thought when I started. But remember our new mantra: Don't panic.

Maybe having mojitos on the aforementioned deck is a good idea, after all.