If it's Thursday...

Prints and paraphernalia accumulating... must mean a show is imminent.

Times like this it feels as though I'll never get to print again. The last few weeks have been taken up by epic contract jobs, workshop and exhibition prep, and unending administrative details. Several times in the last few days I've heard myself grimly muttering that old joke about the light at the end of the tunnel and oncoming trains.

This morning, however, I suddenly found myself with a small window of unscheduled time. I finished the 14th of 16 (!) current illustrations and got the scan organized for the project designer... and then realized that the 350mb file was going to take almost two hours to upload to the server. It's possible to do other computer work while a huge upload is underway, but the risk of disaster looms if I forget myself and start too much multitasking. (If you've ever had an upload abort after an hour, you know what I mean.) Walking away from the computer seemed like the best plan.

Two hours! Just enough time to make a few little books.

If you've followed Brush and Baren for a while you might remember when I scored a stack of wooden cigar boxes from a friend. My favorites were snug little almost-cubes about 5 x 5 x 6 inches in size– perfect for collections of small notebooks.

I always put a small notebook in my pocket when I take a walk. One never knows when insight or inspiration will strike, or when an unfamiliar bird will defy identification unless I can jot down field marks. The last book in the previous set was filled more than a week ago and I've been forced to write on my hand ever since.

Starting to fill a new box with little books!

But now I've got 5 new little notebooks in a new box and all seems right with the world again.

And not a moment too soon. This weekend I'm off to Denver to hang my exhibition, "Intimate Landscapes," at the Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado headquarters in Washington Park. The opening reception is Sunday from 4-8pm, and I'm really pleased that I won't be extending a list-festooned hand to welcome visitors. (Like you, perhaps?)