Join me this weekend at the Crested Butte Arts Festival, Crested Butte, Colorado!

If it's time for the Crested Butte Arts Festival, it must mean I made it home from Maine. (Which I did, in the wee hours of yesterday morning.)

Please join me in CB this weekend for art, music, food, and luscious scenery. (I hear the wildflowers are still going gangbusters over there.) Booth 65, towards the west end of Elk Avenue in downtown Crested Butte.

Educators Week at Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine

Next in line in the "catch up" posts is this past week's great adventure at Hog Island's Educators Week.

I've been privileged to be an instructor on the island for five years now. It's one of my favorite places, staffed by some of my favorite people, and visited by some of the most dedicated educators you'll ever meet.

I take very few photos during camp... our schedules are chock-a-block and I just never think of it. But here are a few highlights from some of my sessions, at least, in no particular order:

Arrival: We had a full house this week... about 60 educator/campers.
Everyone's just starting to make friends and find their feet the first night.

How can you not get comfortable with a view like this?

Making journals in the Queen Mary lab on the only rainy morning of the week.

Chatting and making found object weavings in the shade on our all-day island hike.

View of camp from the narrows.

Summiting on the cross-island trail. Elevation? 98 feet. ;-)

Intertidal exploration

Internet sensations, the Hog Island osprey nest (with three soon-to-fledge youngsters)
can be watched online at explore.org. There are puffin and guillemot cams to
be found there, too. Just sayin'.

Workshop participant Sue takes time out to make a journal entry.

The most spectacular naturalist I know, Ted Gilman (left), celebrated
his 40th anniversary with Audubon during camp. Yay, Ted. Love you.

Yep. It's pretty hard to take island life.

Lots of other things happened, too, of course... including a boat tour to Eastern Egg Rock to see puffins, a pond exploration, bird workshops, photography workshops, astronomy, geology, nocturnal marine creatures... but I don't have photos! (And did I mention the lobster feast on the last night of camp?) You'll just have to join us next year and take your own.

If you are an educator or know an educator, check out the program website. Registration for 2015 will probably begin some time in October, and scholarship opportunities and applications will ramp up about then, too. Maine in the summer... what's not to love?

"Wind-Wave-Wing" at the Project Puffin Visitor Center

I'm still in Maine (!!!), but headed home soon. I've got a day off today so thought it might be time to catch up a little.

Okay. I had a day off yesterday, too... but I went sailing instead of blog posting. I hope you understand. :-)

On Wednesday, July 16, we enjoyed a little reception and I gave a short presentation about reduction printing in conjunction with my show, "Wind-Wave-Wing" at the Project Puffin Visitor Center in Rockland, Maine.

As an added bonus, I was delighted to have friends and colleagues Jim Coe, Cindy House, Karen Scharff, Bob Petty, and Chuck Remington attending from (get this) New York, New Hampshire, Montana, and Washington DC. Bob and I have worked together on projects for the National Audubon Society for probably ten years and this was the first time we met in person! Such a delight.

The show continues through the end of October, so if you're in the area, please stop on by!

Addendum: Forgot to mention that on Saturday, July 19th I gave a half-day beginning linocut workshop in conjunction with the PPVC and the Farnsworth Museum. Thanks so much to all of my workshop participants and to the staff of both the museum and the PPVC. It was a fun day!

Linos at the Ladies....

Twenty-four hours until departure for Maine... and The Mother of All To-do Lists* is hanging tough. Actually, I've just about reached the limit of what can be done before I go... the rest will have to wait until I return.. in August!

Meanwhile, a dozen linocuts are now gracing the walls of the excellent Laughing Ladies Restaurant here in Salida. Fantastic food AND nice art? How can you go wrong? Show hangs through September 3rd. Tell Jeff and Margy I sent you. ;-)

And last night I received an email that said "bring more art," since linos are winging their way to new homes from the Project Puffin Visitor Center show! Yikes. My suitcase is already packed to overflowing!

Added to that quandary... one of the pieces that needs to be replaced is a tiny (4 x 6 inches) black-and-white image... the complete edition of which I didn't have time to pull before the work was due in Rockland in May. Oops. So guess what I did today?

Yep. I pulled some prints. Three cheers for cobalt drier! It's nasty stuff, and I try to avoid it, but sometimes you just have to resort to chemistry to get the job done. Should be ready to trim up and add to the suitcase in the morning. And, hey! That item wasn't even on The Mother List.

I'm traveling with the full gamut of technology this trip, so will hopefully be able to do a post or two from the coast. That is if I can drag myself away from the water long enough!

(*The Mother of All To-do Lists: Life got so complicated this summer that my exhibition-and-workshop-related to-do list became a spreadsheet. Seventy-five actions on the list since June 1... and that's only the prep items. Actually teaching the workshops and attending the exhibitions is a whole 'nuther list entirely. Wrong, I say. Just. Wrong.)

"Wind-Wave-Wing" at the Project Puffin Visitor Center

I returned home this afternoon from a couple of (great) workshops (with fantastic participants, thank you all!) at the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival... And I'm out the door and headed east again in a few short days. It's July, so it must be Maine!

First up... I'll be presenting a short program about reduction linocuts at the reception for my exhibition "Wind-Wave-Wing" at the Project Puffin Visitor Center in Rockland, Maine. Next Wednesday, July 16, 5:00-7:00pm. If you're in the neighborhood I'd love to see you!

Saturday, July 19, I'll be offering a half-day introductory linocut workshop in conjunction with both the PPVC and the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. As of today there were only two spots left... registration information is here.

And of course the annual Educator's Week at Hog Island Audubon Camp begins Sunday, July 20. Whew! Gonna be a great and busy time.

"Gaining Ground," reduction linocut, 9" x 6"
Currently on exhibit at the Project Puffin Visitor Center

Fieldwork Friday on Sunday, or, How I Spent my July 4th (Yes, there's a sketch in here.)

Tomorrow I am off to lead workshops at the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival, and three days after I return I head to Maine for two weeks. (Three days after I get back from Maine I leave again, but that's August, so we're ignoring it for now.)

Prep for all these workshops and travel is at a fever pitch, so when a friend suggested we "go do something" for the holiday I was a bit reluctant. But once we decided the "something" would be a visit to the Orient Mine to witness the nightly egress of 250,000 free-tailed bats... well... What prep? Do I have prep to do?

View to the southwest from the trail to the Orient Mine

The mine is in the San Luis Valley, the trailhead just over an hour from Salida. We were in and out of rain showers during our ascent to "the bat cave," but the cool temps made the steepish climb a lot easier!

The air smelled of sage and the scrub oaks were thick with towhees. Why the heck did I even hesitate about getting out here?

Almost there!

Just at dusk the sun made a crazy-intense appearance below the cloud layer. A long streak of golden glow sliced across the valley. Spectacular.

Can you say "future linocut"?

But then the bats!

We'd been sitting outside the mine for probably 45 minutes, watching naught but swallows and swifts and then suddenly the sky was full of bats. From time to time the flow over our heads and down the hillside was so intense and fast that it was like a summer rainshower... but of bats instead of raindrops.

I didn't get much for photos... nothing that would suggest the feeling of the spectacle, but...

This one's emiggenable so you can see the bats a wee bit better. Not much.

Best shot of the bunch.

I did, of course, say this was a Fieldwork Friday post... and yes, I did make a little sketch of the "Glory Hole," the main route the bats take out of the collapsed mine.

It was full dark by the time we made it back to the truck... but the adventure wasn't over even then! On the drive out via rocky backroad we flushed a couple of common nighthawks and probably six or seven common poorwills... the red reflections of their eyes in our headlights alerting us to their presence long before we saw the birds themselves.

No fireworks, parades, or loud parties for us... but I think we had the best July 4th ever.