Contemplating past and future on the Pemaquid River, August 2026
Brush and Baren began on a whim at Winter Solstice 2006. In the beginning it was a mix of professional and personal reflections... a little of this, a little of that. I named it brush for the watercolor illustrations and sketchbook pages, and baren for the printmaking that I was still doing entirely by hand-rubbing with baren and spoon.
"Content," and my dedication to it, has waxed and waned, as life itself does over a 20-year period. I recently went back and read some early entries... nostalgia coming in waves. Small town mountain life. Travel here and there. Illustration projects. Earliest experiments in reduction printing... some successful, some quite cringeworthy through the lens of time.
The blog community was vibrant in 2006. People read and responded–a growing number of them as time went on. I made some friends who I still haven't met in person but remain in contact with... although not as frequently as we all once were.
And now it's September 2026, and I find to my chagrin that I haven't written a single blog post all year.
What the heck happened?
So. Much.
The "social" mediaverse (I think of it as antisocial media, honestly) has become a quagmire of soundbites and artificial creators. Faster, brighter, louder... meaner. Does anyone even read blogs anymore?
Does it matter?
I didn't expect readers in the beginning, really. Mostly I was stumbling around learning to be an illustrator, an educator, an artist, a naturalist. I was cheered and grateful when some friends came along for the journey.
But the journey has been a bit murky the last few years, and Brush and Baren seemed to lose its way, along with my focus.
I'm going to try to fix that. I'm not sure if that ultimately means moving to a new platform (Substack, anyone?), but for now I'll keep chattering into the blogosphere, and if anyone chats back, so much the better. You won't often see a baren in use these days... although a spoon does make an appearance for detail work from time to time. I'm not doing as much illustration at the moment, but I've been thinking about re-opening negotiations with brushes (we've always had a contentious relationship). Last year I managed to keep a naturalist journal going for 11 whole months, but never shared any of those pages here. Might be time to start that up again. We'll see.
All I know is I'm anxious to create a kinder, gentler online community again. Come along, if you'd like. Who knows what we might discover?
