Dwelling on Dwellings

Action-packed, mind-expanding, exhausting... that's what the weekend has been. It was Artposium time again!

I've gushed effusively about Colorado Art Ranch more than once on this blog, but if you've somehow missed my flag-waving I encourage you to check out their website and think hard about coming to their next event. (Yes, I realize not everyone lives in Colorado, but that's really no excuse.) This weekend's theme was "Dwellings: Habitat, Symbol, and Art," and featured speakers and workshops in fields from anthropology and architecture to photography and poetry. Check out this lineup:

Danny Wicke of The Rural Studio.

• Architect Danny Wicke wowed us with the work of Rural Studio, which is designing artistic and environmentally responsible “shelters for the soul” for the impoverished residents of Hale County, Alabama. Check out his current project, “The $20,000 House.”
• Christina Kreps, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Denver University, shared images and interpretations of the traditional architecture of Nias, Indonesia.
• Leigh Davis, Brooklyn- and Washington DC-based artist, shared her photography that documents how people adapt generic living spaces, such as self storage units and YWCA rooms, in response to radically changing economic conditions. 
• Craig Nielson, a Salida, Colorado designer and green builder, discussed the need for portable shelter for people displaced by war and natural disasters and demonstrated the ShelterCart, a low-cost solution for humanitarian relief.
• BK Loren, an award-winning Colorado author, led two writing classes: “Dwelling in Words: Finding Your Place in Writing” and “Nomad's Land: The Internal Sense of Home.”
• Sandra Dorr, a Grand Junction author of poetry, essays, and short stories, led the writing session “Ancestors, Visions & Dwellings.”
• Dean Dablow, Professor Emeritus of Photography at Louisiana Tech University, directed two photography classes: “The Space Between Us”

And speaking of the space between, our local River City Nomads provided poetry readings between presentations. Who was that dashing musician accompanying them, I wonder?

The general consensus among those attendees who have somehow managed to communicate post-event is that our brains are fried in the best possible way. Yeah. I love these things.

Local poets make good: Craig Nielson, Barbara Ford, Peter Anderson,
Laurie James, Linda LaRocco. Musician David Tipton ain't bad, either.

Here's Craig again, demonstrating the ShelterCart. We know he's carrying a heavy
load because some one we know is riding in the back.

Hey! That's me!

After the wave

Whew! What a weekend! The seventh Colorado Art Ranch Artposium was, as always, a mind-expanding, network-nurturing, idea-stimulating event. As is also typical, we emerged mentally energized and physically wiped out. Yesterday you would have been hard pressed to distinguish me from pond scum.

Today I've not been moving a whole lot faster, but I've at least evolved into something with enough appendages to pick away at a keyboard.

So, until I get something interesting going again... here's a little adventure from the Saturday breakout sessions.

On Saturday afternoon I took a small group out to one of our local lakes to spend some time creating event maps. An event map isn't a representation of geography so much as it's a record of an experience. One goes on a walkabout with a piece of paper and a pen and records whatever catches one's attention.

(I left this image big and clickable this time, so you can go on my walk with me!)

Despite the wind, which was so intense that the sky was hazy with dust, we had a nice time discovering the myriad ways that water (our Artposium theme) moves through this small area. I think of myself as knowing Sands Lake reasonably well, since it's on my regular walking route, but slowing down even further revealed unexpected delights. (Like a snake at my side near a shady culvert. Brought to my attention by its great-tailed grackle escort.)

I guess that's the point, eh?

I've got a new block ready to receive an image, but so far I'm undecided about what to do next. Going to work a little smaller again, 6 x 9 inches, just because the summer busy season is about to launch!

We now return you to the linocut already in progress

Okay, back to work. The lampshade digression was fun (thanks for all your positive comments), but next time I think I'll carve a block specifically for the purpose. There are design considerations for the shape of the shade, and it would be nice to be able to experiment with color and transparency and all that without feeling like I need to get back to the task at hand. But I'm glad I gave it a try... next time I'll have a much better idea of how to procede.

One more color pass to go, and I'll call this linocut finished. In some ways the progression of this piece has seemed really disjointed... a lot of starting and stopping to deal with other tasks. It's not my favorite way to work... difficult to get in "the zone," but sometimes that's just how the days unfold.

I'm hoping to get this last color on before the weekend, because it's Artposium time once again! I am so looking forward to immersing myself in the ideas and inspiration of writers, artists, scientists, poets, thinkers, and even a musician or two. A Colorado Art Ranch experience is always great for some good old-fashioned mind expansion!

The clock is ticking: come Wade in the Water!

Zounds! The Colorado Art Ranch Wade in the Water Artposium is less than three weeks away! (May 21-23)

As always, we're looking forward to a great weekend of thought-provoking, mind-expanding speakers and workshops, this time back "home" in Salida at the Steamplant Event Center. Check out this line-up... and then pop on over to the Colorado Art Ranch website and download the entire weekend Schedule in PDF (including an Event Mapping workshop with me!).

(PS: As a bonus for readers of "Brush and Baren" and my e-newsletter "Fit to Print," you can enter the coupon code LINOCUT on the registration form and receive a $30 discount on the weekend tuition. (And you thought I was all wet!))

Craig Childs
Author Craig Childs' work focuses on natural sciences, archaeology, and mind-blowing journeys in the wilderness. He has spent years in the American Southwest canyon country, exploring the geography and the implications of water’s presence and non-presence. He has published more than a dozen acclaimed books on nature, science, and adventure, including House of Rain and The Secret Knowledge of Water. Additionally, he’s a commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition and has contributed to The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Outside Magazine, and Orion.

Greg Hobbs
Justice Greg Hobbs took office as a member of the Colorado Supreme Court on May 1, 1996.  He practiced water, environmental, land use and transportation law for 25 years before that.  He is a co-convener of the western water judges educational project, Dividing the Waters; Vice President of the Colorado Foundation for Water Education; and the author of In Praise of Fair Colorado, The Practice of Poetry, History, and Judging (Bradford Publishing Co. 2004), Colorado Mother of Rivers, Water Poems (Colorado Foundation for Water Education 2005), and The Public’s Water Resource, Articles on Water Law, History, and Culture (Continuing Legal Education in Colorado, Inc. 2007).

Basia Irland
University of New Mexico Professor Emerita, author and artist Basia Irland often works with scholars from diverse disciplines building rainwater harvesting systems; connecting communities along lengths of rivers; filming and producing water documentaries; and creating waterborne disease projects around the world, most recently in Egypt, Ethiopia, India, and Nepal.

Basia is the recipient of over forty grants including a Senior Fulbright Research Award for Southeast Asia, Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellowship Grant, and a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Grant. She lectures and exhibits extensively. Essays about her work have been included in books published in Germany, England, Switzerland, and the U.S.

Sitting? Did I really think I would be SITTING this weekend?

We're back from the Colorado Art Ranch "Dinner Stories" Artposium, happy, enlightened, and exhausted, as usual. Probably more photos will trickle out in the next few days (in one of our workshops the DM and I pressed grapes and bottled wine, and a friend just told me he has pix of us in action), but for now here's an image of our group in the pear trees at New Leaf Orchard.

We spent a morning of autumnal perfection with poet and organic fruit grower Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, reading poems, writing poems, and eating juice-dripping pears that we picked up off the ground as we rambled. (contented sigh) No time for drawing, sadly, but a fine, fine morning nonetheless.

It was warp speed in to the new week this morning, and only now that the sun has set will I finally get to figure out what's on task for the next few days. Weather report calls for chilly and wet again mid-week, so it looks as if tomorrow will be all about cramming as much outdoor time as possible in to whatever needs to be accomplished.

Is it really color 7 already?

It appears that the oak leaf linocut is back on track, at least for now. It's astounding to think that there are already 7 colors on this print (2 grays, 3 tans, yellow and orange), but that's where we are. There are at least 4 more to go, so this might turn out to be the most complex image of the series (so far!)

We're off in the morning to Delta County (western slope), for the "Dinner Stories" Artposium with Colorado Art Ranch. We'll be harvesting pears and writing poetry in the orchard on Saturday morning, and thankfully the weather gods seem to be ready to cooperate. It's been cold and rainy and even (ack!) snowy here all week, but things are clearing off and the forecast calls for autumnal perfection for the next three days. (oh please oh please....) I'm hoping for a little journal entry time, too. I can't WAIT to sit under a pear tree and breathe for a while.

On the road.... again...

Along the Arkansas River

We're off to the big city again tomorrow. David has a gig at the D Note in Olde Town Arvada Tuesday night, we've some errands to run Wednesday, and then we're coming home the long way, retrieving a precious flat file from my brother's garage on Thursday. Friday it's another day of "stuff in to the car, stuff out of the car," as I get ready to have a booth at the Salida Farmers Market on Saturday morning. (8:00am-12:30pm).

Scads of tasks to accomplish before all this travel, so of course I blew it all off and went out to make a few little sketches this morning. (Trying to get good habits in place before the winter chill arrives and lethargy takes over.)

Sunday one more DM gig, this time at Sugah's in Gunnison. We'll be home a few days and then... it's Colorado Art Ranch Artposium time! The art and science of FOOD! You can bet we won't be missing THAT.

Postcards from Trinidad

Not THAT Trinidad. The one in southern Colorado. (Southern as in a scant 10 miles or so from the New Mexico border.)

We're just back home from another amazing, inspiring, intriguing, paradigm-challenging Colorado Art Ranch Artposium. As always, we enjoyed intriguing speakers and workshops, this time in an examination of how sexuality and gender influence art, society, and behavior. Among the presenters: a performance artist who sews beads on sports trading cards and knits his own superhero costumes, the foremost gender reassignment surgeon in the country, and authors who write sensitively and humorously about biology, relationships, and sexuality. Links to the various speakers can be found on the Colorado Art Ranch website, so I won't repeat them all here, but do check them out. On the evening social schedule? A reception featuring "torch songs" by Gavin Maurer and my own Darling Man, David.

No, Gavin and David did not empty all those wine bottles themselves. Really. Can you see the Colorado Art Ranch label? They're premiums for contributors. Really. I'm not kidding.

During the breakout sessions I participated in a workshop with artist Katy Haas, who provided materials and inspiration for creating small figurative wire sculptures. It was so fun to "draw" with wire in three dimensions... oh dear... do I feel another supply store run coming on?

We took the long way home along the Highway of Legends scenic byway and through the Wet Mountain Valley. (long contented sigh) It's the sort of country that makes me happy to live where I do, and doubly happy to explore it with someone for whom it's all brand new.

Tomorrow it's back to what passes for normal routine around here, but WHEW! It sure was great to get a little perspective change: geographically, intellectually, socially....

The next Colorado Art Ranch Artposium happens this fall near Paonia, Colorado. The next topic? FOOD! You don't really want to miss THAT one, do you?

Goin' Art Ranchin'

It's that time again! Colorado Art Ranch Artposium in Trinidad this coming weekend.


Presenters include Dr. Marci Bowers, authors Laura Pritchett, Joe Quirk and Charles Baxter, film studies professor Melinda Barlow, and artists Katy Haas and Mark Newport.

Oh, and the DM and Gavin Maurer will be playing torch songs at the Friday night reception.

There's still time to rustle up a seat... come on down and join us!

Catching up and moving forward

My replacement veiner turned up this weekend, so I was frantically back to work yesterday. Sixty little linocuts were pulled by 9:30 this morning... whoopee! I'm hoping they'll be dry and ready to post to the Tiny Linos page by Thursday or Friday.

Once I had a new tool in hand, it became obvious that the disaster of my sharpening attempts last week was not entirely my fault. I've been using this same tool for probably ten years... it's my most reached-for workhorse. Holding it up to the same tool by the same manufacturer revealed the fact that it's a solid 3/8" SHORTER than the new tool, and sports a significantly less deep channel.

I've worn it down!

So.. with a nice, sharp model of what it's SUPPOSED to look like, it's possible that the original can be resurrected. In the meantime, the replacement works just fine. It doesn't quite have that "sweet spot" that develops in response to the way I work... but it'll get there.


And a quick word about Colorado Art Ranch this past weekend: Fabulous.

As always, the CAR Artposium brought together a fine group of presenters, who entertained, inspired, and unsettled us. Check out some of these folks:

Libby Rowe: an artist who may challenge you with her ongoing project: "Pink," about what it means to be feminine.
Bill Amundson: artist, humorist who engages the tragi-comic world of suburbia.
Brady Udall: award-winning writer ("Miracle Life of Edgar Mint" and others), reading from his new novel, "The Lonely Polygamist."
Roz Chast: cartoonist for The New Yorker, and more.
Marj Hahne: poet laureate and all-around brilliant human being.

And that's just the beginning. Ask me if I slept Saturday night after all that creative overload. (Answer is no. That should be obvious.)

And of course, the DM wowed the troops with some spectacular tunes on the Stick. Unfortunately it was an enormous dark space (good for sound, not so good for light), so no good pics of the man at work. (I tweaked mightily in Photoshop for this one.) I tried taking little videos, too... but no real luck. (sigh) One of these days.



So.... my schedule this week still appears to be gloriously flexible in a way it hasn't been for MONTHS. I anticipate more linos, some writing, some THINKING, some pre-winter garden tending. We had our first hard frost in town last night... everyone ran around stripping their tomato plants of the last fruits. Too bad, really... one of my plants was actually still producing flowers.

Off to take advantage of it all......

Gone Art Ranching

We're off today to the Colorado Art Ranch Artposium to learn "What's So Funny About Art?"

Speakers include artist/comedian Bill Amundson, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, poet laureates Marj Hahne and Chris Ransick, columnist and novelist Particia Marx, author Brady Udall.... more more more!

The DM will be providing ambiance at the receptions both tonight and tomorrow, featuring an appropriately funny-looking instrument, the Chapman Stick. (It looks like a big, wide fretboard... sort of like a guitar and bass mashed together, but with no body.) This little event did spur him to put a couple of audio clips back up on the website... CD still at large.

Hopefully when we get back my new veiner tool will be waiting for me. Limping along with wounded gear just isn't making me a happy camper. See you then!

Three weeks at home!

(More or less.)

Once again the Dynamic Duo were on the road this week. We spent the weekend due west of here in the area of Montrose, Colorado and the fabulous Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The main excuse for the trip was a surprise birthday party for a former colleague, but we also checked out the gallery situation and did a little hiking at the Canyon. Yes, you're right. We went someplace with ridiculous heights again. What WERE we thinking?

Morning light on the walls of the Black Canyon.

The DM thinks he looks "goofy" in this photo.
I just think he looks like someone who is thinking
very hard about not stepping backwards into an abyss.

It's been great to be out and about so much in the past two months, but we are ready to be home for a little bit. Plenty to do around here. Of course, the little linocut project is high on the list... but YIKES! I learned this morning that the fella who cuts my mounting boards for me is gone hunting this week. Drama ensues! I'm going to have to find someone else if I'm going to get any prints carved this week. What? Diverge from my usual routine? AGAIN?

There are house projects and music projects for the DM. I have a set of 6 interp panels to finish this week, and some coloring pages to illustrate, and some skill cards to create, and a shopping cart to install on the website. (A shopping cart, you say? Does this have anything to do with tiny linos? Why, yes. Yes it does.)

So no rest for the wicked. We're here until the first weekend in October, when we're attending (and the DM is performing for) the Colorado Art Ranch Artposium... but we won't be letting any grass grow under our behinds. Or however that saying goes.

And speaking of perspective change

It's Artposium time again! This go-round Colorado Art Ranch breaks with tradition and heads to The Big City of Denver, where we'll try to suss out "What's So Funny About Art?"

The speaker lineup looks GREAT, and I happen to know that the musical entertainment at the Friday and Saturday night receptions will be darn good, too. (Yup, the DM will be providing the sophisticated ambiance. I'd send you to his website but it's, ahem, still disassembled. Perhaps this will be the needed kick in the posterior.)

So, yes, we'll be there October 3rd and 4th. You oughta be there, too.

Fame and Glory

It's time once again for the Colorado Art Ranch Artposium, about which I have written and blathered on from time to time. Unfortunately, given the current state of domestic disarray, we will not be able to attend the upcoming event in Steamboat Springs (although it's gonna be a good one, and you should go if you can!).

Still, I am pleased to report that my status as a Nomad, whilst about to be tarnished by non-attendance, is at least in working order. The fabulous poet, educator, and writer-about-town Marj Hahne has just published an article about the Art Ranch concept in Cairn Magazine, featuring a little photo of yours truly and her workshop participants at the inaugural Artposium last year. Thanks, Marj!

Land of Enchantment

Yup. I'm in New Mexico.

I've been on the road about a week, wending my way slowly across the southwest corner of Colorado and into the Land of Enchantment. (24-hours after my arrival in Farmington I think it should be called the Land of Outrageous Library Booksales Causing Me to Fill the Trunk of the Car with 40 Additional Pounds of Reading Material.)


The last several days have been... well... they've been a lot of things. Last Thursday I met several delightful and accomplished women for whom I did a little field sketching workshop. We did some drawing, and indulged in panini and books and the stunning views above Crested Butte. A fine way to spend an afternoon, and invigorating as always to meet new people.

That evening I stayed with friends in Montrose, caught up on some chisme, and admired the progress of their work on their new house. Their chinchilla, Santiago, consented to sit with me for a little while, too, which satisfied a childhood desire long-stifled. I had friends in grade school whose family raised chinchillas, but those critters were declared untouchable. FINALLY, 35 years later, I got to sink my fingers into that ridiculously dense pelt. A good reminder that some goals just take a while to attain.

From there to Durango, for the Colorado Art Ranch Artposium, "Mapping in the Arts." More about this later, but it was a fabulously mind-expanding, idea-inspiring, question-launching, laughter-filled gathering once again. Of particular intrigue to me were the presentations by Peter Turchi, whose book, Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer, I have been enjoying very much and Nikos Salingaros, outspoken thorn-in-the-flesh of contemporary architecture and eloquent proponent of biophilic design.

And now I'm in New Mexico, visiting friends and enjoying that off-balance feeling that comes with being in unfamiliar territory. Tomorrow I'll turn around and head for home, since the next day I'll be receiving a visitor of my own... a college chum not seen in 24 years.

So... in addition to still feeling snake-skin-ish I am now feeling like a manic squirrel, stockpiling ideas and experiences, memories and explorations for the shorter, darker days ahead.

Life is good.

Morning skies and slow change

Still moving slowly around here. At least I am. Sumacs down by the river went from green to gold in two days. Why can't I manage that much drama so quickly?

I did manage to go on The Quest for the Perfect Ponderosa last week. I've a mind to do a new, largeish linocut of a ponderosa pine, and I'm hunting for the right candidate to immortalize. I have a particular character in mind: a fan-shaped crown, branches open enough to reveal the trunk. A "survivor" type, standing in an open meadow. It's a shape I consider ubiquitous, but a recent drive around the county proved me wrong. More common here are the dense, pointy-topped, thickly-clustered variety. Younger, healthier trees. Hmmm... have I stumbled into the coniferous equivalent of Club Med?

I think I've found "the tree" now, but I need to spend some more time with it. It's unfortunately adjacent to a house with large dogs, so I'm not sure how well my desire to park out front for an extended period of time might be received.

In the meantime... I found some green yucca pods to draw. In all my years of looking at yucca, I don't think I've ever noticed the pods in their green state. Flowers, yes. Open pods releasing seeds, yes. Dry pods in the middle of winter, yes. Green pods? No. So here they are.

On the road again at the end of the week.. off to Colorado Art Ranch Artposium in Durango. I have it on good authority that there are still some spaces left, so come on down!

What a tangled web we weave....

And not just a cyberweb.

I woke this morning to find a nice email from Katherine Tyrrell over at Making a Mark, who has kindly highlighted both this blog and that of my friend and colleague Debby Kaspari. Making a Mark is chock-a-block with resources and connections for artists and art lovers, so do take a peek at what Katherine is up to.

This week I also enjoyed catching up with sculptor and friend Tsunéhiko Kuwabara, who keeps tabs on the critters in his Paris salad greens (among other things) at Blog Illustre.

A couple of days in Denver strengthened a few regional strands.... I visited with Grant Pound and Peggy Lawless of Colorado Art Ranch at the CultureHaus bash and later with catalyst, spark, and wasps-nest-stirrer Michael Mowry of, well, both those organizations and just about everything else to do with art in the Denver area. Wine and conversation with Michael always twangs a thread or two, and more often than not leaves my brain vibrating for days afterward. (Interpret that statement as you will.)

Traveling back out a once-familiar anchor line, I did manage a couple of hours at the Denver Zoo, breaking in a new sketchbook. Why is it that the pristine white pages and tightly-bound spine of a new book make drawing so difficult?

I wasn't much satisfied with the morning's zoo scribbles, so wandered across City Park(ing lot) to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. When I lived in Denver the museum and the zoo were my two favorite haunts, and despite the fact the institutions and I continue to evolve, it still feels a little like coming back to my center to walk through their gates with pencil-stuffed pockets.

Home again now... ready to weave some strands for the week ahead. There's a cool breeze through the open windows... Despite the fact our days still hover oppressively in the 90s, night temps have been falling into the low-to-mid 40s. Gonna have to think about outfitting my web in wool rather than silk before too much longer.

Back from nowhere

It's official, sports fans: The aforementioned July monsoon brought us our wettest month since May 2001. (The start of a desperate drought that went on for a couple of years.) Almost 3.5 inches of precip for the month. For us, outrageous.

And speaking of outrageous, it's been about that length of time since I've checked in here. Still trying to tie up some contract-related loose ends, and who knows what else. Lest you think I'm all work and no... er.... work, here's proof-in-progress that a linocut will be forthcoming. I actually pulled a small black-and-white one last week, but I'm not convinced that it's going to see the light of day. Verdict is still out.

Anyway... this is the half-carved plate for a little image of blanketflowers. Three colors are down, this is the carve for the fourth, but I need to give the prints another day to dry before stacking more ink them. If I get TOO impatient, I'll have a mess on my hands.

In other news, stuff coming up:

"Winging It" show at Cultureclash Gallery in Salida opens this Saturday. Party 5-7. Be there.

"Starting a Nature Journal" booklet goes to press for Audubon Adventures end of next week. (Hoorah!) It's the first time I've been designer, illustrator, AND writer for a project for Audubon, so I'm pretty tickled about it. Usually I just get to draw the pictures and do some design work. :-)

Next week I've got a meeting with Rocky Mountain Land Library folks. Potential secret project getting some air during this meeting. Don't dare say more, but keep your fingers crossed.

Coming up August 17-18 in Our Fair City: The Going Green 100 and Expo. I'll be helping out at the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association table on Saturday and maybe hawking some sketchbooks while I'm at it.

The next Colorado Art Ranch Artposium will be September 7-9 in Durango, Colorado. The line-up looks great. I'm particularly enjoying reading keynote speaker Peter Turchi's book, "Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer." This is another one of those Be There events. It's going to be incredible.

I'm also pleased that Colorado Art Ranch has asked me to be the featured artist at their event in conjunction with the Land Trust Alliance in October. Details as they come available.

So, yeah. I'll be off the street for a while longer. Probably it's best that way.

A different sort of ranching

Last weekend, cattle ranch. This weekend, Art Ranch.

It's the weekend of the Colorado Art Ranch Artposium here in Salida. The brain child of Grant Pound and Peggy Lawless, Art Ranch is a nomadic artists' and writers' program. The Ranch travels to two Colorado towns each year and adopts themes that reflect the area's heritage, natural resources, topography and people.

The program is composed of two parts: a two-day Artposium open to the public, and a one-month residency for contemporary artists and writers. Since the beginning of May, Salida has been hosting five artists-and-writers-in-residence from across the country, and this weekend we've been deep in the throes of the Artposium itself. I was honored to be asked to present a little session on field journals yesterday morning, and was delighted to have a full house. Which I promptly took outside. Of course.

For once I remembered to take a couple of photos as folks were working... so here are some journalers and journalers-to-be perched along the Arkansas River, just behind the Steamplant Theatre, headquarters for the weekend events.

If nothing else, my workshop participants will remember this weekend whenever they encounter ants... since most of them were overrun with the little buggers when they sat down along the trail. (Occupational hazard.) I saw lots of little ant drawings on journal pages.

It was a great day. Local author Kent Haruf got us started in the morning with a fabulous reading, and last night we had an always-interesting session with Christo and Jeanne-Claude, whose current project, "Over the River," is slated for a section of the Arkansas River between Salida and Cañon City. In between we had fly-fishing and poetry and journals and assemblage and river-guiding, and a great presentation by molecular-geneticist-turned-photographer David Goldes. David has been a delight to talk to this weekend, and I particularly enjoyed seeing the work he has done exploring the qualities of water.

So today it's back for more! Congratulations to Grant, Peggy, and to local organizer Susan Tweit for pulling together a great weekend. In September Art Ranch is off to Durango, and I'm already looking forward to the trip.

Hot off the press

Get yer tickets now for the hottest Colorado art happening, coming in May to a small town near me.

Who'da thunk you'd find me on the same schedule as Christo and Jean-Claude, eh? Check out Colorado Art Ranch for the gory details.