Wait. Has it really been almost 20 years? A "Brush and Baren" reboot

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?

There went June! What's next?

Sneaking in work on a little single-color linocut

Wow. Talk about mental and physical whiplash. I don't know how it is where you are, but in my particular corner of the universe things went from zero to warp speed in the space of about 48 hours. In May we were still masking, distancing, isolating, and, I admit, hand-wringing about the future. Suddenly it's the end of June and I feel like things are not only back to the "usual" summer busy-ness... but beyond it.

So far this month, let's see... I've led 7 days of in-person workshops, narrated three Puffin Watch cruises, designed and illustrated a big interpretive sign project, and framed a pile of artwork for galleries and shows. Oh. And I took a class and had visitors from out of state. 

Whew. Is the summer over yet? Oh, wait. It's only just started!

SO. What's coming up in July? More puffin cruises with the Hardy Boat out of New Harbor. (Look for me on weekend trips.) An online class for the Farnsworth Art Museum. Workshops and a presentation for the Wendell Gilley Art Museum. And, hopefully, I'm going to get a little studio time in there somehow!

It's an... updated website!

 Yes, I know, I've been away too long. Blame it on a dumb ol' virus that's been messing with my motivation to get in the studio.

But all is not lost! I've been working on other projects, including the redesign of my website! Hooray! It's a bit overdue, and I'm glad to finally have it up and running. I hope you'll take a few minutes to pop over to sherrieyork.com and check it out. Thanks!

I'm the Featured Artist at Artsy Shark!

It was nice to wake up this morning to a message from Carolyn over at the Artsy Shark website. I'm today's Featured Artist!

In addition to featuring the work of artists in a wide variety of media, Artsy Shark provides lots of great articles and inspiration about many facets of this crazy ol' art business. Stop on in and check it out!

In other news.... SNOW.

Yep, that's what I said. Snow. Here. Now.

The good news is that we didn't get hit nearly as hard as folks east and north of us, but still. Northern hemisphere...hello!?!? Going OUT of winter, not back in to it.

Carry on.

Drive-by Posting

Lacawac Sanctuary, PA

Hi everyone.... It's going to be a few more days before I can regale you with a proper post. Tomorrow will be the "final" push to move my stuff into storage... then I have until next Thursday to unload an entire room full of discards and get myself schlepped to temp digs. Argh.

I stopped in to the studio today for the first time in more than a week and it was all I could do to make myself walk back out again to come home and finish packing. Want to print. Now.

As a peace offering I share with you two photos from last week's exploratory trip to northeastern Pennsylvania. More on this later.

Yay! A day of canoeing and visiting with a buddy on the Perkiomen.

Not-so-Fieldywork Friday

Guess what this is:

Yep. It's a pile of lino-kanoodles. Guess where it was made.

Yep. Here! In the new Studio F!

Posh, isn't it? Maybe a wee bit too posh... I'm nervous about the carpet, but I bought another rug (Look! It matches! Sort of.) for the area directly under the print bench, so hopefully it will be okay.

That long surface on the far wall will ultimately hold computer, scanner, and printers. Right now it's just a lovely clear space. There's also a folding table that may or may not inhabit the center of the room. In a perfect world it will only come out when I need extra horizontal surface.

This room is roughly the same size as the one I came out of, with the minor problem of no closet storage. The biggest disadvantage is that this studio is again upstairs, so my big, heavy flat files for paper and print storage are not here. Thankfully the unit I have rented to store all my household goods is downstairs in this same facility, so the cabinets won't be far away. I've got some archival boxes to hold my immediate needs upstairs and will just get more exercise when I have to replenish.

The advantages include better light and a proper professional space to host the occasional open studio. And without the monstrous flat files taking up so much real estate I have more room to move about, stand back from the work AND give the drying rack its own wall.

And my one window has a pretty darn nice view, once you get past the industrial buildings below.

It will feel "homier" once there are prints drying on the rack and after the computer and its varied equipment gets in place it will feel like a versatile workspace. (My contract work requires a lot of computer time, and it's nice to be able to do bits and pieces while waiting for ink to dry.. or sneak a few minutes to carve in the middle of something more tedious.)

The one "lifestyle" change that I've yet to manage is that this space is far enough from where I'll be living that it's not convenient to just pop home for lunch. If I want to avoid too many trips to the nearby fast food joints (bleah) I'm going to have to plan ahead. No more random grazing trips to the fridge... which could be a good thing.

All things considered I think it will be an interesting new way to work. The carving I did today probably won't come to much... the design was thrown together without much thought... but I wanted to at least go through the motions of working to see what I might have overlooked in this setup. But I started to draw up a new seabird lino, and got a workable idea for a small print commission, and it felt good to be thinking about something other than packing and unpacking.

Closed for relocation

Today's the day... The bulk of my studio is stacked in the front room and friends are coming to help me shift it all to a new location. Feeling pretty anxious about the whole thing.... I hope I can settle into the new space quickly and get my printing groove on. I have work to do!

Print nostalgia with Linotype:The Film

In one of my former lives I worked in a commercial print shop. I did paste-up with hot wax and an X-acto knife, and I set type on a machine something like this one:

Thanks, Marcin Wichary and Wikipedia.

This might be a newer model than the one I used, because it appears to have a slot for 8" floppy disks, and ours used cartridges of some sort. But you get the idea. A single line of type appeared on the screen... not in the font one was using... just a pixel-y little line that disappeared into the techno-ether once a certain number of characters were typed. For you youngsters out there, each letter was flashed onto photosensitive film, then processed chemically to paper. Until the type galleys came out of processing, one didn't know if the entire paragraph had been accidentally typed in boldface. Our machine didn't have a "Save" feature... so mistakes had to be typed and processed all over again.

I had a love-hate relationship with that machine. Mostly hate. And I was delighted when "desktop publishing" appeared, allowing me to see entire pages of type at once and to make corrections quickly and easily.

But as a printmaker, and a relief printmaker at that, I often feel a nostalgia for the "good old days" of wood or metal type. I have a few pieces that I've found here and there– and one of these days when I get Presszilla into a workable space of her own I hope to invest in some complete alphabets– but I've never personally set type by hand. (Well, there WAS that rubber stamp set I had as a child... The one with tweezers and tiny individual letters you set into a frame.) As a type geek I'm a dilettante, but I think my days as pilot of the beast above give me enough street cred to be delighted by Linotype: The Film. My own copy arrived here mere days after the DVD was released...

I hope you have a few minutes to take a look at the trailer, and if you have an opportunity to see the entire film, I encourage you to do so. It's great fun... and if you don't believe me, just ask Etaoin Shrdlu. (More clips are available on the film's website.)



"Linotype: The Film" Official Trailer from Linotype: The Film on Vimeo.

Linoleum crumbs!

Hooray! There are lino crumbs on the table again! Nothing too exciting, unfortunately, just a few more map icons for a client project. But at least I got to carve for a bit today. Tomorrow I have to pick up a brush and do some watercolor illustrations. No rest for the wicked.

Lest you all fall asleep for lack of interesting printmaking information, I'd like to share something I got in the mail last week. My friend Beki, maker and keeper of journals, spinner of yarn, knitter of garments, and creative wonder, sent me this spectacular postcard.

Although I hate to call it a postcard, since it's a block print on fabric with hand calligraphy, quilted, and stitched around with sparkly thread. And, yes, it came through the post just like this.. no envelope. A beautiful soft work of art in my mailbox. Thanks, Beki... I keep it on the "treasure shelf" above my work table. It makes me smile every time I look up.

Things you don't see every day, Part 2

Transit of Venus, projected through my spotting scope onto a sheet of paper. If you missed it today, the next one will be in the year 2117. Take your vitamins, it's gonna be a long wait.

Some weeks you print, some weeks you just do admin

Guess what kind of week I had. (Hint: It wasn't the kind that involved a baren.)

It's kind of nice to be able to tick things off one's "to-do" list, though. With two new prints drying and a couple of contract jobs awaiting feedback, this past week seemed like a good time to tackle several items on my bloated task list, particularly those with end-of-March deadlines. So I got some photography done, filled out and submitted some jury applications, organized files for an upcoming contract job, and worked on my sadly-neglected website. (I still need to sort out the galleries to reflect the work done in the past year, but it's getting there.)

One of these prints is not like the others....

Both of the recent pieces were dry enough to spread out on the floor and sort out how many would make the cut for the edition so I did that, too. It's always satisfying to see them all together.

By today I was ready to start something new, so here's the mysterious beginning of a linocut that, as promised, should will have only 5 color passes. Already I want 6... but I'm determined to try to meet this self-imposed challenge. I'm taking the opportunity to try a new mark-making technique or two, too. In this first pass I used a book-binding awl to "punch" small white dots in the block.

I'm also printing on Hosho paper that may or may not have the sizing issues that forced me to abandon its use. I've got a stack of it, so I need to find something to do with it. I'm hoping that keeping the number of ink passes low will avoid problems. We'll just have to see, won't we?

Celebrations Everywhere!

Somehow, without fanfare and without any particular attention on my part, Brush and Baren made it to five years of publication (in December) and 700 posts (today!). A lot has happened since December 2006: I shifted house (twice), shifted my studio (twice with the house and recently out and back), added a Darling Man to the household, traveled to both US coasts and stumbled along local paths. My work and the blog have evolved and continue to do so. It's been, as they say, a great ride.

Right about the time Brush and Baren was quietly turning five, Katherine Tyrrell at Marking a Mark was quietly tallying votes for her annual Making a Mark Awards. Among her many insightful categories is "Getting Out of the Studio," honoring artists whose work involves, well, getting out of the studio!

Within this category is the Going Greener Gong, awarded to the art blog deemed "most stimulating in relation to getting us in touch with nature and the environment." Roll a drum and bang that gong, Brush and Baren took the prize! To show my delight and blushing appreciation, I get to sport this lovely little badge all year long. I thought about having it embroidered on the lapels of all my jackets, but in the blogosphere no one can see you dressed. I'll stick with the badge.

Thank you, Katherine! And if you haven't ever visited Making a Mark, I encourage you to do so. Long among the top-rated art blogs originating in the UK, Katherine provides myriad resources and inspiration for artists and art-lovers around the globe.

A blogoversary, an award, and a postiversary all in the first 5 weeks of the new year? It's the blog equivalent of the rockstar lifestyle. Look... I even have to deal with paparazzi!

Oh wait, that's just the sun glaring through my window. Nevermind.

It's customary to make speeches when one wins awards or achieves significant milestones, (I'd like to thank the Academy....) but my list of thank yous is so long that we'd be here until the next awards season. Top of the list, of course, are Brush and Baren's readers, commenters, lurkers, cheering sections, and obligatory-laughers-at-bad-jokes. Hey... that's YOU! Thank you.

Since February is the month for celebrating those we care about in addition to celebrating blog achievements, it seems like it's time for a giveaway! The first year we were together I made this little linocut as a valentine for David, and he has generously agreed to let me share it with the big, wide world.

It's not a new sentiment, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Naturally I didn't get things together in time to give us a big headstart on Valentine's Day (now just a week and a half away)... so here's the deal. Leave a comment on this post until midnight Thursday, February 9. I'll assign the comments a number in the order they are made and then use an online randomizer to pick a winner on Friday. If you're in the US, it might get to you by the 14th. But, hey... who wants to only celebrate the people they care about one day a year? After Valentine's Day is good, too.

I printed several of these in a variety of colors... you can see them in my Etsy store, Rio Salida Art. Where, as blog readers, you get the extra-special whammy of a coupon code good for 20% off anything in the shop through the end of the month! Just use the code THANKS20 at checkout. 'Cause you all are my valentines. Really. I've got a big, green gong to prove it.

UPDATE: It appears that Blogger might not be accepting comments in a timely manner today. We're also without cell service here in the Heart of the Rockies, so perhaps that solar flare is flaring. And the moon is almost full. Whatever. Don't despair if you can't comment. Try again later!

Linotype: the film

Sometimes you just need a little film about "obsolete" printing technology to get your day off to a great start.


"Linotype: The Film" Official Trailer from Linotype: The Film on Vimeo.

One more example of how I was born several decades too late. I did typesetting on another now-obsolete machine, but it wasn't nearly as fun as a Linotype.

So far the screening schedule for this film seems confined to the coasts. Seriously? That can't be right.

Inauspicious beginnings

Soundtrack for the first week of 2012: Hack. Cough. Wheeze. Sneeze. Snerk.

I almost made it through all of 2011 without catching a cold. Really. Shortly after Christmas both the DM and I noted that we felt run down. Perhaps we were fighting something. We laid low and tried to stay on top of things but, alas, two days before the new year, I went down for the count. Several miserable days later I am much improved (although not 100%)... but guess who's flat out now?

So you can well imagine that I have no new prints started, nor any new photos of a winter wonderland. What I do have is less interesting but, for me, quite satisfiying.

These are file drawers. Tidy file drawers full of finished prints.

These are tidy paper drawers. Full of prints and drawings not yet made.

And these are tidy office files. With room to spare for all the wonderful things that will come this year.

The purge is not yet as far along as I would like since my end-of-year clearance was so rudely interrupted by a rogue virus, but it's well underway. I'm twitchy to get a new print started, but I think I have to give myself another day or two. In the meantime, now that my head is significantly less congested and/or medicated, I'm going to rifle through some sketchbooks and photos and think about what's up next.

Happy New Year, everyone! Better late than never!

Prints and camaraderie in the mail

(Hey, Jill.. I pinched this pic from your blog.)

Just over a year ago I received an envelope from my friend Jill Bergman of Art on the Page. In it was a tiny handmade book, blank but for a little image by Jill herself, along with a request to add a little print and send it on to another printmaker. Jill's hope was that eventually the book would be filled by a succession of print artists and make its way back home to her.

My contribution in place, I shipped the book off to Amie Roman of Burnishings. Seems to me my timing might have been a little dodgy, since I think I sent it around the time Amie had her baby! She already had her hands full with a new project of her own.

But some time later I had a message from Amie that she'd added her own piece and moved the project along to another printmaker. Gratified that it was off to a good start, I promptly put that little book out of my mind.

So imagine my surprise and delight (and Jill's!) when I learned that the tiny book did indeed make it back home, full of wonderful prints! Jill tells the story and includes photos of all the images in her celebratory post here.

It's a story with a happy ending, but it also has a delightful postscript. This week I received another envelope from Jill... this time it included something that I'm not mailing anywhere. Ever.

It's a beaut, ain't it? A Jill Bergman original that makes me smile and reminds me that printmakers the world over are a wonderful bunch. Thanks, Jill, for initiating the project and thanks to everyone who played along.

Welcome to Studio V

For more than 25 years my home has been my studio... painting in the living room, rubbing linocuts on the drafting table in the bedroom. Somewhere along the line I moved in to a two-bedroom apartment and got in the habit of dedicating a room to graphic design work and art-making.

When I moved to Salida (almost ten years ago), working at home became a full-time operation, and the "spare room" became studio AND office. It's a situation that has served me reasonably well, and I'm thankful that I've been able to make it all work.

But that's part of the problem. It's ALLLLLLL work. And it's all jumbled together. If I want to make prints I have to put all my paints away. If I'm in the middle of painting a big contract illustration I can't print. And the darn computer is there either way... insistent and tyrannical.

I started daydreaming about studio space OUT of the house more than a year ago. There have been all sorts of practical reasons not to get a separate studio (cost being chief among them), but I've found myself less and less productive in the home studio. I've been too distracted by my "to do" list, by the myriad house tasks and business tasks and, yes, by the musician in this household for whom this place is also studio and office.

So this week I took a deep breath and rented a space that I intend to dedicate to printmaking... Sherrie's fine art space is now separate from her commercial art space and her office!

The new space isn't perfect yet. I need taller work surfaces and more storage, and a carpet on the very noisy wooden floor. I'm upstairs in an old Victorian-era building in downtown Salida, just two blocks from home, so an easy walk back and forth. I've had two days there now, and I feel like a klutz with creative amnesia. The automatic work routines of the old space don't apply to the new and I keep discovering little things I need that haven't made it down the street yet. But I'm getting there.

I consider it all an experiment. Thankfully I'm in a situation that doesn't require a long term commitment, so if I crash and burn here I can haul everything back home and try again later.

More news from Studio V (for that's what it says on the door) as I get going!

Lucky Me! (aka Seaside Studios' blogoversary)

One of the things I most love about blog writing and blog reading is the opportunity to meet (virtually, at least) friends and colleagues from many corners of the world. I'm alternately inspired and humbled by hard-working artists in a variety of media. Thank you all!

In August my virtual colleague Lisa Le Quelenec at Seaside Studios celebrated her first "blogoversary" with a gift-away. To my great surprise and delight, her independent ajudicator (Ducky) selected my name as giftee! (The only other thing I can remember ever winning was a collapsible camping table that says "National Wild Turkey Federation" on it. Long story.)

"Storm at Southbourne" arrived last week in a happy little parcel from across the Atlantic. (Gift wrapped with a bow, even!) At present it perches above my desk, reminding this land-locked creature of the smell of the sea and of the generosity of artists everywhere. Thank you, Lisa, both for a lovely painting and for continuing to share your endeavors with the world.

Storm at Southbourne
acrylic on paper 13x12cm
©2011 Lisa Le Quelenec

Gathering up loose ends

The Wednesday Knitters meet in the company of linocuts at Cafe Dawn.
I would say they were gathering loose ends, too, but Gwen
assured me she was creating more than she was tying up.

After several weeks of (apparent) absence the evening grosbeaks are back in town, chattering up a storm and gorging on whatever they can find. It's odd to be thinking of autumn migration when it seems as though summer just started, but the signs are quietly appearing. Rufous hummingbirds bully the resident broad-tails at the feeder and the neighbor's maple tree is undeniably a "yellower" shade of green than it was the last time I paid attention to it. There are back-to-school supplies piled in the aisles of the local department store.

But it's all okay with me. I'm ready to throttle back just a bit... to walk forward rather than race.

It's been a day of gathering up loose ends. I spent the morning organizing information and following up on research contacts for a client project, and this afternoon made a couple of quick stops relative to exhibitions. The first was at Café Dawn, one of several popular local coffee shops, where Monday I installed a collection of linocuts that will hang for the month of August. After that I strolled over one block to the Maverick Potter Gallery to update my inventory there and replace a couple of missing artwork labels.

A little rain shower came through and the DM and I put a big batch of cabbage rolls (cabbage from our local CSA, elk from our local meadow) in the oven and suddenly everything seems to be chugging along rather than sprinting. I don't know how long it will last, but I'm ready to enjoy it.

What's that sound? Oh, right. It's me. Breathing.

A flash of July

Um, yeah. Hot.

The summer whirlwind continues! Monday the DM and I made a quick trip to the Front Range for a gander at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival. Sculptor friend extraordinaire Bill Starke was exhibiting at the festival and encouraged us to come out and scout the scene. We saw lots of wonderful artwork (including a respectable number of printmakers), but the key word for the day was HOT! When we finally called it quits the temperature gauge in the DM's car said 100 F, and that didn't take into account the radiant heat from the asphalt streets on which the event is held.

Clouds and rain and 30 degrees cooler on Hoosier Pass.

We took a slightly longer route back to Salida, through the mountain resort of Breckenridge. It was a delight to watch the thermometer drop to 69 degrees and then to encounter rain. (My queendom for some rain here at home. As I type it's actually thundering, but I know better than to hope for anything to come of it. We've had frighteningly little precipitation here since last summer.)

Wednesday morning it was back to contract work.... some of it corn-ier than usual. (See right.) Tomorrow I'm hoping to squeeze in a little Fieldwork Friday time, and then next week I'm off to teach at Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine! A week later it's Rocky Mountain National Park, where I'll teach another workshop and then Zoom! There goes July.