Rainy Days and New Years, or, Let's Go 2020!

Studio window view on a rainy December day

One of the things about life in Maine that still puzzles me is the persistence of rain through the winter months. Back home in the Rockies winter precipitation came in the form of snow... maayybe sleet once in a while, but not rain. Rain was for summer afternoons, if we were lucky.

But here I am on a Friday afternoon at the end of December, watching the rain come down, and it's definitely NOT summer. I've got a fire going in the wood stove, a cup of tea at hand... and the 2020 calendar laid out in front of me. Holy cow, it's already getting full!

2019 has been a year full of making connections and finding my way in a community that is still new to me. I'm thankful for the support and camaraderie of collectors, students, colleagues, and friends across the United States and across the pond, and I hope I'll have the opportunity to spend time with all of you in the new year ahead... at exhibitions, workshops... or the local coffee shop.

My last completed linocut of 2019 was a pair of shirts for my grand-nephews, who will both turn two years old in March. "Let's Go!" seemed to be an appropriate theme for the lives of busy toddlers, but as I carved the lettering I thought perhaps it was also a good attitude to be embraced by their grand-auntie. I didn't make myself a shirt (yet)... but I've already got a photo of one of the little goobers wearing his... and I'm keeping it nearby to inspire me in the year ahead.

2020? Let's Go!

What's It All About Wednesday: Midwinter Debris, Underfoot Series

"Midwinter Debris," reduction linocut © Sherrie York

Our first real snow of the season came to my new stomping grounds in midcoast Maine this week. It was a dozy! Here at my temporary digs on the Pemaquid Peninsula we had about 8" of heavy white stuff. I know it was heavy because I had to shovel it off the deck four times. Once when the snow stopped falling, but three times more after the sun came out and huge melting sheets sloughed off the roof and right on to the porch. (Note to self: When you finally find your own place, be sure it doesn't have a steep roof right above the front door.)

If you've been following Brush and Baren for any length of time you're aware that I like to wander around outdoors... and that I divide my time between staring down at my feet and gazing up at birds when doing so.

The "looking down" behavior prompted an ongoing series, Underfoot, to which I add another image or two each year. This piece, Midwinter Debris, was one of the earliest linocuts in the series. It was hand-rubbed on Hosho paper, during a time when I was still using mostly opaque inks. (Unlike my current practice of using transparent color almost exclusively.) This view included the needles and cones of the ponderosa pine, a signature tree of my former home in Colorado. When I look at this piece I am reminded of montane slopes, bighorn sheep, Steller's jays.

Here in Maine there are no ponderosa pines. No bighorn sheep or Steller's jays. Instead I'm learning to identify white pine and red spruce, their seed structures very different from my western trees. I also have deciduous trees! In this area the woods are dominated by oaks whose first names I've yet to ascertain. Yes, the landscape underfoot is quite different. Plenty of new material for when I can get back to work... which I hope will be soon!

Coastal Update

The forest floor looks very different here! 

Days here in my new environment are zooming along, although finding a place to settle is taking its sweet time. I told someone the other day I feel as though I'm still collecting "dots"... and that when I have enough to start connecting them I hope the picture will resolve...

Until then... well. I'm staying quite busy with other adventures (in addition to the home and studio search).

Long time Brush and Baren readers will know that one of the reasons I have shifted my home base to Maine is my connection with several National Audubon Society projects: Hog Island Audubon Camp, the Audubon Artist Residency, Project Puffin, and now Mad River Decoy.

My twin-sister-from-different-genetic-stock Sue is tangled up in all these things, too, and it was her idea that the life-size Least Tern decoys she produces for conservation projects would also make lovely tree toppers, if only they had the proper holiday garb.

Least Tern Tree Toppers available at the Project Puffin website

So of course we set about crafting costumes for terns. Because that's what one does.

I've also been to New York! The state, not the City, although that's not too far away, either. The purpose of the trip was two-fold: Firstly, the 70th birthday party of an Audubon colleague. (That's Pete in the pink and black boa at right, buddy Artie in the black hat.)

And it turns out that friend, colleague, and master oil painter Jim Coe lives just an hour-and-a-half north of the birthday boy! So I toddled on up to Jim's place to visit him for the first time in his home habitat.

It was an eye-opening moment! Everywhere I looked I felt as though I were standing in one of Jim's paintings, a testament both to his craft and to his relationship with his surroundings.

A view towards the Catskills and a barn that has featured in several Coe paintings

Back in Maine I continue to explore my own unfamiliar surroundings. Thanksgiving morning I put on my new blaze orange hat (a necessity for walking in the Maine woods in the autumn, apparently) and made my way down to the shore at the LaVerna Preserve, which is just a few minutes from where I'm staying. Nice, eh?

But of course it's not all sunshine and shorelines here. The weather has been getting increasingly colder and grayer... and today we're having our first real snow of the season.

First snow in Pemaquid

I did finally get out my journal and make a little drawing yesterday, and I'm planning to spend some quality time with my sketchbook this evening. It gets VERY dark VERY early here... Sunset today is at 4:03pm. Interestingly (to me), even though the darkness continues to lengthen for another 10 days or so, TODAY is the very earliest the sun will set. Sure, it will come up a bit later in the morning, but tomorrow's sunset is 4:04! Hey! We're already in the Improving Zone!

So... I'll continue to press on... and perhaps have some sketches to show you later this week! I ordered some paper and fresh lino, which arrived this past week, so maybe I'll get something small and manageable underway. Until then... it's time to make a hot cup of tea and watch my first Maine snow come down!

A little more chilly cheer

Despite our thermometer hovering at 0 F this morning, the DM and I went for a walk down to Sands Lake. (We had to walk there because our cars are still buried under Thursday's snow, complicated by the efforts of the city snow plows.) I hoped the hoarfrost might be as it was yesterday... only this time I remembered to bring a camera. Beauty, eh?

Warm wishes from a cold landscape

It's been coooolllllllddddd and snowy here in the Heart of the Rockies! We were graced with a big snowstorm on the winter solstice and sub-zero temps have followed, but we're happy and thankful to have a warm house, supportive community, and each other. (A mug of chocolate and schnapps doesn't hurt, either!)

From the heart of Studio V– Thanks for reading Brush and Baren, for leaving comments insightful to amusing, and for expanding my community of friends and colleagues to many corners of the world. I send sincere wishes for all good things in the year to come... for you, your work, your friends and families, the places you live and the lives you love.

Looking up the Arkansas River from the F Street bridge, Collegiate Peaks
and the Continental Divide in the background.

Looking back downstream towards the bridge.

In the summer this spot on the river has a shallow, sandy eddy we call "the beach."
Not so much in December.

Change in the air

It's raining. In February. At night at 7,000 feet in the Rockies. And I saw bluebirds today. Cinnamon teal on Monday. I heard a rumor there have been tree swallows already, downriver in Pueblo. The season is changing, alright. Ready or not. (Ready. Definitely.)

A few other things are changing around here, too. Lino experiments are underway. Never-used-before supplies are en route from the supplier.

And I ordered a press.

Just a "baby" press*, mind you. A little tiny thing that will fit on a tabletop and make small prints. But it's a huge step for me. I print by baren and spoon and grunting, and I'm quite proud of that.

Who knows WHAT will happen now.

(*Yes, we've been through a lot of baby-pressing jokes over on Facebook. You're welcome to chime in now if you missed the earlier frackas.)

It's put me in a peculiar state of mind, knowing that this little thing will be arriving on my doorstep in a few weeks. There are the usual misgivings that come with an outlay of significant dollars, of course, but I can't say that I'm experiencing buyer's remorse. If I had space for it, I'd have been thinking hard about a bigger press. It's more of a creative panic than a financial one.

If you could peer inside my head right now (and trust me, it's not pretty in there under the best of circumstances) you would see my thoughts bouncing up and down like an espresso-laden 5-year-old on a new bed:

"Ooh! It will make blind embossing so much easier! I'll be able to combine techniques. Printing will go faster. Ooh! If I learn solarplate I'll be able to do etching again (my first printmaking obsession, tabled 25 years ago for lack of facilities). Ooh! More transparent inks! Ooh! More layers! Ooh! Chine collé! Ooh!"

And then I bounce myself right off the bed and hit the floor. Hard.

"Oh, geez. I won't know what I'm doing. I'll make ugly messes and waste materials. I won't have any ideas for new imagery. I won't recognize a good idea from a bad one. With all these new possibilities I'll discover that I'm actually no good at printmaking. Blah blah blah."

These sorts of mental gymnastics come and go for all of us, of course, but for some reason mine were magnified by the imminent arrival of a chunk of steel.  I am reminded of grade school and that fateful day when we "graduated" from pencils to ball point pens. Pencils became the tool of math class, where you could still use an eraser, too. All other subjects were suddenly burdened with careful mark making, considered penmanship, and no crossing out. Sure, I knew how to write. But did I know how to write with a PEN?

Sure. I know how to print. A little. But do I know how to print with a press?

Thankfully, the excited voices are generally louder than the nervous ones, and by the time the thing gets here I'll be impatient to get on with this new phase, whatever it turns out to be. In the meantime, I carry on as I always have... by hand. I printed a few experiments this evening for the haiku project: some white-on-white and white-on-cream for potential backgrounds. Yesterday I did the initial drawing for a new 9x12 reduction block, I'm hoping to get the first color printed tomorrow.

Of course, the DM will be playing a brunch gig at the Salida Café tomorrow morning, so his Number One Fan will have a scone in her hand before she picks up a baren. She will pass on the espresso, though. She's twitchy enough already.

Um... what just happened?

I am (somewhat uncharacteristically) at a loss for words. Or at least I'm unable to succinctly describe the last week. It's been quite the ride.

A warm weekend sketch from the F Street Bridge. 
65 degrees on Saturday! 75 degrees colder on Monday.

Someone must have finally figured out that we were getting more than our share of good weather. Things cooled off considerably on Sunday, and by Monday (when we were headed to Colorado Springs to shuffle around exhibitions) it was downright cold. And snowy. And windy. Sub-zero temps before windchill. Tuesday's drive home via the canyon was a slow one.

But we arrived without mishap, which is more than I can say for a friend who was traveling from Denver to Salida at about the same time. He was swiped by a hit-and-run semi-truck near Kenosha Pass. I'm happy to say he's fine, but his vehicle? Not so much.

It felt good to be home.

Wednesday morning, however, things went really crazy. Art Biz Coach Alyson Stanfield featured the story of the "Art Underfoot" video in her weekly e-newsletter and I was suddenly, fabulously, overwhelmed with kind and supportive and wonderful messages from many directions. Thanks Alyson, and thanks to everyone who took the time to comment here or send me an email. I'm trying to catch up with you all individually, but it's a long list!

Of course, it didn't stop there. The story was picked up by Katherine Tyrell at Art of the Landscape and Making a Mark. If you don't know Katherine's blogs I encourage you to check them out. She does an amazing job of keeping up with what's going on with art in the UK and beyond and she facilitates all sorts of connections between artists and art enthusiasts. Katherine's post was subsequently picked up at The #printmaking Daily.

New reader Robin, of Miss Robin's Art Class did a lovely feature about my work and the video got a shout in the Colorado Art Ranch newsletter. Oh. My.

By yesterday it was crunch time for a client project, though, and I ended up spending 10 straight hours chained to the drawing table. Ooph. Not my favorite way to work. Since I am easily distracted by clutter I usually try to keep things tidy, but by mid-day it looked as though someone had dumped the paper recycling bin across all three tables in here.

Wait. Is that paint on the table? What's up with that?

But now it's Friday night, and although one doesn't usually equate Fridays with a fresh start it is also the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit. A new rabbit hasn't hopped to my print jig recently so I'll have to share an older one with you. I think the lead character in this image has something to say about my present state of mind.

I'm back to that snowy linocut this weekend. Hurrah! (As soon as I clear off my workspace.)

Mojitos on the deck, anyone?

Payback time

Snowing.

Eleven degrees Fahrenheit and falling.

Bye bye, balmy.