Christmas Bird Count, the morning after

It's that time of year again: temps below 0 F, snow on the ground, bitter wind..... Must be time to go birding!

Sometimes I think the mental condition that drives the citizenry of Pamplona to run before angry cattle must be the same as that which drives birders. Why else would otherwise reasonable people be out standing in snow-covered fields before dawn in sub-zero temperatures to count ducks and sparrows? Worse yet, there's a considerable subpopulation which does this for many, many days in a row in late December and early January, and they travel far and wide to do so.

Yes, indeed, it's Christmas Bird Count season, and Salida is not immune to the phenomenon. Five years ago I was duped by a hardcore birder chum into hosting a count circle here. "If you compile it, I'll come," he said, implying the presence of a certain level of expertise and experience to get the job done.

Said chum has never ONCE shown his sorry behind here for the event. You can imagine what sort of holiday cheer I send HIS way. (Yes, Woody, this means you.)

Still, we have a grand and dedicated group of local birders and a few equally dedicated out-of-town stringers who routinely DO turn up to tromp around the area and tick juncos until their heads spin. This year's Salida count was yesterday (I always aim for ours on the winter solstice).. with snow on the ground and a -1 F start temperature. Despite a slow start, we managed to record 75 distinct species, a goodly number of interesting subspecies, hybrids, and anomalies AND a record-breaking flock of Bohemian Waxwings.

We don't see BOWAs (for those of you hip to the Bird Banding Lab species codes) here every year. They're avian gypsies, typically found farther north, but once in a while we have a winter graced by BOWA spectacle. This is one of those years! They've been turning up in many parts of the state, but as far as I have heard, yesterday we hosted the largest single flock yet discovered: almost 2000 birds in one place. All total we found over 3000 of the handsome beasties within our count circle. On Friday I looked out my front window to find 1100 of them working the crabapple trees in my yard and across the street. Friend, expert birder, and accomplished photographer Tony Leukering was here for the CBC, and he took the great shots enhancing this page. You can see more of Tony's fine photos on his Flickr site.

A week from today I'm off to spend January in my new satellite studio in that most delightful of winter destinations: Cleveland, Ohio. So. The next few days will be chock-a-block with trying to get organized for the egress. Just in case I miss you in all the hubbub, let me offer warmest wishes for your winter holidays and your heart's desire(s!) in 2008. Expect news from the north after the first of the year!

Happy Birthday, Brush and Baren!

Hey! Look! Brush and Baren is one year old today! I would have baked myself a cake, except that I don't particularly like cake.
However, I am more than happy to break the piñata and share the sweets with everyone who has made my corner of the blogosphere an engaging and inspiring place. Special thanks and an affectionate ink smudge to Willy, Debby, Snail and Susan, who continually raise the blogging bar and to Alyson, whose fault it all is in the first place. Thanks also to all of you who read, comment, lurk, and send emails around the back way. I appreciate you all!

Finished!

Ponderosa pine linocut, still untitled. 5 colors, reduction, 12 x 18 inches. Not a great photo... wet print propped up against the sofa and snapped. But, oh... Happy day!

If you missed the process, you can catch up here and here and here. And here. And here.

I'm gonna go take a nap now. I'm tired!

End Game

Spent the morning fulfilling my civic responsibility (got called for jury duty, but in the end was not selected... I admit a sigh of relief). Am now engaged in serious printmakerly responsibilities: the carving of the final color for the ponderosa linocut.

At this stage the plate is fairly stained with the remnants of previous color pulls and it gets difficult to see what I'm doing. Out comes the Sharpie! (The pen, not the bird.) As I carve, I run the pen across the high spots so I can see where I've been. This doesn't work for earlier stages because the pen is permanent and obscures details, but here at the end I apply it with gleeful abandon. Aiming to finish the carve tonight or tomorrow... printing on the weekend! Whee!

Café = Community

If ever you come to Salida, make sure you stop in at the Salida Café. (Also known locally as "Bongo's," just in case you're asking directions.) Good food, good drinks, good people.... and a community atmosphere unlike anything I've known anywhere else. Granted, I half live there, but STILL....

A couple of weeks ago Sam (one of the owners) handed a tiny chunk of wood across the counter to me, asking me to embellish it as part of a little sculpture project. I wasn't able to be at Monday's assembly party, so I stopped in today for lunch and a look.

What a fun piece they've put together... it's the café logo, each piece of the puzzle a little contribution by kids and adults who live here in town. Can you find my tiny pinecone? (Hint: Clicking on the image will open a larger version in a new window so you can look a little more carefully.)

It's not easy making green

Argh. I knew it would kick my behind, this green. Not sure I'm entirely happy with it even now, but I'm fairly confident that once the last color (black) is on, it will all come together. Usually that's the way it works... but one never knows. But here you have it, pondo-lino stage 4.

Still don't seem to have resolved the comment problem, despite resetting the parameters for comments. I've heard that other Blogger-based blogs are having the same issue... film at 11:00.

I didn't do it!

It's been brought to my attention today that suddenly Blogger isn't allowing comments from outside Goggle or Blogger accounts. I don't know why! I've got the thing set up to "allow anyone," honest.

Hopefully it's just a temporary Blogger hiccup, but if'n you're having trouble posting comments, you can always try the "anonymous" option. It will let you use a name or not. (sigh) Technology, eh?

And now for something completely different...

Sam, Bill, and Clark... the good folks over at the Salida Café... have a nifty project underway. They're creating a wooden wall sculpture.. a sort of "puzzle" of pieces crafted by café regulars. I don't think any of us know what the final shape will be when the puzzle is assembled. (But I've seen a couple of very-oddly shaped chunks.)

The piece given to me for embellishment is tiny! A roughly triangular bit... at its apex it is only 2" high! So this afternoon I've been pleasantly out of my comfort zone, applying acrylics to wood using a darn small brush. I have no idea if the pine cone will even be upright in the finished sculpture.

Pieces are due Monday, assembly is scheduled for the end of next week. Photos to follow!

What do you mean, it's not all about (Me)me?

It's a really long story, but let's just say that technology has recently impacted my life in unexpected and delightful ways. I've always enjoyed cultivating and nurturing a wide and diverse personal network, but adding the blogosphere and virtual worlds to my repertoire has had completely unforeseen consequences. And so far, as they say, "It's all good."

(Oh nice, Sherrie... very cryptic introduction. Has your brain come back from Thanksgiving holiday yet? I think not.)

That said, it's incredibly timely that friend and colleague Susan (I'm not forgetting the "J") Tweit has tagged me with the "It's all about (Me)me," which gives me an opportunity both to fire up this recently-neglected page and to cogitate on the joys of bloggerhood.

1. How long have you been blogging?
Ooh! Almost a year! Brush and Baren stumbled into being at the end of December 2006. Maybe I should throw a party. Will you all come?

2. What inspired you to start a blog and who are your mentors?
Funny thing, this. Last autumn I participated in an art marketing workshop presented by Art Biz Coach Alyson Stanfield. As Alyson stood before us extolling the joys and benefits of blogging, I sat in the back row, internally rolling my eyes and thinking, "Great. One more thing to do."

But darn it if she wasn't right. Three weeks after Brush and Baren launched I found a circle of creative, intelligent bloggers to play with. AND traffic to my website grew exponentially. Crazy. (And in true domino-effect fashion, I am now being forced to rework the website. Could Alyson be some sort of technology demon in disguise, rubbing her hands together in a dark room gloating, BWAH-ha-ha-ha?)

As for other blogging heroes, that's easy. Debby Kaspari, Bill Schmoker, Susan J. Tweit, Snail. A diverse group of creatives, the lot of 'em. Birds, snails, pencils, plants, brushes, cameras, words, images... geez. They do it all.

3. Are you trying to make money online, or just doing it for fun?
Um.. hello. ARTIST. Trying to make money any way I can (within reason, law, and propriety, of course). But blogging has been a great way for me to actually THINK about what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, and how my work life and my explorer life fit together. And it's been a real smack upside the head on those days when articulation eludes me completely. Sorta like now.

4. What five things do you struggle with online?
I think this is a funny question, actually. Probably the same things I struggle with OFFline, but that's perhaps a little too personal. Blogging struggles are likely the usual ones 1) what to say, 2) what image to post, 3) what to do when there just ain't no inspiration. Do there have to be more?

5. What five things do you love about being online?
Again with the five! Sheesh. Obviously the person who started this meme is not a Monty Python fan. (Three is the number to which thou shalt count.)

1) Reading other blogs: ideas, quirks, rants, and the delightfully new things I learn from bloggers every single time I read. It's a worldwide community of creatives, literally at my fingertips. Click! Australian invertebrates. Click! Caribbean sharks. Click! How not to behave at literary events. Click! Bloody Schmoker snapping another 100 drop-dead gorgeous Colorado bird photos despite having a family and being a science teacher and..... Click! Tsunehiko's daily sketches of Paris. Click! The real, live Sleepy Hollow.

2) Feedback: Ohmigosh! People actually READ this thing, and some times they even get something out of it. How cool is that?

5) It's a good excuse to avoid washing dishes.

Forward, slowly

Really, I HAVE been working on the ponderosa pine linocut (known affectionately as the pondo-lino). Today I pulled color #3, carving begins this evening for pull #4. Five are planned (more or less, "planning" not one of my greater skills).

Shim-my

A while back, Debby over at Drawing the Motmot asked about my registration jig for multicolor linocuts. Specifically she wondered about my less-than-clear description of what I call "shims," but which might more accurately be called "spacers."

The low-tech rig is a sheet of masonite with 1 x 2 boards affixed squarely in one corner. On top of the 1 x 2s rest charming corner molding pieces, which serve as paper "stops" to help with alignment. The plate fits snuggly into the corner, paper goes on top against the stops... life is good.

Except that sometimes I want or need a deeper margin of clean paper around the image. (As in the ponderosa pine in progress. It's 12 x 18 inches on a 19 x 24 inch sheet of Hosho.) Enter the "shims." These are just chunks of pine, ripped in 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1-inch widths. I stack them up against the 1x2 rails to hold the plate a little farther from the corner.. and magically get a wider margin in the process. Cool, eh?