Coming up next: Crested Butte Arts Festival

Apparently my summer hasn't been chaotic enough yet– there are several big adventures yet to come.


First up, the Crested Butte Arts Festival. This will be my first such event (other than a little booth at our local Farmers Market a couple of summers ago) and WOW! I still have so much to do.

If you're in the area this coming weekend, come on by booth #7. (Lucky Seven? I hope so!) I'll have lots of linocuts and a few woodcuts to share, and maybe I'll even be working on a print! Shocking!

Festival opens Friday, August 3, 5:00pm until dark, and continues Saturday and Sunday from 10:00am to 5:00pm.

Trying to sort out a booth display with a mock setup in the dining room.

Back from Hog Island

White Pine cones on the cross-island trail,
Hog Island.

On Thursday I stepped through my own front door after a spectacular sojourn off the coast of Maine. It was hot and dry when I arrived, as it was when I left, and I admit to being a bit depressed about it after experiencing a week of cool(er) and green. Of course there were plenty of moments on the trip when I thought I would collapse from the humidity. Tradeoffs, tradeoffs.

The purpose of the visit was Educator's Week at Hog Island Audubon Camp, where I was fortunate to have been invited as an instructor. Good fortune also smiled on our weather (no rain, not too hot, and a mere fraction of the mosquitos we had to contend with last year) and our campers, who were not only a hugely inspiring group of dedicated educators but also side-splittingly funny. Can you imagine... all 56 of them flash-mobbed the staff at the end of camp, and another large contingent created a water ballet in the cold, cold waters of Muscongus Bay. Thank you all for a great, great week.

Airport and in-flight sketches.

I took remarkably few photos this trip but I did manage to work a little in my journal, which almost never happens with a schedule like the one we keep at camp. Here are a few "beauty moments," though.

Farewell to campers, headed back to the mainland.
But who are those three in black on the dock?

They're puffins, of course.

Double rainbow over Hog Island.

Summer Camp!

The slightly melancholy pile of camper gear headed back to the mainland
the last day of camp last year.

There was just enough time this weekend to unpack my suitcase, wash all my grubby field clothes, get the last of my workshop materials together, and repack. I'm still doing the "which shoes?" shuffle, but otherwise I think I'm RTG*.  (In a perfect world I'd be able to take hiking boots, sneakers, AND sandals, but I'm trying to travel carry-on only.)

I'm going to summer camp!

It's Educators' Week at Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine and, lucky me! I get to be part of the awesome instructional staff.

It's a long trek from Colorado to Maine, requiring oh-dark-hundred flight departures, so even though my first staff meeting isn't until Wednesday, my journey begins today. Three hours drive to Denver this afternoon, all day on planes tomorrow. Ugh. But once I arrive... well! Just look at these pix from last year and see what awaits us. 

 

 One has to stand in precisely the right spot to find cell service and score the WIFI from the island... so along with everything else we get to be blissfully unplugged this week. Good friends, happy campers, coastal discoveries and, of course, PUFFINS! I woke up this morning feeling just the sort of anticipation one WANTS to feel in the summer. I'm headed Down East, ya'll, see ya in about a week!

* RTG: Ready To Go!

Workshop season: Where am I?

Ah, summer! Remember how "they" used to tout summer as endless lazy days on the beach with a good book and a cold adult beverage? Who actually has summers like that? No one I know. And it's definitely not me this summer, which you've no doubt guessed since Brush and Baren has been so sadly neglected.

Even without its usual bounty of blooms the Gothic Road
is something to see.

Last week I was off teaching sketching workshops at the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival. Our persistent drought meant that the usually flower-lush valley floor was parched and blooms were thin on the ground this year, but we had fun anyway. Tuesday I unexpectedly experienced my most diverse workshop dynamic EVER: My students ranged in age from 10 to 90! Wow.

The monsoons have finally arrived, but the rain held off during
workshop hours!

On Monday I'm off again, this time headed east to Maine and Hog Island Audubon Camp, where I'll be an instructor for Educators' Week. 

I'm really pleased that I sat down and made a new journal when I did, since I've managed a few moments here and there to make some entries. The most difficult part is finding the book in the disaster that is my work area right now. I have piles of papers from last week, stacks of items for next week's workshops, stacks for an art festival the week after, AND another workshop the week after that. My drawing table feels like a "Where's Waldo?" book. Can you find: My phone bill, a linocut that needs to be shipped to a buyer, my paint box, workshop materials that need to go in my suitcase, a draft of a contract project, a checklist for an art festival, my "Square," my journal, my checkbook, a supply receipt, and... oh, gee... is that a bottle of aspirin? How do you suppose that got there?

Journals and Journal workshops

Yes, we're still at warp speed around here. Next week I'm off to teach field sketching workshops at the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival, and the week after I'm headed to Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine as an instructor for Educators' Week. More field sketching and more illustrated journals.

But I'll let you in on a guilty secret. For reasons I haven't been able to sort out, I haven't personally had a designated field journal in service since the end of last year.

I have other journals. One for just making notes and lists about tasks. One that serves as a sort of personal grousing forum and occasional repository of sketches and image ideas. A tiny one that I stick in my pocket when I go for walks– I use it to record birds I've seen or ideas that pop into my head while I'm walking.

But no nature journal per se.

Huh.

Journals in progress

Part of the problem has been that I like to make my own journals, and I've been undecided about format, page size, and paper type. There's no paper that I've found that's perfect for all applications in my journal. I like a bound book, but I also like the freedom of loose sheets. I just couldn't make up my mind.

So this past weekend I decided I didn't have to make up my mind. Exactly. Yes, I built a journal with a sewn binding, but I also used the "leftover" paper to create a set of loose sheets for those times when I don't want to lug my journal around. I used four different papers. Two different sizes. A non-decision decision. My best kind.

The impetus was the crazy, fire-plagued summer we're experiencing here in Colorado and most of the western US. Even though the largest fires are thankfully far from us, they're impacting everyone in ways large and small. Somehow it seemed wrong not to acknowledge these weeks, so even before I had the clasp built for the book I recorded an impression from the many photos and video clips of the many blazes.

Of course now that I have a book started, I can't wait to get out and fill it. Funny how that works. It's a good thing I've got all these workshops coming up, eh?

Crate and Ship

My days continue to be about illustration projects and workshop prep rather than printmaking, but I did at least get to LOOK at a linocut today.

This is "Pas de Ducks," all framed up and ready to ship off to Birds in Art at the Woodson Art Museum. The exhibition isn't until September, but right now it feels good to be able to tick anything I can off my to do list.

One of the more nervous-making things about this business of art is shipping framed work hither and yon. I frame my prints on paper in a traditional manner– mat, glass and frame– but for exhibitions most venues prefer plexiglass. Plexiglass is lighter and less prone to break, but it's delicate stuff and apt to scratch. What to do, what to do?

Enter the MasterPak Strongbox. It's a double-walled box built expressly for shipping artwork. The top and bottom are lined with a hard plastic "puncture guard" (the black you see in the lid), and the interior foam is customizable to fit your exact piece. There's a piece of waffle foam on the bottom, a customizable piece in the middle, and another piece of waffle foam on the top. Very cool.

They're not cheap. The double-walled versions with puncture guard start at about $70, but the crates are reusable. (And even re-customizable if you save the bit of foam you take out of the center the first time.)

Artwork framed in plexiglass? Check. Packed in a great crate? Check. Off to the shipping agent? Check. Hey! That's THREE things I get to cross off the list.

Preoccupied

The Waldo Canyon fire approaches Colorado Springs.
Image from 9News KUSAin Denver. A list of current fires is on their website.

When the snows didn't come last winter, we knew we'd be in for a dry summer. When what little snowpack existed had diminished to 4% of normal by mid-May, we knew the river would be low and tourism would be compromised. When the wind never stopped and temperatures crawled up into triple digits, we knew our gardens would parch and that we needed to drink more water.

And with all these things we knew there would be wildfires. What we didn't know was that there would be so many of them, impacting the entire state and even threatening major metropolitan areas.

The reports change frequently, but the most recent information I find lists 10 large "active" fires across Colorado and a half dozen more that are "contained" and being watched for flareups. The High Park Fire near the city of Fort Collins has consumed more than 250 homes in 18 days. The Waldo Canyon fire, just 4 days old, experienced a huge expansion this afternoon and is now burning homes on the west side of the city of Colorado Springs. 32,000 people have been evacuated in the path of that fire alone. Tonight a new blaze erupted west of Boulder.

And that's just three fires along the Front Range.

So far the area where we live is not in immediate danger, but we are nervous. We haven't had measurable rain in weeks, and dry thunderstorms that produce only wind and lightning are no one's friend.

For now we keep going about our business, but always aware of the smell and haze of smoke.

Yesterday I painted an illustration of a porcupine for a client project. I think I feel a bit like a porcupine myself... quills at the ready and in a defensive posture.

20th Salida ArtWalk

Art, music, theater, dance... and horse carriage rides (why not?)! It's ArtWalk weekend in Salida, June 22-24.

Miniature Masterpiece fundraiser, "Buy It Now" sale Friday from 5-9 at the Steamplant, silent auction Saturday morning from 9-noon.

As always, I'll have linocuts on display at the Maverick Potter Gallery, 119 F Street.

Making (linocut) hay while the sun shines

Literally! Making linocut hay. Or at least making an image of hay out of lino. Fun, eh? The crazy, never-ending map icon project reappeared last week with a new list of 10 more images to create. I wasn't quite sure what to do about item #7 (hay), but I'm hoping this bale will do the trick. What do you think?

Everything's at fever pitch again... how DOES this keep happening? I've got three illustration projects, a writing project, a design project, three multi-day workshops to prep, an art festival to get ready for AND this weekend is Salida's annual ArtWalk. And, gee... one of these days I'm going to actually get back to work on my own stuff. Really I am.

If you're in Salida this coming weekend, stop on by the Maverick Potter on F Street. On Saturday the local linocutter (that's me) will be in da house, as will the local Stickist and the potter of maverick tendencies. I'm pretty sure there won't be any hay bales, but you just never know.

Fieldwork Friday: Lean Times

Here in the upper Arkansas River valley we're accustomed to dry. The Continental Divide defines our western county boundary: Pacific moisture tends to stay on the other side of the Divide and here in the rainshadow a typical year brings us a scant 10 inches of precipitation.

This is not a typical year.

Even the high country received paltry little snow last winter and by the end of May the highest peaks of the Sawatch Range already looked as brown as August. The path under the F Street bridge, usually flooded with runoff and impassable this time of year, has barely even been damp this season.

A newspaper headline last week declared area snowpack down to 4% of normal. We're not just dry, we're dessicated. This weekend is the annual FIBArk whitewater festival and yesterday we saw heavy equipment in the river, moving rocks to create some sort of flow for the raft and kayak races. At least one event had to be cancelled because of low water. I've been in this valley ten years, and I've never seen it like this.

I can't decide if it's strange or completely natural, then, that I would choose to spend my drawing time today absorbed in dry plant material. I've been longing for something lush and green, but here I am engrossed in brittle and brown!  I love the twisty aspect of this chunk of vine, though, drawn from three different angles. Maybe it's a good reminder that we never know what's ahead, and that maybe those gathering dark clouds will drop a little wet cheer. Rain on tomorrow morning's parade? Bring it.

Dry vines from my friend Nicky's garden

Long Lake is long on dirt and short on water this year.

This blog DOES say "brush" in the title, after all

Brush and Baren. There was a reason for the title, 'way back at the end of 2006 when this blog began. At that time I was still spending time wielding a brush and sloshing paint– at least more than I have been lately.

This week I'm back to being a woman of many hats: printmaker, illustrator, writer, painter, photo researcher, administrator, and even vintage magazine seller while a friend is out of town and her online store needs minding. Thankfully at least one of those tasks will be finished after tomorrow. I'm feeling a bit... stretched.

But I was pleasantly surprised to have some watercolor illustrations work out as well as they did over the weekend. A few shorebird beaks and their different foodstuffs were the topic, and by golly both brushes and pigments (not to mention eye-hand coordination) were cooperative.

It's back to the lino illustrations tomorrow. Stay tuned.