Nantucket Notes

My friends are doing a complete remodel on their new house on Nantucket.  They are in borrowed quarters until mid-September when their perfect little snuggery will be finished.  Both the borrowed digs and their new place are in Tom Nevers, a part of Nantucket that is far enough out of Nantucket Town to be quiet and peaceful, but not so far as it takes too much time to get around the island.  Practically perfect, you might say!

As is usual, Bee had all sorts of projects going on while I was there.  She is the busiest person I know and is always doing many and various entertaining and creative things.  This year she was preparing for the Nantucket Garden Festival that was held at Pumpkin Pond Farm in a very large, very luxe greenhouse.  The Garden Festival was a fund raiser for The Lighthouse School.

While some of us got ready for the show and sale, others just loafed the days away....
(And you know who I mean, Zoe.)

It was humid and in the mornings it was often foggy.  As the fog would roll through the house,  the water would condense on the screens.  

We had some stunningly beautiful sunsets.

The greenhouse for the Garden Festival sale was decorated with Chinese lanterns and looked so very festive.

One of the dealers at the show and sale was selling old French linens.  Others sold garden supplies, and several had garden related antiques and vintage items.

Amy Stewart, the author of such interesting reads as Wicked Plants and The Earth Moved, among others, was the guest speaker for the Festival.  She gave several talks and did a book signing.

Bee taught a class in Hawaiian-style gyotaku class at the 1800 House while I was there.  (The 1800 House is sponsored by the Nantucket Historical Association and offers classes in the summer and fall in traditional arts.)  I have taken at least one class at the 1800 House each summer when I visit Bee and I always have a great time.  This time I got to help with setting up the classroom and with supplying the students with items they needed during the class.  I had an opportunity to do a little printing on my own, too.  We were printing scup (porgy), a fish I don't see on the West Coast.  It's been a year since I last did any fish printing and it took several attempts to begin to get some useful prints, but it was fun!

preparing the fish for printing by washing them well, drying them and rinsing them with alcohol

you need to dry the fish, inside and out, as well as you can to get a good print

 We used sumi ink and an Asian "rice" paper to print the fish, as well as making some prints on cotton sheeting.

practice print on newsprint

 Bee treated me to TWO home-cooked lobster suppers!  Man, oh man, was I spoiled!

My last day on Nantucket, Bee took me for a long stroll in 'Sconset, along the bluff.  It was a beautiful walk and I enjoyed seeing all the flowers and the pretty old cottages, some completely covered in roses.

The beach at 'Sconset is a fine one, with big waves rolling in from the Atlantic.  It was the perfect way to spend my last day on The Gray Lady.

Summer 2011 Travel Journals

I have been on two great trips this summer and I am happy with the journals I did for each.  I thought I'd share a few pages from each of the journals.  They are not precisely visual journals but they are not "diaries," just my sort of conglomeration style of journaling.



This is the journal I did for the Nature Printing Society workshop in Fort Collins, Colorado.  Besides the usual inclusions (for me!) I have also written down the instructions I received for each of my classes at the workshop.  In the future, if I misplace the print-outs of the instructions I will always be able to go back to my journal to find my notes and the instructor's tips.

The red fish print, to the left, is my first attempt at a direct gyotaku print.  Not great, but it is nice to have my first ever attempt.  I do like the eye I did on the top fish.

Here, too, is one of my first attempts at printing an octopus.

The fabric for the covers of the journal were solar printed.

Here you have the front and back covers of my Nantucket journal for this summer.  The front image of the weather vane is from the Nantucket Historical Association.  I love the whale!  The image on the back cover is from a painting I did of the red boat in the harbor in Nantucket harbor.

The pottery featured on the above page is R. Geering Pottery, from Cape Cod.  I love Ron's work and think his redware is fun and unique.

The fish image is from a gyotaku used on the 2011 NPS calendar and is taken from Chris Dewees' beautiful print of a rock fish.  I used Chris' image as the basis for a weather vane I made in a class at the 1800 House in July.  Thanks for the use of your beautiful gyotaku, Chris.  It made a wonderful weather vane.

The photo of the woman holding the cake is of Madaket Millie Jewett.  Millie was an extremely interesting woman who lived a life of service.  The more I learn of her, the more I admire her giving heart and generous spirit, hidden beneath her gruff exterior.  She was not what most of us think of when we think of someone with great community service volunteering, but she did so much for her neighbors and mariners of Nantucket.

Each day I was on Nantucket I did a tiny little painting.  These were very quick little watercolors to capture for my memory some aspect of Nantucket.  It was something I tried in this journal for the first time and I think I will use it in the future.  Each little painting reminds me of a moment of my trip and brings back a whole flood of memories.  Easy to do, quick to execute and something that has lasting meaning for me.  I'm glad I stumbled on the idea!