Lilac Time

I have been very slothful about writing. It's been over a month since I returned from ArtFest and not one entry. Tsk tsk! ArtFest was everything I had hoped for, and more. I went to Port Townsend a day early, on Tuesday, and spent the night at a nice B&B called The Lemon Tree. It was nice to have a day to myself to get into "art mode" and to leave mundane thoughts behind and begin to focus on making art. I went to a lot of my favorite shops and galleries in Port Townsend, did some shopping and a lot of looking and had a wonderful, quiet time. I splurged and took myself to dinner at Wild Coho, which is uptown, and had a truly delightful meal. Great food, fantastic service and a lovely wine list. I can't recommend the restaurant more.

On Wednesday, I spent a lot of time in the morning at the beach. I found some good shells but it was the lovely day that drew me to the water. The sky was blue and although it was a little breezy and cold, I had a great time. The only real problem was that I had managed to leave home without a coat! I didn't realize what I'd done until I was on the ferry. I did manage to find a nice car coat on sale in PT, but I felt like the fool I am. Who would leave home without a coat in March? That's just dumb!

I was in line for check-in at three and got my packet and did some shopping at the tables Teesha and Tracy had set up. I turned in my piece for the gallery, my koi 8 by 8, and then went down to my dorm, 225, and found my room. It was small, comfy and just enough. I had a single iron bedstead, a desk, a dresser and a clothes rack for my hang ables. I wasn't too far from the bathrooms and very near the exit door. I must say, I rather loved my little room. It made me wish I'd been able to have a single while I was in college, as the freedom to read or write or sleep whenever I wanted was a great luxury and one I didn't have in college, when I had to consider the needs of my roommates. Well, 35 years (or more!) later and my dream of a single had come true.

Dinner Wednesday night was the usual trading frenzy. I made a lot of trades and had a good time doing so. So many creative people and so very many fantastic charms, ATCs, goodie bags and bookmarks. I lost count of how many items I traded, but it was a lot. After dinner we had the opening talk in the conference center and after that I got my ATC fatbook and my first sight of Bee for the year. The ATC book was amazing and stuffed full of wonderful ATCs. I love it! Bee, with the help of &drew, did a great job of making the books with pockets so the ATC could have lots and lots of embellishments. Clever design and wonderful covers. Bee rules!

On Thursday I had a class with Carla Sonheim called "Voice Lessons" in which we were lead through a variety of different types of art in the morning and then encouraged to work with the medium we most enjoyed in the afternoon. I did watercolor portraits and while I over-worked most of them, as is my usual frustrating method, I did manage to stay loose and do one that was light and airy and fun. In fact, it rather looked like a young Aunt Margaret (or maybe it's Aunt Mary---hard to tell)! It was fun to do and I enjoyed my time with Carla a lot. She is a very nice lady and a good teacher---kind, insightful and full of good ideas.

Friday morning those of us who are members of the Photo Journal group met. It was fantastic to meet all these amazing women face to face. There are several of us from this area---Bothell, Mill Creek and Edmonds. Cathy Anderson turns out to be a tiny little redhead from South Africa, with a delightful smile, a wonderful accent and just brimming with enthusiasm and energy. She's amazing! We all agreed that we would make little mini photo albums for each other with photos from ArtFest. I have been working hard on mine and just got them mailed off to Cathy today. Since I am just about to be buried in EAF duties, it seems like I must get all these art projects I've committed myself to, done and mailed off. (I still have to do a page for the art journal group by June 7, I have pages due for the photo journal group by June 1st and I have just signed on to do a fatbook swap for Art and Soul in Portland---34 pages for that one. I must be demented.)

Friday was my class with Ann Bagby. What an experience that was! I love Ann's work and have been eagerly reading all her articles in the mixed media magazines for some time now. She does amazing things with acrylic paint, paper and stamps, making what she calls "complicated paper." We worked making backgrounds in the morning with some of her papers and anything of ours that we'd brought and then in the afternoon we learned about different methods of glazing and gesso-ing and altering the paper to use in our art. I did a torn paper couple of men that turned out to be rather Mongol-looking---fierce, funny and fun. I also did a goddess stencil that I used on the three panels of background paper I had created. I had so much fun in Ann's class that once I returned to my room, I could hardly wait to start working on my items again and really sort of rushed through Vendor's Night. Then I stayed up waaaaaaaaay too late, to well after one AM, working on what I had started in class, but I was on a roll and loving it. The two Mongol figures are my especial favorites, but the stencil goddess lady got turned into an Indian lady, complete with gold jewelry and a red and white sari. It was such fun! The only problem was that my room looked like an art bomb had gone off and while I can leave a studio in a huge, arty mess, I cannot sleep in a room with a huge arty mess. My OCD kicks in and it's just an impossibility to close my eyes until things are neat again. So, there I was, cleaning my room at 1:30 in the morning. When I got up on Saturday morning, I found the acrylic paint neatly stowed with my unguents and lotions...that could only happen at ArtFest!

Saturday morning was not so much fun as I was seriously under slept....I managed to get to my class on time, with Linda and Opie O'Brien. I shared a table with Deb Denton, of the Teesha and Tracy Moore thank you journal fame, someone I had been hoping to meet and hadn't connected with. Deb turns out to have a bent, wacky sense of humor, rather like mine, and the fact that the two of us were sharing a table was probably not the best idea.....but, my, did I enjoy her and I had a great time. I can't say I loved the earrings we made, but I learned how to patina metal and punch metal and make connections and I really got my money's worth. Not my favorite class, but the fact that I was so tired might have had something to do with it! Nice people, Linda and Opie, and they have obviously been married a long time as they have the old married couple bickering down about as well as Connie and I do!

It was hard to think that ArtFest was over on Sunday morning but I had arranged to meet Bee in PT, and we spent a long time shopping. We went to the gallery where I had put a madrone wood bowl on hold so I could pay for it. It's a thing of beauty, made my PT artist Hilda Winter (or maybe it's Winler, hard to read her writing on the bottom of the bowl). The bowl is very red with black spots and gold, red paint and it is mostly dyed, I understand. I love it. We went to the antique mall and Bee found all sorts of goodies and I found a wonderful photo of 1920s bathing beauties for my bathroom at Grant Creek. We shopped until almost 5, then headed for Edmonds. Bee and I had dinner at the Italian restaurant and then made an early night of it as we were both exhausted. The next morning we met Nonie for coffee then went to the beach. We spent all day on the beach and I think Bee had a very good time. I know I did! She had to pack up all her things for the trip back to Nantucket and that took quite some time. Glad I didn't have to negotiate an airport with the baggage she had. It was sad to say good bye but I am hopeful she'll come back next year, early, and stay after ArtFest, so we can really "do" the beach and maybe some gallery sleuthing in Edmonds. She is a darling and I miss her.

I had such a good time at ArtFest that I decided to take the plunge and I've signed up for Art & Soul in Portland in October. I will be down there from October 2 through the 8th. I'll have a room to myself at the Airport Sheraton and I got into both the classes that Ann Bagby is teaching. I also managed, somehow, to get into Sally Jean Alexander's "Soldering for Virgins" class. That one I REALLY need! My soldering is abysmal! The only downside to Art & Soul is that I won't be able to do south for Alex's 2nd birthday. It's too close to when I have to leave for Portland. Maybe I can get down there a little later in the autumn....I hope so!

Kellie brought Emma over about a week ago and we met Granty at Brackett's Landing. Emma had a good time but seems to be very frightened that a crab will come and bite her. I had to carry her most of the time we were on the beach, even after we ran into the Ranger who explained to Emma that if the crab is smaller than a an adults finger and thumb touching, it can't pinch you because it's pinchers won't open far enough.....she was dubious, to say the least. We did look hard for a baby crab but were unable to find one. We had lunch at Claire's and then sent Emma home with a dollhouse. Kellie and Don report that she loves the dollhouse so I have gone back to the toy store and bought furniture for her birthday gift. I'm ready for September 16th!

I was in the local little jewelry shop, BlueFish, were Barb and her minions make lovely bracelets, necklaces and earring from beads and baubles. I was wearing my bracelet I made to feature my artwork and Barb loved it and seems to be quite interested in buying some ready made charms of mine to use in her jewelry. She thought it would be fun to do a window display, with "original designs by BlueFish featuring artwork by local artist...." blah blah blah. I am really excited, if somewhat stunned. I have been working on making up some charms to take in to show Barb. I have made some featuring my photography as well as my artwork, because I think some of my images make nice pendants. I did one with two gulls sitting on a roof that I took down along the waterfront last summer, and had a lady admire it in a local shop today, asking where I had gotten the pendant! Maybe there will be a market for these??? That would be so much fun.

It's full on spring now. There are blooming lilacs, rhoddies, shrubs, trees, bushes, plants everywhere you look. It's a beautiful time of year, and I love to watch the hostas in the yard explode out of the ground (and before the slugs find them!). Everything is fresh and new. Ah, live is beautiful

Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the day. I will leaver for Port Townsend sometime in the morning (after coffee with Nonie first, of course). I will get to fritter away the day, visiting all my favorite shops and galleries, walking on the beach if I wish, taking pictures and THE BEAD STORE will be my first stop. As always. I am really excited to be going---ArtFest has finally rolled around again. I have all my class materials packed in separate containers, every item double checked and packaged neatly. I have all my trades either in little bags (the charms) or in envelops (the ATCs) and those are packed into ziplock bags, pre-sorted. I got my charm bracelet finished and put together with little charms of my own artwork. I am really happy with how it turned out and think it'll be fun to add other charms that I might get as trades to it. It looked so naked without anything on it....I had to do something! I bought a little hot water kettle today that I can have in my dorm room to make tea at will. I have a stack of art magazines and more books than I could read in a month all packed up to take along for the non-existent "free time" I seem unable not to anticipate having! What free time??? It's ArtFest---I'll be busy and running from dawn to late at night! I even have my copy of 1000 Journals so I can get it signed by Someguy, who is supposed to be at ArtFest. That would be cool.

Lise left this morning to go stay with her old workmate, Heather. I was sorry to see her go. It's going to be a long time before we meet up again and I'm sorry that I won't be able to see her for her entire visit. Can't be helped, of course, but it does make me sad. Too bad her visit and ArtFest had to overlap. Rune and Lise went south yesterday and met up with Loyal and LeRoy, Jan's cousins, and had a good family reunion. I gather that Rune was a huge hit with Kerry Anne's daughter. She stuck to him like glue after an initial period of shyness. Rune, the kid magnet! I saw a few photos of Loyal and LeRoy and was surprised to see that LeRoy has white hair and beard now. Of course, when I thought back, I haven't seen him in something like 15 years, or more, so I guess it's not that surprising! They both look much the same, hair color aside. Loyal just had her gall bladder removed and she remarked to Lise that "everything else I have inside I need." I guess so!

I wrote to Jim at Vaya Adventures, asking about adding a side trip to Machu Picchu and he responded that it is easily do-able. It seems that other than an airline glitch about getting home via Lima, Peru with our existing ticket issuing agency (Cheap Tickets), all the added segment would require is some as yet determined amount of money. I think that can be over come. Nola is really committed, I am less so as I have promised Susan and the Sandys that I will go to Alaska in the last summer or early fall. I have to balance the cost of that trip with the cost of Ecuador, the Galapagos and Peru. Oh for a winning lottery ticket. Too bad you have to buy one to win!

Time to go do the laundry and to pack up my clothes. I have to be ready to hop the ferry tomorrow so the 2007 ArtFest Adventure can begin.

Countdown to ArtFest

Only two more days and I leave for Port Townsend and ArtFest. I managed to finish my 8 x 8 canvas so I can have an entry in the 8 x 8 gallery. I had forgotten about that, as I am wont to do, and so had to work fast the other day to get the tropical fish mounted nicely on the canvas. The canvas itself posed quite a challenge as I had to go to about five stores to find the correct dimension. I could find every other sized canvas known to the western hemisphere, but no 8 x 8s. I finally found two at Aaron Brothers. Snapped them up in a hurry, I can tell you! I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I really don't like working in acrylics but it wasn't so bad and they did match quite nicely with my Caran d'Ache that I used on the original watercolor/crayon painting. It turned out to a mixed media piece, something I have done very few of, so that's fun. The dining room table is covered with things I absolutely need for class, probably need for class, might need for class, probably don't need for class but I might take them anyway and a lot of stuff that just needs to be properly put away so it's not in a huge pile (read: mess) when I return on April 1st. That would be a bad April Fool's joke on me. Having three separate classes this year requires a little more careful packing than last year when I had only one class. I am trying to get things sorted and arranged so that it'll be easy to grab what I need for each day easily and so I also won't forget to bring some important component. I also need to remember my trades (I have three kinds), my charm bracelet, dog tag, TTMoore Thank You journal necklace and my journal and journaling tools. It's building up to be quite a large pile and I am wondering if I'll be able to cram any clothes into the Miata after I load all my art supplies! Well, how many clothes do you need to work in, anyway? A toothbrush really doesn't take up that much room. I have been faithfully reading the Yahoo list for ArtFest and it's easily seen that I am not (nearly) the only one who is excited to the point of not sleeping well or long. Many, many others have posted that they are waking up really early or can't sleep at all, aren't getting any work done at their jobs and others seem to spend all their time online writing about where, when and what they are planning for their ArtFest trip. We are a chatty group, that's for sure!

I am really excited to be able to see the Teesha and Tracy Moore Thank You journal in person. The photos that Deb posted to the website were amazing and it really whetted my appetite to see the completed journal. I did my page so long ago and we all had to be sooooooo quiet about it so the surprise for Teesha and Tracey would not be spoiled, that until I went back through my photos I had forgotten what I'd done. I used the reposse techniques that I learned last year at ArtFest from my class with Beckha Krahula's class to do my letter, "Y". I was really happy with how it turned out, especially after I cut out some of the backing paper around the letter and inserted dark blue vellum. I used a lot of gold on the page, something I had not done before and I forced myself to use my own handwriting on the page rather than printing it out on the computer or stamping it with alphabet stamps. It seemed more personal to use my own handwriting, even though I think it looks sloppy and messy. It was hard to believe that the journal will be published in a magazine in the fall in Stampington Inspirations. I am really looking forward to seeing that issue!

Lise has been having a lot of fun during her visit here, I think. The other night she made her famous Chicken Rice and Curry for dinner because it was one of Rune's demands of his mother during this stay. (The other is that he wants her to bake him his favorite chocolate cake, which she will next week.) As Lise was deboning the chicken, Orcie decided that contrary to his first impression of her, she now seemed to be quite a fine, fine human. Lise kept dropping little chicken tidbits down to him and when she wasn't fast enough with the goodies, he "helped" her along. (The pig.) Besides cooking for her son, she's been shopping, has met up with old friends at a local watering hole and even managed to connect with several of the ladies she used to work with at the liquor store. One of them has kindly offered her a place to stay next week when she has to move because of my departure to ArtFest. I'm glad she won't have to stay in a motel after all. I'm sure she'll be much happier with Heather. Susan had all the Jocks for lunch at her home on Tuesday so Lise got a chance to catch up with the other Susan, Cathy and Ellie, too. The food was delicious and we didn't begin to make our exit until well after three o'clock. I'm glad that we all got a chance to be together again, like old times. Cathy invited Lise, Rune and me to dinner on Friday and boy, was that fun. Cathy made a spaghetti feast for us and we all ate way too much. Mac took me off to his office while the others played Spite and Malice and showed me his photos from both the Belize trip and the latest trip to Mexico. They had some close encounters with blue whales that were amazing---they could actually touch the whales as they went by the boat. I think Mac had a great trip and I know Cathy did. It was fun to catch up with Mac as it's been a long time since I've seen him. One morning Susan and I even managed to convince Lise to help us stuff the volunteer letters into their envelopes, so we now have all the letters ready to be mailed on April 2nd. What a relief to have that job done! I dread that one each year---for many reasons, but mostly because it's just so boring to stuff over 400 envelopes!

Nonie and I went to a program on Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands this morning that was held at The Savvy Traveler. The program was good but the photos were great. Just looking at all the fantastic shots that were projected on the screen made me realize I had to get my old, large Canon digital camera out of storage and get it trip ready. It takes such superior photos and what if something went wrong with my other camera and I was all that way from home without a working camera? It might just kill me! The program showed some photos of Machu Picchu and the woman who was narrating said something about if you were planning only one trip to South America in your life time you really shouldn't miss a chance to see Machu Picchu. After the presentation was over we headed off to a local coffee shop and talked it over. We decided to talk to Jim at our travel agency, the place that has arranged the rest of our trip, and see if we can add a Peru and Machu Picchu segment, and if so, how costly would it be. If it's possible and not outrageous, I think we'll do it. I mean, how can you get that close and not go?

One Week to ArtFest!!!!

I might be getting a little excited about ArtFest.....I keep waking up at 5 in the morning with my head full of trades and classes and looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones. I can't wait to see Bee again, and it's not just that she is coming with the ArtFest ATC books. She reported on the group list that 70+ of us participated and it'll be amazing to see all the different little gems of art that were created. I can't wait to see the books that Bee designed (and &drew helped manufacture) to hold the ATCs. Bee says that they will have pockets to hold the cards rather than binding the ATC into the book. Clever! The Photojournal group is planning on having breakfast together on Friday morning in the coffee shop and we'll take a walk together if we can find a mutually agreeable time. I can't wait to meet Catherine and all the others---well the other six who'll be at ArtFest, anyway. The TTMoore Thank You Journal group will all be wearing their necklaces that Deb so kindly made each of the participants, so I am planning on looking for my fellow contributors. Bee Shay will also be doing something with the 2006 Dog tags. I have mine ready to go to ArtFest, to take part in the display she has planned. I have worn it on and off for most of the past year. It's looking a little 'used', but then, it was supposed to look as if it had spent eons in the sea, so I guess that's a good thing!

Lise arrived last Thursday night and it's been non stop ever since. Rune, understandably, has been here a lot. Friday night Lise, Rune, Nonie and I had a lovely, fun dinner at Anthony's Home Port. Lots of laughing and giggling, a little drinking, a lot of eating and good conversation. It was fun. We realized at one point during the evening that we were all sporting band aids on our fingers (Lise and I gave blood earlier in the day and the band aids were from where our fingers were stuck for the iron in the blood test). Rune got the idea to put silly faces on them so I had to take a photo to mark the occasion. We were having a grand old time, that's for sure! Rune squired Lise and me all over on Saturday and Sunday---a Costco run here, Michael's and Linens and Things, etc. I got most of the supplies I was lacking for ArtFest and Lise got a Bed in a Bag, that Rune will post back to Norway for her (as it would take up an entire airline seat to fly it home!). It was nice to spend time with both of them. They also went off and found where the Norwegians are hanging out these days now that the Wild Horse has closed, and Lise saw quite a few of her old pals and got caught up with their comings and goings. She went to a jazz evening last night with Rune, and while most of the old gang, those that still live here, were there, the jazz was not so much to her liking. She wanted to see what it was like over here so she could compare it with the jazz afternoons she and Berd attend in Haugesund on Saturdays. I think she likes it better in Norway, as far as a jazz outing is concerned. Today Susan P is hosting The Jocks lunch at her house so the whole gang will get to catch up with Lise. It's a great day for it as it's pouring and cold. There is even the chance of some wet snow in the area today. Doesn't seem fair for the first day of spring.

I feel like celebrating today. Late last night I finally figured out how to do a mail merge from Excel to Word and I was able to print out four copies of the volunteer labels for the mailings we'll have to do for the festival. What a huge, HUGE weight off my shoulders. I have been trying to make this work for days now, and it just keeps creeping ever closer to the mailing deadline of April 1st, with no labels ready for the envelopes. besides mailing out the volunteer letter and application, we still have the volunteer meeting postcards to send, the reminder postcards with peoples' work assignments during the festival and the thank you notes for after the festival. It was really important for me to get this done and now I have. Drum roll please! Start the confetti! Fireworks tonight! I will have to get them stuffed this week, but I think Lise will help out and I know I can count on my co-director to come over and give me a morning to stuff envelopes. What a relief.....

s

A friend of mine sent me a link to a fantastic online video. It's only about three minutes long and features some great opera (and that's quite a statment, coming from me!). It's a delight and I don't want to spoil the fun for anyone who has not yet seen it, so I won't describe it more clearly. Do yourself a favor and enjoy the romp!http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp7vr_verdi-traviata-choeur-bohe

Learning to Solder

My trip to California was wonderful. I spent the first weekend in San Francisco with Jen. We had fantastic weather---78 degrees on Saturday! Jen joined me at the Hotel Vitale for two nights. Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building, then headed up to Marin and did a little walk on the Headlands. It was such a perfect day I can't imagine doing anything that would have been nicer. We had brunch at Jen's favorite spot and did some shopping at a mall and then returned to the hotel in time to meet George for dinner. George had been in town for a series of meetings but stayed through the weekend as it was the start of the Tour of California cycling race on Sunday. George is a huge cycling fan, as is Jen, so they were both very excited about the prelim race to be held on Sunday. Time trials, actually.

Sunday morning we met George in the lobby of the hotel and he told us that Team Discovery was right out front. I discovered the my daughter is a HUGE Team Discovery fan. You might even go so far as to call her a groupie....We went out and found that they were indeed right in front of the hotel and Jen took up a position along the tape that separated the exalted cyclists from the riffraff. We stood there for four hours. FOUR hours. Jen took a gazillion photos, as did I. One of the bike techs gave Jen a Team Discovery hat that had fallen off one of the cyclists heads and she wore it proudly all through the rest of the day. We got some amazing photos of Ivan Basso and George Hincapie, Jen's favorites. I must admit that I do love taking pictures so the four hours went by rather quickly and we were certainly in the prime place for gawking and photographing the members of Team Discovery. It was interesting to find out that the bicycles they ride cost between $10K and $15K each and that the time trial was only 1.9 miles, but the last half was up Telegraph Hill to the Coit Tower! The three of us walked the course and it was a steep climb on foot. I can not imagine trying to do that hill on a bike, let alone racing up the thing! It would have killed me. It was very interesting to spend the day with the two race fanatics.

Monday morning I got up very, very early and flew down to San Diego. I took the shuttle to Annie's and was there before noon. Alex is huge, compared to how big she was in October, the last time I saw here. She walks and talks and laughs and giggles and is an all around goofy kid. She's funny and smart and adorable and no, I am NOT biased! We had some quality time together, especially in the early mornings when Gramma would go rescue her from her crib before Mommy and/or Daddy woke up and on the Thursday of my week's stay when Annie let me care for Alex while she went to work. It was heavenly to spend so much time with her. I miss her so much now that I'm back in Edmonds. I know she's forgetting me all over again.

Annie and Alex and I went to the Quail Botanical Gardens on the 20th and had a wonderful time. The gardens feature amazing desert plants and trees, a walled garden, an orchard, a bamboo garden with a pond, a waterfall and a children's area that even boasts a miniature train and an area to dig for "dinosaur" bones. We had a ball. Annie got a year's membership and on Saturday we returned, this time with Chris in tow. I really liked the bamboo garden. It had an amazing collection of different bamboos, from fine little specimen plants to large, timber-type bamboo. I was also very surprised to see the huge variety of aloes and agaves that the garden has on display. Not knowing anything about desert plants, it was great fun to see the variety. I will lobby for a return there when I go back down to visit. I could move in---and it's only about 10 minutes from the kids' house.

I have finally finished the "Hooked on ArtFest" ATCs to take to trade at ArtFest. I carved the fish stamp and then used embossing powder to print the stamp onto the base paper. The back of the ATC was done with the scanner on the new combo printer I got for Christmas (Canon MP830...I love it for everything but printing photos). Lots of separate steps but they turned out well. I hated the bending brass wire into fish hooks part, however, as it took forever and was truly boring to do. I think the hooks added a lot to the cards so it was worth the tedium. I'm happy with the finished product and won't hesitate to trade them at ArtFest so I would call it a successful project. I felt like I had to have a hand carved stamped ATC for ArtFest. I did this to myself with starting off with "Wingin' It" last year. I wouldn't want to disappoint my fan (and I do mean fan in the singular!).

I am now frantically working on making some charms for ArtFest. A large contingent of the attendees are making charms and I'd like to be able to participate in charm trading, so I am making my first charms for this event. Not getting the supplies from the place I'd ordered them set me back, but I reordered from another supplier and everything came on Monday. It's not the easiest thing I've ever done but I can see that as you learn and take your time, the charms will get better and better. I am having some difficulty in getting the bails to be well connected to the charms proper, but I think I've worked out what I was doing wrong. I did get little lobster claw clasps so that you can just clip the charm to a bracelet or necklace and off you go. The image is the photo of me I took for inclusion into the ArtFest "yearbook" that Teesha is working on. I am wearing my mother's Groucho Marx glasses and nose. Yes, my mother owned these first---and wore them on occasion, too! (Hard to imagine if you knew my mother, but true.) I rather like the silly photo of me and I must say, it was sort of fun to run over to Third Place Books and use their photo booth. It was an expensive day, though. I bought about $100 worth of books on my way out of the store! I still have a lot of charms to solder, but I hope to have around 50 to take to ArtFest.

Lise is coming to stay for two weeks from Norway. We just found out, Rune and I. She'll be here next week and will stay through the 1st of April. I'm not sure where she'll be from the 26th on as I'll be away at ArtFest, but I know that it will be nice to see her. Too bad she didn't make arrangements to come next month when I'll be home and when Cathy and Mac will be back from Mexico, but she's coming when she's coming and that's all there is to that.

The daffodils are blooming and spring is here, at least as far as the plants are concerned. We had two days of snow on the ground last week. Dom McK. reported there was close to 10 inches at Grant Creek on evening but it melted off quickly. I know there was quite a pile of snow up there last weekend where it slides off the garage roof, blocking my path from the back door to the ceramics room door. It was about two feet high and I had to clamber over it to get to the garage. I kept getting snow in my slippers. I HATE that! We had snow here a week ago. Enough snow that the EAF board meeting was cancelled as Sue J. couldn't get out of Everett. Yesterday it was a balmy 70 degrees. Go figure.

Leaving Town

I am leaving for a ten day trip to California to visit my girls. I can't wait! I haven't seen Annie, Chris and Alex since September and it's been since Thanksgiving since I clapped eyes on Jen. Way too long! I will first stop in SF and spend the weekend with Jen. We will have dinner with Sean on Friday (ages and ages and ages since I've seen Sean) and Jen says we are dining at The Slanted Door, a Vietnamese restaurant. Jen and I are staying at a fancy hotel for the weekend---a girls' treat weekend if ever there was one! George H is to be in town on business that weekend, so we hope to connect and, perhaps, watch a bicycle race with George. Jen says it will pass directly in front of the hotel on Sunday, so it won't exactly be difficult to find a viewing spot. What else we will get up to, or into, remains to be seen. I wouldn't be too surprised if spa treats were covered somewhere. Jen (and me, too, to be honest) loves her spa days!

From SF I will head south on Monday morning, way too early, for Annie, Chris and Alex. Sigh. I miss Alex. I miss Annie and Chris, too, a lot. But my baby granddaughter needs me. She is way behind in Gramma hugs and Gramma kisses and Gramma reading stories and Gramma getting snacks and even Gramma pats. Yes, way behind. I must make up for lost time, and try and get some of these very important Gramma things banked while I'm there, to last Alex until our next visit. (Perhaps Annie and Alex will come in August again???? Wouldn't that be lovely???) Grandma Betty is coming during the time I'll be there, so Alex is getting a double whammy of grandmothers. Poor kid.

To be able to take this break I have had to get organized and get my many art projects started and finished! I have sent off my 50 4" x 6" mail art fatbook pages to Carol Parks for the ArtFest book. I have sent off my 30 ArtFest 2007 ATCs for that fatbook, to Bee in Nantucket. I have sent Catherine my "New Beginnings" photojournal pages that are due 1 March. And I have designed and begun to put together another ATC for ArtFest with a hand carved fish stamp. I like that card a lot and am quite happy with what I came up with over the weekend. It, like most of my projects, got complicated and time consuming, but the end product is close to what I had envisioned for trades at ArtFest. (Only 40 odd days until ArtFest! Can't wait!). I still am waiting on getting the soldering iron and supplies I need to make the charms I wanted to make to trade, but perhaps they will not get done for this ArtFest. I have already paid for the supplies, but the lady I bought them from doesn't seem to be answering her emails. Since she has been in business for a good long time and has a good reputation, I expect she is traveling, teaching or has a crisis that precludes her dealing with business at the moment. I am trying to be patient. It's not easy. I am not good at patient. But, as I said, I'm trying. I shall take the components for the new ATC to California with me and try to work on them there. We'll see how much I get done. (I did this last year with my Wingin' It cards and did nothing, absolutely nada, while down there!)

I attended the first meeting of the 50 Year Committee for the EAF the other night. We are very lucky to have a lot of very dedicated people involved in this committee and some new volunteers who not only have great and useful skills, but are truly enthusiastic and energized. I think great things will be happening for the Festival and I'm excited. Alyson H volunteered to take over Sponsorship on top of doing the Marketing and Communications directorship she is already handling. She has, virtually, agreed to do two full time jobs! And I know she'll do them brilliantly. We are so lucky to have her aboard.

I spent a lovely, quiet weekend at Grant Creek with Nonie. We both had projects to work on and we got a lot done and yet had plenty of time to sit and watch movies and relax. The weather was beautiful on Saturday---sunny and bright. You can smell that spring is about to burst forth, but not quite yet. The trees are showing swelling on their leaf nodes and the bulbs are coming up in force now. I expect that when I get up there again in early March that the miniature daffodils will be blooming and the primroses will be showing off their spring finery. I heard my first tree frog on Friday night. Soon the chorus will be in full voice! It's always a wrench to pack up on Sunday afternoon and head south.

The Northwest Flower and Garden show starts on Wednesday. What a great Valentine's Day gift that will be. Susan P and I are taking Julie and we plan to have a great time. I can't wait to see what B&D Lilies are offering this year and want to stop by Elandian Gardens, too. But, the very best thing about the whole show is that first lungful of SPRING you get when you walk through the double doors into the show garden space. It's full of the scent of good, healthy soil, spring bulbs, flowering trees and, mostly, green growing things. It's a smell I love and one I can hardly wait to inhale. I'll be gulping it down to my toes!

Remembering Rita

The week I spent in Rita Natarova's workshop at the Gage Academy was exhausting, amazing and expanding. Rita turns out to be a natural teacher besides being a gifted painter. She's funny and charming and sweet and oh-my-God, young. Her approach to painting to to look at the shapes and the colors, the values and paint what you see. There are no noses to be painted in Rita's workshops! A dark splotch here, mid-value skin tone there, the fleck of highlight right there. And if you do as she says, voila! A nose! It was amazing to watch her demonstrations and to see her process in action. She uses a mirror to look from the model to the painting to catch errors. Rita uses a plumb line to make sure of her angles. She uses her fingers way too much for someone who is using lead paint, but she uses her fingers to great advantage. The entire week was a profound experience for me. The most wonderful thing was that I can see where she helped me see things more clearly, to really see skin tones and to notice details I'd never noticed before. I can't honestly say that my painting improved much but my eye did and what goes on in my head when I'm painting has expanded so much. I expect that the more I try to "see" as Rita encouraged all her students to "see", the more improvement in my painting I'll see!

Besides the simple fact that taking a workshop like that is exhausting we had the added drama of snow in Seattle! I couldn't get the Miata out of the garage the last three days and I spent one night in Anna's guest house because of the snow. Connie had to ferry me back and forth to Capital Hill the rest of the time expect for the very last night when Susan P came to fetch me home. Susan and I celebrated my surviving the class by having a couple of martinis with dinner at Claire's! Me, drinking martinis. Truly a rare event!

Susan P and I had a very quick but very fun mini vacation to Vancouver, BC. We went to have dinner at Tojo's Restaurant. Susan and I attended a demonstration that Tojo did at Whistler during Cornucopia 2004, I think it was. He prepared sable fish with wood mushrooms steamed in pine and that dish as haunted me ever since. It was, and still is, the best fish I have ever had. Susan and I kept saying that someday we were going to go up to Vancouver just to have dinner at Tojo's. Well, we finally did! And it was worth the drive. We splurged and had the omakase dinner. "Omakase" means something like "I'm in your hands." We sat at the sushi bar and Tojo fed us. For well over an hour. A tidbit of this. A smattering of sashimi here, some seared sea scollops there...and smoked sable fish with wood mushrooms! It was as wonderful and aromatic as I remembered. We also sampled some delicious shochu, barley shochul, not the kind made with sweet potato which is not my favorite. I hadn't had shochu since I was in Shigaraki when it was the drink of choice of we Oogoya Studio potters! It was yummy but made me miss Bayard, Roger, Phoebe, Maria, Karen and especially Katie something awful. All in all, the dinner was not as expensive as we'd been warned it might be (average is $150 Canadian per person, before drinks) but it was still pricey. And worth every penny. Tojo's new restaurant is beautiful and comfortable, big enough but not too big and not too loud, either. I can't recommend Tojo's enough. If you have a chance to eat there, don't hesitate! Put yourself in Tojo's hands. You won't be disappointed.
http://www.tojos.com/

Nonie and I did a one day quick trip to Port Townsend. She may have placed some of her shell canvasses in the Port Townsend art walk! That would be fantastic and quite a coup for her. I sure hope it works out. We actually went over for the Wynwood Studio gemstone sale. I got a beautiful string of aquamarine beads. I took two of the beads and had earrings made but the rest I have reserved for the ojime and bead necklace I hope to have Kathy Parker at Wynwood make for me. I had hoped to talk to Kathy about commissioning her to do the necklace when we were there, but she'd had a family medical emergency and wasn't at work that day. Guess it'll have to wait until ArtFest week. I'll email ahead and try and set up an appointment with Kathy on the Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning before ArtFest starts.

Speaking of ArtFest, I think I have amassed all the tools I need for my various classes, except for some acrylic paint. That I'll pick up at Joann's the next time I'm there as I have finally decided on my colorway. All the rest, including quite a few odd ones I ordered directly from Opie and Linda O'Brien, have been purchased and bagged, ready to be loaded for ArtFest. Less than two months now, not that I'm counting the days!

I'm going to see Jen and Annie the middle of the month. I'm making a trip much like last year when I spent a long weekend with Jen and then flew down to Annie, Chris and Alex. I can't wait. I will get to have dinner with Sean while I'm in San Francisco. I haven't seen him for so long. It'll be wonderful to catch up. I miss him. And George will be in town, too, so I think Jen and I will be dining with George at some point. Or watching a bicycle race. Or something. I'm looking forward to seeing George, too. I haven't seen him since Alex's birthday weekend.

The January board meeting for the EAF was last night. We have slammed into high gear. Only five months to go! Ye Gods...where does the time go?

Jogging to "Journey"

I was relaxing amidst a huge pile o'Christmas items.....ornaments, candles, garlands, ribbons, bits and pieces of my decorating scheme....reading my emails on my new computer and sipping on a cup of tea, when I chanced upon a very perky message in the ArtJournalz group that stated she'd sent off her pages and was looking forward to seeing the completed journal. Bells rang, softly, in the far, far reaches of my tiny pea brain. Hmmmmm....had I signed up for this JOURNEY journal with Gina et al? A search of my emails proved that I had. And the pages were due now. I mean, NOW. Panic. How many pages? Documenting my journey? Had I made a journey? Am I on a journey? How do I journal that? How do I journal that now? I rooted about in my hugely messy spare bedroom, also known as the Art Stuff Storage Area, and pulled out a bunch of items and paper and floundered about on the computer looking for some old photos I could print up and use for the story of my journey---where ever it was from and headed to I know not where. I began to frantically start layering things onto the six x six-inch base that Gina had asked for and was not unpleased with the result. It took several hours and a lovely trip down memory lane looking through my Tibet photo album, but I came up with a page that I think nicely documents my journey, such as it has been. It was even quite fun, although I should have been doing a lot of packing up of Christmas stuff, but I got to make another huge mess on the dining room table, and play with my art supplies, and print out old photos, and tear up pieces of paper and glue stuff. It was fun.

I even got the pages the mail today, so it should be with Gina by the deadline. This set of pages are very different from my usual style, but I rather liked them and the process was wonderful. I am, after all, all about process! Process over product, that's my motto.

I went off to the hardware store today and got the last of the items I need for the class at the Gage next week. Anna called again from Big Sur today. She has a
terrible cold and sounds truly awful. Too bad! The timing is really bad as she had taken the week off to go down to Esalen. I know she was really looking forward to her time there but I now understand that she's been sick the entire week. I hope she feels better by next week. I can't imagine the strain of attending such a high pressure class (two paintings a day, after all!) and feeling bad at the same time. Makes me want to go lie down just thinking of it. This message that I photographed on the beach at the Dungeness Spit is most timely. Get well soon, Anna!

I'm Baaaaaaack!

Happy New Year!

I have decided that I am going to make a real effort to keep this blog current this year. This is not a New Year's resolution, but rather a goal. It pleases me to be able to go back and see what I've been up to and what photos and artwork I've posted. I will try to make this a weekly, if not more often, event.

N. and I spend five happy nights in Sequim over the break between Christmas and New Year's Day. We stayed at the Juan de Fuca Cottages, just across from the Dungeness Spit and loved the place. Cute, one room (with a kitchen across the back) and a bathroom added on. The view is spectacular, looking out over the spit to the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Vancouver Island beyond. Behind you, the Olympic Mountain range in all its winter glory. We shopped in Port Townsend, Port Angeles and Sequim. Both of us found treasures at the bead store in PT. Lois has the best bead store I have ever been in. I got a pair of ojime mouse earrings (the mice don't match, but they compliment each other and I love them!) and Eunice's birthday gift (jade beads for a bracelet) and ojime in the shape of a domidary and a tiger. I was born in the year of the Tiger, so that's fitting. (Chinese Zodiac) I am just delighted with all the goodies I found. In Port Angeles, in Fiddleheads, I found a wonderful hand-carved hand! It looks like it might have come off a saint statue. It's a lovely thing. What am I going to do with it, you ask? Beats me! But I love it and over time the right way to use/display it will come to me. N. and I managed to be in Sequim on Saturday for the Doodlebug's big sale. Doodlebugs is a great scrapbooking store and they had a great sale. I found lots of paper to use as backing for my photojournal cards and stocked up. I think this supply should take me through the year.

We spent a lot of time on the beach, either in front of our cottage or at the spit. Since the spit is a park, you can't collect shells or rocks or anything, but down in front of the cottage, N. was able to give herself free reign. There is an old car rusting away on the bank and also a stockpile of bottles that must have been a dump at one time. All the glass you find on this stretch of beach is not weathered. It must all be being exposed to the beach by the tides. N. found many, many interesting pieces of glass, ceramic and pottery. Tiles, parts of plates, crocks and crockery, glass bottles, even a few pieces of Degression glass that had been broken. Seeing that special green of Depression glass made me sad. You don't want to find pieces of it---you want to find the whole thing, complete! Ah, well. It was a treasure trove and N. had an especially fine time gleaning the beach. But then, she always does.

I finally got caught up in my personal journal. Only four months behind....

Next week I am taking an oil portrait class at the Gage Academy with Anna. She asked me to take this particular class with her last fall, and in a weak moment I agreed. Now I'm terrified! The supply list is lengthy and requires the participants to get canvas (or linen) and stretchers to make their own canvases. Gulp. Ms. Natarova also would like us to use Old Holland oil paints but that's not in my budget! She describes Gamblin paints as "tolerable". She's just going to have to put up my using them. At least I already have them and don't need to buy any more. And most of the brushes she wants us to have I already own. I think. I'll have to double check this in the morning as I am off with Susan P. to Utrecht downtown to stock up on supplies so I'll be ready for Monday. I'm still kicking myself for agreeing to do this. WHAT was I thinking??? (Rita Natarova) Well, let's hope I learn a lot and don't crack under the pressure. I surely am in over my head this time!

Saturday is the Gala Opening for the new Edmonds Center for the Arts. There will be a wine reception, then a dinner and finally a preformance by Al Jarreau. It should be quite an evening. I even bought a new outfit to wear. N. and I will be sitting with the EAF folks, so we'll know some of the people at the table and won't feel so much like fish out of water! I am looking forward to the evening very much. (Edmonds Center for the Arts)

Lamenting Summer

I have no idea where the summer went. Here it is, the first of September, Don't birthday just next weekend, and I don't honestly feel like I had any summer at all. Annie and Alex were here the first two weeks in August, and it was heaven, but how on earth could that have been two whole weeks? It seems like they came, they were here about sixteen minutes and then---POOF!--they were gone. Chris was here for five days, at the end of the visit, and that seemed like only a moment. ZAP! Gone. I loved having Annie, Chris and Alex here so much. Having a baby around, all the stuff that a baby requires, made the whole house feel lived in and used and full of family and love. It was heaven. Now I'm really looking forward to Jennie's visit in November for Connie's birthday.



It seems like the Arts Festival was over last week but already I have attened two meetings for next year's, our 50th, festival. I was present at my first executive board meeting as a member at large. I was glad to be included and hope that I will have some good ideas for the board in general. It's a new job, one I've never held before, so I'm still sort of feeling my way. We also had the retreat last Saturday. Susan and I thought, all in all, it went well. There are always things with which you could quibble, but it ended on time (!!!) and we covered most of what was on the agenda. A four hour retreat is fine by me! Susan and I need to start designing the "Save the Date" idea we have so we can present it to the board and get going on it. We'd like to be able to use the magnets, or whatever it ultimately will be (a postcard with a magnet?) all year long, so we'd best get moving.

I had a bit of a disaster at Grant Creek, that would have been MUCH worse. I got up last Monday morning and walked out through the dining room on my way to the deck to admire the view when I squished through the carpeting. Squishing through carpeting is never a good thing. I could not figure out where the water was coming from as there was nothing on the kitchen floor. I finally tracked it down to the reverse osmosis unit under the sink. I figured out how to turn it off and called a plumber. It took him six minutes (total) and $166 to tell me that it was caused by a sticker blocking the drain in the unit. That sticker must have been on or in the unit, since it was installed, and finally loosened over the years. I don't know how bad it might have been had I not been there that Monday morning. I guess I should be thankful I had wasps nesting in the ventilators on the roof and so had to say over an extra night to wait for the exterminator! I shudder to think what it would have been had I not caught it in time. As it was, I think the carpet was about 80% dry by the time I left Monday night--wasp free.

Nonie and I had a fun Sunday in La Conner. We hadn't been up there in well over a year, so it was really fun to go to Bunnies by the Bay and see all the changes there. I bought a lot of things for Emma for Christmas, some books for both the girls, a gift for Annie for Christmas (not that dumb, Annie, I know you read this blog!!! HA! Foiled again!) and an antique Chinese baby hat. Now I have one for each of the girls. Someday maybe I'll pass them on to them, but for now, they are mine and whenever my eye falls on them in my bedroom, I think of my little grandbabies and smile. Ah. Oh, back to La Conner. There is a little steam-driven launch operating tours there now, called the La Conner Belle, I think. We took the last tour of the day, for a measly $10, and had the time of our lives. The launch was surprisingly quiet. I don't know why I expected it to be so much louder, but it was very quiet. We saw a harbor seal and several herons fishing along the shoreline. The captain took us south down the channel and out into the bay, through Hole in the Wall. I had never been down the channel before so that was fun. Surprisingly echo-y under the Rainbow Bridge. We passed by a falling down group of buildings along the shore that used to be a boat building business. It's very interesting and looks rather like a skeleton of a building. The captain said he thought it would make a good painting and I have to agree! I may try it myself sometime. That was about the best $10 I have ever spent on entertainment. It was a perfect day, too....sunny and warm, late afternoon light twinkling off the water, but not too hot and not too crowded in the channel that late in the afternoon. After our boat ride we had dinner at what used to be Palmer's but is now Nell Something. Good food but crummy service. Too bad. Lousy service ruins even the best food.

I received a very nice email from Janie P who said she really liked my mermaid carving for my ATC contribution to the By the Sea trade and wanted to know if I wanted to be part of a swap! What a lovely, unexpected gift to find in my inbox. She is quite an active carver, I understand. She said she and her sister both are contributors to a Carvers Consortioum, whatever that is. I did write her back and say I'd love to be in a swap, but what was a Carver's Consortium, etc. Anyway, it was so nice to have someone write and say she liked my little cards. She also has my Wingin' It card from ArtFest. Her ATC for the By the Sea book is wonderful. It's taken from Mayumi Oda's Sea Goddess woodblock print and her adaptation is lyrical and flowing. She used cobalt ink on a white card, so it is very reminiscent of Japanese ceramics. Someone she has a lovely plastic glossy layer overtop that adds a twinkle that seems like water. It's a very sophisticated card and I love it. It's very flattering to have someone with so much talent compliment me on my first attempts at carving. I feel like a cat with a mouthful of canary feathers....silly but satisfied!