nexti'm working on my next show, coming up in august, at gallery fraga. this is a peek at my work zone.

new scarfit's still in progress but i couldn't wait to see the pattern taking shape so i blocked the work so far, probably not a good idea until it is finished. now i know how to make an imitation missoni top using the same stitch pattern.... ....using koigu yarn.

maceratedlately i've been fascinated by the form of flowers as they are ravaged by the elements. my early mentor, angela danadjieva, used to buy a single stem of orchids and left them on her desk for months, watching and relishing the sublime forms as they withered and decayed. in college we studied "A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", by edmund burke, and i was rapped by the notion of beauty in decay. this has permeated my perception of idealized landscapes, and i guess in a way buttresses my devotion to providing habitat for wild species. when i see developers wipe a site clean of all it's indigenous materials i feel a blow to the stomach. degredation of habitat not only happens in china or south america but right here in a place where nature commands attention by it's enormous scale. when a builder, just for the heck of it, stripped the understory from the forest behind our house did he know that all the critters that used that place for forage and shelter would be displaced or killed? it was nesting season. the pheasants are ground nesters. was a generation wiped out? with a verdant garden the pheasants are here far more than they used to be when the forest was replete with hiding places. i just wish more would not see native habitat as an object to subdue, but as a nursery for a myriad of interconnected indigenous species.

is it fabric?no it's just a hosta leaf that was corrupted in photoshop. photoshop is so cool how it can change the perception of an object by adjusting its color. we are so conditioned to only think of leaves in terms of green or fall colors. but what if a leaf were cobalt blue? would we perceive it relative to the status of a flower? instead of just a leaf?

pistilokay, so i'm going to weigh in on all the da vinci code rhetoric and give a plug to the divine feminine. in the middle of a flower is the pistil. it is the female reproductive structure of a flower. all the other parts are arranged around this central figure. she is the axis around which all of nature rotates.oil on canvas, detail from 9 x 12" painting, from an exhibit of botanical paintings.

transformedinspired by the book "the art of chopping up a sweater" i bought a used men's golf sweater, felted it, removed the ribbing on the cuffs and bottom of the sweater, then added the decorative knitted trim and some flowery brass buttons from my grandmother's button box.

these leaves look as if i used my pinking shears on them. it's in the saxifraga genus. i'll have to try to find the tag for it to find the species name.

resplendentit amazes me how fast everything grows this time of the year. many plants in the garden are reaching full blown glorious mature size and grandeur. collecting tiny plants from arboretum and botanical garden plant sales over the years and then watching them expand every year to this, the year when they finally look fabulous is pure joy. it was especially so last night, just after dusk, when it was still warm and the white of the abundant viburnum flowers glowed in the diminishing light.knitter's view, oil on canvas, 4" x 4"

this is an experiment in animation....

faggottingprobably twelve years ago i bought this eyelet fabric and faggotting with the intention of making some dainty p.j.s for my daughter. after lying in wait in the stash closet their time had come to manufacture into something else for my daughter. she had seen an eyelet skirt at a local shop that she loved and which cost around $150. knowing full well that i could easily make the same thing for nothing i went home, pulled out a pattern (also stashed away for years) that was the exact replica of the skirt in the store (three tiers of gathered fabric with an elastic waist), pulled out the fabric and at last it would all come together into something new. what i didn't expect was how delightful the marriage of the eyelet and the faggotting would be.
it makes me crazy that real quality fabric stores are disappearing all the time. just this year one of the best quilting stores in seattle closed. a couple of years ago a local store with gorgeous fabrics closed. no one seems to enjoy sewing anymore to support this sector of the marketplace. i know fabric has become expensive and labor is cheap so why sew? because like with anything hand made there is a great sense of accomplishment when you make an object, especially when it is useful. having something one of a kind, instead of one of thousands, is also a lure of making things by hand. yes it take time and skill but the results are ultimately far more gratifying than plucking something off a store shelf where someone somewhere was paid next to nothing to make it for you.
if you know how to sew and a young person you know doesn't please teach them how to sew (i'm a 4-H needle arts leader...teaching the next generation to appreciate needle arts is very important to me)! you can make just about anything...it's not limited to clothing. i just made a dry bag for the dinghy last weekend etc. etc.

bill jensen, one of my critics at the vermont studio center, told me that if you don't like a painting come back to it later and work on it again. well, this painting has been sitting around for three years and i recently decided to crank up the colors on it. i like it much better than before. i think working with digital media lately has changed my sense of color use for my oil paintings. i am stepping into bolder contrast, higher key colors and enjoying the results.
permeation, oil on panel, 20" x 30"

flower girlfor the past few days our cat has come inside with brunnera flowers on either her back or on top of her head. i think it is so cute.... joy is found in the minutia of life.

it's that celebration time of the year...
happy anniversary + happy birthday
ah buttercream! it is just so much fun to play with.

Happy May Day!i dug up a few bulbs of erythronium (fawn lily) from the wilds surrounding my in-laws old house, in the foothills of the oregon cascades, years ago. now they are flourishing in our garden, happily seeding about the understory, after being moved from our old garden. what a pure and delicate wildflower!