ho ho ho happy december!

i unearthed all the christmas decorations today from the farthest reaches of the closet under the stairs, where everything gets stashed. it is like excavating a tomb with all the archeological layers accumulating in there.

i made this stocking about six years ago after making personalized stockings for everyone else around here. my daughter's features a kitty ballerina with jewelled tiara, pearl necklace and tule tutu. my son's took the longest to make...all cross-stitch. and my husband's is a felt applique snow scene with sequins + beads. i think he would rather have a plainer one. i will have to make him a new one that he will like better someday.

winter appearance
i made this scherenschnitte probably twenty years ago. most of the year it resides in my constantin brancusi book. in the years that i remember it jumps out of its covers and onto the window for its winter appearance (hard to believe that officially it isn't winter around here yet!). this year the wycinanki looks especially delightful with the snow as a backdrop. from the photo you would never know that the scherenschnitte is actually white arches printmaking paper (a beautiful heavy weight creamy texture paper!).

p.s. scherenschnitte + wycinanki are german + polish paper cut-out folk art....google these terms to find amazing creations far more complicated than my attempt.

pod garland

ice spilling from the sky knocks on the south facing windows, tap tap-it. what will the morning light reveal? trees weighted or broken from frozen precip in a field of white slickness? or will the snow be gone, temperatures moderated and bunny at last moves back out to his outdoor abode from his rental house in the garage?

sunrise on the olympics

what a day!

snow day!

the soft crunch under foot reminds me of my month of frigid vermont in 2003. ahhhh snow. thank you for this november treat!

i just learned how to make photoshop brushes from my photos of plants and birds. ooowee this is fun. i have always wanted to design fabric. maybe this is the way i finally get my wish.

just a peek 2...

just a peek...

in print!

the first publication of my work...
in KNOCK #6
Antioch University Seattle's Literary Arts Journal.
my Green Belt project won their green art contest
along with eco-lit winners.

upside down

could there be a denser populous of birdies in my garden than right now? with all the ripe sunflower seeds ready for plucking off the decaying stalks the birds have found their haven. the aeronautics of these little guys is mesmerizing as their supersonic speed catapults them to actually fly upside down just before landing on their seedhead perches. grab seed, eat up in the nearby apple tree, then back for more. the dance is repeated seemingly thousands of times with the flock all in their own individual rhythm. i would like to lay a piece of acetate over the window to trace their path on the sheet and see the sinuous lines of intersecting flight patterns in a abstract perspective drawing of nature at work.

form

simple delights are found in the infinite variability of natural forms. i love the lacy texture of the maple leaves. right now these trees are glowing cadmium yellow, with a bit of tuscan reds peppered in. the usual purply-black leaves of the smoke bush have now turned the most luscious burnt orange on their orbital leaves.

any excuse

we love any kind of holiday around here to dig out the cookie cutters and paint away with icing or sculpt a night creature. my husband should write a book about carving pumpkins. he is the master. year after year they delight the trick or treaters.

wet paint

here's a peek at my latest oil painting (un-named so far and i will probably add a bit more embellishment). i wanted to pair the humble house sparrow with gold leaf in a nod to russian icons and the lovely paintings of fra angelico. i have loved these devotional paintings since childhood, not so much for the content, but for the method in which the subject is rendered, with great reverence, skill and charm. my religious icon is nature in all its simple and stunning glory.

a garden of autumn treasures
as seen on 10-28-06

pyracantha, cornus, sorbus, cotoneaster, arbutus, calycarpa, euonymus

acer, viburnum, sorbus, perrotia, oxydendrum

boltonia, geranium, rosa, dahlia, dianthus, fuschia, tagetes, lavendula, zauchneria, salvia,

saffron!
the most delightful end of the season harvest!
this is my first picking of this year.
the harvest continues daily for a few weeks.
the hard part about harvesting saffron is that the lovely lavender crocus petals tend to get sacrificed for the precious salmon threads held within their grasp.
the background is one of our rouge vif d'etampes pumpkins.

first one

this was the first birdie basket that i made years ago, although the original intent was to leave peanuts in it for the squirrels while we were at camp sherman, oregon. it fell off the tree here at home and someone stepped on it.
i'd like to have fabric printed like the leaves in this photo.

my latest birdie basket

with cornus kousa (korean dogwood) holding it in place
i put lots of black oil sunflower seeds in my baskets to attract a multitude of feathered friends

sunshine on colorthe latest quilt
wow fibers look so great outside. too bad they can't stay there without nasty chemicals to stave off degradation.

sorbus alnifolia
such an ordinary tree most of the year and then instantly becoming the belle of the ball in autumn. such happiness to behold your foliage in the sunshine!

what a noise maker you are mr. stellar's jay! you scare away all the sweet little birdies with your racket. the little guys have no problem sitting in the feeder baskets but you, oh big blue one, must be daringly acrobatic to grab the black oil seed. i must say i lust after your ultramarine feathers. i'm so tempted to catch you and bring you into my studio to paint your form. oh what a noise it would be resonating throughout the house multiplied by our cat kackling at you all the while!

can autumn get any better than this?acer circinatum

boltonia asteriodes

anenome hybridus

rosa 'ballerina'

70 degrees in october? how can that be? delicious!!! raspberries and tomatoes still ripening! how can that be? the sunshine penetrates my core with delight and admiration for the colors that brilliantly reflect back in the low angle light. whites are in their crispest cleanest form. chroma everywhere is intensified by this gift of sunlight in this already color charged season. ahhhh autumn. let me soak it in.

back up, hold on, wait a minutejust to stir up the pot of confusion some more...KNOCK is publishing portions of my green belt project in their fall issue coming out in late october, instead of next year. look for an issue coming soon to eagle harbor books.

patience x 2this just in from the publishing staff:
the next edition of the Seattle Review won't be published (with my cover art) until around the end of january because it will be a double issue. it is interesting to get a glimpse of the publishing world...a stark contrast to the architecture + design world (where i toiled for decades) where deadlines were yesterday and construction starts before the ink is dry on the design documents. patience required to see my stuff in print.

patiencewondering about the release date for the KNOCK publication i went back to the original entry info and my work won't be published until oct. 2007! wow, i thought it was coming out this month. i'll have to be patient.