ho ho ho!

happy holidays!

making photoshop paintbrushes has been too fun

left-over paint
oh the buttery goodness of oil paint! i hate to leave any remnants on my palette just to dry up into uselessness. so some of it ended up on these little squares of masonite, for what i don't have a clue. experimentation i guess. painting on textureless surfaces is dreamy. no fighting the weave of fibers. luscious paint, i just want to use it all the time. could it be like making mud pies when you're little? the slimey squishyness of adulthood.

detail from my latest birdie creation
in progress
using ribbons, velvet, silk, chiffon, corduroy, linen, cording, flannel...
it's a soup of fibers.

i'm sorry!i would guess about eight years ago i bought a fraser fir seedling at a christmas tree farm, which is now city parkland, and planted it in the backyard. abies fraseri are the ideal christmas tree. beautiful symetrical structure, strong green color, lovely needle form and an openness that allows for decorations to shine. well, as our garden has become more mature all my little seedlings, and i have planted many trees of all sorts, have started to obscure my beloved sunshine so i made the decision that i would wait until christmas time and harvest the faser fir. i think the tree grew four to five feet just in the last year, so if it were to come down this would have to be the year to do it. this is the worst part of christmas time to me. i hate that a tree that has grown for years and years is chopped down to enjoy for just a few weeks and then turned into compost. so i said to the tree just before we cut it down, "i'm sorry!".

i must admit that this is the most beautiful tree we have ever had in our house. we cut it so it is just a couple of millimeters from hitting the ceiling. it looks so odd out there were it used to be in the garden, so open, unconfined. the tree was cut right to the ground so it appears as if it were never there. a ghost tree. it has to be the freshest christmas tree ever, just hauled in from the backyard. thank you tree for your years of growth to become our holiday decoration.

happy holidays.

World AIDS Day is Today!

"Visual AIDS Postcards From the Edge Benefit

Hosted by Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
530 West 22nd Street (between 10th & 11th Avenues)
New York City

Preview Party on World AIDS Day
Friday, December 1 from 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Sneak peek only -- NO POSTCARD SALES.
$75 admission includes one raffle ticket.

Benefit Sale

Saturday, December 2 from 12:00 - 6:00 PM &
Sunday, December 3 from 12:00 - 4:00 PM
$5 Suggested Admission

Over 1,500 original postcard-sized works of art."
including one from this artist
"ONLY $75 EACH. Buy four cards and get one free.

Postcards From the Edge is a show and sale of original, postcard-sized works on paper by established and emerging artists. Famous in the art world as the most exciting and affordable way to build a collection of work by internationally renowned artists, as well as young and emerging artists, all works are sold on a first-come, first-served basis. The works are signed on the back and exhibited so the artists' signatures cannot be seen. While buyers have a list of participating artists, they don't know who created which piece until purchased. A collector might end up with a work by a famous artist or someone they don't know yet. Either way, they walk away with a great piece of art while supporting the important work of Visual AIDS."

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