just enough

i want to say everything.  instead, i draw a blank.  today was long, white-grey drizzled, and filled with loveliness: an old friend, a slow walk to the river, little boys selling flowers on the side of the road, art making, good conversation, ducks jumping for worms out of our hands, 8mm film reels of families i never met.  maybe tomorrow i will surprise you with shining epiphanies and articulate revelations about the state of things.  but for today, i must rest in the idea that sometimes, silence is golden.  sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words.  and sometimes,  just sometimes, life overflows with too much goodness to even describe.

habitat

i awoke this morning to the sound of rain.  i had a premonition that my painting had washed away, washed down the storm drain into the slough and out to the ocean.  this is because last night i hadn't quite let the thing dry and was so excited by my idea to hang it on the telephone pole graffiti style that i just went straight to it.  i guess i'm just impulsive like that, not really thinking things through before execution.  and so when i went out this morning in the wet road, wearing my jammies and bare feet, the painting had in fact washed mostly away.  luckily, when you paint a painting every day, losing one to the elements is more of a romantic notion than a real blow.  i pried the canvas down with a cat's paw, examined the direction of the raindrops like hatch marks and how it had scraped the paint away in spots, leaving others, gathering at the bottom of the canvas in thick drips.  after letting it dry by the woodstove, i  proceded to paint it all over again, the same nest but different, a hummingbird nest that my little buddies wiley and nathan found in the street and kicked around until they realized what it was, then brought me as a gift.  so i repainted it, plus did another  painting of the same nest, on wood this time, for good measure.  these i will let dry thoroughly before hanging on telephone poles.  and for the next couple of weeks, if you see a lot of bird's nest paintings here, or up in edison, you'll know why.  i'm creating habitat.

something to remember

public art

me and museums, well, we don't always get along.  as soon as you start mixing politics with money with bureaucracy with art, in my mind, things are bound to go astray.  so i wasn't surprised by the intense surges of anxiety i felt tonight entering the whatcom museum for the "fate of the forest" show.  the exhibit was an open call, meaning anyone who was willing to pay $30 to become a museum member and wanted to put art in the show was indeed included.  and that included me and james.  

i wasn't sure what to expect, going in there, but with a call like "fate of the forest", i was sure i would see some answers...like answers to the stomach ache i feel every time a logging truck drives by with a stack of fresh kills, several times a day sometimes, logs for 2x4's for houses for families upon families.  the tree that takes a hundred years to grow takes but a moment to cut down.  so i was hoping, yes, for a glimpse of the kind of art that answers all the questions inside, like: who what when why and how......could we have decimated the world's great forests?  instead, i saw a room full of tree paintings.  trees...in pastel, in oil, in photography....trees everywhere.  and i knew suddenly, the fate of the forest was to be captured, forever as a memory, in art...so we'd have something to remember it by.

battle

today, the hummingbirds buzzed me in the yard incessantly, as if to say, hey lady, i'm hungry!  these days, i know them: i can hear them buzzing, i have my ears tuned to them.  so i knew the exact moment when they emptied their feeder...and it all happened in one short day, with the help of some busily squawking hungry orioles.  luckily, i was prepared.  i grabbed the feeder from it's branch, under the watch of some hopeful onlookers.  went to the fridge.  a funnel and a mason jar full of prepared nectar later, the feeder was full.  i hung it in the tree, and got distracted by some weeding, relentless morning glory, climbing everything it could grab.  weeding away, i pulled hard and fell on my ass. sitting there, in the bushes, what ensued was a remarkable hummingbird battle.  as the birds vied for position, i held my breath, closing my eyes when their trysts came so close to my face i feared collision. i watched them, seven or so, closer than ever, closer than i'd ever been, miniscule feathers individually reflecting the sun, hearts beating, breathing hard, seeing their eyes seeing me, a moment of recognition.  it was awesome.

who

three drawings, passed around the table by: karie jane, miles, and myself

when you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, sometimes it's hard to figure out who the hell is staring back at you. sometimes, it's an old friend, and sometimes, it's nobody you know, a foreigner, someone you haven't met yet.  sometimes, it catches you off guard.  but still, every day brings new opportunities to get to know that person better.

truly mild

restless in my art.  stuck in a rut.  need to get some things out of my system.  trying out different techniques and mediums.  baby steps leading to adventure!  acrylic on redwood chunk. 

vacation

driving east on highway twenty to the mountains, i watched the forest thicken and the trees change as the elevation increased.  soon we were high in the peaks of the cascades, surrounded by rock walls, melting snow drifts and waterfalls. my ears kept popping as heather and i talked incessantly, the way you talk on a long drive when there's still a'ways to go. we talked intimately, up and around life's challenges, dissecting them one by one.  and i have to say, through those car windows, that scenery changed me, those majestic mountains carved by water, water tumbling into the arid valley, that valley so carefully snuggled up against those rock walls, split in half by the hardest rushing and coldest green rapid river i had ever laid eyes upon.  how the wonders of nature transported me, and i could have just as well been in the swiss alps or the adirondacks, the french riviera, the himalayas or the andes.  it was just washington, and it was only a double overnight a couple of hours away from home...but the amazing scenery, a holy reminder of the beauty of life, plus the solid gold company of friends both old and new...well, it was out of the ordinary, just different enough for it to feel like a real vacation.  and as a result, i returned home a different girl. much better.