Sunrise, Sunset

Two more weeks of school. Actually, one more week after tomorrow's class; and then finals. Yippee. My typical day recently: get up, go to school, come home, do homework, go to sleep.

Yesterday morning I took the time to capture a typical, gorgeous sunrise. This is the view I see every morning from the kitchen window. You just gotta love this place.

Sprintime means rain and wind. It was particularly overcast yesterday when I got out of classes, so as soon as I got home, I grabbed the camera (again) and took a couple of shots of the clouds. The air smelled wonderful--too bad there's no way to capture that!

The last few rays of Sunshine were straining to seep through the clouds.

And as the Sun quickly set, the colors of the sky changed dramatically . . .

Going from pale blue to hot pink . . . To electric orange and gold . . . Maxfield Parrish woulda killed to be here and witness this splendor!

Where did the day go? Lately I ask myself that question a lot. No time for playing in clay, altering books, decorating nichos, or hand painting cards.

Soon, I tell myself . . .


Soon, the day will be filled with so much more than Sunrise, Sunset

635 Days Until George W. Bush Leaves Office!
636 Days Until the BIG PARTY!!!!
WOO-HOO!!!

R.I.P., Sylvia Plath

About Miss Plath,
What can be said?
She was alive,
And now she's dead.

Rest In Peace, Sylvia Plath.

643 Days Unti George W. Bush Leaves Office!
644 Days until the BIG PARTY!!!!

Weekend in Cali

This is Hermosa Beach--Dave's old stomping ground. As soon as we got into town, we found a parking space, and then had lunch.

Wait that's not true. Let's start over.

This is Hermosa Beach. As soon as we got to town, we drove around for a good hour looking for a parking space. Once we secured one, we hiked over to the Hermosa Beach boardwalk, and had a delicious lunch at Scotties. Or was it Scotty's? I do know that it was pronounced "skot-eez."

Afterward, we zipped over to Manhattan Beach, checked into our hotel, lugged all of our stuff up to our room, and then hurried downstairs to the rehearsal. Fast forward: rehearsal dinner, tux fitting (Dave, not me), making merry with the kids, back to the hotel, pass out in exhaustion, wake up, go to the mall to exchange tux pants, quick lunch, back to the hotel, get ready, and then attend the wedding.



The wedding on Saturday was very nice--small, outdoors, mild temperatures, cute couple--followed by a fun and memorable reception, which lasted into the wee hours of the night.

It all went by too quickly, and Sunday morning we found ourselves back on the road. Dave put the pedal to the metal, and I went back to photographing signs as we zipped past them.

Bye-bye California.

And congratulations to Erik & Christine!

643 Days Unti George W. Bush Leaves Office!
644 Days until the BIG PARTY!!!!

Racing Trains in Arizona

It would have been nice to spend a little more time in Arizona, rather than speeding through (hey, Dave was driving). It's so gorgeous there--particularly up north in the Grand Canyon area, and Sedona. Being in Arizona always brings back fond memories. When we lived there, back in the late 60s-early 70s, Mom and Dad took us all over that state. We camped, hiked, sight-saw, backpacked, drove, you name it. A typical weekend would see us loading up the camper (tent, cooking gear, sleeping bags, food, sterno, and each of us had our own camp chair and water canteen!), driving out to no-man's land, and setting up camp for the weekend. Dad played his harmonica. Mom looked for evidence of ancient people. Us kids--6 of us--would look for treasure (rocks, rusted metal, scorpions, lizzards), and our dog, Snoopy, would shoot out of the camper like a rocket--only to come back later covered with "jumping cactus."

Nice memories. It's funny--people often think of the desert as some desolate, barren, bleached-out-bones kind of place. And it can be that. But it's also full of life. And being in the desert makes me feel innately happy. There's just something very cool about being surrounded by sand, gorgeous rocks, lightening-fast lizzards, mammals and birds that "blend" with the landscape, and the burst of color that comes from cactus flowers, and from the mountains at sunset. There's nothing more alive than that!

You know, when you're on the road; and especially when you're on the road for long periods of time, oftentimes you make your own entertainment. Dave enjoyed "racing the train," while I looked for odd road signs to photograph. Don't worry--we didn't actually race the trains to any particular destination (like, tracks crossing the road, for instance!). We just zoomed alongside each other. I'm telling ya--there are some seriously long trains criss-crossing northern Arizona!


This photo was less than crystal clear (it's hard to take good photos when you're the passenger, and the driver rivals Mario Andretti), so I decided to really distort it in photoshop.

And tomorrow, it's "Cal-i-for-nia Here I Come!" (Just imagine the tune in your head)

644 Days Unti George W. Bush Leaves Office!
645 Days until the BIG PARTY!!!!

Road Trip!

Okay, we took way too many pictures on our road trip, so I've had to whittle it down to just a handful, which I'll post over the next few days. I felt very sad about leaving Jack and Frida behind, and even took one last photo of them before we walked out the door, but it was too blurry to keep. Not sure if the camera was somehow affected by my mood (teary) or what, but that's that.

Well, poor Jack doesn't have many toys. This is partially because he's so picky about what he'll play with, and also because all of his "rejects" quickly get taken over by Frida. So, while Jack sat there with his rattle mouse and feather on a stick; and Frida was lost in a mountain of stuffed toys, tug-of-war contraptions, teething rings, binkies, and chews, I quickly grabbed her "twin sister, separated at birth and recently reunited (with the help of her Grandma)." This is her much smaller twin, which just goes to show you that the nature v. nurture debate has some significance. You should see the two together. It's pretty sad. So, anyway, I grabbed the twin, to keep us company until we returned home.

On the way out of town, we saw a smattering of Santuario walkers, participating in the annual pilgrimage to the Santuario de Chimayo. Which reminds me: if you want to see a really cool photo of the inside of the Santuario, check out Kim Williford's work on the Yellow House site:

http://www.yellowhouseassociates.com/kim.html

And scroll down to Wall of the Healed: Chimayo, New Mexico

Near the border of New Mexico and Arizona, we passed by this cool little tourist trap. Don't you just love these kind of places? Filled with all kinds of cheap goodies. If we hadn't been in such a hurry to get to California, we most definitely would have killed a good half an hour here.

One final shot of the Land of Enchantment, in the Gallup area. It's so gorgeous! Can you make out the cave-like holes in the side of that mesa? Doesn't it just make you want to grap all of your camping gear and go hang out there for a while? For me, it brings back childhood fantasies of living in the wild; communing with animals and nature, getting by with the aid my higher intelligence and excellent survival skills. What a fun dream!

Anyway, I just love things like that. It reminds me of a monumental nicho. And speaking of nichos, I've been working on the one in our living room. I took a "before" picture. Now I need to take a "during" photo, and then an "after" one when I'm finished. I'll post those sometime in the near future, so stay tuned! :)

645 Days Unti George W. Bush Leaves Office!
646 Days until the BIG PARTY!!!!

Altered Plans

Initially, I'd planned to spend all of today preparing for our trip. But my altered book was calling me, so I had to alter my plans. It was time well spent, too, because I finished three more spreads: pages 9 through 14:

9 and 10: Masked over images, then spray painted primer over both pages,
followed by matte black spray paint. For the page numbers, I outlined the stencils.

To add a little interest, I turned the "zero" on it's side.

11 and 12: Once again, I masked over the images, threw down the alphabet stencil,
then lightly sprayed both pages with black matte spray paint.
I followed this with a heavy spraying down the spine, and a curly-cue on page 11.
Once this dried, I went over the curly-cue with a blue metallic marker,
and outlined the bird on page 12 with the same marker.
It's hard to see, but he light blue metallic plays nicely against the black and white background. This time around, I scribbled inside the "11" sentcil,
and drew vertical lines inside "12" (to repeat the verticality of the alphabet stencil).

13 and 14: This time, I place a large alphabet stencil across both pages,
then did a heavy spraying with orange, glossy spray paint.
The translucency of the paint really appeals to me--I like the way the birds
(on page 14, especially) show through.
Because the letters of the alphabet are so large on this particular spread,
I decided to spell out the page number with a much smaller stencil. I did this with a gold metallic marker. I also used the same marker to outline "HI" on page 14.

657 Days Until George W. Bush Leaves Office!
658 Days Until the BIG PARTY!!!!

Goodnight, Moon

It's been a crazy & hectic past few days, and it's getting rather late, but I promised Shannon that I'd post something today. Hi, Shannon!! :)

You see, first we came to realize that Erik's wedding is THIS weekend, rather than NEXT weekend, so there was the mad rush to reserve a room at the hotel, secure a house-sitter (Thanks, Emma Anne! You're the best!), and just generally ready ourselves for a major roadtrip.

Then, we had our most delicious and magnificient Indian pot luck dinner at Sue & Darwins. Oh, it was sooooo wonderful. I contributed shahi paneer and curried eggs (Tarryn's recipe--yum!), and some basmati rice. We also had yellow dal, saag paneer (or palak, depending on who you ask!), stuffed cabage leaves, naan, and apple crisp. Sue looked very gorgeous and proper with her red bindi and Indian scarf . . . it made me think that I should have worn my sari. Next time!

After dinner, things really picked up. There wasn't any chandelier swinging going on, but at one point we smelled a strange odor . . . something burning . . . not just anything, either, it smelled like burned hair! "Oh, the dog's tail was on fire," Ben said in a very deadpan tone, "so I put it out." Not Frida. It was poor little Romey. Actually, it was BIG Romey. He wagged his tail just a *little* too close to a candle. He's fine, though, so no worries.

Sunday is a blur.

Tonight I attended my first meeting for the 2007 Abiquiu Studio Tour. Saw some familiar faces, and met some new ones. Everyone is required to have a "job" for the tour, so I signed up to be the website liason. I'm really looking forward to getting involved, and the ladies that I'm liasoning for (is that even a word???) are really great.

No art making this weekend! Ack! When we get back from California, though, I'll be back at it full time. There's a few hundred pounds of clay calling my name, and I have lots of basket making materials, too, just waiting to be soaked and transformed into something wonderful. I'll be sure to post photos as things evolve.

But FIRST, here's an announcement for my latest solo exhibition:
Ha! Just kidding! It's from a website called "Church Sign Generator." How cool is that? Check out the link over there to the left!

That's it! I'm pooped! It's time to say "Goodnight, Moon."

659 Days Until George W. Bush Leaves Office!
660 Days Until the BIG PARTY!!!!