11.08.09
Sunday morning hallelujah
Laid up in bed with the flu and flying around the world with my laptop.
Gurinder Osan Copyright 2009 AP
I was reading the print version (per our Sunday Luddite ritual of morning paper in bed, sections strewn across the duvet and ink blacking my fingers) of Pacific Northwest magazine and found this short travel article on Sikkim, India alluring, intriguing, inspiring. I think most of it is due to the photo, which was taken by AP photographer Gurinder Osan, who specializes in social documentary photography. His perspective reminds me of the best National Geographic photography, which I grew up poring over. A little web searching brought me to his 2005 photo of Kashmir earthquake survivors, with its breathtaking composition and beauty amidst such suffering.
Gurinder Osan Copyright 2005 AP
The Arts and Life section has a piece on Rufus Wainwright, who’s playing tonight at Benaroya Hall–and that brought us to listening to his cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Just beautiful.
And then the even more beautiful version by Jeff Buckley: I could listen to this a million times and still get my heart broken and uplifted all in the same song.
And finally, Imogen Heap’s version.
09.07.09
Tillicum village
We visited Blake Island’s Tillicum Village tonight–a fantastic experience with a traditional salmon-bake dinner, a performance of native dances, and time to stroll around outside in the rain-fresh air afterwards.
The salmon are baked around an alderwood fire for about an hour.
The dancer told me the headdress he wears weighs 40 lbs.
Outside, there’s a totem garden, deer grazing nonchalantly, and a little girl trying to give her mama a maori princess chin tattoo.
07.04.09
3rd of July street dance in Winslow
Part shop-local-celebration, part old-fashioned summer street fair, downtown Winslow turned into a pedestrian zone of chaotic fun last evening.
K’s got the whole world on her cheek.
I love impromptu public art–it doesn’t happen enough. All along Winslow Way, the kids kept picking up pieces of sidewalk chalk and adding to the melange.
06.29.09
Silk log cabin quilt
Here’s the quilt I bought at the Rotary Auction, no provenance known.
It’s impossible for me to get a picture of it without the light in the way, now that we’ve hung it high on a wall. That was the evening’s adventure. Here’s how crazy resourceful B. is:
05.16.09
Concrete bowl
Earlier this week I made a small concrete bowl as an outdoor sculpture/birdbath. It’s been curing for several days in the garage, and this morning I put it outside. The idea was a combination of the concrete planter bowls at Bainbridge Gardens and the concrete leaves my friend T.M. makes.
First I lined a mixing bowl with plastic wrap, then laid a rhubarb leaf in the bottom. I covered the leaf with plastic wrap too.
I used leftover cement from a stepping-stone project and poured it in.
I used a smaller bowl (the picture above shows the difference in sizes) to press the bowl shape, then weighted it with stones. I let it set up like that for 5 days.
And here we have it:
05.14.09
Waxing green
I painted an encaustic today:
That’s S. holding it for me on the front porch. I notice that encaustics change color dramatically with different light. I think I’ll hang it in the dining room for now.
Isn’t the texture cool?
05.09.09
Sunday in the Park with George
So the story of the tortured artist is old hat, right? The tale of an obsessive genius who isn’t clever, isn’t witty, isn’t warm is not a compelling one. I bought tickets to the show because I love Georges Seurat, love the delicacy of his pointillist paintings. The irony with this show is that it paints the characters with broad strokes, making everyone–even George–a flat caricature.
Really impressive artistic effects? Yes.
Painfully dreary? Yes.
We left at intermission and I felt so free I skipped and ran and cavorted in the nighttime streets of Seattle, my lovely city.
04.02.09
Around here in April
You’ll find this little menage:
(It’s Basil’s empty bunny hutch, with a plastic egg waiting to hatch, and part of a chicken feeder ready for when the chick’s out and hungry) Artist: 5-yr-old A.
You’ll find me sifting through the skeleton leaves in the garden, cutting up a William Morris print on a card, and reconstructing cards on a blustery afternoon:
And in the garden, one leggy asparagus is way out ahead of the pack:
02.17.09
A Short Stay in San Francisco
If you drive down the Willamette Valley in February you’ll see lots of new little lambs in the fields, wagging their long tails and never too far from their mamas.
And here we have Baker Beach, just down the hill from C. and T. (thanks again for having us, guys!), where we started off a very full Saturday.
This is the cable car we rode (behind it is the restaurant where we lunched–their asparagus in oyster sauce was very, very good).
A mandatory visit to Boudin’s sourdough bakery:
While we looked at maps, architecture, oceans, and people, A. found mouse holes all over the city. Here’s one, sprouting a bit of mouse salad.
Along Fisherman’s Wharf (noisy, bustling) there was an oasis in the form of Franklin Bowles Gallery, which had a collection of Chagall lithographs. My favorite was Le Songe de Daphnis et les Nymphes.
On Sunday, we drove north of the city and visited Muir Woods.
It was raining pretty steadily, so the only clear photo I got was standing inside one of the giant redwoods and shooting upwards.
Funny that such a huge tree grows from this little thing that S’s holding:
02.09.09
Blue Mussel wreath
I collected mussel shells along with the kids last Wednesday at Fay Bainbridge beach. It was low tide and a good day for finding sea glass, too, though I don’t have enough of that yet for a project. The mussel muse in me produced a wreath, after playing with various configurations and adhesives.
Good to know:
*hot glue just won’t stick to mussel shells. Peels right off.
*A fine-gauge wire can be threaded through the ones with whelk holes. One could make some interesting sculptures that way.
*plain old Elmer’s glue holds just fine, and doesn’t obscure the nacre very much.
