What I did on my summer vacation...

I am physically exhausted and mentally relaxed. I think it worked. I maintained a pretty break-neck pace, which is typical for me. Trying to feel caught up with some of the maintenance and projects around the house and trying to squeeze in the art and the gardening and the junking I love. Whew! I'm tired.

We started off with a trip to the coast. I was no where near decompressed enough to say I was relaxed but it was a perfect start to the week since leaving home means leaving behind the "to-do" list. My favorite things at the beach were watching the sea lions, walking on the beach, a Bloody Mary at the Sea Hag in Depot Bay and shopping at Pirates Plunder in Newport, the Newport place I call "the hippy store" but I think it's really a head shop (do they say head anymore?) and that mom and pop place in Lincoln City. The treasures included great ephemera, vintage rayon seam binding (the most luscious ribbon EVER!), old postage stamps, incense with beautiful graphics on the packages, a set of prayer flags to hang in my pergola, and a fabulous little vanity suitcase that I'm going to make into my traveling art kit. I played with the camera and took a bunch of pictures but haven't even extracted them yet.

Once back home I got back to work on that to-do list.
1) The doors were all painted for the hallway project but I still had the mouldings to repair and paint, the hardware to strip and re-installing everything. The last doorknob went on today after much jury-rigging and adjusting from the husband. I felt bad for him. This was supposed to be MY project and boy, howdy did he get sucked in on that door. It was stubborn but all done now and looks beautiful with all the sparkly glass doorknobs!

2) Weeding and pruning and dug many of the calla lilies, some moved to a new spot in the yard and some potted to share. Dug two azalea starts, took a cutting from my Frank Klaeger lilac and air-layered the Camila, all for the kids yard at the new house. I might be a little late so we'll see what "sprouts"!

3) FINALLY sanded and repainted the little white desk in the spare bedroom. Yes, sanding it was as miserable as I thought it would be and explains why have procrastinated doing it for about 8 years. Good grief. Done now.

4) Trekked out in search of a new bonsai pot for my giant redwood. It is about 10 or 11 years old now and stands about 2 feet high and just as wide so starting to look a little goofy in the tiny pot. Larger bonsai pots are kind of hard to find and YIKES are they expensive! I found just one in the size I want and it was $80. EIGHTY DOLLARS for a flowerpot. If you're looking for a career change this might just be it. No, I did not buy it. I will look a little longer....

5) Visited Rita Deco in the Hollywood district. Drove there myself. Really. Around and around in circles and then there it was! OMG, who knew! That Hollywood neighborhood has antique malls right and left. I need to get out more.

6) Made a vain attempt at improving the looks of the front door to our house. It is a marvelous old mahogany door and I love it and wouldn't think of changing it but the sun has dried and faded it, not to mention the scratches. I tried Old English Scratch Cover, I tried Watco oil, I tried. I guess this will be a project for a different year. At least, after two trips, we DID find a new rubber gasket for the threshold to replace the broken one I fixed with duct tape. Yes DUCT TAPE, I know.... but I couldn't close the door, I had to do SOMETHING! And it did work for 5 years. My husband doesn't like to rush into things.

So what about making art? Well, I had an epiphany (that's epiphaMy for you, Carol!) I will be talking about that in a separate post but I have to say I'm kind of excited about it.

If I had any sense at all I'd go log on to the office now and start slogging through the emails in self-defence. But nobody every accused me of having any sense.

Vacation!

Aaaaah! Vacation at last! Work has been really intense for the last couple of months and FINALLY 13 days in a row with no alarm clock. It has been WAY too long coming. Over a month since I have posted - I'm such a slacker! Tomorrow we head off to the Rogue Bed&Brew at the Oregon coast. No chores, no to-do list, OMG!

Okay, so what will I do with 13 days... we all know I'm no good and sitting down for very long. I really need to work on that. The garden is looking pretty good in spite of the lack of attention. So many thing I would like to move, change spruce up. Maybe by the time I get back from the coast I will have "decompressed".

• I could finish the ill-fated hallway/ bathroom redecoration project. Began in March and set aside until July and STILL not finished. Three doors painted and one to go ( I have no doors in my hallways except the bathroom), new glass doorknobs ordered and received, bathroom paint and floor selected. Yes, I could just press on and finish. Much work but I will feel much accomplishment and it will make my eyes happy!
• The garden, oh yes the garden. Pulling weeds in my bathrobe, making everything just so. Plucking weeds is so relaxing and mindless and the end result does make my eyes happy!
• Visiting Rita Deco in Portland's Hollywood district. On my list forever!
• An art project for my office wall that's been inside my head for a while now.

Or maybe not... So many possibilities and only 13 days. Did I say that out loud - ONLY 13 days! It's never enough but be careful what I wish for. A girl does have to make a living, after all!

I will take the camera to Newport and play and I won't think about "what if". I will play for 2 days and see what unfolds.

Here is the VERY best part. Labor Day weekend is my two-year milestone on the long journey from breast cancer warrior to breast cancer SURVIVOR. I am finally feeling like my old self, with my old energy and I can do ANYTHING I want and I don't just want to sit on my recliner chair and rest. SO awesome to have all the possibilities in front of me. I am grateful for the dilemma!

The Muse

Lately all my posts have been about the outdoors; that's kinda ME in the summer time! My art friend Michelle sent me a lovely piece of inspiration for my birthday last week, "Dreams are the Key to Life". She and I have had a few conversations about the elusive "muse" and finding time for art so I decided to post this journal page. She has been up against some compelling personal challenges lately so I am SO flattered she would take out time to make something to inspire me and I can only hope she found some joy and relaxation in the making!

This journal page is part of an exercise I have been doing based on Lisa Sonor Beam's book, "The Creative Entrepreneur". The book focuses on finding the courage for "Making Business Ideas Real" so is not directly related to my personal dilemma of finding my voice and figuring out what I want to do with my art. When I started reading it I realized it was really making me think about what makes me tick and why I do what I do so I decided to (roughly) follow the journaling path and I find out what I could discover. Interestingly, I HAVE gotten a lot of insight into what I really like to do and what my dream life would really be like. I still can't say I know what I want to do with my art but I think I have made some pretty big steps toward finding my voice. The orange colors on this page are not right and let me just say - I DO NOT THINK DIGITAL ART IS MY GIG! I do not much like to figure it out so I might just NOT.

Right now I an working in series. Now that I think (maybe maybe MAYBE) I have found a style I feel comfortable with I am doing it over and over to really make it mine. Maybe I will post a piece someday soon. We'll see if it sticks!

Bonding with the camera

I didn't spend all of my time on the campout walking and crafting and sitting in the sun. My son (thank you Andy!) introduced me to some of the features of the digital camera. Who knew you could switch to black and white and sepia? Probably everybody but me! I love black and white photos. I love the way black and white removes the distraction and makes everything "match" and the unnecessary details fall away. Love it love it love it! Imagine how different this photo would look if you could see the color of the ground and the rock and my shoe and jeans. In black and white it says (to me!) step up, step out, put your best foot forward, go out into the world. There will be more black and white in my future!

Let me just say that this crawdad was not forced to "walk the plank" for this photo. He met his crawdad maker much earlier in the day. It was a quick and to the point dunk in a boiling pot - yum! I did a little editing to brighten it up and ended up with some funky streaks so I have more to learn on that topic. One thing at a time....

Ah, camping! I can hardly wait for the next one!

Camping on Mt. Hood

We spent this past Sunday through Wednesday camping at Timothy Lake on Mt.Hood. How lucky are we to have a place like this just a little over an hour from home!
The weather was beautiful by day and by night. The first morning a mist slowly rolled in over the lake where it settled just until full daybreak and then lifted like a curtain rising to reveal the stunning mountain behind it. The stars at night filled the sky like glitter, un-obscured by competition from the city lights. Refreshing all the senses, the body and the soul! Ahh!

This is my son sailing his canoe - yes SAILING the canoe. He rigged it for sailing himself and gets quite a few questions about what in the world is it. It is quite sea-worthy and has even been out in Columbia River chop. He took me for my first ride on this trip and it was marvelous to glide along in total silence.

We were 9 campers in all, plus a 90 pound dog and a 4 pound dog. A fine circle of campers! There was mountain biking around the lake (not me!), canoeing, fishing, crawdadding, target practice with the bow and arrow, swimming (not me!) and sitting in the sun. I especially enjoyed the canoe and walks around the shore, observing the flora and fauna. We saw chipmunks (they might have been ground squirls), stellar jays, along with many other birds and even watched an osprey daily and once were lucky enough to see it swoop down and snatch up a fish from the lake. The bear grass, bunch berry, queen's cap and lupine were all in bloom. Something to do or see everywhere you turned!

I know myself well so I brought along a little pre-made paper bag journal in case I felt like making something. Like anybody thought I wouldn't! I put a very limited number of supplies in a shoebox and challenged myself to use only materials that an early settler might have on hand. I had three grease pencils (black, blue and red), a pencil, pen, a little coil of wire, a ball of artificial sinew, scissors, needles, pliers, a mystery novel from the '40s to clip words from and my one real nod to modern convenience - a glue stick. I just didn't think we would have time to butcher a mule and render some glue! The book is filled with pressed flowers, moss, bark, feathers and various bits and pieces I picked up on my walks. The picture is too small to read the found poetry but the cover says... I'm going down and look around on the ground for it, she said... Oh, well, that will keep her busy for awhile anyway...

The found poetry on the following pages:

...enjoy yourself this afternoon, just as though it was any other day of your life...

...I am getting to the age where I am capable of

doing some thinking

let imaginations run away

there could be no more welcome sight

I was just his minute thinking

rushing lickety-clickety

without rhyme or reason....

...sometimes I wonder...

...a moment to come back to earth...

...activities had been confined to a small area

pondering something

someone told me to tell you something

tell you what you do

I'm listening

let's take it where there's a good light

and see what we can see...

I am the luckiest Mom ever!

My son, Andy is a geologist and he travels to all sorts of interesting places testing the soil and water. His field work is frequently at abandoned mines - mercury mines (who knew there were mercury mines?!), copper mines, gold mines... He always comes back with the most interesting tales about the places he has been, the things he has seen and the history. I could listen to his stories for hours! He often comments on what he calls the "little trinkets" he runs across in his travels. Oh! to be a little mouse in his pocket just riding along watching the ground. Stop, Andy, stop, put me down here! Junk envy!

Yesterday he came back from a gold mine in Death Valley and gifted me with these rusty pliers. OMG! He gets it!!! I hugged his neck and told him he could have wrapped these up and given then to me for Christmas and I would have been THRILLED!

He said they are probably about 130 years old and crusted in arsenic so I should be careful. I told him I wasn't planning to lick them!

Don't you think they look a little like an X?

XOXOXO!

Art Room

These are the pictures I took of my art room last night. Art Room is the fancy name. Mostly I just call it my Crap Room. But I'm trying to use the fancy name more. Pretend it and it will become, or so they say!

I guess I should have tidied up a little first but honestly, it always looks this messy and for a couple reasons. First and foremost - I LOVE JUNK! I love to look at it, touch it, sort it and shop for it. I don't think there is anything about junk I don't like, except maybe dusting it. So I just don't do that.

Second is I have been working very hard on learning PATIENCE with my artwork. My inclination is to start something and work it to the end before I start something new. I get frustrated waiting for paint to dry and glue to dry and trying to force the next step. My lack of patience has resulted in many failures. Now, I am trying hard to work on more than one thing at a time. That way I can set it aside and move to something else, especially when it needs to steep awhile. I'm still struggling to remember to do it but I get much better results when I do.

I'm not too happy with the way the pictures turned out so you may be seeing a do-over one of these days. Funny thing is, that's how the art works a lot of the time, too. I make something and then have to do it over because, over the course of the process, I think of things I wish I had done differently or get inspiration to take it in a different direction. Do overs!
The oak buffet "workbench" was a big splurge to myself and I love love love it! It is just the perfect height to stand up and work. It has seven drawers and two cupboards and it is sturdy like a ROCK. The veneer was peeling off the upper drawer fronts so I covered them with cheetah paper. Too cool! I agonized over buying it because I'm such a cheapskate but every single time I stand in front of it I am SO grateful I found it. Worth every penny!

This is my desk, where I am sitting right now as I type this. That pink blob in the lower left corner is the back of my chair and behind that is my sewing machine. Obviously every inch used and barely room to turn around in here - but a joyful place to me!

Sunday Junking

I am such a procrastinator on getting comfortable with this camera! Tonight I came home and decided to just do it. I snapped a few outdoors and a few indoors for practice.
Last Sunday I made my weekly pilgrimage to the Volunteers of America Store. I love that place but not like I used to. They remodeled and cleaned up to make it more like the Goodwill, the Portland gold standard for second hand stores. I liked it better the old way! They eliminated the "as-is" annex. Man, that place was some good treasure hunting! Their final resting place for the things that didn't sell and the stuff they didn't consider worthy of a spot in the "real" store. In short, the crap. Oh Yeah! The dust mites made me cough and reaching your hand into the textile bins was a little sketchy but the lure of the NEXT GREAT THING drew me like a magpie to a sparkly thing!
This was where I found the old photograph that I used in my Somerset Studio Melange article. Twenty nine cents. I remember one time I was shopping there with my daughter-in-law (she didn't care to touch too much in there and I warned her not be alarmed when I started to cough)when I spotted this little old suitcase, the size a child would carry. Brown "leatherette" exterior, rotted interior and neato Lucite handle. I fairly hugged it to my chest and asked the clerk, "How much for this?". She scrutinized it up and down, looked inside, turned it over and furrowed her brow. She looked up and said, "How about 35 cents?". She probably got a good dinner table story out of it, I'm pretty sure my daughter-in-law was mortified and I got this fabulous little suitcase for storing my collection of millinery flowers. The inside is covered in sunflower fabric now and there are sunflowers and butterflies on the outside. I don't actually do anything with the millinery flowers but it makes me happy when I open up my little suitcase and fondle them.
Man, I am getting WAY off topic. I get a little passionate about rescuing old crap.
So Sunday I went over to the new, improved and not quite as fun store and spotted this white metal shelf for just $4.95. Who could resist! This is perfect for my little bonsai trees. The big metal shelf is made from a metal pallet that was used to ship outboard motors. Our friend Bob gave it to me. I dismantled it and cut apart the metal strips and my husband welded it into it's new purpose. It works great but the smaller trees were getting too shaded by the larger ones. There is some funky wooden ball on the top of the new shelf for a finial. I'm not too in love with that look so will have to find something different, but that's another trip to the Volunteers of America!

This is my feet at the entrance to the pergola. Why not. Everybody else is taking pictures of their feet. I think it's supposed to be artsy. I think it's just proof that I really do paint my toenails and wear flip flops like a hip, happenin' chick!

Did I mention I built this pergola from scratch. It was to replace the one I built out of sticks from pruning our apple tree. That's a whole other story. Just so hard to waste something when you can make something out of it....

And one last picture of the foxglove. They are fully open now and won't be lasting much longer. Thank you God and Mother Nature for gifting me with these year after year. They are second only to iris in their tenacity and ability to hold up to anything thrown at them. I didn't even take any pictures of the iris this year.

Damn, I need to make friends with this camera!

Searching

Well, here's something strange to look at! I absolutely know I cannot draw and I don't even know if I want to learn but Kelly Rae Robert's book, Taking Flight, inspired me to give it a try. Trying to find my voice is such a struggle!! Many years ago I tole painted in a folk art style that was roughly based on Bauernmalerei. When I had a blank piece in front of me I knew EXACTLY what to do. I had a style. I painted and people paid and that was that. I lived in a different world then; one where I didn't have what people consider a "real" job. Painting helped pay the bills and allowed me to stay home with my young children. I am really not sure I care to go back to that world. You get caught up in making what people want and making money and some of the creativity is lost. But I digress...
Since I have discovered mixed media and altered anything and outsider art I LOVE, LOVE LOVE the genre but I struggle to find my voice. There are so many talented artist out there and I read the books and I "try on" their styles, but nothing emerges as truly MINE. I know this is a passing fad, just like the tole painting I did in the 80s, so I'm not even sure I want to go back down that road of making things to make money. If it doesn't make money then what's the point (that's my Norwegian side). Making art for art's sake is admirable (that's my Irish side). There must be some happy middle ground!
I am currently using Lisa Sonora Beam's book "The Creative Entrepreneur" to see if I can figure out what it is I really want to do with the art.
To be continued......
BTW, the numbers represnt beers. I thought #4 looked like Tina Turner gone wrong but my son says it looks like a transvestite.

Life in the Grownup World

I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I posted. A funny thing happens when life collides with art. Life wins! Or at least it did this time. I suppose some would say you shouldn't let that happen but the reality is that women fill many roles; wife, mother, grandmother, granddaughter, daughter-in-law, friend and worker. I feel grateful that the people I love value me enough to need me. I also know that the art will build inside me until it reaches a fever pitch where I can't go one more minute without letting it out and the ideas will come fast and furious. When that moment comes I will be in that zen place where the ideas are just right there in the front of my mind. I can hardly wait!

Daydream

This was a day filled with emotion at our house. Our sewer had to undergo an emergency colonoscopy this morning. The symptoms had increased over the past week and this morning there was a violent eruption on the patio that couldn't be ignored any longer. Professionals were called in and after several hours of exploratory surgery the cause of the blockage was revealed. We held hope that arthroscopic surgery could purge the polyp but the tumorous root of the problem had grown much too large (damn maple tree!). A stiff shot for the owners, a large check and a jackhammer appear to be the last best hope for saving the patient. The backhoe arrives at 7:00am tomorrow...
This is a page from my altered book that I was working on today to distract myself from the trauma. I'm not sure if it is finished or not.

Bird Shrine

My son came over and gave me some coaching on my pictures (thank you Casey!) so I have gone back and re-done them all and I think they look a little brighter now. Lifelong learning....
This bird shrine is made from a saltbox. Yes, the "when it rains it pours" stuff. Linda Warlyn's article in the May/June 2008 issue of Somerset Studio was my inspiration. I have collected vintage porcelain bird figurines for years and probably have more than 50 by now. I love my little birdies!
This weekend they are predicting NO RAIN and maybe high 60s!! Every day I pull into the driveway and think "that woman who lives here really should do something about that flowerbed!". I am so excited about spending some zen time in my garden!
The library finally got in a copy of Susan Tuttle's Exhibition36 and I can hardly wait to read it. I flipped through it while I was waiting in line and this might be one of those I will need to own. OMG...! What if the weather was so nice I could garden a little, sit in the sun and look at my book, garden a little, look at the book... Bliss!