la vida es buena

en la bicicleta

to do

1. clean the cobwebs from the corners of my studio where the old ink was.

2. send my form rollers for recasting.

3. draw draw draw and draw

4. redistribute standing type.

5. set type for new projects.

6. make Bulldog Betty dolls.

7. make book cloth. make books.

8. write curriculum for Intermediate Letterpress class.

9. eat as many blackberries as humanly possible.

10. lie as still as possible in the middle of the yard and smell the lavender.

summer lull

Today I spent the morning sitting in the back yard, under a fleece blanket in one of our comfy wooden deck chairs...sipping coffee, writing, catching up on correspondence, and trying to plot out the next few weeks work in my studio, at OCAC, {classes start in one week!} and in my personal life - trying to squeeze a few more weeks of summer and road tripping, swimming, walking barefoot, gin and tonic tasting, not to mention WORK into periods of days ahead.

Every summer it seems I hit a little wall. Late July, early August, things just slow down creatively, productively, mentally, physically. I stop running, I wake up late, I'm restless and stay up to the wee hours pacing the house, reluctant to go to sleep for no good reason. It's the late summer lull. I've come to think of it as a necessary evil, a force that must be acknowledged and surrendered to, if only for a little while.

In the past few days I've been hit the summer lull in a hard way. But today I woke up feeling like the barometer has lifted a little. A bit of clarity and vision filtered in, and I pulled out my sketchbook, poured coffee, and tiptoed into whatever comes next.

i am IN LOVE

with Baker City.

But I can't talk about it too much because the Monkey will worry...

If I move there will you come too?

I'm serious.

Letterpress Printer's Fair

I've been gumbling under my breath {and out loud} all summer about our lack of one - you know, typical Portland: grey, cloudy mornings, temperatures barely breaking the lower 70s....grumble. {Can you tell I'm a desert girl? sigh}

weights on the papergoods

Well, my wish for a few scorching days came true just in time for the Printers Fair this year. I think we hit the upper 90s, but it was the wind that was truly amazing. We gathered all of the heavy objects that we could find to weigh down the paper goods that would out of nowhere go flying off our tables. By the end of the day everyone, and everything was coated in a fine layer of grit from the traintrack nearby and the industrial yards surrounding us.

But, I don't know why - something about seeing old friends and meeting certain letterpress folks for the first time face to face, I had a smile on my face at the end of the day. An exhausted, weary, 'I'm hot and dusty' smile, but a smile nonetheless.

Ruth and Barb manning the OCAC table

I didn't sell most of the heavy stuff I had brought - I still have C&P parts and some 5 lb. cans of ink, in case anyone is interested. But my loaded up car at the end of the day was still considerably lighter than when I came in. And the beers with friends at the end of the day capped another memorable Letterpress Printers Fair.

Special thanks should be mentioned for EM Space, who put on a really well organized event! Three cheers!!

good morning to you!

Have I ever mentioned that my studio is right here, in my backyard?



Also in my backyard: Blackberries. These grow wild all over the Pacific Northwest and are considered both a scourge and sweet roadside delight. On one hand, blackberries are voraciously invasive and will quickly overrun native plants and backyards. Their prickly vines burst through fences and cut through concrete; they are destructive plants. On the other hand, what could be better than walking out into the backyard in the morning and picking wild fruit for breakfast?


I love blackberries, though I hate to have to pull the never ending shoots that sneak their way into every possible nook. I also love my tiny studio, and I love that it's right here. But I also am starting to outgrow this little converted shed. Letterpress equipment, like blackberries, has a tendency to grow exponentially. It's big and bulky, and if I want to grow to the extent that I'd like to grow, I'll soon be bursting out of the walls and spilling out on the lawn.

How about you: Do you work from a home studio or do you commute to your art work? What is your ideal place to work, and do you prefer to make the best use of a small space, or would be happiest growing into a cavernous warehouse with endless possibility?

honey

After some deliberation, I've decided to post a segment of a short essay I wrote years ago about the Bend area. This intro sets up the essay's main theme of place and change over the course of years, and I think it's appropriate to post it here as I begin my work on *the Bend Project,* which I hope to start telling you about in more detail soon...

..............................................

­Bend, OR.1979. Population: 15,000.

I’m four years old, crouched close to the sticky hardwood floor, watching my mom fill a two-quart container with honey from a wooden box sitting on an empty milk crate. I love to watch the slow process of filling the honey jar. It flows from the spigot a little differently every time depending on how fresh the honey is or how full the bulk bin is, and you need to close the spigot at the right moment before the jar is full to make sure there's room for the drizzle that squeezes through as you push the lever closed. Sitting on the floor like this, I catch a glimpse of the treetop just beyond the curtained window near the ceiling, and bask in the glow from the sun filtered through its leaves.

At our tiny, small town health food store, my mom would replenish jars of buckwheat flour from a large wooden barrel, fill satchels of dried herbs from a supply of fragrant glass jars sitting high on shelves, load up her basket with the freshest vegetables available in town, and if the weather was hot I was almost always allowed to indulge in a yogurt push-up from the old-fashioned freezer near the front of the store.

These were the days in Bend when its little cottages sat on dirt streets, and the dusty ranchers who'd lived in the area for generations graciously co-existed with the young folks who were moving up from California to lead a simple life. These were the days in Bend when there still existed a handful of eccentric characters, like the man who wore an aluminum foil hat to deflect radio waves emitted by sinister government agencies, or the couple who (I'm not making this up) were both mimes and chimney sweeps - simultaneously. These were also the days in Bend when a handful of people living in the same small area seemed to strive for the same ideals. Bartering and trading for goods or work were not uncommon among the people my parents knew. We had fresh goat’s milk from one family, and my brother and I wore moccasins hand made by another, and there was the little mom and pop health food store, residing in a boxy building with old wooden floors. Its quintessentially western storefront sat along a dirt road ending below a hill of juniper trees and volcanic rock. Its wide front porch was flanked by ponderosa pines and sunflowers sprouted from planters near the door.

I was too short to be able to see over the wooden checkout counter, but I would always ask if there were fresh coconut macaroons which I knew were often there. A miscellaneous merchandise area filled the corner near the front door - rainbow stripped candles, incense and incense burners, small wind chimes, and my favorite to look at - the colorful, translucent mylar stickers that graced the windows of any number of hippie van windows. One day I got one for my bedroom window at home - a white unicorn in front of a brilliant blue sky complete with rainbow.