BELOVED BIRCH

You know how I love my spring, the baby leaves, sticky and bright emerging from the buds on the long quiet branches. This is a tribute to birch, one of my favorite trees and a subject I keep revisiting in my beadwork. Living amongst  the dark evergreens, mainly the prickly spruce, the deciduous trees are special and cherished.

ART IMITATING LIFE 2

Working hard at the bead table this morning and had to pause to remember back when. This is a picture of our place the first year we landed in Homer. Mile 148 cobweb filled shack.  I was so thrilled to be a first time home owner after always moving from place to place. You can detect my happiness in the piece of beadwork I did to commemorate the homey cabin life we were living. Sweet memories... Oh yea, and there are still moose in the yard all the time!

ART IMITATING LIFE

So often we are inspired by places and people in our everyday lives.  This piece gave me a chance to do a portrait of Kathleen, but also I was able to do a piece of beadwork that was a picture of a beaded dress that I made.  Love it! right?

BAD, BAD, OIL SPILL

The oil spill in Louisiana is seriously a disaster. I know because I lived in Cordova in1989 when the Exxon Valdez (The ship piloted by Joseph Hazelwood) reeked havoc on Prince William Sound.  The black ooze that slimed the waters and beaches was over 10 million gallons. This new oil spill will be worse. That was a ship that had a finite amount, this drilling site in the gulf of mexico is pumping out an endless supply. There won't be a good solution. The wildlife is doomed. The fisherman who made a living in the gulf, well, their lives as they know it, are over. I know all this because I lived in a community that experienced all this. I remember waking up every morning that summer listening to the radio giving the HUGE dead bird counts. The sad horror of the blackened sea otters and seals. The fishing destroyed. I could go on and on. So my heart goes out to the people, animals and plants who are now facing this reality. Lets think about this and decide.    NO MORE OFF SHORE DRILLING

bookmarks

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I have this one lovely customer who wanted me to make a bookmark. I thought it wouldn't work, to thick to fit it between the pages, but decided to try.  She loved it, and now I make one every now and then and really enjoy it. A real departure from my usual, small and compact, a challenge to get some feeling into this small space. Beaded bookmarks, who knew?

question?

I'm preparing for a show in Santa Fe. Not until August, so these might not be the bags I use for the poster, but I would appreciate your valued opinion! Do we like the black background or the white?

Almost gone but causing trouble

Screech! Crash! Tail lights upside down in the dark night. Oh no! A truck laying upside down in the ditch across the street. Spring is here, but it comes in spurts and sputs, one day  it snows and then it rains and then it sunshines and then people get reckless, thinking its safe dry pavement and then, crash, boom, bang. First time I've ever dialed 911.  Boots on, Robert and I head over to the pull off with a flashlight hoping not to see a gory scene. My heart is pounding.We here pounding, the guy is trying to kick out the windshield. "Get me out of here dude." The door is stuck, yarding on it, it comes loose. Another car pulls up. A woman gets out. The guy stands, blood on his hand. "Are you alright?"  The lady from the new car is whispering with him, they try and turn the truck headlights off to no avail, then get in her car and drive off, saying nothing more. Leaving the dead truck with it's lights on, crumpled, upside down, spring snow coming down. An owl flies over silently, then flashing lights come down the road.  We tell the police, he left.