parfait

mussels make a great abstract photo

Mussels can be found everywhere in Alaska. I don’t like to eat them (I stay away from all bi-valves) but I like taking pictures of them

In other news:

I strive to have art in my everyday life, whether it is actually working in the studio or making amazingly simple and evocatively delicious foods from things that I have actually grown. I still feel quite amazed that I am capable of growing things that are edible, there is always a moment of pure delight when I bite into a tomato or zucchini or pear or apple and it is not only delicious but I know exactly where it came from and what went into producing it.

Today was no exception. Lunch was and open-faced English muffin with a little mayonnaise (I am American after all…you could also use french bread and some olive oil) then slices of a yellow tomato from the garden sprinkled with salt and a little balsamic vinegar (use the good stuff…you will appreciate it more) and a couple of basil leaves plucked from the plants. Top it off with triple cream Brie cheese (or cheddar, goat cheese, fresh mozzarella depending on what is around) and then run into the oven until the cheese melts. Add a little fresh pepper on top and dig in!

Dinner, eaten on a sultry evening on the back patio to the sounds of the cicadas and the drum corps from the local high school, was an appetizer (ooooh, how cosmopolitan we are!) of the brie and slices of a pear from our Asian pear tree. A chilled, crisp French wine made it all the more delectable. Main course, bow tie pasta, with a traditional tomato sauce (or gravy if you live in Italy) from (you guessed it) garden tomatoes…and more wine…of course. I cannot tell a lie, the tomato sauce had some toms from my friend’s garden as well. (Thanks Melinda.)

Finish with a square (just one) of amazing dark chocolate with orange and almonds and the night is complete…

In studio news:

The kangaroo nose got a bit of a tweak today, and I think she looks marvelous. The joey got a couple of new pieces and I did some prep work of little tiny pieces of steel so that he can continue to grow in the next couple of weeks. In addition, I am working on my first installation piece since I got back from NYC. If you remember, I did a massive cleaning a couple of weeks ago and have taken advantage of the empty walls  to start a new piece. I don’t know what the story/title is yet but I have no doubt that everything will come together the way it’s supposed to. In the meantime, here is a sneak peek!

detail of installation, mixed media including yarn, wire, cardboard, plastic netting and steel chain.

power surge

ice abstract

One day we went out in Zodiacs and motored fairly close to the glacier. As we were driving towards it we were able to get really close to the floating icebergs…i.e. the chunks that “calved” from the glacier. Despite the movement of the Zodiac, the wind and the rain I was able to get this really cool abstract of the ice. If you want to see what this picture came from then check this out…

floating iceberg

Once again I am trying to use these pictures to cool down. It is not really all that hot, we have the windows open and there is a nice breeze. But forgive me for whining for a moment…you see, I am of an age where power surges/hot flashes/inner thermostat malfunctions happen with alarming frequency. Sometimes I can grit my teeth and bear it. But when they happen just as I am getting all my welding gear on (long pants, long shirt, gloves, ear plugs, mask, hat and welding helmet) it is just plain brutal. I am not fond of intense heat as it is so needless to say I kind of wimp out on days like this and find other things to do. Okay, whining is over…back to my regular scheduled perky self. (?)

However, I am happy to report that the kangaroo is coming along nicely. I have been finishing up sections that were a little bare of metal and adding the ears (again). I rally like the way she is looking, and I will be starting the joey some time this weekend. But maybe first thing in the morning when it’s cooler.

manga head and ears

clean, mean and pristine

glacier…what we see of it

I am hoping that looking at this glacier (from Glacier Bay National Park) will cool me down. Hmmmm, doesn’t seem to be working too well.

It’s hard to get the feeling of scale from this little picture but glaciers can be over a mile wide, and 200 feet above the water AND below the water. The dark streaks you see are the sides of the hills as the glacier pushes its way down the valley and towards the water. A truly magnificent beast.

In other news, (hence the title of the post) I have FINISHED cleaning the studio. More specifically, I have finished cleaning out the top two floors of the studio. I won’t show you any “before” pictures because I am too embarrassed, but I am totally proud to show you “after” pictures. It has been a long week’s project but I am super thrilled to have put things in their places (actually, I had to make places for them first) and I am almost reluctant to mess it all up again. Hopefully the new system will make it easier to keep clean. Uh huh, I’ll let you know how that goes…

This is the non-welding studio on the top floor and it is my sanctuary. I don’t generally bring anyone up here, so this is your chance to see one of my most favorite places to be. Enjoy!

This is the second floor, I will show more pix of this floor another day. I have taken down a huge amount of artwork off the walls on the other end and am planning to create some installations based on my work up in NYC.

well traveled musk ox

cold, rainy, and other-wordly

This is a picture from Glacier Bay National Park. You can see the Glacier on the left…the small dark dot next to it is the big-ass cruise ship that has chugged up the Bay to give its 2,000 guests a closer view of the Glacier. This picture shows the typical blue/gray/white landscape that we got used to seeing every day, rain coming down here but not there, blue sky up ahead but not behind and fog on the left but not the right. (I mean port and starboard naturally.) The next few posts will take you closer to the glacier and show some details that are really cool.

In other news, the musk ox came home last week! I have been waiting ever-so-patiently for him to return, I feel like my sculpture garden is complete…at least until I get the kangaroo finished. It has been beastly hot and HUMID and welding is not so much fun in those circumstances, despite the AC that I have turned on. So, for now, we will enjoy the musk ox’s return. I have placed him at the bottom of the hill from the kitchen door so that I can see him first thing in the morning and when I sit out on the patio to eat or read. He seems to be quite happy down there and Izzy has already welcomed him home, in her own way. You might notice the difference in the colors between the previous picture and the next ones…it was quite a shock (and a pleasure) to come home such lush surroundings.

If you or someone you know (and like) are in the Baltimore, MD area and want to come visit the animals, give me a call! The gardens are open by appointment. Just hop on over to my website to get all the information…

a good day

hiding under the docks

These anemones were living under the docks in Petersburg, Alaska. I learned it is possible to take pictures of things under the water without getting my camera wet. This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

So why was today a good day? Because for the first time in over two months, my list of things to do had one word on it…”studio”. Between the residency in NYC and the trip to Alaska (not to mention the interment of my mother-in-law’s ashes and the influx of my husband’s family last week) I have had an enormous amount of things that have stopped me from working in my own studio. This makes me grumpy. The funny thing is, I didn’t create a single thing today.

No, instead I spent the entire day cleaning. Well, cleaning is too simple a word for the epic rearranging that went on. I took old pictures off the walls and archived them, recycled/threw out decades of bad art, made piles of pictures to be donated, vacuumed up dead flies and stink bugs (I work in a barn, remember?) and moved furniture and books to new spots. As a result, my upstairs sanctuary is quickly becoming a refreshed and exciting place to be. I will have room for all the new work I have been doing, and, hopefully, a place to play with the weaving/installation work I started in NYC.

Of course it’s a multi-day process, I still have tons of work to do and storage containers to buy so I won’t show pictures yet but it already is giving me a whole new perspective which is a good thing when you are creating. It’s almost like I am clearing the cobwebs out of my brain and allowing fresh new ideas and images to enter. Stay tuned!

“cap’n thar be whales”

If you are a Star Trek fan you will recognize this quote from one of the movies. We kept saying this during the trip. We saw humpback whales and orcas, the latter of which evidently are not always to be seen in that area. The do exist but they don’t always show their faces. I did get to see their faces but you won’t. I more often got pictures of tails or the mist of air as they breached. As I stated in the last post, I am not the patient kind of photographer who waits with my eye to the viewfinder just to get “that” picture. You know, the picture that produces the oohs and aaahs in the slide show at the end of the cruise. No, I would rather just experience the magic first hand, the sounds of the humpback whales breathing (which you can hear and see from a great distance if the ship’s engines are turned off), the beauty of the orcas surfacing in groups and the last flip of the tail before the great beasts go back down to get some more food. And there really was a magic to it, one that I happily shared with the group on the boat.

I have started to figure out lightroom, so here are some of my pix of the whales after I have worked on them a bit. I still am annoyed at the “noise” which no matter what I do will not go away. Lesson learned. Sigh.

breaching

dorsal fin

on its way down

bye bye

waving its fin

swimming together

south eastern alaska

We have returned from our 30th anniversary ex-po-tition (to borrow a phrase from Winnie the Pooh). An Alaskan cruise has long been on our collective bucket list and now we can cross it off. I have to say, it was a magnificent experience, different and better than what I had imagined.

I think there is a reason why Alaska shows up as an island in most US maps. Even though it is technically connected to the mainland, it is, for all intents and purposes, totally separate from the lower 48. For instance, in Juneau there are cars, roads, McDonald’s…even a Walmart. But the roads lead out of town and then…stop. There is no way to drive from Juneau TO anywhere, everything arrives and departs by plane or boat. Evidently when the McDonald’s opened, there was a line one mile long. They ran out of food in two hours, then had to close for two weeks until they were able to restock.

Alaskan “taxis” are little float planes that can take you from a small town to a remote lodge to have a quiet week fishing or hunting. It is definitely a different land up there, one which the Alaskans are trying hard to preserve, although they aren’t always so successful.

There was so much to learn about the wildlife and because we were on a Lindblad/National Geographic tour, we learned an enormous amount about bears, whales, birds, otters, see lions, glaciers…the list goes on and on. I was also able to learn a lot more about photography, some of which will come in handy for my future photo expeditions. Unfortunately, this was the kind of expedition that shows up my weaknesses as a photographer. Evidently I am not good at taking photographs of wildlife from a moving zodiac. Nor am I very good at being patient enough to get that perfect picture of a whale breaching. But I did get some decent pictures of some interesting things and some okay pictures of some awesome things so I will just shut up now and start showing you a few of them. I think I’ll take few posts to share them all. Oh, and I am starting to figure out Lightroom so if they are not edited very well, it’s because I’m still learning how to do it.

Things I learned:

1.Sea lions are very photogenic.

2. Never use the digital zoom, it will ALWAYS be grainy and can ruin a perfectly good picture.

sleeping on their rock

grainy but one of my favorite pictures.

The next lesson, what I learned about whales…stay tuned!!!