Cedarbrook Lavender Farm

Cedarbrook was a cute little farm (actually a little more like a big garden) on a hill in Sequim. When I was there none of the flowers were blooming yet, but that turned out to be a good thing because the crowds hadn't descended yet. We ended up with the whole place to ourselves. We wandered around the nursery and got a couple of lavender plants for the yard at home. There's also a small shop with different chotskies and things available to buy, but the best part of the shop is the ceiling. It's absolutely covered in bunches of dried lavender. The smell is amazing. I had lavender smell stuck in my nostrils all the way home.

Ray Morimura

Sometimes, as an artist, you will look back at your body of work and feel pretty good about it. You can see progress and feel like your work is improving and that someday people might appreciate your talent. Then, sometimes, you look at something like Ray Morimura's woodblock prints and you want to give up all together because there is no way you will ever be able to create something that beautiful. Ugh, these are so beautiful and intricate they make me want to die.

Grant and Dickens

Even though lately I've been trying to spend less money and accumulate less stuff, I couldn't make it out of Port Gamble without picking up a couple of things (can I justify it by saying I'm supporting the local economy of a small town?) I got a, previously mentioned, fabric panel with the Generals of the Army of the Potomac printed on it. I still have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but I couldn't leave it behind. An old edition of some Dickens stories. A skein of hand dyed alpaca yarn. The color on this yarn is amazing, the photo doesn't do it justice, it's kind of warm grey with purple undertones. It's just enough to  make a hat or something, or just sit on my desk and look pretty for now. And finally I got a vanilla and lavender face and body creme at the lavender farm we went to after Port Gamble. I smell like a delicious kitchen or a field of freaking wildflowers after I put it on. Since I smell like chlorine most of the time, it's a lovely change.

Port Gamble: Quilted Strait

What really caused us to stop in Port Gamble was the sudden appearance of of quilt shop. My mom is a quilter (she her above caught amidst her natural habitat) and cannot pass a quilt shop without going in. Most of the buildings in Port Gamble are historical and used to be something else. The quilt shop used to be stables, it still has all the original beams and wavy glass windows. My mom ended up getting piles of fabric as usual and bought me a fabric panel with the Union generals of the Civil War on it. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it but it was way to cool to pass up.

Sadness is a Blessing

This video is amazing. I've watched it so many times and I just have so many questions. Who are these people? Where are these people? Why doesn't anyone say anything? The video is the perfect accompaniment to the song. It would have been easy to go a little maudlin with a song called "Sadness is a Blessing" but this is just perfect. Lykee Li I love you.

Port Gamble: General Store and Museum

When my mom and I took the ferry across the Sound to the peninsula, we drove through a little village called Port Gamble. It is so ridiculously cute and picturesque it looks like a movie set. Port Gamble used to be a logging town (I guess it kind of still is, just not like it used to be) and all the buildings have recently been restored. These photos were taken in the general store/ museum. The second floor of the general store is full of displays of preserved sea life. Occasionally when I travel I come across something so perfect I can't believe it's real. This was one of those things. It was so weird and a little morbid, but lovingly put together. There were jelly fish and eels floating in reused relish jars and black and white shells laid out on construction paper checker boards. There were things in cases and frames and laid out on window sills. Every inch of the place had something. Everything had paper lables, hand typed and then hand taped to the cases. It reminded me of the collections Victorians used to keep. These are just a few of the millions of photos I took. I could have stayed there for hours taking photos, but I think my mom was getting tired of looking at dead things (understandable).

Finished

This is what I was working on in my last post. It is a piece I created for Party With A Purpose and the Washington State University Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health. The inspiration behind it is WSU's rabies vaccination campaigns in Tanzania. 23,700 people in Africa and 31,500 people in Asia die a year from rabies, most of these people are children. By vaccinating dogs it prevents humans from contracting and dying from rabies. When I was developing an idea for the piece they gave me these wonderful photos of people coming to the clinics to have their dogs vaccinated. People travel long distances to take advantage of the vaccinations and transport their dogs any way they can. My favorite was a photo of a bunch of puppies in a backpack. They're also in bike baskets, carried over shoulders, and just plain leashed. The love people had for their pets became clear and I wanted my piece to focus on that rather than the disease itself. While at the Party I presented my piece with people from WSU's School for Global Animal Heath to party goers and hopefully raised some awareness.

PS: The photos aren't great quality because I vastly underestimated how much time sculpting the figures would take and barely made my deadline. I shot these and then had  to run off to display it. It was a busy day!

Something is brewing in my workshop...

... and its deadline is Friday. Every spare second will be spent on it between now and then. I thought I was done with all nighters when I graduated from art school. Silly me.

Ferry

One of the most iconic symbols (is it redundant to say both iconic and symbol? whatever) of life on the Puget Sound is the ferry boat. A little while ago my mom and I decided to get out of town for the day and drive to a lavender farm in Sequim (pronounced like squid but with an m on the end instead). We took the ferry across the Sound and as you can probably tell from my mom's face in the photo, it was cold and windy, or possibly she was just annoyed that I was sticking a camera in her face. Despite that, it turned out to be a great little day trip.

Summer Reading

The Eyre Affair. I love the Bronte sisters, so it would follow that I will love a book with Jane Eyre, a mystery, and time travel, right?

Life in the Treetops. This book was written by Meg Lowman, who is a pioneer in rainforest canopy research. She is one of the most inspirational people I've ever met. I can't believe it's taken me this long to read her book.


A Million Little Pieces. I'm curious about the controversy. That's all.

The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History. With a title like that how could I resist? From what I can tell it's about weird phenomena in the animal kingdom. Cool.

The Satanic Verses. One I've been meaning to get to for a while.

The Children's Book. I know I'm being a little ambitious thinking I can finish this in one summer, it's a pretty hefty tome. But, I love love love A.S. Byatt so I can't go long without reading something by her.

Let's start this off with a familiar cliche and say here goes nothing...