Johnson Berry Farms

Johnson Berry Farms jam is the best jam ever. Put it on toast, pancakes, in your oatmeal, lick it off your fingers, find anyway you can to put it in your mouth, it's delicious. It's also local and organic, so the Portlandia character in you will be proud. I recommend the golden raspberry and the marion berry. I wouldn't make special trips to Pike Place for much but for this stuff I will.

Snow in July

We're supposed to get our first snow of the year this weekend. It's late this year. But, the cold was late leaving last year.  Ski lodges in the mountains stayed open even after school kids were out for summer. An impromptu excursion into the passes last July found us on a hill that was soggy with melting snow. Big piles of it sat incongruous in the sun and overgrown weeds. I've never loved snow the way some people do. I don't like the way it silently piles up outside your window so that you wake up to find yourself essentially trapped by it. But I guess I like a day off as much as the next person.

Between the water and the woods

I'd been dreaming of this place for a long time but was to afraid to find it, I was convinced there was no way it could exist in real life. A rocky beach, cabins with old wood paneled interiors, a wind howling outside, mossy woods. Starfish at low tide, bald eagles fishing outside the window. We saw very little of our fellow cabin dwellers, they were few and seeking solitude themselves. The nights in the middle of the winter this far north stretch themselves out to 15 hours or more so I read hundreds of pages of books and wrote a modest number of pages myself. A detox from the stress of the holidays and a quiet moment to reflect on the past year and find inspiration for the new one.

Mid-Week Masters: Paul Stankard

Another incredible show now on view at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma called Beauty Beyond Nature, featuring work by Paul Stankard. While Glimmering Gone envelopes you in an environment of ice and glass, Paul Stankard's work sucks you into a tiny world of intricate and infinitesimal detail. Stakard has taken the mundane (and, let's just admit it, schlocky) glass paperweight and created incredible miniature worlds that feel as if they are their own self-supporting ecosystems. Stankard began his career in glass by blowing glass beakers and such for scientific labs which, I assume is where he developed his perfectionism and eye for detail. Like with Glimmering Gone, the photos here don't do the work justice and if you have the chance to see it in person I highly recommend it.

All photos from Paul Stankard's website. Photography was not allowed in the museum.

Alma

Alma

Have you seen this short film written and directed by former Pixar animator Rodrigo Blass? It's kind of gone viral lately and even though it was released in 2009 I didn't see it until recently. Rumor has it it's soon to be made into a feature length film. It used to be when a brilliant short film was made only the privileged few at film festivals got to see them, but lucky for us the internet has changed that. 

The film has the familiar whimsy of a Pixar movie, but is a little more likely to give you nightmares. Fair warning. 

PS: If you look closely at the dolls on the couch you might notice a nod to Diane Arbus

Mid-Week Masters

If you're any where around Tacoma, I highly recommend Glimmering Gone at the Museum of Glass. When I walked into the gallery with Landscape in it I literally gasped and said "oh my god" out loud which was kind of embarrassing because the only other person in the gallery at that point was the security guard. This collaboration between Beth Lipman and Ingalena Klenall is a combination of fused and blown glass hung to form an icy, glittering landscape. Fragmented trees stretch up towards the ceiling and mirrored shards suggest a mountain stream. Truly one of the most beautiful works of art I've seen in a long time. The photos don't do it justice.


The photos above are from Beth Lipman's website. Photography wasn't allowed in the museum.

Playing Elusive

30 years ago, the mountain hiding in all this mist exploded causing the earth to shudder, massive landslides, the midday sky to go dark, and ash to touch ground as far west as North Dakota. They predicted it would take decades for the landscape to recover, that the slopes would be as barren as the surface of the moon for 30 years or more. With a little help from scientists and Weyerhaeuser in her recovery, the slopes of Mount St Helens have bloomed back to life and are far from barren today. New ecosystems have formed in lakes formed by landslides. An awareness, and even awe, of the power under your feet can be felt.