Category Archives: Uncategorized

Sidney Day

11 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by in Family photos, Just visual, Modern Life, Oregon, Uncategorized

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For three years R and I have spent one day a week with our grandson Sidney.  In September Sidney will be in school everyday and our daycare days will end, so these last few “Sidney Days” are precious…this week we had coffee and bubbles on the deck

then headed downtown to Blackfish gallery to see the “We the People” show…I asked Sidney if this was Wonder Woman…?

and he said “oh no Nana, Wonder Woman is the one in the underpants with stars”

Sidney made friends with Henry (visiting Portland from LA) in the park…

and we had PBJ at Pearl Bakery…as these days draw to a close I looked at some of the HUNDREDS of photos I’ve taken over these years so here’s a quick review…

wherein you can see that reading, park visits, Lonely Planet lunches, certain favorite locations for photos (like outside the cupcake store), visiting friends, urban hikes have all been terrific…

and as a result we are in the “NO PHOTO” phase…

but I’m sneaky…and though Sidney will still be a big part of our lives, these days of roaming around the city, conkers, snoopy park, the bubble dad at piccolo, dinosaur lunches are drawing to close, and they have been FUN!  The boy is growing up…

 

 

 

August Pursuits

06 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by in Beach, Celebrations, Drawings, Ephemera, Family photos, Just visual, Modern Life, Oregon, Uncategorized, Wedding

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August and December are months when, for me anyway, not much art gets made because of family, gatherings, celebrations, weather…and so on.  And speaking of weather….we’re having a heat wave…last week three days in triple digits…so Tuesday when we left town it was already 99 but, blissfully, we arrived at the beach and it was a comfortable 66…52 miles away but over the mountains and down to the ocean.

The next day Sidney & Co arrived which livened things up considerably…

and we had a nice week of delicious meals (made by Z & A) and drawing and fun…

Spaceships….

Aliens…

the beach…

As the temperatures cooled the schedule of activities became a reality so off we went

taking the back road…

which we love, but only if we have time for the CARWASH INTERLUDE…

Which we did, so off to the wedding.  Meg, the daughter of R’s cousin Mary, was marrying Bryan and it was a lovely event with lots of time to catch up with family…however, the chairs were all in the blazing sun except for one little corner that George staked out for us so we sat in the back row…

which, as it turned out, gave me a good vantage point for catching a few pictures of the wedding party…however I wasn’t the only one who thought this was a good spot…

Never mind…Mary and son Al were all smiles…

…I got a few good shots (though I couldn’t hear what Jeff said to Meg as he walked her down the isle)…

and the Hulls took over table 5

the bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome and the room was filled with people who were happy and loving…though there was a bit of photo chaos…

but Rayanne got the shot…

Home we zoomed to repack the bags…next adventure ahead…

 

 

 

 

 

Camp Sherman Retreat

14 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Art work, Artists, Books, Coffee art, Drawings, Ephemera, Just visual, Modern Life, Uncategorized

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After the quilters left, I headed for coffee and a moment to regroup…

I was off to Camp Sherman on the Metolius River where Katy and family have a cabin.  For the last few years our Salem Art Group (SAG) has gone over to Camp Sherman annually to gather, make art, talk about making art, and sit on the river in a beautiful place.  Camp Sherman is “off the grid” and the five (of the 8 members) of us are all pretty addicted to google, email, instagram…the usual.  Four days without connectivity though led to communication, laughing harder than I have in a decade, talking about what’s coming creatively for each, looking at books (Kiki Smith, Morandi, etc.)., making books, eating healthfully (it wasn’t so bad!), sleeping soundly to the river song…

Susan cooked…

everybody worked…

I mended…

and sewed…on the deck

and it was so warm we ate out on the river’s edge…

Here’s to the chef…Susan Napack!

and we talked and laughed and began to draw as the night fell around us…

I had made everybody a little book and had worked on mine in the afternoon…

the dripping wax was incorporated….

and everybody began to work.  The next morning there was a flurry of workbook activity before hiking and painting…and sewing for me…producing a few more blocks…

and then the drawing…everybody

drawing everybody…

 

“Three Little Birds”

“The Flower girls”

and then the books.  We sat around the table late into the night talking and making and laughing.  The conversations found their way into the books…

pareidolia (seeing faces in inanimate objects…thanks Jennifer Hull) reigned…

and then, sadly it was time to go…

 

 

 

 

Quilting With Friends

14 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Celebrations, Design, Oregon, Quilting, Uncategorized

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I headed east over the mountains after the fourth of July to meet up with LeeAnn (coming from Seattle) and Mary (coming from Chattanooga) in Sisters in our home away from home for four days (The Quail’s Nest on Airbnb)…

We toasted ourselves with memories of five years ago when we went to Alabama to quilt

This year we were meeting up to go to friend Sujata Shah’s class called “Lattice”…a quilt from her book “Cultural Fusion”…

We set up…

and set to work…

and Sujata gave us encouragement and tips…

It was fun catching up with Sujata at lunch, and in the afternoon the quilt tops started to materialize…

Here’s the beginning of mine…I somewhat dully chose neutrals except for the turquoise…

We heard Sujata speak, we heard the quilter Joe Cunningham speak (after playing some walking-around-quilter blues) and other famous people…then the quilt show…all photo failures…

then a celebratory dinner with friends at The Open Door (Yum)

and a final goodbye…

with plans afoot to meet up and sew before another five years goes by.  Goodbye friends…

The 4th of July

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Beach, car wash, Celebrations, Cutler City, Drawings, Family photos, Just visual, Modern Life, Oregon, Uncategorized

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Well, America.  All that it means to us…the history, the narrative, the many wonderful people just trying to live a life.  Maybe the fourth of July is when I can put aside the politics and the incessant bad news of NPR and just revel in what I think summer in America is…for me anyway…

Pie for instance…(apple in this case)

sunny and cloudy days at the beach…

picnics

drawing

Flags

traffic (unfortunately)…

fireworks…

builders…

the judging of the largest fern contest…

and then a change of gears for me…

off to Sisters tomorrow for quilting, on to Camp Sherman for Art Camp…see you soon!

 

 

 

 

So What About Blogs?

27 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by in Art work, Art World, Artists, Beach, Bonnie Hull, City, Cutler City, Drawings, Just visual, Modern Life, PNAA, Salem, Uncategorized

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My blog posts have fallen off (and so have my statistics!)…maybe blogs are going the way of all things in this fast world of ours?  My need to provide a narrative thread for this blog is slipping as I do more and more on Instagram…quick image, one line…done.  The trouble with it is you have to have a smart phone to participate…which makes it kind of a “club”…something to think about. Opinions?

So my blog titles have been pretty generic and inclusive of a bunch of stuff…this one included.  Our weeks seem chopped up, disjointed, not narrative in form.  But, after 3 weeks, we HAVE done a bunch of stuff so here’s a sampling,  June as July roars towards us…

We visited Christy and Laura Wyckoff recently.  Christy is a master print maker, painter, glass artist, retired teacher, and Laura is a writer.  They live in a big old Portland four-square house that they have done interesting things to including removing all walls on the second floor to make a big studio for Christy to work in.

…and Sidney came too…

but “NO PHOTO”

I was chatting with Laura and Sidney and acting overly polite so neglected to get photos of the great wall texture, the nice sitting area, etc…I did get these though, painted by Christy some years ago on plaster fragments on a chimney after seeing all the frescoes in Italy…

Piccolo Park was visited at a rare time when we were the only ones there!?!

We took in Anna Fidler’s show at Charles Hartman Fine Art…

took a lunch break at Pearl Bakery

and saw Angelita Sermon’s paintings and glass at Waterstone…

did a sleep over at Fernridge (Sidney’s house)

and then of course…SUMMER!

Damien Gilley spoke informally about the mural he’s painting in a Salem alley

I taught a drawing class…and they were brave…

It was called “The Habit of Drawing”…week one they came and got a book and I gave them things to think about, they went away with the assignment to “draw every day” and came back a week later to talk about what happened and show the results.  It was fun…

“Do a selfie”

“Do something to the cover if you want…”

and then we headed to the beach to beat the heat…

Here’s my brother Howard’s watercolor of how our beach house might have grown…

Fog banks rolling in as the valley heats up…

Okay July…heading right at you!

 

 

 

Salem Sketchers

10 Saturday Jun 2017

Posted by in Art work, Artists, City, Drawings, Just visual, Modern Life, Oregon, Salem, Uncategorized

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For a couple of years an intrepid group of local artists has been participating one Saturday a month in what is an international movement of urban sketchers…very casual, very fun.  Each month they draw at a different location…I’ve dropped in and out, but decided to join today, even though the weather was iffy…(58 degrees on June 10th…yikes…thunderstorms predicted for the afternoon and it almost NEVER thunders in Oregon).  The group was led up to the terrace over the restaurant Orupa at the Water Place building and at first there was some watery sun…

I chose this view…

and everybody settled down to work…

Katy and I were at a table under an umbrella…

Uh oh…

and then the rain started and this person captured the moment…boing!

Still, in spite of the rain, it was a jolly morning…(Happy Birthday Jessica!)

some people headed inside…

Mike Bergen showed us his new book …

and then “the reveal”…

duly photographed…

Way too much fun…better think of coming along…the second Saturday of every month.  In July the sketchers will be in the Gaiety Hollow Garden and in August at the Rogue brewery in Independence.  COME!  it’s free fun.

 

Creative Thinking When Zoning Fails

29 Monday May 2017

Posted by in Architecture, Beach, Cutler City, Modern Life, Oregon, Small Buildings, Uncategorized

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“Densification” “Infill”…modern words.  These words weren’t part of the vocabulary 25 years ago when we bought this little beach house…

Across the street was a heavily wooded lot with huckleberries, salal, shorepines, rhoadies…it looked like this…and birds lived here…”habitat.”

For 25 years we rolled up to our house knowing that one day we’d drive in and find something different there…and it finally happened.  The people to the north bought the lot and for a couple of years left it alone, but plans were afoot for a garage with an apartment above for their children and one day we drove up to see this…trees all cut down…

and Friday, after a two week absence…

The thing to keep in mind here is that all but one house on Ebb Street is one story, and this garage is taller than the one two story house.  And here is the old view from inside, and the new…

We, on the other hand, were not allowed to put on a small front porch so made do with a pergola…

But, hilariously, I put a photo on Instagram this weekend and have received suggestions to think of it as an Italian villa…Roger and my brother suggested a paintings by Sassetta and Giotto…

and Rachel thought maybe just an Italian villa…

…so now, we are amused.   Sort of.

 

 

 

The Life I Lead

18 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in Art work, Art World, Artists, Court Street, Just visual, Modern Life, Oregon, PNAA, Roger Hull, Sculpture, Uncategorized

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Life changes in a second or two…we have come to know that.  A misstep, a speeding paint truck, a diagnosis, a sloppy politician who has the nuclear codes, a tsunami or earthquake…poof…our beautiful lives are gone or irrevocably changed.  While we are in these lives though, it is worthwhile to notice them, to be impressed with a sunny day, a hilarious child, people and places to visit and things to think about, a decent cappuccino.

I’ve won the lottery, I know that.  I have a nice house, an interesting, loving and very witty partner, a family and friends so lovable it would take another 10 blog posts to describe.  I have the huge luxury of time to make things and look at things.  Art work, gardens, beaches, studios, books, meaningful work…these are what my life now is made of.  Next week, next year, who knows?  Since I know these will be taken from me by accident or design or just time itself, I want to look at one day…today for instance…so here it was…

Leaving home early and picking up Sidney (with new knee patches and sun hat)

We met up with friend Jennifer Viviano, newly minted MFA from the Applied Craft and Design program, a combined effort of PNCA (Pacific Northwest College of Art) and OCAC (Oregon College of Arts and Craft).  Jennifer was a very successful graphic designer of talent, but was wanting more creative time, a shift of scene from the graphic needs of clients to thinking of things in a deeper and more personal way.

Jennifer toured us through the “Otherwise Chaos” Practium Exhibition at the Bison Building (421 NE10th)…

We liked Becca Gore’s ceramic pieces a lot…

and this terrific cafe (didn’t find the artist’s card)…caught Sidney’s eye…

and then Jennifer’s piece…

plaster base, basalt blocks, porcelain “bones”…and as Jennifer explained the thought process and the actual physical activity of combining a plaster base, basalt blocks  topped with “bones” made of porcelain wrapped around rolled newspaper and auto glass, she explained the serendipity of what happened with the piece…

when one “bone” fell off revealing the charred paper,

and when people at the opening began scooping up the broken glass and throwing on the pile to hear the lovely tinkling sound as it trickled into the blocks…

Sidney found it irresistible…

and Jennifer showed him Maria Garcia’s light piece…

Aaron’s video construct…

the studios

the metal shop

the air stream…the Air Stream?  Time for lunch…

and then a quick stop at Cindy’s studio.  R’s begun the research and writing process about the work of painter Lucinda Parker in preparation for a monograph and show of her work at the Hallie Ford Museum in 2019…and he had to make a quick stop to pick up some files so we ran in to check the newest mountain paintings…pretty nice…

She’s certain this one is finished…

then some static electric sliding…

playtime (not sure what game they had going…?)

eventually heading home…

and so this day of interest, privilege, fun, family…a day not unlike so many days…comes to an end….and having written about it here I can revisit this day again…

Kate Speckman at The ANNEX

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in Art work, Just visual, PNAA, Quilting, Salem Art Association, The Annex, Uncategorized

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Salem artist/quilter Kate Speckman is doing a five week AIR at The Annex in Salem,  She is interested in setting aside some time to think about future quilting projects, especially delving into the ideas of traditional patterns from carpets and how this might translate into her quilting work.  She got her sewing machine set up last week and today we put up a show of quilts in the Annex which will be up until June 8th.  Kate will be in the studio working Tuesday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and welcomes visitors.

The work for this show includes some of her own work, some from local quilter Kathleen Leonard, some of mine and some from the Seattle quilter Nifty Quilts.  It’s always a little daunting to face an empty room and a pile of stuff and try to make something out of it, but we managed…here’s the three from Nifty…

Kathleen’s selvedge quilt…

Kate’s medallion unquilted…

We began the “ladder wall”…a couple of years ago Kate took apart an old ladder to use in her home studio to display quilts and she was pretty sure the ladders would work into the show…

Because Kathleen has never shown her quilts before formally, none of them had hanging sleeves on the back so we called in the reinforcements..Eve, Diane, Kathleen and I sewed for HOURS!  and then there was “burying the threads”…yikes!

with the  help of Sam Speckman…Kate’s son home for only two days from hiking the PCT and other trails…slowly the whole thing began to come together…

If you are out and about go by Bush Barn and find Kate at work, or grab a quilting project and go sit and work yourself.  There is a nice blend of traditional quilts and modern quilts…something for everybody.  The gallery is open Tuesday through Friday 10:00 to 5:00, Sunday noon to 5:00 and closed Monday.