Salem Sketchers

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 […]

Creative Thinking When Zoning Fails

“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 […]

The Life I Lead

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 […]

Jackie Johnson

Recently we visited painter Jackie Johnson’s studio in Portland on the occasion of a purchase/donation to the Hallie Ford Museum of Art.  A generous donor bought one of  Jackie Johnson’s paintings for the museum collection, and on that occasion Jackie offered to donate a painting of hers to go along with the earlier donation.  We […]