Radioactive rabbit poop - too funny not to share

I suppose it's not really funny, but the mental image I get from reading this story - the people with detectors going around searching for the radioactive rabbit poop... Well, alright, I have a twisted sense of humor. Read the full story here.

I'll return to my more serious posts next time with pictures of my perfect studio that will have to be dismantled when we move.

Solar power & politics

I've taken a small break from the virtual vacation while I deal with negotiating the sale of our house. But this crossed my email desk today, and I thought it worth sharing as we head into voting time.

US Solar boom requires policy and money, not sunshine is the headline of the article. It discusses the climate needed to quickly grow alternative energy, and the role of government in accelerating the development of a new industry.

I particularly like this quote from the article:

Exhibit A for such a phenomenon is Germany. With about as much sunshine as Maine, the European nation became the world's solar stronghold through policies that rewarded homeowners, businesses, and farmers for generating their own electricity.

Click on the link above to read the whole thing.

Virtual Vacation: A day in Squamish

On Tuesday, we went to Squamish. We had planned that outing for Wednesday since that was the sunny day in the week's forecast, but the clouds changed their minds, so we did the same. I had a page from the web about birding the Squamish Estuary so we started at the location given there. I was wanting to take more heron pictures so I wanted to be close to the water. Unfortunately for me, the part of the trail closest to our parking space went through the marshy parts. The other bird on my wish list for this vacation was a Golden Eagle. I've never seen one, and they like rural mountainous areas so I had hopes. Instead, this was the first bird I saw.


Yes, that's right, it's a Turkey Vulture. I thought they'd all headed south by now, but this one was soaring overhead, keeping an eye on a Northern Harrier hunting below it. The Harrier was too fast for me to get a good shot but I ended up seeing one in two different locations so I got some nice looks.

It turned out to be a day for common birds. First, a couple of Stellar's Jays near where I saw the vulture, some ducks in the river, and multiple views of this little brown bird, most likely a savannah sparrow. I took his picture since I haven't been doing regular birdwalks so my ability to id sparrows is almost completely gone. Small digression: it turns out sparrows and gulls are two of the hardest categories of birds to id since they all mostly look alike with only small differences in color, streakiness or bill colors. In case you've ever wondered how any sane person could worry about which particular sparrow they're seeing, this is why - it's challenging, like doing the NYTimes crossword puzzle in ink.



After backtracking back to the car, we broke for lunch. We had a really nice meal at Parkside Restaurant, where the soup of the day was a fabulous bean soup with duck and turkey sausage. I barely had room for my bunless burger, but I managed. *burp* After lunch, we crossed the street behind the restaurant because I wanted some photos of the amazing rock face. Again, wires in the way, but still a wonderful view.



Next, we strolled the shops along Cleveland. We stopped first at a small chocolate shop for dessert, got directions to the appropriate place to buy a sketchbook (Garibaldi Graphics, which carries office supplies and has a really nice art supply corner in the back) and finished up with a stop at The Nature Nest which I wish we'd seen before we started birding. They not only had a map better than what I'd gotten off the web, but also had birding checklists for the Squamish Estuary, Whistler and the larger Squamish area including the Upper Howe Sound region.

We headed off to an area just northwest of downtown that looked promising for more water birds. It turned out to be right next to the high school and a skateboard park so it was an interesting walk through shady woods hopping with birds with the sounds of the skateboarders carrying from the park. I did get an unexpected life bird: a black-throated gray warbler. Being a warbler, she refused to hold still long enough for a picture, but I got lots of great looks, certainly enough to tell that the throat was white, which made it a girl.

This walk wasn't enough to satisfy my heron cravings, so armed with new maps, we returned to our previous parking spot and I walked the other way on the trails. I ended up down by the shipping area, where I was about to give up, when I saw a flock of geese and decided to give them a look. I saw them and a sentinel that made me think of a flock of sheep with a guarding dog. (Click on the picture to get a better view of the heron, altho he was looking straight at me so the head looks odd.)


Thus ended the birding part of the day with me being a very happy girl. We decided to try a restaurant named 21 Steps when we got back to Whistler. Just as at The Keg, the hostess was quite happy to escort me to the elevator so I didn't have to actually climb steps to get to dinner. They had a lovely menu, with a dinner special of an item from the Small Plates, a Big Plate and dessert for $35 so we went with that. Our meal was enlivened by a woman at a neighboring table jumping up and exclaiming "Look! There's a bear!" Yes, indeed there was, and he was walking down the pedestrian walkway in the Village. I was quite pleased to be on the second floor where I could view the bear and then enjoy my dinner in peace and quiet. The food was excellent, the service was too, and all in all, it was a great day.

Virtual Vacation: Chilliwack BC, heron sanctuary

We're back from our lovely vacation in British Columbia which I was unable to share in real-time as I forgot the cable for the camera. So, instead, I'll be doing a virtual vacation retroactively as I process the pictures. It makes it much easier to find things later if I take the time to put the keywords into Bridge, but it does take some time upfront. Adobe Bridge, however, makes it really easy as I can keyword all the photos from one day at a time, or any subset actually. But I digress...

Our first day of vacation was spent visiting the Great Blue Heron Sanctuary in Chilliwack, BC. This is not actually on the way to Whistler (our final destination) from Bellevue, but how could I resist either the chance at multiple herons or the chance to visit a place named Chilliwack? So, off we went, east into the Fraser Valley. Mapquest dropped the directions in Chilliwack itself, so we ended up stopping at Fred's Fishing store where the owner was amazingly helpful and kind. Part of why we always enjoy visiting Canada. Once we found the heron place, we got no more than about 30 yards down the first trail when we spotted a heron right beside the bank. Since he was being fairly active, I settled down to take lots of photos, getting the first one of him from across the pond.


Then I was diverted by a green heron who flew across the pond when I walked too close to his fishing location near the trail while trying for a better angle on the big guy.


We continued on the closest trail, heading toward a bird blind where I hoped to see more herons without them being able to see me. The two in the closest pond weren't very happy about all my photo taking antics so I wanted to give them a break.

While on the trail, we noticed dozens of frogs leaping into ponds as we approached. Since I have a piece in mind with a heron hunting, I loved the idea of getting a picture of one of the frogs. I lucked out a bit later on the trail when a frog decided to hide in a large puddle in the middle of the path. I was able to sneak up right next to him and get this shot from almost directly overhead.



We found no other herons down that trail, so we backtracked, and the one great blue that I'd been stalking and photographing had moved into a marshy area to hide in the reeds, grasses, and such. I liked how he looked in there, his head looking snakelike so I bothered him a bit more and got this shot.


We walked a bit more down another trail but then some serious rain started so we decided it was time to move on to Whistler. I got lots of great shots of both herons, and two kinds of frogs, so it was definitely a worthwhile stop.

The drive to Whistler was very scenic. I was most impressed with looking off the coast toward the many islands, sticking up abruptly from the water into the clouds. It was difficult to get a shot that really showed this well because of the wires strung along poles along the road. But, I think this one gives some of the flavor.


Day one ended with dinner at The Keg in Whistler. For context, let me say that Jeff enjoys going out to restaurants so even though we don't ski or mountain bike, the two major activities in Whistler, we were looking forward to a week in a village where we could walk to dinner every night and eat at a different place every time. So, each day's blog post will end with a restaurant review. The Keg is one of our standby restaurants so we started with it after a day of traveling since we weren't up to being adventurous. We noted that the onion soup bowls in Canada were larger than our local Keg, and the wine list was different so I got to try a couple of different Okanagan red wines which were both quite tasty. All in all, an excellent first day of vacation.

Buy some SF, help with Gulf Relief

This in my inbox today, from one of the Seattle area authors involved in creating this. I think it's worth sharing, so feel free to pass it along to those you know who read Science Fiction.

Book View Café Publishes Benefit Anthology for Gulf Relief

Book View Café has launched their benefit anthology, BREAKING WAVES. All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund of the Greater New Orleans Foundation.

The collection features over thirty stories by a wide range of best-selling and award-winning authors, including a previously-unpublished poem from Nebula and Hugo award-winner Ursula K. Le Guin, as well as a chapter from Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking book The Sea Around Us. Authors contributing stories of environmental rescue and recovery include Vonda N. McIntyre, Judith Tarr, Deborah Ross, Sarah Monette, David D. Levine, David Gessner, and Lyda Morehouse among others. Tiffany Trent and Phyllis Irene Radford edited the collection.

The book is available in epub, pdf, mobi, and prc formats in the Book View Café bookstore (http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Book-View-Cafe-Breaking-Waves) and will be coming to the Kindle store soon.

Tidal power in Snohomish - coming soon!

Today's email brought a link to this article about tidal power research in Snohomish County, just to the north of Seattle. Our federal dollars were important in funding the research, and will lead to power coming from the tides in 2012, if all goes as planned. I'll be interested in seeing how this goes. I think each area will have a better form of alternative energy depending on the local conditions. Hot and sunny, go solar. Lots of wind or tide, use that. I also think decentralized and multisource is a better way to go than a single giant electric grid, but that's a different post for another day. *smile*

Birds & Wind Power - how to really tell how many birds are being killed

Okay, that's a provocative title on my blog post, but I'm seriously torn about this issue. I'm a birder, and I do bird themed art, so I care deeply about birds. I also think renewable energy sources are definitely the way to go. So, I've been following the various reports about birds and wind turbines quite closely. I was pleased to see the birdnote coverage about a local project and the new technology to not only tell how many birds are in the area, but potentially shut off the turbines when endangered species (specifically marbled murrelets) approach. See the birdnote short here (actually hear it, since it's a 2 minute radio bit) and follow the 'still more' link to read a more comprehensive article about it. F or those that care, wind turbines kill about 6500 birds a year in the USA while other common causes of bird deaths such as skyscrapers and cars kill several million. Just sayin'.

Going green: great news!

Today's email brought in a story about total energy use being down 5% in the US. And a big increase in alternative energy use. As the mother of a young man soon to join the Air Force, I can only applaud the actions that lead to less dependence on foreign oil. And as someone who believes we need to lighten our impact on the earth, it's also great news. So I share it. Read the full story here.

canvas mounting small collage, or what to do if I can't sew

The herniated disk is taking more time and therapy to heal, altho the shot in the spine helped a whole lot, so I still can't sew. Who knew that sewing was such a physically demanding thing to do? So, instead, I've been playing with paints and working on redoing my website. Putting some of the collages I did during my Fiber Arts class onto canvas lets me do both of these things at once. I'm having fun playing with the paints, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how well my color mixing skills have transferred from dyes to paints. So, here's some pictures of what I've been doing.

First, here's the collage I started with. I started with my favorite one. Normally, that would be a decision that would cause me problems since I'd not want to mess it up. However, since I didn't actually do anything to the paper collage until the last step of mounting it on the canvas, I decided to be brave and do the one I wanted done the most rather than one I was willing to lose if I messed up because it was the first time.


I did 2 canvases. The first one, I used the green, gold and purple from the collage, and I put a lot of movement into the colors. My daughter pointed out that there was so much movement going on in the collage itself that maybe it would show better with a calmer background. Once I put the collage on the canvas to see what I thought, I agreed with her.


So the second canvas was much calmer, and pretty much just the gold with some metallic highlights to pick up the metallic flecks in some of the papers. I think this is more successful and I went ahead and attached it to the canvas using gel medium. The picture is before the collage was trimmed and attached so it's an approximation altho a good one.


This is actually a mixed media painting at this point as there's no fabric on it anywhere and it's a canvas with paint and other stuff on it. A departure from my usual work, but really just a change in medium. The techniques I'm using can be transferred to working with fabric as this is also a good way to show a small fabric piece and sneak it into an art show rather than a quilt show. And I'm feeling really good about still getting work done while I deal with the medical issues. So, life is good in my house right now!

Green energy and the FHA - let's write letters!

When I was on vacation in 2008, I wrote about possible financing approaches for solar power on homes that was being discussed in Boulder, and already implemented in Berkeley. In the intervening 2 years, the idea has spread like wildfire to more than 20 states, but hit a roadbump recently with a FHFA ruling about mortgages in May. Grist.org has the story here. Seems to me, this is the perfect place for a little citizen activism, like a letter, email or phone call. This is a wonderful approach to financing alternative power sources at the home level, and should be encouraged by our government. If you agree, let them know.

More about bicycles & electric bikes

Today's email brought a link to an article about bicycling, electric bikes, and converting our society to one that is less reliant on fossil fuels. It's a quick read, and a good summary. Check it out here. I'm particularly pleased that he points out that Europe and China are already making this transition, and how the electric bicycle can help. My son loves his ebikes - he now has 2, one a folding one that is easy to transport but is not as powerful, and his "Big Blue", which zooms up our incredibly steep hill, only requiring a little bit of pedaling at the top. He has so much fun with them, and they're so incredibly frugal, that I was wanting to join in. Alas, between my knee surgery, and my herniated disk in my spine, it looks like I'll have to wait until later. Anyone out there over the age of 30 who is getting around by electric bike? How's that working for you?

Electric car support infrastructure coming to WA

Today's email brought a link to this article about electric car charging stations along I5 in Washington state. Read it here. There are several interesting points raised, particularly in the comments, although I can't help but think that I'd still prefer to have a hybrid car that could run on either fuel so my chances of not being able to recharge or refuel would be less. That's why I bought the Prius model we got, so we can do the aftermarket upgrade to a plug-in with additional battery capacity and still have the hybrid capability. It will be interesting to see how this all works out over the next few years.

Anne Bagby's Collage - DVD review

I'm not able to work in my studio very much right now due to back spasms and the resulting physical problems, so I'm spending a fair amount of time catching up on reading and watching some DVDs. My local library has a wonderful selection of art and technique dvds, and the one I watched most recently is Anne Bagby's Collage: Paper, Patterns & Glazing. Let me just say I'd give it 2 thumbs up as a summation.

I'm moving toward multimedia collage myself so I'm very interested in the subject matter. And I've been intrigued by the idea of transparency and layering in my fabric work for some time. So, I was predisposed to like this. In addition to covering material I'm interested in, I was particularly pleased that the dvd essentially watches Bagby create the beginnings of several pieces. I appreciated seeing her process, including the creation of her own papers and stamps, in all its messy details. I also appreciated that she talks us through her design decisions as she makes them in simple terms, not artspeak lingo, but in terms of focusing the viewer on the piece, what's the foreground or background, and ways to shift things with a quick layer of color.

In 90 minutes, there's a lot to watch and learn from. I'll be applying techniques and ideas for some time, even though my designs tend to be simpler. As Bagby says at one point, she's in the Too Much is Not Enough school which I am not, but that doesn't mean I can't learn from her and her process. I'd recommend this dvd to anyone interested in working in collage, either paper or fabric, as I think the techniques will translate well into either medium. I'd also recommend it to anyone interested in watching an artist in process while creating.

UW Fiber Arts program - final piece, and some thoughts

Our show (by-hand.org) opened last week at the UW Towers, and I missed the opening because of continuing knee and back issues. While I am saddened at missing the party, I did enjoy the pictures posted on facebook by some of the other class members. I'm also looking forward to going to see the exhibit during the month of June sometime, as soon as my back and knee will allow. This is even more important as I didn't get a final picture taken of my piece and need to go take a picture, if only so I can add it to the webpage. Here's a shot of the piece in progress. James, my son, is holding it up, so it's a terribly traditional quilt picture complete with fingers at the edges and lots of background clutter.



I forgot to load my piece into the car when taking off for class, so Jeff and James did a quick photo and emailed it so I could present my piece that day. We were all showing our pieces so we collectively knew enough to answer questions and talk knowledgeably at the opening.

And now it's time for the big sigh of relief and accomplishment, and taking inventory of what I've learned. This was a fabulous class. I learned so much it's difficult to list it all. Most importantly, I learned to take myself seriously. I learned how to think about my art, the materials I use, and how to think about creating a piece to maximize its effectiveness. I'll be processing these lessons for quite some time to come but I look forward to my progress as I now feel confident I can deal with issues as they arise rather than feeling overwhelmed. It's a wonderful, exhilarating change that's coming and next up on my to-do list is redoing my webpage to reflect the changes I've already internalized. I'll keep blogging about this whole process as one of the things I've learned is how much I, and others, need the community of other artists to learn from. So, in a way, this blog is a way of paying it forward.

Class collaborative project, or doing art in public at Greenlake

My Fiber Arts Certificate course continues to be a fabulous learning experience. As we go into the final week before our exhibit opens (see by-hand.org for details), I'm focusing mostly on finishing the detail work on the piece I'll be exhibiting. But I promised to blog about what we're doing as we do it, so I want to show off our collaborative project. A group of six of us decided to do an interactive public art project for our collaborative group project. We decided on doing a group weaving project - creating a frame, bringing fabric strips and yarns, setting up tables at Greenlake Park near the hiking trail, and inviting anyone who walked by to participate. We split up the basic materials, scheduled slots for being at the tables, and assigned other tasks, such as creating the frame, or, my task, writing a blurb and creating a booklet for participants to sign. Here's the text that went on the sign, and on the back of the booklet:

"Community comes in many forms and is made up of each member contributing their own abilities, like color and texture from threads in a woven cloth. On May 15, 2010, we are creating an opportunity to symbolically create a cloth representing the community here at Greenlake. By selecting a fiber to weave into the cloth and using your own preferences as to how the fiber is inserted, you can help create the final cloth just as each of us creates the community by the way we participate in it. Please use the booklet provided to record your thoughts about community, this project or what your choice of fiber symbolizes to you."


The reason I mentioned community is that Lois, the creator of the frame, also took the initiative to go talk to the staff at the Community Center and arranged for display of the final piece after our class is finished.



We started out setting up on 2 tables, and having to create a sign to try and draw people in. This turned out to be somewhat unnecessary as people were curious about what we were doing and usually we had at least 1 or 2 people at all times, and sometimes were on the verge of having a line for people to participate.



Once we had things set up, and had started the weaving in a couple of directions, we were off and going.


We had a wide range of participants, of all ages, genders and backgrounds. And lots of interesting conversations with people. It was really clear that the people who stopped valued the opportunity to participate in creating art.




By the time my shift ended at noon, we had almost half the frame filled with materials.




I haven't yet seen the finished piece as I missed the most recent class due to the pinched nerve in my back, but I'm looking forward to the PowerPoint presentation next Tuesday when we present to the class. This was a good exercise in working in a group and gave us an excellent opportunity to do some publicity for our upcoming exhibit. I can certainly see doing something similar on a regular basis, although it's likely I'll pick a park a little closer to home.

Guerilla Art (Fiber Art Program)

One of the assignments for my Fiber Art class was to do a site specific piece of public art. Since I walk at the greenbelt near Larsen Lake almost every day, I decided to do a piece for the pier at the lake. I selected pictures I've taken that represented each season, and a detail image to go along with the larger landscape picture. Then I put them together in a banner. I had originally intended to include a strip of green fabric representing the greenbelt, and silkscreened runners on the belt but once I got the images on the banner, I decided that additional layer would be too much.


I had some interesting conversations while carrying the banner from the library parking lot to the pier as it's about a half mile walk on the greenbelt. And I learned some things about creating art for a different presentation. I meant for the banner to hang over the lake but that didn't quite work out due to several problems. I got the angle wrong, the bamboo poles I used, to evoke fishing rods, weren't long enough, and I completely forgot about the predominant wind direction. If I'd gotten the angle and the rods right, the wind might not have been such an issue but as it was, I had to move the poles to a different hole in the railing so that the art was visible.

Lots of learning going on this quarter, that's for sure. And now that I have my new computer installed, and most of the things I need transferred or installed from the old one, I'm back in business and will be blogging about what's going on in the course at least once a week.

Fiber Arts Certificate Program, second quarter wrapup

Despite having knee surgery in early February, I was still pretty productive in the second quarter of the Fiber Arts Certificate program. The focus for this quarter was concept driven art and how to produce it. We started out the quarter with an assignment to do 50 collages in one week. That was a tremendous learning experience, and I'm looking forward to being back in the studio and using the lessons I learned in daily practice. Right now, the knee is only allowing a couple of hours at a desk at a time, so I have to be patient. Not one of my best skills but I'm working on it.

To do those collages, I had to work smaller than I have before. This was an excellent exercise as it allowed me to try out variations visually rather than attempting to edit my ideas in my head. I learned that things don't look the way I expect them to and that my design ideas are greatly improved by trying them out visually.

This insight led to my really grasping the point of working in a series. I'd heard others talking about series work, but hadn't really gotten the why of it before now. Now, I do. I can try out the variations, see what works best, and then do that in a bigger format. A big plus is that I get to feel incredibly productive and have smaller pieces that will sell at a more affordable price. I'm not seeing a downside here which is really nice.

The third big lesson is that thinking over what to do is futile. Do one, see if I like it, if not, do another idea. Experiment! I suppose this is what is meant by the phrase "make visual decisions visually". Spending a couple of hours going back and forth in my head turns out to be a waste of time. In the same time, I can do 2 or 3 variations in a small size and SEE which one comes closest to evoking the emotion I'm aiming for.

And fourth, I learned to have a clear concept underlying a piece and make sure that every part of the piece contributes to that. If not, toss it aside and let it wait for a piece that it does fit.

The other big part of this quarter was producing a clear philosophical artists statement. I found this to be very useful, especially the class we spent doing quick written feedback on our fellow classmates' statements. Having to put into words why I produce the work that I do was a good way to clarify the concepts that I want to focus on. I've written artist statements before, for pieces going out to exhibits, but this time was more productive because of the feedback from others and the questions raised by our teacher.

The last big lesson I learned is the usefulness of a regular critique group. Having a supportive and knowledgeable group to ask focused questions is a very useful way for me to get clear on the underlying conceptual basis for my work.

To sum up: an incredibly powerful quarter, and I only hope I can apply the lessons I've learned once I'm back in the studio full-time.

E-bikes at Best Buy? Coming soon...

Today's Sightline email led off with a link to the first in a 5 part series on electric bikes, and improving transportation efficiency with alternatives. I've only read the first 2, and this is a link to the second in the series. It talks about why people might choose electric bikes, and what's likely to happen this next year. My soon-to-be 20 year old son has been riding electric bikes as his major form of transportation since graduating high school. We got him a folding electric bike for graduation, and a more powerful (and more expensive) one last year. He rides both but prefers the more powerful one as we live on a really steep hill. If I hadn't had knee problems this year, I'd probably have already converted my regular bike to an e-bike and be using it for my shorter rides around the neighborhood, by which I mean 3-4 miles. I'm really jazzed that I'm not the only one excited about e-bikes so this series is something I wanted to share. I'll also take this opportunity to point out that even including the repair costs for the 2 accidents he's had (both very minor), all maintenance costs, and the costs of the bikes and all his riding gear, it's cost us way less for his transportation than it did for his older sister's car and it's maintenance and repairs. Less than half, to be more precise. Costs less, better for the planet, healthier for him. What's not to like?

Meditate like a Marine

Isn't that a great title? Today's email from dailygood.org contained that title and a link to the full article about measurable mood and memory enhancement from 12 minutes of meditation a day. (They called it mindfulness training, which is a somewhat clearer name, but it's the same thing.) Controlling mood is on my mind these days as my knee surgery recovery takes much longer than anticipated and I find myself struggling to maintain my emotional equilibrium. I'm okay with the loss of daily walks altho I miss them, but adding in an inability to sit at my work areas for more than 20 minutes, so it's very difficult to create, and I find I'm getting impatient easily. My Fiber Arts class for this quarter ended last night so I have a couple of weeks to focus on healing and maybe regain my sense of being centered and balanced.

10 easy ways to help the planet (Yes! magazine)

Today's email brought a pointer to an article from yes! magazine about 10 easy ways to change your life and help the planet. It seems worth sharing. Read the whole detailed list here; some of the easy ones: eat your veggies (reduce meat consumption) , give up bottled water (we've switched to a seltzer bottle. Umbra at grist.org had a nice video today about various other ways to make your own bubbly water), and have dinner with friends. We're doing the last as a monthly game night which gives us all a chance to hang out, chat, play some games, and enjoy ourselves. This last is on my mind as I head off to knee surgery today, and realized I needed to send a reminder email. Yikes!