Surgery prep and snowy chickadees

I go in for knee joint replacement surgery tomorrow so today is the final day to pick up all the rugs in the house, and pack my suitcase and whatever other prep I haven't gotten done yet. It's not a bad day to be stuck in the house considering the several inches of snow we got last night. And considering how cute the birds are in the backyard as they land on the branches en route to the feeder scattering snow as they land and launch. I got several nice pictures, and I wanted to share this one of a chickadee. Usually, I see the chestnut-backed chickadees predominate but today it's the black-capped ones. Their coloring is less dramatic, more subtle and I always enjoy watching them play in the trees.

"Hummer's Comfort" at Phinney Center Gallery show in March

The Northwest Collage Society Members' Spring Exhibit is at the Phinney Center Gallery, located at 6532 Phinney Ave N, Seattle WA 98103. The show runs March 2 - April 1, with the Artist Reception on March 11, from 7 - 9pm. The Gallery hours: Monday – Friday, 9am to 9pm; Saturday 9am to 2pm, closed Sunday. More details about the gallery can be found at www.phinneycenter.org/arts.shtm



I've recently joined the NWCS, and I'm looking forward to my first show with them. One of my favorite pieces, Hummer's Comfort (shown above), was juried into the show and I'm curious to see how it shows next to the mostly paper collage most of the members do. I'm not sure I'll be able to attend the reception on March 11 because I'll still be in the recovery/rehab phase of my knee joint replacement but I will try to be there. I'd love to get feedback from anyone who is able to see the show so please, if you go, post a comment or email me directly. Thanks!

New yard, new yard birds

Well, we're finally moved in and mostly settled in our new place. This has meant a new yard, and surprisingly, new birds in that yard. The first bird I saw in the yard was a Sharp-shinned Hawk who sat in the tree over the empty seed feeder for a few minutes, giving me an evil eye, and wondering why there were no birds. I started filling the feeder later that week, but he has not returned. And I didn't yet have my camera sitting by the back window, so no picture of him.

The second most surprising bird, or actually birds, are the pair of varied thrush who have been in my yard every day since I put seed in the feeder. I saw these birds at our previous house infrequently, at best. Here, I'm seeing them daily, and have only seen a robin once in the six weeks I've been feeding the birds here.



Most surprising is the pileated woodpecker who has been here 3 days in the last week. Pileateds are big, and flashy, and usually like the deep woods so seeing one in my yard a half mile south of the local shopping center is surprising.



I'm also getting some good shots of favorites, like the Northern Flicker who argued with the Pileated about who had priority at the feeder. (The Pileated won, unsurprisingly. )




I'm getting some great pictures, and once I have the knee replacement surgery the end of February, and my back heals, I'm hoping to make some fabulous art based on the photos.

Exploring Collage - check out Collagista!

I sometimes describe my art as fabric collage, and I've recently joined the NW Collage Society as I started working with paper & fabric in a smaller format while unable to sew this last few months. So, I've been exploring collage communities and opportunities on the web. I recently found Collagista!, a blog publication dedicated to collage. The blog gives the pdf link to download so there are lots of pretty pictures of collage work, and some explanatory text, all done in a more pleasing layout than a blog would normally allow. If you're interested in collage as an art form, I'd recommend checking it out.

Hummer in the snow, or why I'm thankful for warmth and light

It's a little bit early for a Thanksgiving post, but I'm going to take the day off from my computer tomorrow, and I just uploaded the pictures I've taken of Bob, the backyard hummingbird, over the past couple of days. We don't often get much snow here in the Seattle area, and the hummingbirds who winter over will get very protective of "their" feeders when we do. Bob decided to move even closer to the feeder than usual, and didn't move from his post even when I went out on the deck to take his picture. So I got some nice pictures and I also kept a close eye on the feeder so I could warm the solution back up when it started getting slushy.

Here's Bob, perched on a nearby maple tree, about 6 feet away from his feeder. You can see the white stuff below, and earlier, the evergreen in the background was covered with a very pretty layer of accumulated snow.



And here's a closeup of Bob, showing how fluffed up his feathers are to help him keep warm.



I suspect I'll be seeing Bob again tomorrow morning at 7 am. I've been bringing the feeder in at night so the sugar solution is nice and warm in the morning. And since the weather page I use said that sunrise was 7:30, I went out at 7 on Tuesday to put the feeder back. Bob was sitting on the metal hook that the feeder is usually suspended from, and he was not a happy camper that I was late bringing him his breakfast. This morning, he was there waiting again, and let me almost touch him before he backed off a bit while I put the feeder out. I'm going to miss living so close to the wildlife. It's been one of the things I've liked the best about this house. But I'm leaving the new owner some written guidelines for the hummingbird feeder so I hope she'll get as much enjoyment from the hummers as I have.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Bicycle made of wood, beauty and speed combined

I've always loved bicycling, and I'm really pleased at the new things happening in this field, such as electric bikes. Okay, my knees wearing out are the reason for that one. But, reading this article made me want to spend big bucks on a truly beautiful and powerful bike. There's a custom bike builder in Portland making bikes from hardwood. See the pictures and read the article here.

Achieving Excellence

In my earlier post about my show entry system, there's a sheet on the wall next to the box with the file folders about "Achieving Excellence". I've gotten a request to share it. I did a google search using the phrase in the first sentence, and found the Harvard Business Review blog article I got it from. See the full article here. I just took out the six keys and printed that out for myself, but the full article has some interesting things in it about becoming what we practice. I find this relevant in all areas of my life, not just the studio.

Shows - entry tracking system

I'm being swamped with all the details of selling my house, and moving us to a new place, so my plans to blog about my perfect studio which will have to be dismantled are being chopped into smaller bits. Today, I'm going to talk about how I track shows I want to enter and make sure I don't miss the deadlines. My daughter, who has worked as a business manager/accountant for some artists in the Bellingham area, helped me set up the system and I have to say, it is working wonderfully for me. This year, one of my goals is to apply to at least one show a month, and with this system, I am doing well at organizing the show info, the dates and tracking how I'm doing with them.


Here's my little box, next to my computer, surrounded by the clutter on my desk. I have a three bin wall holder that I will put up in the new place, but this works for now. So, what's the magic? I use erasable labels on the file folders, that's the first step. When I hear about a show I'm interested in, I print out the prospectus, write the name of the show and the date I have to do something by on the label. Note: if the deadline is a receive by date, the date I write down is a week earlier so I'm taking action in time for it to get there. Then I put it in the box in chronological order. Usually, I'll write a little note on the first page of the prospectus saying which pieces I'm thinking of submitting. If I'm going to do a piece just for the show, I put a to-do item in my studio grasscatcher notebook (visible in the foreground on the desk). Then, once a week or so, I look at the next couple of weeks to see what deadlines are coming up, and I mentally plan out what I'm submitting. Once I hear back from the show, assuming I've been accepted, I erase the date on the file folder and put the ship date on it, then refile it in the box in the right place for the new date.

I'm not yet entered in so many things that I need a system to track which pieces are going where, but that's the next step. Right now, I use my inventory sheet, the long printed pages sticking up from the file folder box. It's a word document with a table, done as 8.5 x 14 size paper in landscape mode, with columns for Title, Date finished, ID#, Type of work, medium (I'm doing both paper and fabric nowadays), Height, Width, Price, Shows, Date photographed, and date posted to my webpage. For now, scanning down the Shows column is sufficient to make sure I don't double enter something. I pencil in a name on my hard copy when I submit it and do it in ink when a piece is accepted.

This seems so simple now that I'm explaining it, but it's such a delight to feel completely on top of all of this. And it takes only a couple of minutes of my time to add a show to my entry list. I share this because it's made such a difference for me and I hope it can help some others get on top of the whole show submission cycle.

Bicycles and infrastructure

I'm not surprised to hear that there's finally been a pedestrian killed in a bicycle/pedestrian accident. Multi-use trails, while fine when there aren't a lot of bicyclists, don't work well if there's heavy traffic. I found this out when living in Venice, CA in the 80's when rollerblading was so popular. (Small digression: I would try to ride my bike on the bike path, and fantasize about ways to get the attention of the headphone-wearing rollerbladers kicking their legs out and blocking the whole path and completely oblivious to all others around them. Grrr! ) Here's an interesting article about some options for increasing bicycle use and decreasing congestion and accidents.

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?