journal fall-winter 2023

a season of more...

This has been an extraordinary season of increase.
I've embraced opportunities to learn and grow in unexpected ways.

  • I completed a new commissioned painting "River Life" in transparent oils and experimental media
  • Two of my recent pastels were displayed in a regional fine art exhibition.
  • I demonstrated pastel painting for Puyallup's North Hill Artists.
  • I also applied my artist's eye professionally to the art of garden design, and garden coaching.

river life

river life - 36 x 48 inches, oil on canvas 

Watch this 3 x 4 foot oil painting progress from white canvas to an abstract and realistic image.

 

juried show western washington

Two pastels and four ink paintings were accepted into this show. I was pleased with two sales and good contacts.

Pastel painting set into frame (no glass or matting yet) to show approximation. Art was framed with museum glass and cotton matting. Title: Deschutes Song

 

Art Demonstration in Pastel

On September 7, I demonstrated pastel painting for the South Hill Artists group in Puyallup. A large and lively group of art enthusiasts welcomed me and seemed to enjoy the demo. This raised the idea of teaching pastel painting here in my studio. We'll see...

 After the demo, I took the painting back to my studio and added finishing touches and a signature.

 

artist-gardener

"That's why my plants always seem to die," exclaimed my friend in reply to my explanation of where and how to plant a camellia. "What I need is an artist-gardener." 
And so re-launched a colorful side job in garden design this past spring.

  • I enjoyed creating an eclectic cottage garden in cooler bloom colors ranging from merlot to blues.
  • I'm in progress on a part-shade Japanese Garden.
  • And as a consultant, I helped various folks with plant placement (and some plant variety selections). 

And then there's my own yard where I'm creating an extensive woodland garden - as a creative outlet.
It's life-giving to have my feet on the ground and my hands in it, cultivating life from decomposed, dead stuff.

I took a chance growing sun-loving succulents with part-shade begonias, fuchsias, and impatiens for my studio porch entry. The half-day of sun there was enough for the succulents and didn't burn the shade loving plants. I ike the unexpected combination of colors and foliage.

  

 

 

thirty days of painting 2020

In spring of 2020, with the virus keeping us all home, I challenged myself to thirty days of painting - Monday-Friday, for six weeks. This time I painted in oil paint on canvas, and in a few dry pastels on colorfix paper.

I put any free time into the studio, and challenged myself to work small and try to complete five paintings a week. This was a bit ambitious. I ended up painting on Saturdays also, to complete the paintings that required additional time.
Click or tap here to see more...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fifty days of painting - spring 2018

A few springs ago, I engaged a self-challenge to paint for fifty consecutive days. I painted in watercolors.
Click or tap here to see and read more on my fifty days of painting.

and garden-inspired watercolors... 


flowering quince


a spring watercolor of Grandma's quince and red shed

  

select past commissions

 

 

silk-in-glass commission

I'm pleased to announce my first completed installation of silk laminated within glass. The artwork fills the spaces between open trusses of a residential interior. The photo at right two of four panels. Click to see more.

 

 


Land and Sea Passage

As students, faculty, and visitors enter Gilson Middle School in Valdez, Alaska, they are greeted by a vibrant suspended mural--over 26 feet wide. Read more...

 
 

 

Macroscape Slides

Three new glass artworks resembling over-sized microscope slides measure two feet high by six feet wide. Each artwork is uniquely created in mouth-blown art glass laminated onto dichroic float glass. They are installed in the Margaret Murie Life Sciences Building at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
 

  

 

Illuminated Passage

This suspended mural of dye-painted silk measures over 300 square feet. For Liberty Middle School in Spanaway, Washington, it depicts junior high years in a metaphor of a river passing through a canyon.
I love it. It turned out to be all I hoped for and more. Read more...

 

 

Experimental Image Glass

I continue to collaborate with Seattle glassblower Jim Flanagan to create gently abstracted imagery within colored glass. Click here or on the photo at right to see our most recent sheets of blown glass (and scroll down, as the newest work is near the bottom). 

 

 


Tree of Life

Commissioned for a thriving church in the town of Dunwoody, near Atlanta, Georgia.

 

 

 

 

Discovery

This mural in dye-painted silk was commissioned for Katchemak Bay Campus of Kenai Peninsula College of the University of Alaska. Discovery was installed in Homer, Alaska, in June of 2012. Read more...

 

 

Generations: Incubation

Kenai Peninsula College etched mouth-blown glass public art installation

Click here to read about Generations.

Here is a link to KPC installation photos

 
 

 

 

studio and story

 

 

 

 

2011 nest images on cotton paper

Click here to see photos of ten images completed in January 2011

 

 

 

stone impressions - watch the art-making process on video

People often ask me how I create a stone lithograph. It's hard to explain in words so I have a short video that shows the process.

Click here for photos and video on stone impressions.

 

 

 

silk rivers

These river silks were inspired by and modeled after the beautiful Fremont antique glass we used for the Kenai Peninsula College installation.

 

 


flowering

My Grandma's name, Florence, means "to flower" as in the sense of a blossom. And 2012's flowers were an explosion of color. See photos in her memory...

 

 

 Be silk scarves


Links...
gallery of Be silk scarves
significance in Be-ing
silk care
displaying silk

 

 

past journals