After a full summer which included changing jobs, making pages for 3 fatbooks and enduring intense heat, I am just back from Spokane where I met my baby grandaughter for the first time. Her name is Kyra Nicole and is currently 2 months old. I took all her daddy's baby photos with me so her parents could see whose side of the family she takes after. Still too soon to tell. She's their first baby and of course the cutest baby in the world. The hardest part is they live in Spokane where Ben's just starting a teaching career. It's been hard on me to have him living so far away from Portland. But he and Erin are both doing great and very happy. How could I ask for more? So I made them promise to keep me supplied with photos of her progress.

Meanwhile life goes on in Portland as Art & Soul approaches. My scan of my page for the "Les Rues de Paris" fatbook features a well known painting of Montmartre Boulevard by Camille Jacob Pissarro. I used an eraser carving for the street name. That's almost more fun than creating the page:

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My page for "Shrines" featured a hand colored cathedral doorway with a door that opened:

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The page I did for "Beachcomber's Journal" shows me at the Oregon Coast in 1962 at age 14. Life was so simple at 14.

This is the frame I made for a co-worker's daughter's painting. It was a lot of fun to make as I could incorporate tiles with dragonfly stamps as well as a couple of tiny dragonfly beads. The picture was 16"x20" and I could vary my tile colors to match the variety of colors in it while not drawing the eye too far from the painting itself.

In other news, I decided to seek other work about a month ago, found a great job at another civil engineering firm and just began training my replacement at the current job. I'm really a pretty silent person and 8 hours of transferring my knowledge was way more talking than I'd done in recent past. Colleen is a very capable replacement and I hope we can continue to be friends.

My niece Allison graduated from high school this year and her family had a family & friends get-together last weekend. She has a Serbian boyfriend and they are leaving tomorrow for 2 months in Belgrade. They assure us that there is no more trouble over there and they'll be ok. I hope so.

I made this picture frame for her as she has lots of photos of the two of them needing framing.

I bought 2 new roses last week and actually got them into the ground before they died, often the result of a spur-of-the-moment purchase.

Well I guess that's all for today.

I just received my registration packet today for Art & Soul 2006. The theme is "Paris in My Soul" and they've included a white wool beret to decorate. I'd like to say I have an actual creative process, but with years of making my own clothes, I sort of let a project float around in my head for a while until I visualize a direction.

The mask here was made for 2003 "Cirque du Soul". I started with a simple mask and attached a paper form to elongate the top of the mask. Then as I was wandering around the Josephine's fabric store in Portland, these gorgeous silk brocades jumped out at me. I had to get a minimum 1/4 yd-plenty left for future projects. I glued the fabric to the mask and stitched turquoise beads across the forehead and down the sides. Then I came across gold trim left over from some past Christmas decoration but I knew the top needed to be dramatic. I got a bag of multicolored feathers at Joann's. I have a compulsive sorting streak so I sorted all the feathers by color & put into plastic bags. Starting at the top of the mask, I attached the turquoise feathers, than overlay the burgundy and finished with the orange.

Back to the beret, I think I'll dye it light pink and then maybe add rose ribbon rosettes-maybe applicque some silk flowers and ribbon streamers. I'll have to let this project float some more.

OKAY! Had some trouble turning this guy around but here he is.

I'm taking a short breather here from packing up at my office to move this weekend-what a huge job-and it's abnormally hot for this time of the year. My little pug was so overheated last night I couldn't hear the TV over him. (A poor joke as the heat can be dangerous to pugs). The boys love ice cubes so I broke some out and it seemed to help.

Thought I'd share my contribution to the Artfest 2006 gallery show. The theme was "Curious Creatures and Mysterious Mortals". I made the face using paper clay which air dries over a base of styrofoam. When he was dry I applied thin slices of polymer clay cane to the face. As he started to gain personality, I decided big floppy ears would suit and then the idea to have him peeking out from his forest hideaway. I crafted his fingers over wire armatures, stapled fern fronds to a background of moss glued to a slice of tree and he was ready to go.

I've been commissioned by a fellow employee to create a polymer clay tile frame for a painting of a fairy and dragonflies done by his 15-yr-old daugher. I'll post when it's done.
That's all for now!

I finished my current project yesterday, a polymer
clay tile mosaic picture frame for my new
grandbaby-on-the-way due in July.  As usual, I’m
feeling a letdown after expending lots of energy
in creating art.  I don’t know why this is, really,
but it’s happened more than once so I at least know
what’s going on.  I usually veg out on the couch for a
couple of days with my dogs until I’m replenished and
can start in again.  Maybe I need more caffeine.

I’m really getting with spring right now.  The lilacs
are out and the lilies-of-the-valley are springing up
to replace the daffodils and hyacinth in the aroma
category.  My next big job is to dig out some black
bamboo I unfortunately decided to put in an area
bounded by sidewalk and my house.  I know that was a
bad move but I didn’t expect it to send out huge
spikes that threatened to remove the siding from the
house. Live and maybe learn.
Ta!

This is one of the colors available in my Ginkgo earrings. You can see other colors at www.lulus-ginkgo-designs.com. These are about actual size, maybe a little more.