sand dollar beauty

Thanks to Will Cook for providing this image on his web site carolinanature.com

For a few weeks now I've been wandering around with an image in my mind of a sand dollar skeleton - a white disk with a star shape in the middle and little slots around the perimeter. Tonight I looked around the internet and quickly found three images; two of skeletons and this. I had never seen a live one, as pictured above, never mind with such gorgeous colors. I'm besotted.

Now that I have seen it I can't stop looking at it and I've made it the desktop on my computer screen.

Oh yeah, and I just got a big table for my studio, so I hope that'll help move things along there.

More about this and other developments soon.

Founders Keepers

I was just at SPA. There was a memorial exhibit for John Hanna, a Barre stone sculptor & community activist who passed away a few weeks ago. I thought I'd only be there for a few minutes, really, but ended up staying for a couple hours, catching up with people and generally having a good time. After, that is, I paid respects to John Hanna's memory and had a look at the exhibit and the slide show. And getting to cry a little over losing such a fine human being.

But I didn't feel completely at ease until Sue Higby asked if anyone had a cork screw and Michael Sherman and I pulled out our Swiss Army knives at the same time. I ceded the honor to Michael and after that I felt right at home.

I saw a lot of familiar faces, including fellow SPA founders Janet Van Fleet, Maggie Neale, Georgia Landau, and Nancy Hanson, and a bunch of people from the stone sculpting community of central Vermont. Maggie and Georgia wanted to know if I would join them for a snow sculpture competition on January 31st. Georgia had this wonderful gleem in her eye and just about pounced on me while saying "It'll be great - we'll be the SPA Founders team!". She even got Janet to reluctantly agree to join in. Then Georgia and Nancy started talking about about what the sculpture might be, maybe an ear or an eye...or maybe a mermaid or a merman.

I haven't decided yet, but it might be fun, especially because I haven't been part of any group art activities for a long time, and I haven't done anything with the SPA founders for an even longer time. Yeah, it might be fun. We'll see.


Here's Georgia, me and Nancy circa 2003, at the "Puttin' On The Dog" show and annual winter gala, with a Rhoda Carrol painting in the background.

a good night's work

Thanks to Amy for asking if I wanted to go out to draw and Gina for the new pencils and sketchbook. I LOVE TO DRAW PEOPLE SO MUCH! What a gas.

Edited 1/7/09: Oh, yeah, I did these drawings at the Langdon Street Cafe, of high school students and their mentors performing poetry and music wonderfully together.

bakery fun

I took this picture at the bakery the day before Christmas. At the mixer is Randy, bakery co-owner (and husband) with Liza, who is just outside the picture frame on the right, and his two children, Solveig (pronounced soul-vey) who is standing on the palette of flour and Maia, standing next to her Dad at the mixer. It's a blurry picture, which is partly a drag and partly great, as it shows the motion of the moment, basically what I was trying to capture. The girls were squealing with pleasure over having the the formery all to themselves (the formers and bakers all had a rare day off of production). I loved their squealing happiness. It made my day. Oh yeah, and getting a shot of that great big taffy pulling loop of dough, so awesome and so everyday.