Summer-izing it up so far…
oi! What a summer full of work its been so far. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had a minute to stop and post here in a while. The garden is going full tilt–all the lettuce is gone and the raspberries are done for the season. (But we froze 16 lovely bags full which will be great in muffins later this year and next winter too.) Now my daily garden time is spent watering and pulling the weeds which tend to thrive wherever you water here in Colorado. We don’t have a big farm or even a little one, just a backyard in a small town with a few small plots and a few big black pots that trees once arrived in from a nursery. We recycle and reuse as creatively as we can…with the addition of some good dirt and even better compost from a local dairy, we have thriving tomatos, peppers, cucumbers, herbs and 5 kinds of squash plants!
In addition to an hour or so a day in the garden, I’ve been growing lots of website pages and blogs, both for myself and for other clients. That includes helping my husband with his musical podcasts and blogs, though he’s becoming very self sufficient at it these days. He’s got quite a bit of original music up for listening, and more to come. I’ve been hearing and enjoying it for years; now its YOUR turn!
I’ve been busy sorting and gathering and bagging beads too, preparing for show and for upcoming classes, kits, and bigger projects like the next books. Polymer clay masks are all ready to be photographed and mounted this week, with the frames prepared and databases for the artist information all prepared–its a serious lot of work just to get ready for some projects. The amount of effort that went into making all the masks is enormous, but its also been spaced out over five or six years and done by many different artists who participated. That sure helps!!I’m really looking forward to putting this one together, and its happening now, this very week. And for the next several months as well! Bryan will be mounting and framing the masks as I finish their photos. As I sort through them now, I’m really struck again by how wonderful they all are–so many extremely cool little pices of art! Shown at top are two from the 2006 mask swap made by Karen Cowles. Check out her website at www.choosetothrive.com
Right alongside of that giant miniature undertaking is production of new beads and new polymer clay faces and more masks! Before we show off the masks on the walls and in a new book, I’ll be traveling back to the ol’ stomping grounds in Ohio in September, where I am very pleased to be offering classes in Bead Making and Millefiore Caning through the local polymer clay guilds. More about that in my next post.
I’m also very excited to say that work is well underway on the many aspects of preparing for our “Really Big Show”, as Ed Sullivan used to say. Scripts, songs, websites and blogs, puppets and even the theatre itself all have to in place and running before we bring up the curtain. As every one who has ever participated in theatre of any kind knows, there are years of work that go into a single hour’s performance, and its done by many hands and with the use of all sorts of skills. We’re close to being able to share the progress, and thats what’s keeping me pretty busy at the moment. Visit again soon and find out more!
We made it through the 
Next up on the “to do” list is making more polymer clay faces to go with all the great new colors, and putting them together into 
Though I’ll be photographing as I go, because the dyeing process is part of one book, and the polymer clay masks are part of the next one up–“The Art Of Polymer Clay Masks”.
A lot of my endeavors tend to collect up against each other or tie into each other eventually, and not just in the piles that accumulate all over the studio. I have a love of pattern, a deep and abiding joy in colors, and I just adore a good black outline. And although I am willing to admit that I am addicted to buzz I get from a good strong jolt of color, I also do a lot of work in black and white and find the clarity of composition in a pen drawing to be very compelling. Am I caught betwixt and between the B/W vs. Color issue? No indeed, there’s room in my heart and my studio for both.
As an example of how things tend to mix it up, both in my head and in my eventual finished product, here’s a look at a drawing I did a long time ago. It began with black ink and my trusty Rapidiograph pen, long since traded in for Micron pens that don’t clog!
Here’s a look at the same page, with the color added. I used the Print On Demand publishing capabilities at 
As I learn more about the potentials of blogging, I am refining and adding to the structure of this one as well as trying to find time for the actual posting! Today I am adding to the “blogroll” or list of links. I have so many wonderful sources of information and supplies and inspiration, and I want to share them. So I’ll be adding more as I go. AND I’m getting things ready for Major Undertakings–all sorts of things happen around here in the Spring, and not just planting the vegetable garden. We are only a week away from the annual Dyeing event, and I’m working on pictures and words for several new books, including the 
