"A Spiritual Sanctuary for People and Nature"

From Starcross, where my mother volunteered many years ago as a Sunday morning babysitter for adopted young children whose mothers had died of AIDS.

Helping Hands

"How Raven Accidentally Wiped Out The Dinosaurs"

Take a look at the work of Alison Bremner who is Tlingit. Be sure to read the descriptions of each of her pieces. One of her drums won first prize in the Bellingham National Art Exhibition & Awards. Scroll down to see "Potlatch Ban."

After visiting the Whatcom Museum, I headed over to the hospital gift shop to find an animal toy to give as a gift to a baby who is due to be born any day now. I found just the right gift for the baby

and then found myself laughing out loud with a Tyranosaurus Rex which now sits at my work table in my music chair when I am not sitting there. One of the people in the gift shop referred to it as a crocodile, but it is clearly a Tyranosaurus Rex.

The light was unusually welcoming when I  entered my tiny living room early this morning and discovered Alison Bremner's webpage and smiled to see the Tyranosaurus Rex looking up at my Bob Dylan songbook.

"... I catch dinosaurs ..." (Bob Dylan, 1963, lyrics from "I Shall Be Free" on "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan")

"Cat Lady," by Alison Bremner:

Late Winter in the North, Wolf and Raven, Wolf, Raven, Caribou (2002)

Today, curious as to the exact dates that I had done these illustrations, I looked on the backs of them and was surprised to find that they were done in spring of 2002.

In 2001, I hadn't painted at all.

It seemed a good idea to post all the illustrations today in the order they were painted, now that I know for sure what that order is. Tomorrow, I'll be posting the first of that series of images that I created in 2002, of which these illustrations were a small part. After doing these five illustrations, I was unable to come up with any more and eventually bowed out of the illustrating project, although I completed 15 more paintings in 2002.

Raven (2002)

Last Friday, April 20, I drove six hours north to 100 Mile House, which is in a region of British Columbia called Cariboo Country. I had not been up that way since 1974 and was awed by the dramatic and varied landscape I passed through in those six hours. The trip began with farmland, followed by a climb up the Fraser River Canyon, from which one can see nearby mountain peaks with snow. Beyond that is high desert and Cariboo Country.

On Saturday, I drove another hour to Williams Lake for a gathering of kindred spirits, returning to 100 Mile House later in the day. It was good to visit with a friend who used to live in Bellingham, to meet her boyfriend and her new friends. Several of us took a long walk after dinner in grasslands near the lake at 108 Mile Ranch. That is far enough north that there is not much spring greening yet. There were Canada Geese walking in the short brown grass and buffleheads and scaups in the lake. The sky was that clear blue that comes with high altitude and distance from populated areas, and it seemed huge because there were no nearby mountains to block it. There were some clouds and rain in one part of the sky in the far distance to the north.

I imagine that this landscape I visited is somewhat like the landscape where the story I was trying to illustrate took place.

It was good to have a break from blogging, my first break since I started this blog on December 8, 2006.

I have been asked if I am doing any new work. April 16 was day #40 of a 40-day commitment to painting something every day. I have about 20 new pieces in gouache and watercolor, done on Arches watercolor blocks, but nothing so far seems to me to be as strong as my older work. Still, I am enjoying the process of painting again and am committing to ongoing daily painting. Last Monday, I took a class in inkle weaving and will be weaving on a daily basis, too.

Wolf and Raven (2002)

In spring of 2002, I mentioned in conversation with a small group of new friends that I was an artist but had been doing very little painting since 1993. One of my new friends approached me later saying that she was a writer who had written a story about a wolf, a raven and a caribou for a children's book and was looking for an illustrator. Although I had never done illustration, I agreed to give it a try. I thought it might be somewhat like making drawings from my dreams.

My process began with reading her story over and over again. I liked her story very much. When I began to have some pictures in my mind, I went to the library to find books with photos of wolves, ravens and caribou because, in 2002, I didn't yet have a computer on which to search for those images. When I finally sat down to paint a skinny hungry wolf and a well-fed raven, the above painting was the result. My first thought was, "Yikes! I'm no illustrator." I'm glad I kept this, though, because I like it now.

Feeling discouraged, I showed it to my friend who said that it was a good start, and that she hoped I would continue.