Hi from the Desert

I am writing to you today from Joshua Tree National Park, two-thirds of the way through a three-week artist residency. I know it has been several months since I’ve updated the blog. Summer in Alaska is incredibly busy and I like to use my spare time (if there is any) drawing and exploring, but I promise an update about summer work soon. Right now I want to take you to the desert.

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Portraits of Nature: Nizina River Rocks

Last October I took an online class with Lisa Call, Working In Series. I painted a series on rocks found on the Nizina River, where I live. I am fascinated by the endless variety of colors and textures found in the rocks. The Nizina River drains out of the glaciers and mountains of an interesting section of the Wrangells (really every portion of the Wrangells is interesting) but you can find fossils, geodes, and stones of every color in the rainbow. I wish I had more of a background in geology so that I could understand them better, but I do appreciate their beauty, and I like to make up stories about why they look the way they do.  

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2015 Year in Review

It is the end of the year: The days are short and I find myself inside at 4 pm, listening to the news and wondering what to make for dinner as it is pitch black outside. By contrast, during the summer, I don’t get to listen to the radio or think about dinner until 8 pm. The dark days are a good time for introspection; I enjoy sitting by the woodstove with a cup of tea thinking about what has happened recently, and where I’d like to be going.

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Drawn from the Field at the Valdez Museum

My solo show, Drawn from the Field, opens on Friday at the Valdez Museum and Historical Archive. I will be at the reception from 6-8 pm. I'm excited to exhibit this collection of over 30 field sketches and drawings, as well as a selection of my sketchbooks. Much of the work is from specimens close up that I found close to home in McCarthy or on the Nizina River. I've been exploring ways of capturing the landscape around me without actually drawing a traditional landscape. If you can't make it to the opening, the exhibit will be up until March 8th, so if you are in Valdez this winter, stop by the museum and let me know what you think.

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Ode to Workspace - The 2 x 2' Camp Table

As an artist it feels like table space is prime real estate, as I never have enough space to lay out supplies and work. It was a big step for us to get a new dining room table last week. We moved into the new cabin after Thanksgiving and now we have space for furniture. Actually it is still quite a work in progress but we are moving that direction. When we finish putting the tongue and groove up in the ceiling we can move the bed and will have even more space. Last year we lived in a 16' yurt and much of our activity centered around a little 2x2' camp table that we bought at REI for a rafting trip. Whenever I wanted to draw, I cleaned off the table and set up shop. One of the reasons why I've been working in my sketchbooks is because they are small and portable, and I've been limited by space. By next summer I am going to turn the yurt into a dedicated studio, but right now it is a transition zone, though it does have more table space.

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A pond in the woods

I just got back from a trip to the north eastern United States to visit family. We decided to go in October so that we could get home to Alaska before winter set in too hard and so that we could catch some of the nice fall weather there. One of the places we went was my grandparents' cabin on a pond near Rangeley, Maine. This has always been a very special place to me.

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