I'm up in chilly Dallas where it is a brisk 35 degrees. No snow, no ice, just grey and over cast. It's quiet in the house. My friend is taking a nap with his dog after his treatment this morning he gets really tired. They are comfy cozy under blankets and I am updating things on the computer. I'm off to make a cup of hot tea (something minty sounds good) and then find my book and read.

It's a perfect day for being warm and reading. I miss my cats and my fellow. They are in Austin along with my current art project. Currently I'm reading quite a bit about northern European prints during the 15th and 16th centuries. Really interesting about what they know and how they did things. (more later).

The New Year

Back at work after being off for two weeks for Christmas holidays. Yesterday, I awoke to rain and slightly chilly weather for us in Austin. It looked like rain most of yesterday but today it's pretty sunny . I had to use my trusty green umbrella while waiting for the bus. I love using umbrellas - maybe it's because we use them so seldom here.

I started working on a new art piece over the holidays. It's a slightly assemblage-type altar that I am trying new tools and some new techniques. So far it's a hole with some thin wooden feathers that are going to be attached around the hole. I also am planning on using a milagros for part of the inner altar. I'm slowly discovering several things about how to construct things since I generally don't do constructions or sculptural forms so I've been enjoying it. I will try to take a photo and do a work in progress. I also thought of another altar while doing this one. We get the cigar boxes from a tobacconist that has a private cigar sampling place. Most are made of wood, generally something like mahogany or teak. It's pretty dry wood, when I was sawing the wood chipped easily. I'm using hand tools as opposed to power tools. I'm going to try to work on it some tonight when I get home.

Maker 2 - 2007
watercolor

Chilly days

We had our first serious cold front wander through. When I first moved to Texas we used to have longer chillier winters but not now. I remember my first snow flurry.... it was 19 degrees in San Antonio and I saw snowflakes tumbling down. I was so excited. My aunt couldn't understand why I was so impressed with a few flakes of snow. So when colder weather hits I often hope for snow. Last year we had ice storms which are beautiful but more dangerous. Austin drivers don't drive well in snowy or icy weather. We do fine in heat not wet. This year, because of the drought (we're down about 19 inches) everytime it rains, the water mixes with the oil on the street and creates goo that is pretty slippery. We get an increase in accidents because of it.

This one hit Austin on Tuesday evening and brought more sleet and icy rain than snow. I could hear it on the roof and outside on the bushes, making that hissing pinging sound that sleet and ice do. It gets so quiet when it does this here. I wonder though, where do the birds go when it sleets? Do they get cold feet sitting huddled among the leaves?

By the next morning my car had tiny banks of ice along it's windshield. I admired them as I walked to the bus stop. Everything else was just damp and darker concrete grey. The cooler bouts of weather have produced some beautiful colors of trees this year.

printmaking

I've been taking photos of my art work and slowing arranging them onto this blog. Since I'm pretty clueless how to do it expect to see things come and go. (Much like a dance when people bob and weave.)

I started working with printmaking about a year and a half ago - having always wanted to learn. I really was fearful of doing an etching - you know - acid, copper and those dreadful chemicals that could potentially ruin something. But the local Community College had a printmaking course and in a moment of trying to free myself of being stuck in the inertia of artist's block, I signed up for it. Even if I didn't like the processes I would at least have to think creatively and get out of my dark pit of non-art I had put myself in.

The course was an introduction to three types of printmaking processes - wood block, etching or itaglio and lithography. I liked wood block, loved intaglio and had a grim struggle at lithography (which I have to go back and finish one day). So I am staying with it to the point that my boyfriend bought me a little press for small prints so I can work on stuff out of class. (How many times can you take a class just to use the equipment?)

At any rate, it's been a rare experience for me to learn, plus it's allowed me to meet some really great people.

This morning the weather was totally perfect. It's chilly and crisp and very sunny. I'm sitting here in my office staring out the window at the red tiled roof and the warm yellowish red brick across the street. The brick isn't really orange -- more of a warm toned pale red -- what I would call a venetian red. It's still fairly quiet, a lot people both faculty and students aren't awake yet.

I didn't start out in life as a morning person. In my wild and checkered youth I really enjoyed staying up late and then sleeping in. Slowly over the years I've come to enjoy the brief time I get leaving the house, waiting for the bus and walking the few steps to the building. Mornings hold such promise to me, a place to be anew. Even the chill this morning wasn't enough to dampen my enjoyment of the moment.

Across the street from the bus stop is this tall sycamore tree in a neighbors front yard. It's a beautiful tree. There's always a different story it tells when I stand there. Sometimes I see only it's silhouette, a few leaves clinging to the branches, the seed pods hanging like ornaments. This past summer was so hot that a lot of its leaves fell so it already looked autumn like before our brief fall actually started. Other times , I can see the morning stars in amidst its branches or the first early colors of the dawn. The tree makes the wait for the bus just a little friendlier.

Where does one start when beginning an on-line journal? I never what quite what to say or do.