When the ice storm hit a few months ago, I was very very sad to lose most of the pecan trees my late father had planted and grafted, including the best producer.

But as I puttered around pulling weeds yesterday I noticed a trade off. As those trees had grown, parts of the garden became shadier and shadier. So now, with the pecans either gone entirely or stripped nearly bare, the old climbing roses are blooming more fully than they have in decades. I had even considered pulling them out, but now they have made their case for staying.

A moral to the story? I know there is, just not sure how to put it in words. It reminded me of the cyclical long-term nature of gardening, and the pains and pleasures of knowing one garden for a long time. And also, the whole thing about silver linings, and closing doors/opening windows.  I’ll miss the pecans, but enjoy the roses.

Today I started a few sketches for a new woodcut. I’m participating in the Women Printmakers of Austin exchange portfolio “Blue”. This is an especially interesting exchange because it is in co-operation with printmakers in New Orleans.

Although my last several editions have involved my own version of collography, I think this time I will make a multiple block print. In the image detail I use on the top of the blog page, the reds and yellows are pieces of Japanese paper that are adhered before the woodblock is printed. That becomes pretty tedious.

This is my first project with WPA. I only joined a few months ago. Kent’s daughter lives in the Austin area, so we are there somewhat regularly and I was looking for a way to have an art connection with the place. So far their newsletters and other communications have shown me that they are a very interesting organized creative community, which is just what I was looking for.

As you can see, I have transferred my blog to WordPress. It may take a little while for it to look the way I want, but for now it is ok. I think it will be more flexible and allow me to be more active.

I don’t really know what a “sounding board” is, but I know it is important for artists to have at least one. Somebody who has known our work for a long long time, and whose aesthetic judgement is solid and trusted. In my case, that would be Mary Dryburgh Gustafson. I just wanted to share a shapshot Mary sent to show me one of her new paintings. I don’t know the title, but it is the black crow on the yellow ground, an homage to Baskin’s crow. Mary (the tall woman) has worked with images of crows off and on for 20 years or so. We visited this weekend and talked about the art we are working on (and not working on) and she was feeling like she wasn’t getting anything done. I encouraged her to do a series of relief prints. Mary’s woodcuts are always very powerful things, and she hasn’t been doing enough of them lately (in my opinion). We also discussed how I am apparently unable to successfully work in black and white, which is her strong suit. After seeing this crow image however, I think she can add yellow.

I’ve begun making a mosaic for the backsplash of my newly remodeled kitchen-in-progress. I think it will be pretty close to the picture in my mind, eventually. The large spaces will be filled with tile I’ve started making at the Lachenmyer Art Center here in Cushing, under the patient guidance of Art Center director Rob Smith (who is currently having a solo show at the Ponca City Art Center).

This 5 x 5 box mosaic was my practice piece. It will be given to the Tulsa Artists Coalition fundraiser the 5 x 5, which is May 5, 5:55 p.m., where it will sell for $55. The 5 x 5 is quite an experience, and worth standing in line for.

The weekend flew by, I don’t have my new web page published yet, but here are a couple of the paintings I’ll be adding. The green one was in my show at the Tulsa Artists Coalition last March, and the red one “Rising” is new. These photos were just snapped where the paintings are hanging, so they are cropped slightly.

It has been a busy week or so, the whole-house remodel is still coming along, the new windows are in my studio, the bathroom has walls. Soon I hope to be back to work, but for now I can finish up a few small things.

We spent the weekend in Austin, and I joined both “Women and Their Work” non-profit gallery, and Women Printmakers of Austin, both of which offer an online portfolio. I’ll get my work on the Oklahoma Visual Artists Coalition portfolio soon, I sent it in last year and they lost it (they are usually very efficient, no harm done).

In the next few days I’ll be putting up about six 10″ x 30″ paintings on my web site. These work well in those weird narrow spaces of a room where a little piece wouldn’t be quite right. I also really like working with this shaped format. This is a snapshot of one of those paintings, I’ll have a better picture of it for the website. The colors are warm and fun, and it is not as linear as a lot of my other work.

This is what my studio looks like now. The shop sink is being plumbed, and the new windows come tomorrow. In a few days the wall to the left will have a new door added, so in a way I am gradually losing wall space, but the light is going to be great. There are so many things to plan and organize. I think I will paint it white or a very very light yellow, with a blue-violet ceiling. I paint with those colors a lot, and think I would be happy and productive surrounded by that combination.

This morning “Promote your art” classmate Jerry Cable wrote about the wonder of suddenly and unexpectedly finding the studio of his dreams. Our stories are very different, but I am also finding my studio. It is the room that was once the childhood bedroom I shared with my sister who now lives in Ohio. Here is a picture of my studio in those early days. The windows (there are four) look out onto the backyard and garden, and beyond there is a small pasture with horses. A few years ago a robin built a nest on the ledge of the window in the right of the photo, and my elderly mother and I got to watch the whole process up to the baby birds flying away.

Yes, that is a real fox stole around my sister’s neck. I don’t remember where it came from, but it definitely was a hand me down – and those are silk honeysuckle on my hat (loved that hat). The teapot played “you take the high road” when you picked it up. It is a little shocking how many of the objects in this photo I still have – the clock, the table, the teapot (not the fox!).

Ceramic artist and blogger Cynthia Guajardo recently suggested using this time to post about what the year was like for us art-wise.

Well, it was a good art year for me. In March I had a one-person show at the Tulsa Artists Coalition which was my most successful one person show ever. Besides selling half the show, the staff was great to work with and the whole experience was fun.

Then I took an online art marketing course from Alyson Stanfield which truly helped me make the most of the whole solo-show experience. Some of the participants have continued to keep in touch on a Yahoo group, and that has been very helpful and pleasant as well. With their help I started my website and this blog. I also subscribed to a rather expensive one-year experiment with TODL (Trade Only Design Library) as an art marketing tool. So far I’ve had no sales via TODL, but I have mailed over 1,000 postcards to people who have looked at my work there.

I also opened a small Etsy store, and have sold a few pieces there (and have bought even more!). In summer, besides the usual Art Camp here in Cushing, I taught a week of painting at Art Experience camp on the campus of NEO University in Tonkawa, Oklahoma. That was a good experience too. We focused on animals. Then in the fall I attended the photography workshop at Quartz Mountain I’ve mentioned before, and also taught a woodcut workshop at the Ponca City Art Center. All in all, I sold a record thirty seven pieces of art this year. Amazing.

So, what is this year going to bring? I don’t know of course, but I do know I’ve finished one painting this first week of the year, so maybe it is off to a good start.

The photo I just posted isn’t a painting, but a lovely bird’s nest that was in the weeping willow that is now mostly cut down due to damage from the massive ice storm we endured a few weeks ago. It has a soft swirling form from the long narrow willow leaves, I’ve never seen a nest quite like it. There are mountains of tree branches piled in heaps in front of everybody’s houses, and the birds have all moved in to those warm sheltered places. I’m pretty concerned that they will soon be building nests there which will all be destroyed by the time the city is finally able to haul the mess away.