A Day Hiking in Briones Regional park

"Don't shoot me," I suggested to my sister (who took the top photo on her phone).  "The view is much more beautiful."

Magnolias

Latest quilted wall hanging tells the story of white and pink magnolia flowers going from bud to bloom.  Center is a patchwork of photos printed on silk surrounded by raw edge applique of various cotton and silk fabrics showing a portion of a Magnolia flower's life cycle.  It's amazing how much time these things take!  But creating art works wonders in taking the mind off the horrors of our current government. 

Illustration of a Summer Cold

Getting sick in the summertime has never seemed fair.  But it  recently happened to me.  I decided to try to tackle how it felt by doing another mixed media collage.  The (for now) final version is at the top of the page, an earlier version below it.  So what's the backstory on the elements used in this new creation?  The photo of me in the collage goes back to a Christmas in 1971 when my sister  Susan came to visit me while I was living in Madrid, Spain.  As I was often sick during the two years I lived there, I'm pretty sure I was sick that Christmas.  I was also pretty poor.  I always liked the moody photo Susan shot of me in front of the wall calendar.  To illustrate my sore throat, I used another little piece of my new red Japanese washi paper.  I didn't have any picture of viruses to throw at the image so sampled a few I discovered Tal Danino had created and posted on his twitter account (link here)  I could have used my own bacterial design which I created for a Spoonflower (link here - although they aren't showing all of my designs anymore) fabric design contest - a Paenibacillus done in 2015 because it looked cool, but I didn't because that wasn't what was infecting me.  Finally, I spent too much time trying to create a brain image using various photos (from the ocean in Pt. Reyes to the Botanical Gardens in Berkeley.)  I'm not too happy with the resulting brain but think it is time to move on from this project.

Hard Working Woodpecker

I did a double take when I noticed how many acorns this industrious woodpecker and his pal had drilled into this neighborhood utility pole.