Pisces Moon Studio

This year it was the three of us: my husband, my son, and myself. None of us is particularly fond of turkey, so our Thanksgiving feast was somewhat less than traditional.

I grilled ribeye steaks and made mashed potatoes, squash casserole from Gran’s recipe, steamed cauliflower, fried okra for the guys, and toasted some good French bread. There was more than enough but no one was stuffed to the point of being sick… all in all, a most successful meal.

It’s very chilly here. Tonight was really beautiful, grilling the steaks out on the deck. The moon is full, the sky is clear and bright, the stars are out. My breath went up in little puffs as I lit the grill and then stood next to it to warm myself in the cold night.

We brought the fig tree inside (frost tonight) and lit the first fire of the season:

A most magical evening.

I’m having a mild case of creative block. I haven’t had time the last day or two to work on the Pepper Project and the Patchwork Grilled Cheese isn’t coming together as I want it.

So here for the moment is a travel tale from New Mexico.

Saturday, September 11, 2004
Santa Fe

I was on my way to Taos to teach a week-long class in surface design. Because of the high altitude, I always try to arrive a day or two early in order to acclimate a bit. This year I decided to take my couple of days in Santa Fe, a city that I love and come back to as often as I can.

I spent the morning doing some basic shopping and about 2:30 pm I went downtown. I stopped at the visitors’ center to pick up my yearly supply of tourist literature. (They give away a fantastic assortment of art-related magazines and catalogs – great inspirational material!) Parked on Alameda and walked over to Canyon Road to take some pictures, then ended up walking all the way up to Thirteen Moons before coming back.

As I walked up the road, I was captivated by the display on the front of Canyon Road Contemporary Art. When a picture calls from across the street, it’s time to go look.

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Anybody got a boat?

It’s been raining/cloudy/overcast/drizzling/foggy for more than a week now. I’m seriously thinking about building rice paddies in the back yard; the mushrooms are growing on the lawn across the street.

The good news about such weather is that I stayed inside today, where it was warm and dry, and I cleaned off my work table completely. I’m starting a Pepper Project and promise to post finished (or in-progress) pieces as the Project progresses.

Dinner tonight was comfort food – potato soup with sharp cheddar cheese melted in it.

(It’s still raining out there. Sigh.)

It rained today. The sky was overcast and the top of the mountain above my house was shrouded in low clouds: a most mysterious day.

The last of the Art2Mail postcards are going in the mail today. These aren’t very exciting, I’m afraid. They are both quilted with white metallic Madeira thread (the sparkle doesn’t show up) on habotai silk. The blue feather motif is made from dupioni silk that I painted for another project but didn’t work out as planned.

I love the light this time of year. It elevates even the most mundane objects and makes them significant.

Men are too funny!

The other night I wasn’t feeling well. I’d gone to bed with a book, and my husband and 20-year-old son decided that I really needed to eat something before I went to sleep. They brought me scrambled eggs, toast, and a glass of milk.

I was touched.

This morning I went to the kitchen to make breakfast, took the egg carton from the refrigerator, and found this, just as I opened it:

Yesterday I watched a squirrel and four bright-red cardinals play Tag in the neighbor’s back yard.

The birds were grouped on the ground in a rough square – searching for seeds, perhaps? – and the squirrel, three or four feet away, busily gathered acorns. As I watched, the squirrel pounced into the center of the birds (Ha! Gotcha!) only to be frustrated as the cardinals took wing.

Hmph. The squirrel returned to the acorns. The cardinals returned to the seeds.

Pounce!� I’ll get you this time! The squirrel was ready for them, but the birds scattered as quickly as the squirrel jumped into their circle.

This went on for several more cycles – birds, squirrel, pounce, scatter, regroup – before they tired of the game and went on with their business of gathering food for the winter.

What a wonderful gift… a moment’s laughter at their antics on a gray day when I wasn’t feeling very well.

Some time ago, I succumbed to an impulse and bought two envelopes of used foreign stamps on eBay. I had no idea what I would use them for; I just liked the idea of having them.�When they arrived, I filed them in the area I use for “things I don’t know what to do with but may need someday,” and I promptly forgot about them.

I’ve recently received a commission to do a website for a group of postcard artists called Postmark’d Art. I thought of the stamps, which are postmarked (of course) and are art in and of themselves.

They are fascinating, these stamps, and some are very beautiful. I scanned them at high resolution and at 300% of actual size, so the detail is very clear.

This one is from India. The monarch appears to be England’s King George V, who reigned from 1910 to 1936, so this would have been during the time when India was a Crown colony.

But the coolest thing is the denomination: It took one Anna and three Pies to mail a letter with this stamp.

From the parking lot of the hotel in Santa Fe, looking west toward the Jemez Mountains.

September 10, 2004