And part of that getting-ready-ing includes updating this website. 

Back in the day, I worked for Dad, who was an accountant. I learned how to be a bookkeeper and how to track things. I learned how to leave a paper trail, how to add things up, down and sideways. I learned how to type, file, and label things accurately.

Did I carry this knowledge over into the business side of my art? 

I did not.

So, now I'm scrabbling through various cryptically labeled files in my computer: "2016 art", "art from 2016", "16jan portrait", and so on, to find that painting I did of that guy. Maybe it's in iPhoto? Maybe it's in Aperture? Maybe it's unlabeled and just lives its merry life as P001958? Who knows? 

Somehow, things have pulled together for now, but I see a long grim slog ahead of me, finding and sensibly labeling everything. And of course, there is that sneaky thought, "You don't actually need a good set of records. Just keep painting." Which is why, in the old days, artists needed a wife. 

My favorite current painting is already packed in the "go to Seattle" set of boxes. I want to post it here and surely it is somewhere in the computer, right? I know I can re-create it by taking a picture of the label I made of it, but surely that's cheating.

Hah. Found it.

Paintings all over my house, in various stages from "oh dear can this be saved?" to "just needs a frame." Today I brought two of them closer to completion. They need varnishing, and I am contemplating messing with the red chicken's eyes. Yes, they looked like that, but do I want them to look like that in the painting?

All the kids had something to say about the graduate. I couldn't figure out how to make sense of their somewhat random remarks, but then I remembered Christopher Smart's poem, written in a madhouse.

Isabelle's is a great hangout. I've been doing NaNoWriMo there, and keeping my weight up with raspberry lattes. The baristas, all of them, are inspirational.

I was sitting in my outdoor studio, feeling somewhat melancholic for the passing of an idyllic summer, with my son-in-law still here, and my dying dog still alert and all the hopes of a new household being fitted up for charm, sustainability, and warmth. At the same time, I'm in the moment, relishing what is here and now. Ambiguities like that are often best expressed through the painting process for me. I can't say that this painting shows my mental state, but it is just right for who I was yesterday and the day before, in that leafy, mosquito-ridden atelier.

These songbirds occasionally come by, looking like tropical gumdrops. They eat the glittering red dragonflies that enjoy our garden sprinkler.

I wondered about making this drum. The rawhide has been folded up for years and the crease shows. However, after making it and allowing it to dry, the sound was great. So, fine. I'll paint it and if people don't like the crease, they don't have to buy it.

​I am trying to stick to my resolution of going to bed before midnight, but sometimes finishing a project that's going well takes precedence. 12:25 isn't that bad, right?

These tropical looking beauties sit in the tops of fir trees and sing like crazy.

We have suet feeders hanging around our property, including from my house eaves. The local butcher gives me fat trimmings, I render them down to a liquid in the solar oven, and then pour the result over birdseed. Downy woodpeckers especially adore these feeders, slamming against them as they land and making my house sound as though dinosaurs are attacking. In the right season, they also drum against the metal chimney. Ah, the peace and quiet of a rural life!

I photographed this little jewel in Cuba, but this spring there were dozens at my feeders in the Pacific Northwest. I am so glad they're not the size of eagles.

And they come with music. I wrote some canons to go with the text, roughly. Here are the Barnfish Canon and the Tent Caterpillar Canon.