When I was little my grandparents were fascinated by the warm beaches of Los Angeles, with fishermen on the piers, and flocks of gulls and pelicans everywhere. They painted the people especially, the exotic African-Americans and Hispanics that they had only ever heard about in Germany. My parents drove them to the beach almost every weekend in summer. I'm pretty sure this oil is from my grandfather, Martin Ideler. It would have been painted between 1961 and 1967.

Recently, a friend sent me an image of pelicans in Dakar, Senegal. I loved the image but am still struggling with how to paint it, or even what I want to say with it. Perhaps my usual message about the ephemeral nature of time, and even of species? Is that even possible in a painting of a couple of pelicans?    

Job is an amazing chapter in the Bible. I heartily recommend it. It's about power, and about despair, and about poetry. Plus, God gets pretty sarcastic in it. 

To do this calligraphy project, I bought a Latin Bible. Imagine my surprise when I found that, even with my very primitive Latin, it seems that the several English Bibles I have translate several of the passages differently than what I'm sure is right there in the Latin. It's not theologically important, but still.

I've been going through my many Tupperware tubs full of fabric scraps. Somewhere in there was a partially finished quilt. What better way to use the dark nights of winter than to tempt the cats with a floor full of quilt squares? And as an added bonus, the tubs have been re-sorted to the degree that the ones stored behind the house are now indoors, and I can throw out two cracked tubs. Their day is over.

And here are the curtains in use during my "Jazz Age" 8th Annual 50th Birthday Party.

The next curtain is done on a piece of heavy calico, with turquoise housepaint as a primer. That's the way I do things.