More Family...and Food...Fun

My brother, David, and his partner, Brian, have a lovely new home nearer Doug and Amal.

Here's the back yard, from the deck that opens off the kitchen...another great setting for Hastings' food Fests. We were celebrating their new home, Connie achieving her Masters in Voice from UW, Hugh graduating from the "regular job" back to full-time acting, Serene's finishing her junior year at Roosevelt, Birthdays of Thayer, Doug, Amal, Brian, and Steve (in absentia and in Iowa), and my Fourth Anniversary of moving to WA, also Doug and Amal's Tenth of moving, I think.




Serene has become an avid baker (reminds me of EAT CAKE by Jeanne Ray, our next book group book...She must be able to follow directions better than I do, and you can see that she is in the family art mode with these marzipan decorations that were going to go on the cake for brunch, except there was some kind of technical process problem...Maybe she is like me, after all, in not wanted to be bound by rules.

We were happy to slurp up Connie's merainge pie with lemone sauce and Sequim strawberries...bad luck baking that day, but DELICIOUS!





















David and Brian have a wonderful kitchen for entertaining now, too. Here are the West Coast younger generation, not so young any more. Thayer left for a summer in Morocco. Serene is working on her sports and drama skills.

The brothers, Thayer, and I went downtown to SAM and Pike Market after brunch. David looks tired from all the house painting and moving.

It's SO NICE to be able to hang out with the family on a regular basis!




















The colors and textures of the market are SO Inspiring! I'd better get back to my ART WORK!









Remember the work for the fabric journal class? Romance/France. While my current guests, Bill and Barb Kobe, go out to Neah Bay, I'm going to work in the studio....but first outside to finish moving the gravel pile!!!!
I LOVE SUMMER On the PENINSULA!!!

Never-Ending Fun!

Here's a picture for Ella, your dad in front of the now-famous Bella Italia in Port Angeles, the scene of Bella and Edward's first date...and a great Italian restaurant.

It's great to have old friends from VT visit...we've known each other twenty-five years! My second brother, David.

His observation on western Washington: "like Vermont on steroids."






An art shot through the Itty Bitty Buzz to the patio, lit from above.












The first strawberries showed up at the Farmers' Market. I am a happy woman, with all the fruits and veggies of summer. Good thing I have all the exercise moving my gravel pile!

With all the great fresh rhubarb and two brothers visiting, I worked myself up to doing a Martha Stewart yogurt mousse, with a cornmeal crust and rhubarb sauce.

I know for sure she has someone else (or a crew) going behind her doing dishes! I am not a good baker, because I HATE to follow recipes to the letter, in fact, I Refuse! Especially when, like Martha, they call for endless different steps and dishes.








Very tasty...and not all that bad looking!












Hugh and David agreed.

WINE, WOMEN, and SONG!!!

Along with mountains, ocean, lakes, rivers, parks, and verdant farms, the Olympic Peninsula
is famous for its wonderful wineries.

Kathy Charlton, one of the owners of Olympic Cellars Winery--home of the Working Girl Wines, is a Big Booster of Port Angeles. Along with spear heading the effort to make Port Angeles even more bright and welcoming than it already is, she has organized the local wineries and ten of the many local artists (including me) to decorate wine barrels, which will then be exhibited in an empty storefront downtown...and then be available for purchase in an online auction to benefit the Port Angeles Art Association.


True to form, I left mine until the last minute, and while suffering the deep anxiety that Everyone Else's Will Be Better Than
Mine, I knew I had to act quickly to meet the July 4th deadline. With Every Possibility open, and So Much Inspiration in the blue waters and green land of the Peninsula, I had to make a choice and go with it.

The oak and metal of the barrel were too sensual to cover up, especially after I'd used the Golden GAC 100 to seal them. I found an image of a running woman, tossing flowers from my soft sculpture days in the Seventies, and made her the right height on the computer. Then I used Tsukineko pens to trace her onto Japanese paper 12 times. I used Golden clear gel medium to attach the images to the barrel, filled them in with acrylic paint, then coated the finished piece again with GAC 100.

Kathy came over tonight to video me and my art barrel. I may even end up on YouTube! I've seen photos of some of the other barrels, and they're all going to be AMAZING!

As you may know, this area is one of the sites of the Twilight Phenomenon, but there'll be Lots, Lots more to see at the Downtown Celebration on 7/11/09.

See my debut with the wine barrel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5BN1ADxoME&feature=channel

More Summer Fun on the Peninsula

As I said before, I continue to have too much fun with family and friends and being outdoors to spend much time in the studio...time enough for that when the winter rains and darkness set in....For Everything There is a Season!

In between running outside to spread more gravel and rocks, I finished Flora's portrait. I'm open to taking on more commissions...I especially like working in the large size: 4' x 4'







Brother David came over from Seattle in early June, and we drove west to Second Beach on the Pacific coast. These are Sea Stacks...AND it wasn't raining! I'll have to get Kim, from my Book Group, to explain the geology...








We walked through rain forest on the coast at La Push...of TWILIGHT fame. There were groups of young teens having their pictures taken with both the Forks and La Push town signs.


The trees seem to have mystical and enveloping personalities, as I noticed in the evergreens lining the mountainsides the first time I entered Washington as a resident...rows of watchful beings guarding the land, guiding the inhabitants...if only we will pay attention.











What more appropriate words than Majestic and Breathtaking! The driftwood trunks are three feet or more in diameter. What a Wind it must have taken, to throw them way up on the beach!



And even though I promised not to, I couldn't resist bringing back a stone or two for my collection. This one reminds me of a Venus of Willendorf in miniature. The "non-productive" fun time is still valuable, not only for refreshment, but also as an opportunity to absorb and catalog new inspirations.














We headed back into the deep woods...and what did we find, but a hollowed tree turned into a shrine for small natural offerings from visitors.





What a Magical Place!!!

Review of my Latest Book

Click on this review of my latest book to read what Roberta Russel has to say.

Class Opportunities, Exhibitions, Books

SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT: if you're anywhere near Wayne, PA, now through June 26th, Do check out this show...Support Art Dolls as worthy of gallery and museum representation.

It's an excellent chance to see my newest work up close and personal, as well as Christine Shively, elinor peace bailey, Annie Hesse, Sha Sha Higby, and more! Go and see it, take pictures, and please send me some!






One ofmy many current projects (along with painting/decorating a wine barrel for FairWinds Winery--more later) is to develop one-day classes for 2010 in CT and perhaps a week-long series for Tuscany. My goal: something that I would find fun to do.








In thinking about classes I'd like to take, the fabric journals came again to mind. What a perfect combination of paper, fabric, words, and every kind of embellishment technique known to humanity!

To do the poem on the Passion Princess cover, I emptied a whole container of poetry word beads and used all of them to construct five poem fragments on different pieces of art. This one is definitely evolving into a Romantic turn of the century melodrama, with lots of decorated fabric and beads.


Since I had been planning a class in France this summer, Romance in France seemed an appropriate second title...and when David and I go to Mexico this fall for our niece's wedding, I'll do one down there with the color and flavor of the south.

What I plan to do is show you some of my work and thoughts in progress, and get your feedback about the kinds of classes you'd like to have me teach. Self portraits have been mentioned and building abstract figures on armature wire.







I'd like to include you in my thought and design process, so give me feedback on what you'd like to see. For this page, I pieced the background, pieced the heart, did a tape transfer for the eye on the right, and a direct collage of paper onto fabric for the eye on the left and the title and picture above.

I'll show you more as the works progress. Right now, the outdoors is calling me again.

Make ART, appreciate the place where you ARE as if you were on vacation.

More Fun with Friends and Food

Here's an old pattern, but a goodie, Friends, with Polymer clay faces. The pattern is in the new edition of PAMELA'S DESIGNING A DOLL AND MAKING FACES INSPIRATION BOOK.

Spring in the Northwest, especially one as nice and sunny and warm as what we've been having seems to lead to increased time outside and increased socializing.









Mike and Katie invited Sally and me over for dinner at their totally CUTE cottage, which has probably already sold, even in this poor housing market. Luckily they will be living in Sally's new apartment (almost finished) until Mike can retire on his 62nd birthday, then off to be Warm in Sunny Arizona.




Sally has already retired from the Post Office and Katie thinks retirement is FINE! Good for them for knowing what they want and how to Go for it!!!

If any of my patients are watching, Don't worry, I can't afford to join the ranks of the retired for at least another five-ten years....but I do believe that knowing I have limited time to work on ART makes me use my time more efficiently and I'll keep churning stuff out, for the amusement and delight of my art fans...and My Self!



A friendly gathering would not be complete without the Food Picture! Thai Coconut curry beef (thanks to David H's recipe and Kafir leaves) and Katie taught me how to make salad rolls in rice paper wrappers...Gorgeous and Delicious!

The Hood Canal Bridge is Open again!!! David and I met in Sequim for the Art Walk and dinner in the garden at Alderwood Bistro...We were having such a good time eating clam fritters and fried oysters and elegant flowered salads that I forgot to take a picture for you, then my camera wouldn't work when we went out to the Pacific coast yesterday, but he's going to send me pictures.





I LOVE rocks, and they make a lot of sense here in the NW, where it may not rain for months in the summer. Collecting, sometimes re-locating, and arranging rocks in my yard is a spring/summer/fall passion. I can easily stay outside working way past 9pm and it's still light.

I'm spreading the tumbled mica you saw in a stack previously and the gravel pile, also reinforcing my spirals and symbols done in white beach rock. I see an analogy between the rocks worn smooth by time and my own self being worn smooth by age and experience.

I work to appreciate the positive aspects of aging. David and I talked about the difference between the way we look now and the way we think of ourselves as looking. He thinks of himself as twenty-five and I think of myself as thirty-five.











Me mentally, in my back yard in Burlington, VT, in the Eighties.

My back yard in Port Angeles now. I'm working on sedums up top, with interesting arrangements of rocks. I hope to vanquish most of the weeds by the time I'm in my Nineties and maybe too tippy to climb up the hill...although I try hard NOT to act my age! I'm looking forward to dancing to the Soul Shakers next Saturday at Gray's party.


The larger areas of green is some kind of ropy-rooted thing that comes up everywhere. I am working on exerting my control over Nature...I think Nature is winning, and perhaps I won't always need to act so controlling.

As with painting, I work over the whole area each year, and gradually patterns start to show up...a kind of terraccing, perhaps water-like flows of rocks with small surprises tucked within the surface. I re-located some lovely starry blue rocks from Second Beach yesterday and must find a special new place for them to dwell.

Too Beautiful to Work on ART!

I'll admit that the Northwest/Olympic Peninsula can be dark and dank and rather in-hospitable much of the time. HOWEVER, when it's Nice, it's REALLY NICE!!! A gorgeous sunny (not too hot, not too humid, no bad bugs) weekend last for the Memorial holiday AND another one coming up! I Can Not stay inside and work on ART, even though that is really my favorite all-time activity, besides eating, reading great books, and hanging out with friends and family...I'm learning an annual flow of making Art when it's dark or raining, and NOT being able to come inside til dark when it's a beautiful as it has been lately.


Above is this year's seven yards of gravel...it looks bigger when one has two buckets for spreading and the guy dumped it in my parking and turning place, so I have to get it moved SOON. I had so much fun and good exercise (really!) carrying gravel last summer, I decided to do it again this year, and spent my extra paycheck (May's a three-paycheck month) on black gravel and tumbled mica slabs (pile to the left).

The slabs are to make designs/stepping stones in the gravel, and an attempt to hold down some of the weeds. You can see the green fuzz gracing the edges of my front yard. Those suckers shoot seeds at least a foot in every direction and have at least two entire growth cycles a season.

I could see Mt. Baker from the yard today. I'm working all over the yard each year, as I do the paintings all over each time. Using rock, I get a somewhat permanent design. Next summer some tallish outdoor sculptures would be fun...maybe Plaveroll and driftwood...or??? Gray said he'd help. I could brush up my beginning welding skills.

It was a BIG Treat to have my nephew, Thayer, visiting for Thursday-Saturday, even though it took him 5 hours to get here, with the Hood Canal Bridge under re-construction. I understand the bridge will be re-opened a week early, so I hope to have more visitors during the summer. We went out to Freshwater Bay to select a few more choice rocks and enjoy reading in the sun. He read a book by Bukowski and one about him, and I'm still reading THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO by Junot Diaz for book group.

Being from the Hastings family, we both love to eat and talk late (10:00 for me) into the night...had pizza, enchilladas, fried clams, black bottom pie.




Drumming at the Juan de Fuca Festival, including four members of the meditation group that meets at my house on Sundays: Ruth, Lucille, Beatriz, David. It was a perfect weekend for the Festival.

Sunday evening I watched/listened to my NY friend, Loel Annie Barr's cousin, Geoffry Castle--fantastic electric violin!




And just so it would not be TOTALLY fun and games without ART, I did another session on the portrait of Flora, and think I'm ready for her to see it in person this weekend.

Then maybe I'll finish the Big Doll, who still has a "nice Butt" note pinned on the appropriate place when I was away.

HOT FLASH is going to have to be a dark weather project, but I'm still looking for appropriate art work and inspiring stories by and about women over 40.

The Art Doll show at the Wayne Art Center in Wayne, PA, is open through June 26th...a good opportunity for my NE fans to see and buy my current work in
person. I wish I could be there.

I'm going to get going on some art projects this weekend, including figuring out a trio of interesting and varied classes for ART-IS-YOU in 2010 in CT. I have an urge to do some tea and coffee dying, embroidery, and sew lace and tiny beads...stay tuned!

Another phase of the portrait

Multi-tasking as usual. The weekends are way too short, especially when the yard calls, too. I planted all my new sedums and two lavenders...and vowed NO MORE PLANTS this year.

I did enough weeding to make everything hurt...there are Always More Weeds! and poor Theresa's back is hurting, so no yoga tomorrow night. I stretch SO MUCH better in the group than alone.

Worked on the portrait another couple of hours, while listening to THE LOVELY BONES...the most fun of all! Although I can already see things I want to change. I'm glad I'm taking a photo at the end of each session, because I thought the last phase looked more like her, but not sure. I'm trying to learn not to be TOO judgmental about my work, especially before it's completed.

I'm thinking that I'd like to do a series of portraits of people...anyone who would be willing to pose, or let me take pictures, along with their stories. There's a book I got from the library, for which a photographer did a portrait of each person in a small Kansas (I think) town, with their stories, then again years later. People's stories are fascinating to me...as well as their images. I have for years done portraits of couples or families, trying to tell a story by how they are arranged and presented.

Here's a painting of a family group I made in the Nineties, just because I liked the family dynamics. I gave the painting to the family, through the friends who had their picture, but never heard anything from them.

I wonder if it's important for art work to be shown and sold for one to feel validated in making it?

I think I'm happier making my living doing something else and creating the art I want to, instead of something that I think someone will buy...but I do admit that I'm happy when I have an appreciative audience....still, I would not stop making art without sales..Paintings take up less room to store than sculptures do.