Vacation III

Except for small local classes and my international teaching online, the class I taught in Ottawa on Doll Making with Found Objects was the first travel class since teaching on a cruise ship in the Carribean for Soft Dolls and Animals in 2005, just before I moved West.

I LOVE mixed media! This is a sample piece I made for the class, using a found plastic part, one of Teesha Moore's faces, beads, buttons, an ornamental disc, lace, and lots of 3-D forms, all assembled with sewing.

Here's a flat sample using the Aves Apoxie Sculpt and stuff I've been collecting forever: a squashed ceramic face, a metal triangle, wire, beads, a buckle, a skull, a vertebra, cup hooks, the technique of quilting onto heavy interfacing you've seen before in my Famous Faces series, and sticky-back copper foil (normally used in stained glass) to cover the cut fabric edges.

Assemblage is good fun and the impetus for never-ending collecting, so watch out! you could get hooked.


I had mailed the samples and some supplies to myself at Annie's house, and after we had too little shared studio time...and a few more great meals, I headed for Ottawa on July 4th. Wonderful clouds above the little yellow car!

Being with friends and sharing each other's studios is GOOD FUN!!! Thank Heaven for the Internet, so we can stay in touch daily, if we want to. Now sending pictures back and forth is easy, too. I find that seeing my friends' creativity really pushes my own!


The ladies in the Ottawa class were very, very stimulating! Go back through my blogs to see more of their work.

Today (8/1/08) I'm working on a set of non-sewn dolls (challenging for me not to sew) for a new book Linda and Opie O'brien are putting together. I started by going to the dollar store and the hardware store for parts, and I'll show you the results soon.



My gracious hostess, Roberta Russell, took me in to downtown Ottawa the day after class, and that is Certainly a Beautiful City, with superb pie!!!

Monday morning I drove east across the top end of NY and entered my beloved Vermont again at Alburgh. It was 90 degrees and humid. Even though the winters are frigid and white, the summers are green and sweaty. I kept the windows open to inhale as much of VT as I could.

I drove south through the Lake Champlain islands, with a brief stop at Isle La Motte to pick up some stones to bring home. The shrine was one of the memorable scenes of Tim's departure into the Peace Corps with David and me as witnesses.

My mom's brother, Bill, in the center. A sumptuous dinner with the Bickford clan. Aunt Arlene is always taking the pictures, so she's never in them. Some day my brothers, their families, and I will get to VT as a group for a larger and longer reunion. In the meantime we welcome any family members and friends who make it to the Northwest.



Lots of conversations about the concept of HOME during my trip. Vermont, especially the Northeast Kingdom, will always be my standard of a beautiful and homey landscape...although there are places here on the way to Joyce in the West End that remind me some of my home state.







David and Anne's colorfully-decorated farmhouse in central VT was my last overnight, after a cookout by the pond in Groton State Forest....all those miles of dirt roads!!! I took a quick trip around the Northeast Kingdom--St. J looks a lot cuter, taking advantage of the Victorian architecture, and East Ryegate is pretty much the same, except some of the houses have been spruced up. The old schoolhouse where I used to live is surrounded by trees I planted as sprouts in the Seventies that are now taller than the building. At a farmers market way up in Danville, there were already ripe cherry tomatoes--we're still waiting for them locally.

Back to Burlington--a city that has grown tremendously since I last lived there in the Eighties. Lunch at Skinny Pancakes by the lake with David and Tim...so many good old times to celebrate!

HOME AGAIN! I love my adopted home in the Northwest, where it's always temperate, and I can see salt water from my desk. My rock back yard with lavender, sedums, and creeping thyme had filled in, meaning lots of weeding for me.

My VT rocks will find a home here, and gathering yet more smooth stones is an ever-present excuse to visit the beaches. The worn edges remind me of the effects of time on all of us.




Summer is a time when I receive visitors, too. Doug and Amal sans children for a few weeks, at the Port Angeles farmers' market. Notice the Olympic mountains in the background. There are still patches of snow in evidence--drinking water for our summer.

More company has followed, and I'm back at work in the hand clinic. I the timing of my trip back East was excellent, in allowing me to enjoy my good, good friends, the scenes of my earlier life, and also to appreciate the roots I've put down here and the good friends I've mad here, who were happy to hear that I'm staying.

My meditation practice helped me to enjoy each sight, taste, conversation, hug as I traveled so it seemed as if everything worked perfectly and that I was able to savor each moment away, but have no regrets about where I am now. As all the projects and possibilities flood in, I need to remember to do one thing at a time and enjoy the process...taking time for biking and all the other delights of summer on the Peninsula. Come and Visit!