Friends, Art, Travel, Inspiration 2

This is going to come out in the wrong order, I know. My life
is rich and full, and my aspirations far exceed my grasp.

Why do I have this compulsion to record my life and thoughts--I don't know why, but I do, and it's always a total THRILL when someone tells me that they read what I write and find some resonance here.

This post will include the best of the rest of the pictures I took on my trip back to my birth/growth home...again with the theme of all of the HOMES that we collect during our life times and all the roles they play in our formation, our dreaming, our inspiration.




Above are a couple of collage boxes in my friend, Loel Annie Barr's studio...she has a one-woman show at WAM in Woodstock, NY.

She took the photos of rusty things and through a smudged window when she and Patti and I went to look for stuff together at a huge storehouse in Kingston, NY. Friends who inspire me to push my art work further are So Valuable, in person or via email, travel journals, and memories.



Moody, moody, moody. Annie took pictures with my camera, so we got to share them. I wonder if taking photos creates distance from just being IN the experience...but now I'm happy to have the photos to take me back...and maybe
inspire a piece of Art. Annie does digital collages.
I took a wonderful class at Womens' Studio Workshop in digital collage and loved it--yet another item on my To Do list/notebooks.








This is a picture I took at the same place, the repeated image of radiators: shape, form, color, and I may have learned how to use the Saturate button in Photoshop...Oh, the Excitement of discovery!
May we Always Inspire each other to do Great Work!









Looking up in a gallery in the Roundout District of Kingston, NY...I have lots of inspiring pictures. I better make time to exercise and eat well, so I live to be very old, but vigorous!





Zaborski Emporium--good thing I put the card into my travel journal. Me and Patti taking pictures, amazed by the wealth of possibilities! I'll show you the travel journal another time...also the series of small drawings I've been working on.

Remember: the more we work, the more the ideas flow.




Calico Cat French Pastries and restaurant in Rhinebeck, NY...I keep a running list of Must Eats when I go back to familiar places. Sadly, they didn't have the Blood Orange Chocolate Bombe in stock, but I did get a chocolate bombe and numerous other goodies to share. It was a shun-pike trip--no freeways unless absolutely necessary...and Oh the thin-crust pizza with red cabbage, spinach, and porcini sauce at La Florintina...I wish I'd taken a picture!




I did take a picture for my niece, Serene, of a Chicago hot dog with all the fixings in
O'Hare on my way home to Port Angeles. I may have mentioned that we are a family of Foodies.



After NY I drove back north to Vermont, following this strange X in the sky all the way back to Burlington...I guess X marks another magic mystery HOME spot.

Home with friends, with positive experiences, and with familiar/comforting land arrangements...what are all the facets that come together to make a HOME?






People in Washington state laugh at what's called a mountain in the East, but those Vermont rolling hills, underlaid with granite, make me feel at Home...there are quite a few areas here on the Peninsula that resonate with me the way Vermont does. As David C said when he came to visit, "this is like Vermont on steroids." David is a tiny speck here, center stage, in front of a giant pile of granite blocks at an old quarry in Barre, VT, where is friend is going to build a house with this view.


Montpelier and Barre are close together, kind of like Port Angeles and Sequim. The Victorian building boom in Montpelier brought lots of artistic Italian stone cutters to Barre.

David took me to a cemetery in Barre that is a showcase for their work, and a bit of a competition--artists egging each other on to do
more and more fantastical work.





A couple in bed, side by side in death as in life.

An airplane in flight. A racing car...why shouldn't death be interesting, too?






In the early Eighties, I was an original board member for Catamount Arts in the 8,000-person town of St. Johnsbury, VT. I was delighted to see how much it has grown, having moved up through the old post office into the Mason's Temple, with two theaters, galleries, and a full list of exhibits, performances, and all kinds of Arts Activities...Pay Attention, Port Angeles, we have a long way to grow and a lot of enthusiasm here, as well. I talked with Odetta, BB King, and Arlo Guthrie after performances in this small town.





And about 80 miles away on the other side of this small state, is another long-term HOME of mine, Burlington, the city on the shore of Lake Champlain, a city much like Seattle, where the mountains on the other side of the water, keep the climate a bit milder than the surrounding area, but still down into the twenties below zero, with lots of deep snow.


Church St., Burlington, home of endless festivals and active street life all seasons of the year.



The former fire station is now home to an avant guarde art gallery. True, Burlington is larger than Port Angeles and boasts several colleges and industries, but I see common threads in the cities I have chosen as HOME, and I have High Hopes for PA.



A rainbow arching above a brilliant red maple, shot from the parking lot where
I work to support my Art habit. I know, I'm in the habit of working my Stuff out in public, but here and there you may feel a resonance and a spark of inspiration.


Port Angeles, another HOME, probably for the rest of my life. There are some common elements in all of my HOMES, proximity of water, hills/mountains, good people, art opportunities. Now I work with all the others in making Port Angeles the best HOME it can be for all its citizens.