I've been working on my website and on archiving lately. I had a site for a long time that I could manage myself, but Square bought out the company and basically destroyed it. I've switched over to Articulation (drag and drop, excellent customer service), and I'm rejuvenated about my site. I'm also grateful not to lose 16 years' worth of blog archives. That all came over seamlessly, which had been my biggest worry about trying to find a new host. It's a huge weight off me. 

I've been dealing with a lot of family papers as my dad declines, and it's got me thinking about my own papers, especially my art ones. I'd really like to be able to archive my work for the future. Now that my website feels secure I'm beginning to work on preserving my sketchbooks one by one. I've scanned lots of individual pages and have them saved by location (home, neighborhood, other places I've visited), but I don't have them as full books anywhere. I'm just beginning to flip through book by book, save each page in order in a separate folder, and archive them on my website so people can see them splotchy colors, bad pages, and all. So far I have my September to December 2025 sketchbook and my May to October 2026 one. I'll have to do more scanning for my dedicated travel ones – I'd usually get home and just scan the best pages – but my daily sketchbooks have almost all the pages scanned already, so it's more organization than anything. 

Ultimately I'd like to find an archive outside my own site to keep them all permanently. An archivist friend of mine said that digital is an easier sell to institutions than having to maintain and store physical items, which makes sense. I'm going to try to do it a bit at a time and get my files in order. 

The national Metal Museum has expanded in Memphis into the old Memphis College of Art building, which is right in the middle of my favorite park, four blocks away. If we had to lose MCA, this is the best possible outcome. They've done beautiful renovations. The building looks spectacular, and the new museum across several floors has space to show their collection in a way their old museum building didn't. I love that they will be so much more available to people. Their original space, still occupied by apprentices, is a gorgeous bluff right over the river, but it's out of the way and confusing to find even before TDOT took away their expressway exit. And having communal art making back in Rust Hall (ironically the name even before the Metal Museum moved in) is a great joy. They also have the best damn gift shop in the city.

Very kindly they welcomed our Memphis Urban Sketchers group an hour before they open to the public so we could keep our traditional 10-12 window. The opening, which we sketched from the outside last month, was so crowded and so hot that I didn't even make it into the building. It was so great to wander around where I've taken classes off and on throughout my life, see the care they've taken with it, and get to sketch again.

I often start with something complex and get way too tight on it. I was super drawn to the intricate lobby, but I spotted a spare hallway with a couple of head statues at the end and decided it would be a good exercise to start simple and work my way up to the lobby. It ended up working great. I used a dip pen with a new purple-ish grey ink from my recent St. Louis trip. It's Wearinguel Therese Raquin. I'm looking for a replacement for my favorite limited edition Diamine Chopin, which is a little cooler and a little darker than this one. It's not quite as nice, but I liked the way it interacted with the paint.

Then I made my way upstairs and took on the funky architecture. My lines got off almost immediately, but in my biggest sketchbook with the looseness of the dip pen, I just went with it and ended up really happy with the sketch. It's dip pen with my other new Wearingueul ink Inferno. This is my new favorite. It's not quite black and has a little variation on the page. It also does ok with paint. Full on black just makes a total puddle, but I've been happy how this one accepts watercolor.

It was a great day with friends, and then I did a little Christmas shopping in the gift shop on the way out and also found a gorgeous copper moon necklace for myself. A really happy day.

  I've always loved book plates. I love finding old ones in second hand books. I bought a ton of them in middle and high school for my most treasured books, including an Arthur Rackham drawing. When I got my first press I thought I'd do some, and I went looking for that lick on the back paper and couldn't find any, and then I just got distracted. But recently I was looking at my small blocks I've done for cards, and I've been sorting my type, and it just seemed like a great thing to circle back around to. I've laid out three different ones so far and printed a smattering of each. I think I'll keep playing. Maybe even make myself an owl. Owls more and more feel like a sacred presence in my life. There was one just now calling from a tree in my front yard as Henry and I walked home from an evening stroll and a porch visit with neighbors.

It's also been nice to have some small scale projects I can do in the print shop – ease my way back into more standing work. So my first batch of bookplates is already in some of my books. I'm using thin Stonehenge printing paper and acrylic medium to paste them down with a paint brush. It's super satisfying. And I like that someday someone will buy my art books second hand and find a small bit of history and a little extra art in them.