I felt really locked in for work again today. I’ve been so ADD in my work lately that I’ve got a bunch of different blocks in various stages of completion. This morning I decided I should get some final prints on the ones that are close, so I did 26 “rainbow rolls” (the technical term, which delights me, for multiple colors or shades hand rolled and blended onto a block with different rollers — time consuming but satisfying). The blue ones from today will be the background for my pelican block, and I’ll do another batch in yellow/orange for the starling block. I did a couple of pink/purple ones to try with the egret block I’ve been carving. You can see those sitting on the press in the photo. I love that the press is in that window with all the natural light coming in.

I treated myself afterwards with a bike ride since I was working so well yesterday that I worked right through my exercise window. I did not quite 10 miles around midtown, including a curbside pick up from Burke’s Books, which has been in business for 145 years. I’m making it a personal mission to help survive on to 146 and beyond. Burke’s is also doing mail order and free delivery in Memphis, in case anyone else would like to join in the fun. https://www.burkesbooks.com/

There’s baseball on the radio tonight. KMOX is replaying the Cardinals’ last seven weeks of the 2011 season while we all wait to see if there will be baseball this year. I love the story telling of radio, and it’s comforting to have my normal spring/summer companions keeping me company. Plus my memory’s pretty bad (of COURSE I remember Game 6 of the Series, but otherwise things are murky), so I’m enjoying it all over again. With that for company, I pulled proofs of the blocks I worked on yesterday. Both have problems and need a good bit of work yet, but it’s nice to see them beginning to take shape for the WAMA show. It’s been a satisfying few days being able to work more normally again. Sunshine and spring weather definitely help too. I’m really grateful for this show to focus on and look forward to.

This is a slightly dark snapshot of a watercolor color test. I’m back to a lot of print work today, and it feels great. I realized last night that one thing I haven’t been doing is lying in bed thinking about the prints I’m working on or want to start. Somehow doing that intentionally helps me wake up with a good vision of them and ready to go. So I did that, and today it worked. I’m back to carving on the hurricane tree I put aside ages ago, waiting for a problem to resolve itself a bit, and I also did the watercolor of this proof. I’d partly been waiting for the ink to dry, but I also just got distracted. I’ll carve the second block for the color behind, but I wanted to play with paint first and see if what i had in my head is the direction I want to go. I’m feeling pretty good about this one, though it certainly needs some cleaning up and thinning down. My concentration just couldn’t get there a couple of weeks ago, but I think I’m ready now, and it feels really good. There will probably be days when I’m not ready, but that’s ok too.

The work is flowing so well today I’ll probably skive off the Quarantine Journal today, but that’s a trade I’m ok with. It feels good to be working towards my WAMA show again. And you just never know when I’ll get in the mood to sketch anyway. It could happen after dinner. Though I’m also greatly enjoying my Harry Potter evenings just now...

I've been outside inhaling spring. The mayor has threatened to close the parks if people can't behave, so I've been diving deep into the forest and sitting and sketching and drinking it in, in case we lose it. I know my journal is heavy on the green lately, but that's how my mind works in spring pretty much every year.

Then yesterday I worked on the garden, which may be the real sign that the world as we know it is ending. I did have some help come in, since that's open air and socially distant. It's the last piece (except one tiny, bad upstairs bathroom) of the yearlong project sprucing up the house. I needed help getting out some poison ivy that I'd let get way too entrenched, and they put in blueberries and a fig tree for me. I got some herbs from an open air nursery, and my dad just brought me a couple of tomato plants (SO odd not to hug him!), so I planted all of those myself.

Usually I'd rather make art than take care of the place, but I have found a lot of satisfaction recently in making the house nice. Just in time for all this. So grateful. And usually I'm traveling, which makes watering and caring for a garden a nonstarter. But this year seems like the year to try once again to grow some tomatoes and herbs at the very least. So yesterday I did all that instead of a journal entry. I'm working not to put pressure on myself for specific projects just at this moment and instead do the things that bring me joy. So now I'm going to make dinner, listen to 2010 baseball on KMOX, and read some more Harry Potter.

As I approached my fiftieth birthday, a lovely minister friend of mine reminded me that Biblically every 50 years, fields lie fallow, debts are forgiven, and there are parties all year. I loved that. I had already set a goal for myself at age 49 to get my family house in the shape I would like to live with for the next 25 years of my living here, and not wait till I was ready to move out to do nice things. It was helpful to have time to think ahead, and I did do a good amount of cleaning up, repainting, fixing things, and buying a few new things (stained glass lamps, a comfy loveseat, etc.). I had planned to have the house ready for a Jubilee on my birthday, a party with music and dancing and all my favorite people. But the world had other plans.

My birthday was right as the ground shifted underneath everyone (except for Washington State, who had already gotten the preview). So no party. But I could not have done better work to make my home, if not magazine ready, a place I am very happy to be in. I think of myself as someone who does appreciate the small beauties of daily life. My show last year was Daily Pleasures, a still life show of  tea things and farmers market bounty. But I also know that I have a tendency to be rushing out of town on a regular and frequent basis. It seems that this year I am getting a master class in the Jubilee of daily life.

Instead of the dance weekends, adventures, and new places I had planned, I am walking every day in the forest. I am home to see the bulbs give way to the wildflowers and the wildflowers give way to the blooming trees. I am sitting nightly with my dog. I am chatting with neighbors (from a good distance away), tracking the sunbeams' journey through my house, reveling in my newly blue-green bedroom, knitting, reading books, and drinking tea. I know there will be hard times to come, but there is great beauty to be found in the every day. So instead of thinking of my jubilee as being postponed, I am thinking of it as unexpected but still beautiful. 

I pulled a first proof of this one today. Almost always I get a block pretty fully done, then comes the proof, and then I tweak it. But sometimes, when I’m in uncharted waters, I want to do a test of a small area with a pattern and see how that is reading before doing the entire surface. So that’s what this is. There’s a lot of that dark area still to carve. You can see my original sketch next to it, though in that particular one, I didn’t fill in all the dark middle. Just enough to give me clarity on the tree trunk placement. So I’m carrying a lot of this one in my head and winging it at the moment. Watch this space for updates. I’m overall pleased with how it’s going, though the trees at the top are a little too defined at the moment. I’ll have to dull them down a bit if I can.

​I’m also including a couple of close ups. Because it wasn’t a serious proof, it’s on newsprint, and I didn’t work hard to get that rich, velvety coverage that I prefer for finished pieces. It will be a lot darker as I get further into it. This is a super behind the scenes peek.

I've really locked back into my main print work in a satisfying way this weekend, and I've also spent some nice time outside, since it's been flat out gorgeous. But it was also good to get back to the QJ after taking yesterday off from it. I have a friend who uses the hashtag #dailyish, which I love. It has an intention of frequency, but with enough grace and flexibility built in for a little breathing space without guilt. That's what I aspire to for any project.

Below is the new print I'm working on for my WAMA show in 2022. It's a gorgeous place called Barnaby Slough (it could maybe use a slightly more poetic name) outside of Concrete, WA. I find that when I work on prints from places I love, I end up mentally still in that space while I'm working. So it's nice to take a mental trip at the moment while we're all sticking so close to home.

I was more organized last night and had my journal and watercolors on the coffee table before settling in with the baseball game. (KMOX had the inspired idea to replay the last seven weeks of the Cardinals 2011 season, game by game, night by night. I'm grateful for the familiar company and Mike Shannon's infectious laughter.) Mr. Darcy was so cute I couldn't resist, so here's the updated Day 7.