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.

Some combination of using a dip pen with an open ink pot and sketching out in the field with wind and/or uncertain conditions means that my sketchbook usually has more blots and smudges than I had originally hoped. That's the case for both of these.

I went back to sketch my tree the next day, with the destruction work still ongoing, and I chose a spot at a different angle with the Higbee memorial in the foreground instead of the back. This is still the Inferno ink, that felt right for the moment, and a snub nosed dip pen. I definitely dropped one enormous blob of ink toward the bottom right, but otherwise I managed to control things pretty well. It felt important to sit with her through that process.

Then the heat dome finally broke (50 straight days over 90 degrees for Memphis, second only to the crazy summer of 1980), and the air pollution mercifully cleared out, and for the first time in weeks I felt I could sit out on a patio without risking all the health conditions that pollution brings on. I celebrated with a last minute stop at one of my favorite local restaurants on the way home from picking Henry up at daycare. He's a lovely plus one. And fortunately I had my sketching gear in the car, not just my tiny purse sketchbook, since I hadn't thought to bring a book for company. It felt better to sketch anyway. I didn't dive into watercolor, and since I was thinking just line I went ahead with the Diamine Ancient Copper ink that I'm always drawn to but that turns into a hot mess very quickly with paint on top. I really do love it, but I have to pick my places. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening all the way around.

One of my favorite spots to stop by in St. Louis is the Hill Antique Mall. I've found some great prints there, a silk nightgown, and a set of 8 McCarty bowls for a ridiculously low price since they were out of the geographic range where people know what they are and how much they're worth. This time I found some Payne's grey cowboy boots just my size. And for the first time I stayed for lunch. Oliva is the restaurant sharing a building that has a truly enticing patio with an old school arbor that makes me think of Greece (though clearly they're thinking of Italy). So many happy flashbacks, especially since I'm in the midst of revisiting my summer in Greece for my ongoing memoir.

It had been raining off and on, so I had most of the patio to myself, but I was lucky to get to sit and paint the arbor with only a drop or two landing on my page. The clouds protected me enough that I could sit across from it and get the view instead of engulfed underneath it. It was a crazy busy scene with a ton going on, but it was fun to dive in and do my best. I used Diamine spring green ink with a dip pen and watercolor on top in my biggest sketchbook. The staff were so hospitable and excited on a slowish day to see what I was doing. One kind woman took my photo once I was finished and sent it along. The meatball sandwich was as fantastic as the ambiance, so I will definitely be repeating this experience next time I'm in town.

Saturday was the opening of the second campus for the Metal Museum in the perfectly named Rust Hall of the old Memphis College of Art. If we had to lose MCA, the second best possible outcome was the Metal Museum bringing back community art making in that space at the center of the park. I've taken and loved some classes at the old Metal Museum campus.

They'll keep that for apprentice housing and, I'm sure, wedding rentals by the river. But their space was limited – kilns came into the library space on trolleys for an enameling workshops. The new space has a dedicated enameling studio. I'm excited to take more classes four blocks from home, though I definitely miss the breadth of MCA being a part of this community.

The opening was on a first Saturday, so it felt right to have Memphis Urban Sketchers mark that moment with them. We meet earlier than the opening, so we could all get settled to sketch before things got crazy. It was hot, and I've been trying (and failing) to conserve energy before a trip next week, so I didn't linger to tour the new space, but I'll definitely go check out the galleries and museum store soon. I had a ball drawing the facade in my biggest sketchbook with my dip pen (my favorite thing lately) and paint on top. It was a good day.

I went to Dixon today to spend time with the Cleveland Vuillard before it leaves this weekend. It's fun to go to a show enough to just hang out with your favorite paintings instead of feeling you have to give everyone equal weight the way I do the first time through. I called on Steinlen, Forain, Manet, Renoir, and Whistler. I'm almost as sad about losing the cool Parisian cafe menu they created specifically to go with this show. I'm still masking in public for my health, so a crowded cafe isn't good for me, and the air is also bad outside this week, but the auditorium where they have their lunchtime lectures was unused. I ordered the salad Nicoise I've really enjoyed there as well as some lovely hot tea and had lunch by a Carroll Cloar painting I really like. Afterwards I ran into one art friend and then made a new one as well as seeing various friends who work there. It was a lovely art day out.