I went back to the Tennessee Brewery last week. The five week temporary beer garden is still going on through June 1, and I love this building. Plus, one of my favorite local bands was playing. Den of Strings is a Django Reinhardt inspired jazz band (one of TWO here in Memphis, and I love them both). Mr. Darcy and I went down to hear music and hang out for the early evening. I love that it's dog friendly. And it was fun to draw the band against that lovely backdrop.

You can see my first sketch of the Brewery as well as a bunch of photos of this exceptional building in my first blog post about the place.

As a follow up to the post about Saturday, I ran into Matt Matthews, my photographer and theologian friend, at the Farmers Market. He was down taking pictures while I was painting, and he snapped one of me, just for fun. He also shot the "Eat More Veggies" Whitton Farms truck that I was painting at the time. You can see that photo and his Flickr stream here.

And, just for fun, I pulled up this 2003 photo of me for Throwback Thursday on Facebook. I'm painting in Athens on the Areopagus, looking over to the edge of the Acropolis. It was darn cold and windy up there. I'm grateful that watercolor, unlike the pastel I did for so long, does not require me to haul an easel everywhere. Lap work is also lower profile in high winds. You'll notice I have my backpack hanging from the back of the easel to try to keep it anchored. I think it blew over at least once in the course of this piece. I remember my boyfriend of the time, who was over working in Athens, very kindly blocking the wind so I could finish my drawing. A good man.

I started Saturday out at the downtown Memphis Farmers Market, as I always do when I'm in town. Two weeks ago there had been enormous tubs of red tulips that made me yearn for my watercolors, but I hadn't had them with me. This time I took a cooler for purchases and went to sketch as well. And talk to friends. I always see good people down there.

From the market, I walked two blocks to the Tennessee Brewery. A group of local business guys and committed, involved Memphians have opened up this glorious old building for a month's worth of beer garden, food trucks, and live music. I wanted to go sketch, since I wrote my term paper in 11th grade on the architecture and history of this marvelous place.

I happened to catch Taylor Berger and Doug Carpenter, two of the visionaries behind this pop up party, as they were standing at a table. Andy Cates, the third musketeer, showed up just a bit later and seemed ok to have missed being sketched.

I also took advantage of the chance to take some photos there.

They've got food trucks in the courtyard every day (they're open Thursday to Sunday through June 1st, starting at 11am each day). Tacos were on offer on Saturday, and I tried a Crawfish and chorizo one along with a Mexican grapefruit soda. Opera Memphis showed up to do some pop up opera for us while I had lunch. Perfect. And one of my favorite local bands, Den of Strings, is playing Friday evening. AND the whole place is dog friendly. I'm totally taking Mr. Darcy down there next time!

Mr. Darcy did walk over to Overton Square with me after I got home. Sew Memphis was hosting a pop up craft market, and I brought home this gorgeous tea set from Bridgman Pottery. Melissa Bridgman put the show together from her Creative Collective group of small businesses owned by women, and Mary Allison Cates hosted it in her courtyard. She's married to Andy, who is one of the partners in the Brewery Untapped. I feel lucky to know so many creative and committed Memphians.

I finished the day seeing Harvey, which was delightful, at Theater Memphis with my family. My escorts, who shared their back seat with me, were two 10 year old boys. We had a blast. And I did this sketch of the audience before the play started.  A perfect day.

Tower Grove Park is one of those places that immediately grabbed me as a landscape painter the minute I set foot in it. Very occasionally a place will reach out and say, "You belong to me." This happened to me as a college student on the North Yorkshire moors, it happened around that same time in Pleasant Hill Shaker Village in Kentucky, and it happened more recently in Bergama, Turkey and Tower Grove Park. It's been some months since I've had a chance to paint in Tower Grove, and it was lovely to be back after the winter. I passed through on my way to and from Chicago and did four watercolors last week.

I started with the griffin I've always admired. There's a pair of them at the Grand Avenue gates.

I often find myself painting the same tree or structure repeatedly. The Old Playground Pavilion (below) and the bandstand (top picture) are both favorites of mine that I keep revisiting.

There are several groves of red buds I love, and they were in full bloom this time. I took advantage of the perfect timing to paint this one.

Tower Grove Park is having a one day art show on June 1st that I will take part in. It's fun to get to do a little more painting ahead of that anniversary event. I'm delighted to get to show my work in a park I love so much.

I've been doing watercolor commissions and liturgical prints all week, taking my walk late in the day and lingering a bit in the Old Forest to enjoy the wildflowers blooming there now. I've especially loved this glade full of phlox this past week.

On this Saturday morning, I decided to give myself a break on work for others and go paint the phlox while they're still blooming. Mr. Darcy and I walked over with my backpack and painting gear.

 I think of myself as a landscape painter and not a flower painter, so I kept it pretty wide angle, but it was fun to try a different subject. There's a lot more surface movement than in most of my pieces, and I was trying to keep it from just looking blotchy, but I'm fairly pleased with the outcome.

Mike texted that it reminded him of the Van Gogh we saw last month in the Cincinnati Art Museum. A happier Van Gogh, he said. No greater compliment. I did love that painting, and apparently I do have it on the brain without quite realizing how much.

Below are some of the wildflowers Mr. Darcy and I have been enjoying in the forest lately. Just because they're beautiful...

The segment about me that was filmed by the PBS show Tennessee Crossroads is out and up on You Tube. You can watch the six minute segment at:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VTSrzY5QPrs&feature=youtu.be

I'm always a little stunned at how Southern I sound outside my own head, and occasionally I feel like there's a reason I'm a visual artist instead of a verbal one, but they did a really nice job of putting together an overview of my life, work, and creative philosophy.

And they showed off Mr. Darcy....

The Memphis Urban Sketchers met at Elmood Historic cemetery on Saturday morning. I'd missed the last couple of meetings, and it was good to make this one in one of my favorite sketching spots.

It's one of the oldest cemeteries in Memphis and encompasses much of our history, through the Civil War and the yellow fever. I love the Victorian monuments and angels. So much more lovely than the fake golf course look of today's cemeteries.

It was good to be out working with a group of artists again, and I did two watercolors from the same vantage point, while I chatted with our founder and fearless leader Elizabeth Alley.

I felt I'd gotten a little bit tight and precious on the trees in the first one (and, on looking back at them, lost the shape of their canopies as well), so I loosened up in the second sketch and drew just with my brush instead of starting with the pencil.

Almost every year at the end of March I go to a dance weekend in Cincinnati and get there early for a pilgrimage to the Ohio Book Store. It's a five story second hand bookstore with a bindery in the basement. Amazingly cool.

This year I went up to spend my birthday there, so I managed a whole, deliciously slow afternoon crawling through Ohio Books, and I ended up with a lovely stack of books as my birthday present to myself. I didn't manage a tour of the bindery, though, so maybe I can take some photos there in a couple of weeks, when I'll be back for the dance. They have a bunch of machines that are cousins to my beautiful Chandler and Price 1909 press.

For my actual birthday, I had chicken and waffles for lunch at a Belgian place (surprisingly delicious) and visited the Cincinnati Art Museum. I had never been, and they have a marvelous collection -- a gorgeous late Van Gogh, a Georgia O'Keefe, a couple of lovely George Inneses, a delightful Rubens preparatory oil sketch (I love his sketches best of all), an El Greco, several Corots and Courbets, a Manet, and four lovely Tiffany windows. Among many other beautiful things. I was really impressed.

The Urban Sketchers have been a good influence on me about keeping a sketch pad with me at all times. I'm not 100%, but a little 3x5" one lives in my purse, so I did a couple of fountain pen wash sketches as I went through the museum. It always helps me remember something if I look at it long enough to draw it. I loved the Medieval painted statue of St. Anthony Abbot clutching his fat book.

My day ended with Parisian-like patisseries from the Findlay Market, which brought back happy memories of my travels last year.

The downside of printmaking for me is the added technicality. I love making images, but prints are more complicated than just brushing paint on canvas. I still struggle some with registration issues and occasional press maintenance, but sharpening my gouges is the hardest ongoing issue for me.

I'm incredibly lucky to be friends with John Kraus, a toolmaker, fiddler, and all around great guy. John teaches tool making at Country Workshops and John C. Campbell Folk School, among others. Once a year or so he's kind enough to put a fresh edge on my gouges that I then gradually fail to maintain until I need help again the next year.

This year he not only sharpened everything for me (photo above), but he tempered a couple of the blades that were too hard to sharpen well (below).

John's partner is Nancy Darrell, a fellow printmaker with a background in pottery. I got my Line-O-Scribe proof press from her a couple of years ago (which has changed my life), and we have a great time comparing work and talking shop.

This trip we also went out and sketched together, painting by the pond on the Countey Workshops campus next door. I did a couple of quick watercolors and enjoyed just sitting in the sunshine a while.

Afterwards I got to play music with John, and Nancy had been kind enough to invite Drew and Louise Langsner over from next door at CW, so we had a lovely dinner with all my friends up there at once. That pair of farms is a real haven for me, thanks to kind friends and a beautiful landscape. I feel lucky to be a regular visitor.

We currently have an ice storm in Memphis, so I'm still dreaming about being in Florida last week.

My sister and I visited our friend Heidi, who has moved to Tampa to be the animal nutritionist at Busch Gardens. (I'm pretty sure that's not her real title.) Heidi has bought an utterly charming house just across the road from this small park and river. It was peaceful hanging out at her place for a couple of days, and I loved lounging around in a tank top and bare feet.

I walked over to the park to do Heidi a watercolor of her river as a hostess present. (It was pretty cloudy for picture taking, so there's a bigger discrepancy than usual between the photo and the watercolor.)

I got in some great sister time with Marian, both at Heidi's, with her people climbing cat, and at the dance up in Gainesville. The blue lights were for the Saturday night black and white ball. We also saw our "Florida tribe", some of our extra sisters, and had great playtime with them.

I even got to hang out with my very favorite band, the Latter Day Lizards. We ate BBQ for lunch....

.....then Stuart Kinney, the bass and banjo player I want to be when I grow up, took me thrifting in his host's convertible. I'd never ridden in a convertible before. It was the perfect Florida weekend. BBQ and thrift stores are the normal activities with these guys, but the gorgeous weather made it especially sweet this time. Not to mention the black and white dress I found just in time for the dance. A great weekend away.