I'm trying to get myself back to sketching more, and I had a good time with it on Sunday. I watched the last baseball game of the year (for my Cardinals at least, sadly), went and took down my bit of info and some prints I'd put up at the Pink Palace Crafts Fair, and decided to take myself out for fish tacos on a perfect patio night. Henry and I hung out, shared some tacos, read a bit of a good book, and finished with a sketch of the moon. It's Diamine Aurora Borealis ink in my new Lamy fountain pen with watercolor on top. The Baseball one is waterproof black ink with a small patch of watercolor (different Lamy foutain pen).

I'll be participating in the Artist Conversation series at Elmwood Cemetery this Friday, Sept. 19th, at noon with the always fantastic Willy Bearden. I'm excited to get to talk about cemeteries I've sketched in, why I'm drawn to them, and my creative life more broadly. I'll be passing around sketchbooks for people to see, and I'll have a slide show of sketches from my travels. The event supports a place I love and the place that gave me my first public art commission. Those relief carvings will be just outside the chapel we're speaking in. Come if you can and see this historic part of Memphis.

I took a quick trip this week to Nashville for an appointment at the long covid clinic there, and I found lodging at the Skarritt Bennett center. It was a college campus until it closed in 1988 and is now a conference center with lodging in the old dorms. The rooms were large and comfortable, if clearly former dorm rooms, and it was crazy reasonable, and the campus is absolutely gorgeous. And so quiet, right next to Vanderbilt. It's the furthest I've been able to drive since January, and I didn't do much at all except hang out on the campus. I took my own food (which I often do when I travel), so I spent all my extra time sketching.

I love this neo-gothic style of architecture. My lifelong church Idlewild Pres is in this same vein and shares a quarry with Rhodes. This place apparently shared an architect with Rhodes and had slightly blonder stone, but it felt like a mini-me of a familiar place. The arches and slate roofs and the glow of the stone all called me. In spite of my familiarity, it took me a few sketches to get my sea legs with this place. The first two were in Inktense pencils, which I've been enjoying lately. I think there just wasn't enough definition in that first one, with the wide view of so many different elements. The pencils felt better in the more limited sketch of a pair of arches.

The next day I used Diamine golden brown ink, which melts into the paint, and it fuzzed up some of the lighter elements of the drawing, but the color and overall feel did great. But I'd forgotten to refill this pen before I left, so I switched to a waterproof brown ink after.

I've been enjoying that ink a lot lately, but somehow the next one felt a little more stiff.I think it worked better on the last sketch, a fast one at twilight of a magnificent cherry tree. I really enjoyed my stay and hope to go back again soonish and visit the museums I didn't have the time to get to this trip.

Memphis Urban Sketchers met at Brooks on a drizzly Saturday. The museum is free till noon, so it suits our group for free and open (and available bathrooms). I sat out on the front porch under cover and chatted with a couple of friends and did a frustrating line sketch with a pen that was getting clogged up (below), and then I went inside to sketch in the galleries. I've enjoyed drawing museum spaces lately, even though that limits me to pencils only (in the US, at least). So they always turn out a bit more candy colored than I'd like. I've really enjoyed the pencils lately, but generally I use them for the drawing and add more subdued paint on top. I did take this one outside and added water after. Maybe I need to experiment with much lighter tone and water RIGHT after so I still remember and can tone things down better. Brooks is near my house and a good place for me to get in and out of. It was good to get back and remind myself to go there more often.

Now I need to go refill some pens and see if I can get this one flowing better again.

I had a great weekend. My sister visit led into it, and then Saturday morning I found plums at the farmers market. The NYT had done a piece a few months ago on the most requested recipes of all time, and this plum torte was at the very top of the list. I'm reading Ruth Reichl's memoirs about food at the moment, and then I found the plums. Trying that recipe felt inevitable. It did not disappoint. I put it on my birthday plate from Melissa Bridgman, which (if seen in its entirety) has the quote, "Joy is not meant to be a crumb," and it felt made for savoring this truly delicious thing.

Jill, my honorary sister, met me at the Shell to see Pokey LaFarge, whom I've loved for 15 years, ever since he played a coffee shop concert as one of three jug bands using kazoo. He's more mellow than he was then, but a really good songwriter and a super fun show. Henry and I sat at the way back, and Jill was kind enough to join us in the outcast dog section. Officer Harris, one of the security guards, snapped a photo of the three of us, and I stuck in a little video for fun too. It was great to listen to good music, see friends, sketch a little, and walk home surrounded by neighbors. What a perfect evening.

I had a fantastic overnight getaway at my sister's new farm outside of town. My best friend and I drove out, and Marian and her best friend were there along with Jethro, Marian's patient husband. We hung out, caught up, laughed, told stories, talked about books, talked about our lives, ate yellow curry, and took a sunset walk. It was so, so perfect. I am grateful for the people around me in this wild and precious life.

Friday morning everyone did their own thing for a while, and my thing was to walk to the tiny, private, Victorian era cemetery on the property. I had done one sketch previously and have been dying to spend more time drawing it. I didn't want to miss too much of the party, so I kept it to one sketch, but I loved sitting out in the woods in the morning light and drawing old tombstones. I love a cemetery. I'm really looking forward to being featured at an Artist Coversation at Elmwood Cemetery. I've drawn in a ton of cemeteries, and I'm sure we'll talk about more than that (Willy Bearden is a fantastic host), but I'm excited to put a slide show together and tell some of my favorite stories.

Later that morning all four of us women sat by the lake and watched a flock of migrating swallows swooping and diving over us. It was sheer delight. I did a super quick sketch because I wanted to have that moment in my sketchbook to remind me in years to come. I'm so glad that a simple overnight can give such a beautiful getaway from life and grateful for all the strong, wise, funny women I get to do life with in one way or another.

I gave myself the day off work on Saturday, which for me meant getting out and sketching. There is no bright line between life and work because art is always what I wake up wanting to do. I went to a fun estate sale where I bought a couple of plates that remind me of Paris, and it was right near Dixon. Ceres had magnificent plantings around her when I was there last, but I hadn't had my bigger sketchbook or watercolors with me. I walked through my favorite parts of the current exhibit again (hint, Paris!) and then headed for the garden. I've been trying to mix things up and draw in Inktense pencils for a change of texture lately instead of reflexively reaching for my fountain pen. I was happy with the plantings, a bit less happy with the statue, but there it is.

The day was glorious, and I was starving, and Christina was happily free to meet me for a patio lunch at Cafe Eclectic, a favorite spot. I drew a wonky green umbrella and had a wonderful lunch with London fog tea latte and a biscuit on the side. I also drew the charming dove who made a nest right on top of one of the patio tables in a redbud tree. That one is in my small sketchbook, just a few minutes of standing and sketching with paint added sitting down afterwards. She has been remarkably unconcerned with the hubbub around her. It's such a treat to see a bird's nest up close.

It was a great day out. I came home happy, opened the windows and watched a little British mystery. Pretty perfect.

I got jumped by a bunch of family business on my return from New York and spent a week or so not sketching. I have managed to jump back in over the last week, starting with a farm sketch out at the family farm, followed by a pastel de nata at a new chain bakery in Memphis. I have loved these in Paris and been unable to get them in Memphis, so I had high hopes. It was ok but not great sadly. Phyllo instead of pie crust. Not satisfying enough to be worth the splurge but fun to sketch in my small sketchbook.

Then Memphis Urban Sketchers met at the main library yesterday. It's a bit of an overwhelming building to take on perspective-wise, but I love the colors and light. It was fun, even if I flunked corners of the architecture.

I did a super quick sketch in my small sketchbook at the end. I love the trees in there but didn't have time to do much I was proud of, but it still felt fun to try.

Memphis Magazine let me illustrate their back page feature "The Last Stand" last month. I loved having an open ended invitation to tell a story. It was a quickish turnaround, and I didn't manage a full narration, but I went to two farmers markets after getting the assignment and had fun conversations as well as seeing the rich visual bounty of such places. I ended up doing a graphic feature called "Farmers Market chit-chat." I keep saying I'd like to do more visual storytelling, and it was lovely to get the invitation. See the whole spread here.

And of course Henry made an appearance.

I walked through the entrance hall and stepped out into the first cloister and fell immediately in love. I had only spent a handful of days in New York and had never before had the time to take the longer ride up to the north end of Manhatten. The Cloisters is a bit remote, which I am sure protects it from the worst of the crowds, but it is so worth the journey.

In my more restricted last few years I have been missing Europe badly. I love traveling places where the history is old. I love being surrounded by Medieval buildings and carvings. The Cloisters was such a balm for me. It's a crazy mish-mash, but it is so beautifully done that it utterly works. Barnard, a sculptor, lived and worked on the continent in the early 20th C and became a compulsive collector of Medieval carved stone. He bought a whole chapter house in France that had been reduced to usage as a barn. He bought three cloisters, none of them complete but with enough original pieces to put together evocative and beautiful spaces. Every door and doorway in the place is historical and different, but the stone structure that houses all of these disparate pieces is so simple and sensitive that it all feels almost inevitable. Rockefeller saw Barnard's collection and donated this museum that brought all those pieces into one living building. I miss the time when billionaires built museums and schools and libraries, but we continue to be richer as a society because of the ones who did.

Another thing that feels European is the way the indoor and outdoor spaces flow together. I am still masking in public, and it was such joy to have so much of the museum open air. There are some lovely galleries too, plus one stunning Robert Campin altarpiece that I had studied in college and was surprised to meet face to face. The windows, like the doorways, set panels of Medieval glass into simple, diamond shaped glass panes with glimpses of the Hudson through the gaps. The stained glass is alive and vital in a way that it never is that funeral home way of artificial lighting from behind. It doesn't all match, but it harmonizes. I truly fell in love with the whole place. My dad had been telling me for years that I needed to go, but I was never in the city for more than a day or two. I'm so glad I made it, and I will definitely be back.

The collection of artwork is gorgeous too. I fell in love with this small English saint and sketched him in my smaller purse sketchbook. I also had a lovely long conversation with a summer intern at the Met (what a dream job!) in the unicorn tapestries room. She's an artist as well, and it was so fun to hear about her big adventure of a summer and share our work a bit. I love traveling solo because it leaves space for me to meet and spend time with people instead of being more walled in a bubble of companions.

The first sketch was the cloister with the cafe. I loved being able to get a nice salad and real tea and sit at a table and draw the beautiful garden in the center. After lunch I came back up and drew the biggest cloister that was the first thing I saw. I love the twisted trees in this one. It's only a third the size of its original, but they made it the size that matched the capitals they had, and they filled in some of the columns and surrounding walls with stone from the same quarry. I was on a bench back underneath the overhang, and the colors got a little bright on me. I also think I was just so uplifted that I leaned into the pinks and purples. I toned it down a bit later in better light, but it's still a slightly over the top emotional response to the beauty of the place, and that's ok.

I spent all day there and just missed the bus as I walked out. There was a lot of traffic, so a group of us waited a bit for the next one, and I did a much quicker sketch of the outside, using ink and a red watercolor marker since I was fully outside the museum. To end the day I pulled out my smaller sketchbook again and sketched a couple of the fellow would-be passengers. It was a congenial group and a marvelous day.