I'm in Lincoln and Concord today, and the history is breathtaking. Everything is so much older than down south. The trees are equally stunning. There's a proliferation of beeches here, and I'm a total sucker for them. And then there's this gorgeous one outside the Lincoln library, which is in itself gorgeous.

The cemeteries look different too. Our ones are replete with Victorian monuments. Here they are lovely-shaped slate headstones with interesting and different relief carvings. I did this one as the front piece for my travel sketchbook.

Here's one of the beeches on the walk back

Also drove into Concord and saw Louisa May Alcott's home.

And a place where both Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne lived and wrote

Did one more very quick sketch of an inn where George Washington slept. Sadly they no longer have banjo music on Wednesday nights.

It was the Cabin Fever dance weekend in Maryville, TN, this past weekend, and I drove east early to visit one of my favorite towns. It had been a crazy enough week that I had been having dinner in my car between meetings, so the evening I arrived I went to my favorite tapas place for a lovely salad, a couple of small pork rolls, and a flan. I had thought I was too tired to sketch, but the flan was so pretty I couldn't resist.

I enjoyed walking around town and hitting the book stores and my favorite brocante, the Downtown Market. It's an indoor flea/antique market with several lovely clothing vendors. I found two cashmere sweaters, real silk pajama pants, and  red velvet coat that makes me feel like a movie star. I also sketched my favorite trees there while I was wandering around.

For purely self indulgent reasons, I'm going to include this photo from the weekend, taken by Lanny Huddleston. This is my favorite way to find joy when I'm not making art, and Charlie Zisette, with his marvelous dips, made me feel just lovely this weekend. Sometimes it's good for me to move away from the micro movements of carving prints and move my whole body instead. This is the very best way I know how to do that.

.....This time I played. That's my bass, still in its case, with the empty chairs waiting to be filled. I decided sketching was better than sitting around and thinking about being nervous. Andy Cohen sometimes asks me to play bass for him when he's in town. It's always a wild ride, because he usually does plenty of songs we haven't rehearsed and often songs I've never heard before, but it's fun, and I get a front row seat to watch him perform. And it's sweet that he wants me. Usually I just play in a weekly jam in someone's back living room.

It was a double bill, so I did get to sketch for part of the concert. Below are Andy and his wife Larkin listening to his friends open the show. I realized when I scanned this in that I went from dinner on Monday to Saturday night without sketching, but I had a home show to put on in between, so that took up a lot of the week.

Here are the other concert sketches. My watercolor marker didn't work as well as I remembered it doing before, and I ended up soaking through the page and getting more bleed than I normally. Or like to. But it's just a sketch book.

Memphis Theological Seminary is celebrating African American history month in February, and I suggested a series of Exodus paintings for the chapel bulletins. I love how the chaplain, my excellent boss, lets me run with the things that are calling to me. She suggested that the phrase "Let my people go" has special resonance, so I used it as the background for each image, and I like the continuity it provides. It's nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and to collaborate with. That's been a beautiful upside to this job.

It's chronologically out of order for the book, but I want to do a series of Biblical women for March (women's history month), so I ended with an image of Shiprah and Puah, to bridge that transition between the months. I continue to be amazed that we have remembered and celebrated the names of two midwives several millenia later. Powerful.

It's been a disheartening week in my beloved Overton Park. Several years ago, inspired by Henry Shaw who transformed a whole section of St. Louis by founding parks and the botanic garden and planting 40,000 trees, my dad and I asked about donating some trees to Overton to provide visual screening of the zoo lot and shade for future generations. Due to the closing of a longtime nursery and their generosity in pricing the leftovers, we were able to go big (although not Henry Shaw big) and donate 300 new trees plus another 100 shrubs.

Many of the trees are planted in a ring around the Greensward, the one big open meadow that was planned by George Kessler, a disciple of Frederick Law Olmstead, as the heart of the park and the main meeting/play place for people. It is ringed by trees, but the old ones are slowly coming down and need renewing. Sadly the zoo has been using this one big green space for their overflow parking since the 90's, and the city hasn't stopped them. This week they went off the rails and ripped out 27 of our new trees in the dark of a Sunday night. They clear cut four acres of old growth forest several years ago, so their lack of conservation is not a surprise, but they have never before ventured out from their fences to destroy trees in the park proper. I am appalled and heartsick, and I sincerely hope the city will finally stand up and keep them in their borders. They want this land outright, the very heart of the park. That cannot happen. 

This morning there was a jazz funeral march for the fallen trees and a ceremonial replanting of three new ones. The Mighty Souls Brass Band went above and beyond on their civic duty to play on a cold Saturday morning.

Below is a picture from three years ago of the Boy Scouts who helped plant the same batch of new trees that the zoo ripped out some of.

I'm starting a new adventure with this new year, and I'm really excited about it. There are several urban sketchers around the country who have regular sketch features in their local papers. They go out and draw interesting things happening in their communities, and it's like a column or other regular feature in the paper. I pitched this to Eric Barnes, who owns the weekly business paper The Daily News here in Memphis, and he was kindly receptive. With the holidays over, I met with the editorial team yesterday.

They already have a weekly spot for community happenings that is usually anchored by a photograph. They're going to use my work in that space once a month and also commission me to do occasional covers for the paper, which I am utterly thrilled about.

I have loved my landscape illustration work for Cape May (and occasionally Memphis Magazine) and have been wondering how to expand that piece of my career, so I am delighted to be starting the new year with a new opportunity.

I did a little scouting of locations downtown after the meeting and treated myself to sweet potato pancakes at Memphis's iconic diner The Arcade as a celebration. I sketched, of course.

The last day my exhibition at Dixon was up, I went back out there to savor it one more time and sketch again in the gallery. It felt a little self indulgent, but I also just wanted to celebrate this amazing moment in my career in the way that feels most natural to me these days. Having the show in my journal of the year was important to me.

A bonus was that I got to see a number of friends who had come out to see it that day. I am so grateful for everyone who helped me celebrate this happening in my life. Everyone has been generous about it as I babble on a bit, so thank you.

I also walked down to the corner and sketched the banner. The banner just thrilled me every time I drove past. I also wanted to remember it.

I'm definitely a little sad that it's all over, but I'm also enjoying a much needed slower period at the moment. I'm doing a little printmaking, but also watching some Downton Abbey, taking a few days off, and reclaiming my evenings instead of working till bedtime. It feels good. Nice start to a new year.