Drawing my amaryllis

With the summer solstice just past and the Fourth of July hard upon us, there is a delightful proliferation of festivals of all types. One treat of summer in which sand, ants and sun block do not figure prominently, is the Iowa Summer Rep presented by the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa. I’ve enjoyed many productions from the Summer Rep, and I’m pleased that my own botanical drawings are installed in the theatre lobby throughout the Rep’s month of productions. Three shows by playwright Theresa Rebeck are being presented through July 25th. Plan on attending!

This weekend, along with thousands of others I’ll travel to the Des Moines Art Festival to check out artists and, as importantly, visit the lately completed Pappajohn Sculpture Park.

And, coming right up on the Fourth of July, you can view the restored and re-installed Grant Wood stained glass window at Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Precede that visit with a stop at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, where curator, Sean Ulmer, has dramatically exhibited the life-sized drawings that Wood executed in preparation for the window. I could go on.

Summer’s activity is at a fever pitch, and the fall seems far away right now. Go on, get up, get out and enjoy!

I had one of these moments this morning. Craig had commented to me that Dori Vogel, the owner of The Dreaming Bear right around the corner from the gallery, has a fun web-site and blog. So, as I sipped my morning coffee, I treated myself to a peek.

Dori’s blog positively bursts with excitement about what’s new with her work, enlargements of studio space and on and on with loads of fun photos of funky stuff.

I felt shamed. Why wasn’t I busily assembling photos of Deb Martin’s long-awaited stoneware delayed by a succession of unfortunate events, or Louise Rauh’s new beautifully formed aluminum floral pendants?

May Apple in progress in my studio

A day in my life includes work on some new drawings for one of my favorite long-time customers, helping Craig lift the “History of Orthodontics” into the van for eventual installation, finding the perfect place for Ben Jensen’s wood-fired ceramics amongst Marck Nystrom’s substantial plates and bowls, taking down Kim Nalley’s posters in the wake of her marvelous concerts this past weekend. Tana Acton is in this morning at nine- more about that soon.

In the meantime, grab a cup of coffee and check out Dori’s blog at The Dreaming Bear.

Violet

“These will be so great for a Mother’s Day post!” Maggie crowed after I sent her my first drawings of some spring ephemerals that we hope to use for a collaborative project. In short, I’ve done the drawings and the plan is that Maggie (and Charlotte) will produce letterpress cards from them.

I was genuinely excited to get to these drawings after finishing a commission that had dominated my time. (I’m not complaining.) First, the “spring ephemerals”–those most delicate and stalwart of flowers that are the first to show their faces in the woods—were just about to be past their brief, blooming peak. Second, few things delight me more than to find these harbingers of the change from Iowa’s punishing winters to glorious spring.

Dutchman’s Britches

I did many drawings. The Dutchmen’s Britches were the most problematic, and caused me to conclude that it was best to render of each plant only as much as you might furtively pinch off in a woods that is not your own.

Oh, and Mother’s Day is BEFORE the Marion Arts Festival. Our jewelry, pottery and glass make particularly wonderful gifts that no other mother but yours can receive!

I have done a lot of crazy things in a lifetime lived as a “working artist”. Pair that status with a lifetime spent with Craig (easily the most outrageously creative person I have ever known), who seems to have an inexhaustible supply of great ideas, often, (but certainly not always!) executed by all the talented, hard working people with whom he surrounds himself, and you come up with how I spent my winter. And, how I spent my winter accounts for the deafening silence from my blog.

Hard at work, with Giant - my constant companion - on my lap

I’ll try to make this quick! Since January, my activity has been singularly focused on completing a commission for the orthodontic office of Dr. William Olin, the man responsible for the beautifully straight teeth of two of Craig’s and my three children. (Praise be to God that Maggie came WITH straight teeth!)

The clamped up frame, drying; the frame, assembled; polishing the frame up with steel wool

As it happens, Craig had conceived the idea that, in addition to the art that Dr. Olin had installed in his remodeled office, he needed a mirror in which his patients might check their teeth while coming and going from their regular orthodontic appointments- and not just any mirror. Craig made an elegantly crafted walnut frame for a large, beveled-glass mirror. Surrounding the mirror he created twenty small, framed openings. In these openings are now twenty paintings that whimsically portray how tension exerted in a variety of ingenious ways on a variety of subjects’ teeth, in a Rube Goldbergian fashion, will straighten said teeth.

Hard at work on one of the 20 panels

I never thought I would ever do anything like this, and now, well, I’ve done it! This weekend we’ll be installing the paintings in the frame, and then, away it goes! So, if you’re at all curious about the enforced silence from my blog, perhaps you’d like to stop by and see a mirror worthy (I hope!) of the unexcelled talents of Dr. William Olin.

So! I’ve paired up a couple of etchings of my own in a holiday package. I love these miniature nudes that capture the grace of a feminine gesture in a few lines. Stop in the gallery to have a look!