a thoughtful comment left on this blog by jane ponsford prompted me to go check out her work and what a lovely surprise! she's been working on a year-long project papertrails, as an artist-in-residence in england and blogging about it as well.

in a former life i spent years as a paper maker myself and loved the labor of it all, the history, the yummy feel of pulp and finally, a finished page under your hand. jane also loves the irregular deckle edge as i do, shown beautifully in the coiled pieces at the top. i also adore her white shapes floating on piano wire in the snow.

what a magical gift to get all this on a monday morning in my email box! 

all materials tell a story, of course. but paper traditionally tells it two ways, from the source and making to the marks or words written upon it's surface. isn't this tree piece is just wonderful?

i plucked just a few striking images from her site and blog to share with you, but do take a few minutes to click over and check out the whole story. jane's blogging here and her site is right here.

late at night, i stumbled through the buzzing chambers of the internet. blog led to blog until i had lost my way completely. then i landed on this image and stopped. just stopped and soaked it in. tiffany bozic, painting magical narratives with layers of mystery. i am spellbound by the stork and the red fox. two animals that come to me in dreams, over and over. i've come to see them as my spirit guides, my personal totems. this painting really speaks deeply to me. i want it. the feeling grows: that i could live with this painting forever and still be fed by it's stories. please do go dig into her whole portfolio of riches right here.

you won't regret it, i promise.

i'm lovesick over this one.

and just look at this achingly lovely rendering of a jellyfish. beautiful, just beautiful. 

can you believe these beautiful objects are grains of sand? photographed through a microscope by artist gary greenberg, they are fantastic images. oh, the tiny beauties in this world we brush off our feet at the end of a day at the beach! you can view a large collection of the images here and read more about his body of microscopic images here.

thanks to one of my very favorite bloggers, kirsty hall, at up all night again, for the link. 

A blog housekeeping note. I've finally cleaned up my categories in the side bar, so now you can browse by subject and by (organized) month. The search feature is pretty fun, too. And, in case you haven't noticed yet, I've also added a few new sections on the bottom of the navigation bar. a food for thought section, with books I'm either currently reading or have found thought-provoking in the past. a films that inspire me section, with the films that have color and light( and perhaps a story too) that haunt me. and last, a what i'm listening to in my studio section, with the albums in most recent heavy rotation listed. I hope you enjoy them! 

ah, finally i get to share these photos! my back was feeling a bit better on saturday so i took a little road trip for the afternoon out to the wine country around yamhill. my sweet friend nina drove and our primary destination was kookoolan farm, to procure ourselves some fresh goat milk. (i've gotten into making my own yogurt in the last couple of months) it truly was a pastoral paradise. miles of hills, covered with endless green fields, vineyards, towering old trees lining the roads and then the sweet kookoolan farm. as soon as we got out of the car, a herd of baby goats, (um, kids) swarmed around us, vying for attention. you can see i was besotted with them! so much so, i forgot to photograph any of the lovely views...

i've been living within a two mile radius to my home for so many months, i nearly lost touch with how inspiring it is to get out of the city and see new vistas. my whole state of mind was refreshed and energized by the trip into rural oregon. 

on their website, you can read the romantic story of two people who fell in love and left the corporate world to become farmers in this beautiful little neck of the woods. they raise organic chickens, goats, dairy cows and host an alluring array of classes, like bread baking and cheese making. check out kookoolan farm right here.

it's been a long while since i posted anything from my walks about portland, primarily because i haven't been walking. yesterday was a full-on glorious day, however. warm and full of sunshine, the afternoon beckoned me out and i could not resist. along the way, i found some very encouraging signs that spring is finally here in the northwest.

i hope the sight of these snowdrops lift your spirits as much as they did mine. i love the shapes of their tiny, drooping heads. and below, an massive laurel bush, bursting with pale pink flowers that look like they were made from crepe paper. i took they day off from my studio yesterday and did my taxes. this afternoon walk was my reward for finishing!