A saguaro cactus starting to bloom

Spring is arriving and I'm looking forward to sunnier weather and more color outside. I've been reading about the artist David Hockney and how he painted spring around his house in 2020. He painted the same nature scenes over and over but with slight differences (dawn, dusk, rain, sun). I think I would get bored documenting the same subject matter repeatedly but I do see the value in really looking at your surroundings and not taking it for granted. 

It's been quiet around here. I've been reading about a simpler life and Agnes Martin. She took solitude to the extreme by moving to the middle of nowhere in New Mexico. I do see value in her methods. It can be hard to do your own work when you're constantly surrounded by other people and their ideas.

I realize it's been a while since I last wrote. I had a bad bout of COVID last month and I'm still feeling the effects. The good news is that I got a lot of reading done and I started working with some new art materials! I'm done working with paper (for now) and I've switched over to using birch plywood in my art. 

I recently got back from a trip to Tucson where Matt and I were doing a little house shopping and we ended up buying a beautiful piece of land with a tiny mid-century house on it! We've fallen in love with the Sonoran Desert with its gorgeous sunsets, cacti everywhere, and desert critters. It may be a while before we move because the house needs major renovations (it hasn't been updated since the 50s) and we hope to build two art studios on the property.

I feel like I'm hibernating. I haven't been out much and I've been hunkered down in my studio making a lot of artwork. I'm also changing up my art process. I used to work with multiple layers of colored paper sort of like a screen printing process. But now I'm cutting individual pieces of paper and placing them by hand. It's more labor intensive that way but it saves a lot of paper. It's actually not hard to do if I'm just making one of each design.

I recently got back from a trip to Arizona where I checked out Phoenix (good tacos), Sedona (amazing rocks) and Tucson (cacti everywhere). Of the three, I liked Tucson the best. They say Tucson is the "Austin of Arizona" and I can see why.

Matt and I headed up to Vancouver BC recently and had a fun time walking around Stanley Park and eating our fill of izakaya and ramen. We also spent a week in Oregon checking out Portland and the Mount Hood area. I recommend checking out Hood River. It's a super cute town with lots of restaurants and artsy shops.

I've been on a cleaning spree lately and I'm getting rid of all the stuff I let collect during the pandemic. I feels good to reduce the clutter and make room for new projects. I've been working on a series of new art pieces but I've been struggling with the small cutting area on my laser cutter. So I broke down and pre-ordered a larger laser (Muse Titan). Laser cutting technology has improved recently so this new laser has a larger cutting area but a much smaller footprint. It's perfect for a small studio like mine.

Last week we finally got out of the house and rented a cabin on San Juan Island. The island isn't very far from Seattle but just being in a new environment broke me out of a rut. There's something about getting out of my regular routine that makes me think about things differently. Continue reading...

It's been three years since I started writing this newsletter. I find the newsletter format so rewarding. I like writing about what I'm working on and sharing cool things that I've found without all the baggage of social media. Thanks for continuing to read it and I hope you're finding it useful. Continue reading...