It should be noted that the grass here is relatively spider free.
This is a really huge deal.
Living in the wilds in Northern California we had no shortage of land-space, tangled and native and ungroomed as it were.  With this, apparently, comes gobs and gobs of spiders.  There is a chapter from Annie Dillard in Pilgrim wherein she muses on the numerical breakdown of living organisms in a single square foot of earth below her toes.  I often wryly contemplated this as I stood [still a bit uncomfortably] on a safe thickness of shoe sole and noted the sheer number and variety of the arachnids scurrying about on whatever business a spider happens to have on a Wednesday afternoon at three p.m.  I tell you what, it's not boot shopping.  Which is what I'd be doing if I had eight feet to shod.  And a fresh hole in my favorite pair (promise, this is the last of my boot woes you'll hear about).
Now, here at home in Seattle the turf is a dry, autumnal blend of grasses and deep spongy moss.  I never want to wear shoes again.
~ SIDE NOTE ~ 
Has any one else dressed for work on a late summer day, gathered their lunch and water, popped in the car, drove across town and JUST before stepping out onto the molten pavement realized YOU HAD FORGOTTEN TO WEAR SHOES?   This has happened to me.  Twice.
~ Back to the real thoughts ~
I took the dogs for their run this afternoon, and upon arriving home, couldn't help but lay myself out on that thick pad of greenery below the apple tree.  I thought about that square foot, and I was so flipping proud of Nature.  That the earth, even here surrounded by children in double strollers wielding soggy crackers , construction workers in dirty white shirts, herds of teenagers looking mall-ishly rasta, and even my own mailman Pat*, even here is thick with life.  The land is RICH.  It nearly vibrates with the thunder of my footsteps and the sweet fermentation of rotting apples.  I know if I but dug my fingers into the soil I would find a host of beating, climbing, crunching, rolling little beings.  And while they may be no beauties, just knowing they are there brings a comfort.
It's not enough for me to see pictures of trees, or even to paint them.  It's not enough to say "yes, nature is over there, I'm sure of it." I need it to stain my skin, tangle my hair, co-mingle in my pores, because my own nature is too wild for anything else.
I suppose this is my mission and my wish for this next chapter; to be a little unruly, to flick my tail at the neighbors, to wear lichen and stretch my wings ever wider.

* * *
*  Pat just filled out the "who can receive mail at this address" tag inside our box to say "Clark / Dove"  Can I tell you how much I love this?)

The Seattlite

This morning I took a turn about the property while the skies still dripped and the squirrels tormented the dogs.  I can not even express my gratitude to the powers that be that this odd patch of city-proper property is large enough to warent a turn!  Truly it feels like a mini forest, green and deep, that just happens to be exactly one block from a sweet little coffee shop and a pretty major grocery.  I had only hoped for a compromise this gentle, for a place to live that would feel easy on this wildish soul.
Durring my turn, I also discovered a rather tragic hole in the side of my boots which resulted in a squishy wet sock, but truly just means I need to go boot shopping pronto (I know, serious first world problems... poor me and my boot collection.  p.s. don't judge me).
At night I lay in bed listening to the pull of wind and the slosh of rain for hours.  We've had the bedroom window open, which means the breeze blows in and travels approximately ten inches to my nose, and smells like Jesus on toast.  I don't even know what that means, but it's spicy and damp and green and crisp and I love it.

* * *
Last Saturday when we held a little "come help us unload the moving truck and we'll treat you to lunch and day drinking," a dear friend stood in the center of the living room amid towering piles of boxes, bags, barely enough room to wind a path, and announced that our things already seemed to fit this house.  I have to agree.  It's all coming together surprisingly easily.  A few days ago I repainted the living room from a mustard-ketchup combination (not terrible, but crimson walls just don't feel like me) to a luscious "Retro Avocado" and a color found in the Home Depot "oops" department that looks like the pale greenie-yellow heart center of a white dalhia. 

* * *
I know Seattle has a rap for grey skies and daily drizzles.  I'm here to tell you that while this is true, summers in the Pacific Northwest are a glory to behold.  Right now as I type the sunlight is pouring in the windows, illuminating every nook and cranny.  I don't believe I'll even need to turn on a light when I set to work in the studio today for the first time; have I mentioned that room is more windows than walls?  Big, wide, triple paned original 1920's windows?  It's swoonable.  I think some good work will come out of that space.  

* * *
(from my sketchbook writings, early September 2012)
The light is slanting through the front door windows in a full spectrum on morning chroma.  Dust particles, microscopic detritus, even the inevitable dog hair floating in those beams, they all cause me to stop in my tracks and take in the rising sun.  East.  This is a new beginning, a new turn, a new day, a new chapter and that prismacolored light sums up my feelings about this new house.
Last night in those same beveled panes I studied a magnificent moth illuminated by the porch light.  She caused me to remember BC's words in my moments of angst over the urban life: "It doesn't matter where you are, you'll still find nature, you'll still call it to you."  I can rest easier at night in those words. This plot, this patch of land, a venerable oasis in the city, feels magical.  Like old magic.  The wizened apple tree at the western base of the property, the cedar out front,  the pine to the south; I have no doubt these trees remember when the ridge was a thick expanse of rolling green.  They were young when the foundations of this house were laid, they watched as decades past, homes and families coming and going.  When I put my hands on them, they feel ancient and warm.
I've decided I will love this place.

* * *
I've missed you my friends.
It feels good to be back.

And so the transition comes

It's Time.
To fly the nest.
To stretch new wings.
To step into the unknown with courage.
To trust.

I'm signing off and officially, officially packing up the house.  We've had a wild, nutty, jam-packed week of house guests and friends, cooking and consuming over five dozen homemade falafel (that's the kind of house guests I'm talking about), a week of doctoral appointments and the running of every check-up test I could be squeezed (heehee, pun so intended) in for, and now it's time.  The house is quiet and the skies are grey, and we're noticing all the lasts.
The last time we'll have a leisurely breakfast on this deck overlooking the river.
The last time I'll buy a house plant from the shady corner market (it was an aloe, and yes I bought another plant just this last week).
The last time I'll fire up my torch in this studio, the last painting I'll dance my brushes over here.
The last time I'll take the dogs running on the river trail.
The last time we'll make the 20 minute drive into town for espresso.
The last time we'll live in this house.

Honestly it feels, well, whole.  Bitter-sweet but sweeter with every day.  I feel like I've had more time to say goodbye to this place than perhaps ever before in a move, and thusly I'm more ready than ever to finish those last couple lines, slowly and gratefully, and turn the page to a fresh new chapter.  And this next chapter?  I've got a thousand glittering butterflies beating their wings in my stomach, knowing that what comes next is big, bolder, and exactly where we are suppose to be.

With that,
I'll see you in a couple weeks, once we're settled into our new home, once I've found the mokka espresso pot and the stemless wineglasses, and once the studio is taking new life.
I'll miss you!
But I'll be back!


See you on the north side,
~ Umber ~
* * *

p.s. For those who have written in this past week, know that I'm running dreadfully behind on interwebular correspondance but will do my best to catch up before the move!  If you haven't heard back from me soon, please do resend your note!  It's highly likely I've lost it in the chaos!

A Solid Day's Work

Equus Ring

(sterling silver and kingman turquoise)

Navigate Ring

(sterling silver and kingman turquoise)

Elevate Ring

(sterling silver and larimar)

I had a funny revelation the other day as I worked on, ehem, TWELVE paintings that may or may not be part of a yearly project.  I took a long look at the creatures and themes who have been springing from my pencils, paintbrushes and silver bench of late and realized they all have something in common.

Winging.

Leaping.

Galloping.

Striding.

Diving.

Moving, moving, so much movement.

An interesting shift when I look at work done just a few short months ago, where every beast slowed, stood still, and just looked.  It's the kind of shift you are utterly unaware of until hindsight grows full in the review mirror and then suddenly your vision clears.  The wild little beast that is me is moving; not in the "packing up and physically moving location" but moving through the invisible mental-spiritual landscape.  Striding out, gaining momentum, reaching inside to a new well of energy, and naturally, accompanied by all these creatures I love.

We're moving and shaking over here.

Shimmying and twisting.

It's like a furry, feathered, hoofed, curly haired party.

I'm glad you're here for it too.
~ Umber ~

(p.s. this little pocket full of rings will be flitting into the shop at random over the weekend, in-between farmer's marketing, salsa canning, studio-ing, and basically anything else that I can find to do that DOES NOT involve packing.  HA!  And whatever your weekend may be looking like, I hope it treats your fabulously!)

To Cradle the Remains

A few months back I found this doe, laying quietly on a hillside, returning to the earth.  I asked (always, always ask and then gift in return.  I like to sing little wordless songs to the remains of a life), then took her skull and a handful of vertebrae.  This morning, after allowing nature to do the dirty work, I finally finished cleaning her to a luminous glow.
(p.s. if you ever move into a new home and see your neighbor whistling to herself out on the porch whilst straddling a bucket full of bleach and bones, scrubbing away with a toothbrush, just come over and say Hi.  Because it will probably be me)

I have loved bones for, well, I suppose forever.  There is an elegance to the swoop of an eye socket, a creativity to the curving lilt of a jaw, a wild, alien sculptural form to the cranium.  I think skulls are one of the most beautiful things in the world, but when it comes right down to it, my obsession is with vertebrae.
* * *
When I was two days shy of my twentieth birthday, I got into a terrible car accident (one of those 1:00 AM-hydroplaning-across-the-freeway-hit-by-a-car-going-70-miles-per-hour terrible accidents).  Truly it was pure miracle both I and the other driver survived.  I ended up fracturing a couple of my vertebrae and spent quite a bit of time laying still and stretched flat, thinking about those spinal building blocks.  I started looking up anatomical images; something deep in me needed to know the exact shape of those damaged pieces.  I began drawing them, first little sketches, then bigger charcoal ones, then painting them into the base layers of my larger works, then stitching their outlines into paper and fabric.  And from the first time a lumbar vertebrae slipped out from the point of my pencil, I felt in my very bones that they could fly.  That the delicately stacked column in our body was full of these beautiful hollow flapping forms that could play Icarus on us at any moment.  That the central opening was a liminal portal through which the secrets of life and death slipped, grew wings, and flew into the sunset.
* * *

What's This?

Someone has replaced my shower beer with chlorophyll!

Home

Well it's official.  All those little well wishes you sent out last week, all ten of my fingers tightly crossed, all the breath we've held hoping to find the right home?  It all converged at the right time and place in a way that was nothing short of miraculous.  

Welcome.

Upon arriving in Seattle last week, I attended a few frenzied open houses, weighed the pros and cons (I was almost terribly swayed by a clawfoot tub and a breathtaking sun-porch in a very unpractical house), but in the end listened intently to my intuition.  I think sometimes our bodies are wiser than us, that somewhere deep in our solar plexus a compass spins with absolute accuracy.  And when we pulled into the drive of this charmer, my compass spun with the fire of the sun.  I knew it would be right even before I stepped over that 1920's threshold.  

First though, I need to come clean.

The last few months have been rough, and I confess to being the small wounded beast who hides in private, shadowy corners when life turns upside-down.  I've vacillated between a light heart and nimble fingers, and a black crush of anxiety.  I've been wrestling with a fear-demon and there were days when the flame of light in my chest sputtered and dampened.  Truly, never has an impending move felt so strangely full of symbolism, hope and threat.  It's been a mess of illogical terrors that the mind concocts to explain away the bad things in life (i.e. cancer.  Shitty, shitty cancer.  What has happened to me, what is happening to a dear friend, and what had happened to a recently departed).   In the name of authenticity I want you to know this: no life is always easy, and no life is always full of butterflies and rainbows, and mine is certainly no exception.  I suppose really what I'm trying to say is that sometimes, life is damn gritty.  And it hurts.  And that sometimes, you'll wake up in the morning and that ball of panic that has been rolling around in your stomach will have rolled right out the front door and the only thing you notice are the birds singing in the dawn.

For me, that open door was the thing.  Nearly a quarter acre, hemmed in by ancient cedars, somehow still smack in the middle of the city doesn't hurt either.

* * *

Other bits of interest and education?  I heartily recommend that one DOES NOT eat an entire pound-and-a-half of cherries during the course of an eleven hour drive, topped off by a large grapefruit.  I thought I was immune (in fact, after the drive up, I may have uttered those exact words with smug pride), but apparently, everyone has a threshold for fruit consumption.  Who knew?

When returning from the Camelot of Coffee, from the land of milk and caffeine, from the seventh heaven of sweet crema, to a house devoid of a single coffee bean know this: dirty, dark beans clearly roasted sometime during the revolutionary war, from the shady little corner market will taste like motor oil and you will cry exactly three tears before dumping that crap down the drain.

In other news, if you haven't yet seen THIS, well then let me regale you now.  BC and I had that hat stashed away before we even knew if our new "niece," Bowie Andromeda was a she.  We're totally going to be the cool aunt and uncle who keep her in sci-fi-geek-wear, teach the little lady words like "mullet" and how to fist bump grandma.

It feels good to be home, but even better to know that "home" is waiting just a few hundred miles up the coast for us as well.

Cheers birds,

~ Umber ~