Hello World and Goodbye Sweet Blog!

April 28, 2019 in artist life, photojournalism

Travel blog, Cuba, girls who travel, art, artist

Apple News Publishing | New Ecola Print | Studio Visit

March 01, 2018 in Astoria Oregon, photography, product design, Oregon, northwest

Apple News Publishing: Get Local | Travel Far

After three arduous days of upgrading my decade-old Mac to be ready for publishing this blog, it is finally available on the Apple News app all over the world! It was a very long three days of getting to know my computer in ways I never thought I'd have to... but some things are just worth the struggle, and this was one. My blog will immediately publish on all Mac devices, including a desktop that is running on at least iOS 9. I cover the 'Get Local' portion pretty well, as I keep myself very busy here on the north coast of Oregon planning shows, running two online shops (Etsy and Society 6), and seeking out wholesale opportunities and commissions of my creative work. I'd like to 'Travel Far,' and for now that will probably just be Mexico, Canada, and other parts of the U.S. until I can afford more, so buy some of my work if you haven't! Do you think I'd get a great shot at Banff? Yeah, send me there with a purchase! Want me to document Costa Rica ethnic carvings in process? I do! Yep, buy a print or two from my shop! Spread the word to your friends and family that I produce fine quality landscape photography as my main focus, and send them over. I also give great service!

New Ecola Point Print

This winter, the Oregon Coast felt some strong storm weather. On my drive south from Astoria, I witnessed waves and full-on ocean pounding right into the Arcadia dunes! This is normal stuff that happens out here, but it is still breath-taking to see places which are normally dry become inundated with water. What happens after all of this is we begin living with a dramatically changed coastline. Each shot I create of the same area will be different from then on. Loose soil slides down basalt rock into the ocean, and trees fall in every direction like pick-up-sticks. Small dark boulders tumble and pile on the sand as the softer, lighter sediment is washed away in the following tides. And thus every year, we have a new beach to admire and some to miss.

My last hike was at Ecola Point, just north of Cannon Beach (famous for the Haystack Rock where puffins breed). The trail was a fun and challenging one that took me through deep grass and across a fresh stream, and I dared myself to go to the wide part of the bluff by hiking a narrow path of dirt above a bush whose roots were exposed and hanging off the cliff-side already. Well, I took my chances to get this shot, and it was worth it! The print will soon be available on Etsy, and my first proof looks so dreamy in person!

Studio Visit

I would like to formally invite you to reach out to me via the Contact page and visit my studio! I handle this by private visitation only, for those who are interested in purchasing some of my work. If you are in the north coast area and want to see the prints and products that I have on hand, you are welcome to arrange that with me.

Thanks for all of your support! It helps keep me going on this journey to bring the outdoors into your home, so that you can revel in the beauty of our beautiful earth when you are in your sanctuary away from the craziness of the world. And please leave a comment on my site. My blog feels pretty lonely there without you!

Find Me on Instagram

Cuba's Infrastructure
~
When I visited Cuba in 2019, I met kind people who were willing to help me find anything, who always said hello, who care about each other, who gave #besitos the second time we met. I see the struggle for #humanrights and fina

Making tea for the winter!
~
#flowers #garden #tea #plants #gardening #poppy #fushcia #mint #astoriaoregon

Find my handmade PNW coasters stocked at these great places in Astoria this summer!

🌺 Gathered at 512 12th
🌊 SeaGypsy at 1001 Commercial St
🌈 West Coast Artisans at 160 10th

#handmade #gifts #gallery #shopping #nature #pnw #northwest #madeinoreg

Banana Slug Heros
~
This morning I found myself propped on my elbows in dewy grass around 6:15 am, capturing a view for a commission on Coxcomb Hill from a low angle. I noticed several of these crew hard at work, nibbling away at the invasive Scotch

One thing I would really like to stop this year is the use of the word "White" to describe skin color. It leaves me feeling like I have no identity. I have pigment. In fact, I am pale olive (kinda yellow) with freckles (dense pigment) and t

Great Horned Owl Rescue Story
~
What a strange coincidence today that I was working in a yard on the south slope and got a call to transport a great horned owl that had been caught in a volleyball net at a local school nearby! The construction worker

Intentions can be called prayers, wishes, hopes, dreams, thoughts, words, art, song, and vibes. I don't think personally it matters who you are talking to - the air, your god, a rabbit, through cigarette smoke... Intentions set our tone of thinking,

Lucifera + Fuschia + California Poppy + Peppermint Tea.... Colorful and handmade this summer from a Zone 8! Three of these plants were "discovered" as "volunteers" in the yard, the Lucifera was gifted from extra bulbs in another y

Johnny 5 says hi! Yep, that's the bridge the famous robot rolled on in the movie Short Circuit. If only lighting could also humanize dictators into being more human. (Lighting strike is how Johnny "came alive!")
~
Anyway, handmade Astoria b

There are a lot of beautiful things about Cuban culture that I experienced in 2019. One of them is that kids play in the streets at night. Es seguro? Si, es seguro. These kids said yes, it's safe to play outside at night. Thumbs up, we want to be fri

What do I write about when I am feeling a lot of personal peace in the life I've worked to carve out of trauma, when what's on my mind is also my concern for Cuban friends? Strangers across the world are just friends you haven't met yet.
~
I think i

Sunrise and coffee, a magical time of day. Coasters make great gifts and are made by hand (by me!) right here on the cruisin' Columbia River. Let me know if you need some! These are being stocked this week in shops across Astoria.
~
Etsy shop is open

Our Big Backyard, Spirograph Landscapes, Spring Shows, and Wholesale Newsletter

January 22, 2018 in art, northwest, photography, product design, wholesale

Our Big Backyard

If I could make it my job to play outside all day... I would. I'm trying. I suppose the best moments in my process are when I am discovering new vistas, soaking in the details, and wondering in awe over the geological clues of our very existence, present namely in rocks that I can observe with my naked eyes. I am no scientist, so I don't do air samples, core samples, water samples.... I'm no Ansel Adams with developing equipment in the back of a van, so I'm not gone weeks at a time making prints on the road. I just use my two eyes and dig into my curiosity using all the resources made available to me by scientists, researchers, and practicing photographers to do what I do and learn about my environment. It is a great, joyful method for me, and the real fun is in making a satisfying print that represents a place and becomes a definition of "place." That's my only job I give myself. I then share this with others in the form of products I design and traditional wall art, hoping that my images of the places you live in become the "spirit" of objects when you invest in my work.

Low tide and High tide side by side blog web.jpg

Cape Lookout

Funny thing that I realized on a recent hike where we took the wrong entry and ended up at the beach... is how temporary most of our landscapes really are here on the northwest coast! I took a trip to circle the entire Olympic Peninsula in November and later learned that that region is relatively new land on a geological timescale! This made me think more deeply about rock formations, and I love to look at rocks and even collect them. Well, on the more recent beach hike, which was actually a failed Cape hike (silly me, I led the expedition), I noticed something in the heaping cliff-side that rose high above us on the beach. A sediment layer of blackened everything - blackened soft sediment with hard rocks falling out and blackened tree roots. I looked up at the forest on the hiking trails, meters and meters above me, and noticed a living tree barely hanging onto the precipice, which was perfect for observing root length - they didn't go very deep! What this made me think was that the roots of the tree that I was looking at at my eye level had been buried by new sediment and were very old roots! I guessed first that maybe there was a fire and an earthquake that made this chunk of forest slide down into the ocean and turn black... had to wait till I drove home to do some research.

Well, I found two articles written about an area just a few miles up, as well as another Cape farther south, and I was onto something! It turns out that Oregon's sometimes extreme tidal erosion, of course, was responsible for these roots even being visible, but what was even cooler to learn was that landslides did in fact occur here, exposing "paleosols" (ancient soil deposits) with well-preserved tree trunks in just the right conditions. Scientists believe that these landslides occurred during a previous Ice Age, and just up the coast, similar preserved trees were carbon dated to over 38,000 years old. OMG! What a find! I got to touch them. I saw similar dramatic beach erosion when I lived on the southern coast of South Carolina in my early twenties, and it seems I find myself still attracted to some of the same things.

Spirograph Landscapes

Over the winter, the thought of doing Spirograph designs crept into me, and I went for it head on! It was fun to reconnect with a childhood "toy"... or really an engineer's "drafting aid" is what it was meant to be. These were originally designed in the 1880's by a British engineer, and they soon after were marketed as a toy! Boy would I love to see one of those, if I ever got to search some old attics in England! I drew spiro designs that stand alone on my newest handmade coasters and magnets, and I have just begun to incorporate them into my landscapes, too. I'm pushing out my first "test" designs of the mixed mediums on Facebook (here), and we will see where this goes! I'm curious to hear feedback on these designs... what do you think? Would anyone want them as record covers? Art prints? Pillows?

Spring Shows

January through April will be months for lots of social networking time, if you'd like to discuss my artwork in person. I will be showing for four solid months in Astoria, OR at Good to Go in January, at Three Cups during February and March, and at Cannon Beach Art Gallery in April. THEN it's time for spring shooting, so exciting!

Good to Go is at 1132 Commercial Street, Astoria, OR (thru Jan 31)

Three Cups is at 279 West Marine Drive, Astoria, OR (Feb 2 thru March 26)

Cannon Beach Art Gallery is at 1064 S. Hemlock Street, Cannon Beach, OR (March 29 thru April 30)

Wholesale Newsletter

I am also releasing my first wholesale newsletter-slash-catalog in late February, so if you are a retailer, gallery, hotelier, or business interested in adding my design products to your retail, go to the contact page and let me know with a quick email! I'm happy to do custom projects with my designs and photography.

As always, my work can be found on ETSY. You can contact me and follow my latest using Facebook or Instagram.

Find Me On Instagram

Read this blog on apple News! (iOS 9 or newer)