
Saturday, July 31, 2010

Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Monday, July 26, 2010

Finally getting around to sitting down to work today. Major storms roared through yesterday afternoon, knocking out power here and there and everywhere it seemed. Mine came back on mid morning today after a rather sultry night. So, not much time in on this one, but she's got a nose and some horns and a very interesting smile! I seem to be in cow mode for the time being. Not a bad place to be, all things considered.
Thursday, July 22, 2010

Saturday, July 17, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010

Somewhere around quarter past four, he became aware that he was awake, looking over at the bedside clock. Not sure what had awaken him, he listened to the night sounds for a bit, trying to go back to sleep. It wasn't working. But then he must have momentarily drifted back to sleep only to wake again, roll over and spy the clock once again to note the time to be a bit before five. The birds would start their morning songs soon, he thought, and then it would be even harder to get back to sleep.
So there he lay, listening to the soft whir of the fan blades as they cut through the air above him, his eyes slowly beginning to close. Suddenly, there came a sound, a strange middle of the night sound that immediately brought him to full wakefulness. The sound seemed to be accompanied by movement and he was instantly thinking, 'I must be asleep and dreaming or . . . this is an earthquake'!
There had been only one other time in his life when he had felt a similar feeling, sensed a similar anxiety, and that was when he was vacationing in San Francisco maybe forty years earlier. On that particular morning, waking from a good night's sleep in the Saint Francis Hotel in downtown, listening to the clickity clack of the cable cars coming and going five stories below his open window, he suddenly felt his bed move and things began to shutter and shake in the room around him. It lasted only a moment, but he knew, he knew he had experienced his first earthquake. And where better to have that first experience but in the town most famous for it's quakes!
So, here he was all those years later, experiencing the same internal, momentary anxiety, as the roar, now very apparently coming from the ground beneath his neat little brick house grew louder as it seemed to travel underground, shaking everything in his house. He thought it was going to go on and on, but it must have only lasted a few seconds, as the roar intensified as it passed beneath him and he could hear it diminish as it moved further on, further down his neighborhood street and toward the direction of the nation's Capital.
He lay there, wondering if he had actually really just experienced what he thought he had just experienced. Or, was it all a dream? It was more than an hour before he must have fallen back to sleep, an hour in which all sorts of thoughts ran through his head . . . 'would there be more shocks? . . . what about the gas lines? . . . would he wake in the morning and read about a city in ruins'?
Finally, he must have drifted off again as when he finally opened his eyes, focusing on the digital read out of his bedside clock, it was about a quarter to nine. He went downstairs into the kitchen, after first hitting the 'on' button for his computer, and started to boil water for his first cup of morning tea. A bagel popped up in the toaster, he neatly spread each half with cream cheese, filled his mug with hot water, swirling the tea bag to begin the infusion and headed for his computer screen.
And, there it was . . . news all about the early morning quake that had been centered in a town not fifteen miles from his neat little neighborhood on the outskirts of Washington DC. The news said it 'hit' at 5:04, he nodded his head; the news said there was little damage but for shaken psyches, he nodded his head. 'Wow!', he thought . . . he had just experienced his second earthquake, this one occurring in a place where he never would have assumed he would have experienced it! 'Pretty cool', he thought, as he sipped his tea, starting his day just as he had started the day before and how he would start his day again the day after, but with thoughts and memories of that morning back at the Saint Francis Hotel many years before.
Monday, July 12, 2010


Sunday, July 11, 2010

Notice arrived this weekend from North Light Books that two of my works, In the Midday Heat and Close of Day, are to be included in next year's publication of Strokes of Genius 3: Fresh Perspectives. I'm thrilled with this news, coming on the heels of last fall's publication of the second in the Strokes series in which five of my works were included. Publication is set for October of next year, which seems like a long way out, but there will be much prep and prelim stuff going on over the next ten or twelve months, so never too soon to begin. As time approaches for the release of the book next year, I will post again and have signed copies available direct from my studio.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Monday, July 05, 2010

So, what is the perfect thing to do on the 5th of July? Why, it's to go peeping! Spent a half hour getting some much needed and very fine reference material this morning of week-old peeps, or as I like to call them, chicklets. I have no doubt at all that these little ladies are going to show up in drawings rather soon. Just about getting to the last few hours of work on the current piece on the board, which I have not posted any in-progress shots of, but will post the completed work when done. Hope all enjoyed a lively 4th!
Friday, July 02, 2010

Thursday, July 01, 2010
