the Nuthatch Intimidation Dance is a masterclass in chutzpah. objectively they are just pointy little anger puffs way outmatched by the average woodpecker, but BOY do they sell it. 🪶

Back east, my mom put up a suet feeder, and the drama was incredible 🪶

Anyway, it was a weird, exhausting holiday weekend, and if any of the handful of really nice people who stopped by my table are on bluesky, thank you for buoying my spirits.

people keep asking how long a print took to make, *not counting the photography*, and going forward I think I will simply decline to exclude that from my answer. While I loved spending three hours in a frigid lake with <5 feet of visibility, the print wouldn’t exist without that effort.

Seattle: I’m teaching a photo cyanotype workshop in October! After learning the basics, students will use their own photos to create fine art cyanotypes, and also take home their transparencies for use in future printmaking. The class is beginner-friendly 🦋. www.studiopianonobile.com/shop/the-cya...

A new piece from my recent freshwater snorkeling adventures! I could only see a few feet in front of my face, and I’m pleased with how the print conveys the eerie flickering light. Photo cyanotype on mulberry paper.

As we say... If your Beak is a Spear then your tongue must be an Arrow!

a four-second emotional journey from "the heron looks so lovely in the peaceful morning light" to "I guess I knew on some level that their tongues must be very long and pointy. but I didn't, like, viscerally understand it until now." 🪶

it's real, I witnessed it: a hummingbird vs. butterfly throwdown in which the butterfly won

traces of blöödchëëp remain 🪶

we missed a zucchini

cower before the great golden eye

Tomorrow evening (8/13) is my last cyanotype scarf workshop for a while 🦋. After this, the next scarf printmaking class is on December 17th. To sign up for tomorrow’s class: www.studiopianonobile.com/shop/the-cya...

saw a BEAUTIFUL WEASEL

the otters were eating some very flamboyant fish; maybe sculpin, but what manner of sculpin?

we’re gay ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

The shorebird art scarf is finished! Cyanotypes from my photographs of sandpipers and terns in flight, on artisan-handwoven mulberry silk, completely hand-sewn by me. This one turned out more of a sky blue.

Last night’s workshop was amazing? I taught a private cyanotype class for a group of interior designers from JAS, and the intricate patterns they created were beyond stunning. The arrangements were so pretty, I almost didn’t want to remove them so we could finish the scarves.

A little work in progress, featuring my friend the heron

THE SWANS ARE FINISHED (cyanotype on mulberry silk, completely hand-sewn, from my photographs of trumpeter swans in the Skagit Valley)

I’ve been quiet because I was frantically catching up on prep for all of the events in the last two weeks, having unexpectedly lost time earlier this month; everything was absolutely great and I’ve spent the last day and a half sleeping.

Some recent cyanotype silk pieces! I’m really proud of the big two-sided egret scarf, which I sewed by hand. It’s on silk satin, so had to be hemmed before printing to prevent fraying, which is always a little nerve-wracking.

me: “I’m having so much trouble with words and concepts; it weirdly reminds me of migraine prodrome?” narrator, every time: “it was migraine prodrome”

freshly printed muppet

July events! Phinneywood Art Walk at Piano Nobile, Making Local Market in Bothell, and Urban Craft Uprising at Magnuson Park (Sunday only).

scarf soup

I am very very behind on making new work for upcoming shows but finally managed to coat a sheet of this fabulous Italian cotton watercolor paper for what I hope will be a pretty cool print.

Is it lingering deep tiredness from covid, a spot of depression, or both?

I went back to Pike today, and would like to thank all the My Chemical Romance concert-goers visiting Seattle for bringing excellent vibes.

I seem to have successfully muted whatever the actual discourse is, but re: artist income, almost none of the Seattle artists I know are able to charge minimum wage for the real time they spend working. If they can, it’s typically because they spent a lot of money on space/equipment to work faster.

I’ve got a show downtown for Art Walk Edmonds! A collection of my favorite pieces from this year are on view on the gallery wall at Edmonds Vision Center.

our new roommate is a yellow-legged mud dauber wasp

I didn’t announce because I wasn’t sure if I could physically hang even a small show, but because my host business very, very, very kindly helped me get the art onto the wall, but: I’ve got a show at Art Walk Edmonds this month!

worm question from a worm pleb: I’ve been wondering about the structural rainbow shimmer you see on the segments of polychaete worms. Does that help make them more cryptic in the water? In worms with more complex eyes, could the rainbow disco sparkle mean something to other worms?

what’s interesting about the covid fatigue is that it’s similar (identical?) to the bizarre fatigue I get with bad migraine flares? Not necessarily tired in a sleepy way or a just-exercised way; it simply feels like the strength has left my body. Often I’m wide awake but made of overcooked noodles.

July Events: 7/18 6-9 pm and 7/19 12-5 pm: Phinneywood Art Walk studio sale, Piano Nobile, Phinney Center 7/23: Scarf printmaking workshop, Piano Nobile, Phinney Center 7/26: Making Local Market, downtown Bothell 7/27: Urban Craft Uprising Summer Show, Sunday Sprouts (outdoors), Magnuson Park

exciting: today I’m gonna try sitting in a recliner instead of laying in bed, and if that goes well, working on the hem of an art scarf I started before departing!

who wore it better

so in twenty years we’re going to be awash in long labubus, right

I’ve eaten multiple meals today and I’m able to be on my feet and do stuff for short intervals!

An attempt to look on the bright side: I guess if we were going to get covid, at least we got it doing a once-in-a-lifetime thing that was also a rare chance to be with my parents and siblings all together?

Florence has a museum dedicated to pietre dure, the traditional art of stone inlay, and one of my favorite things in it was this geometer moth. It’s simple, but just through the artist’s choice of stone, you can tell perfectly what it’s meant to be.

Today has been a “struggling to finish some cheerios because if I don’t eat something, my reaction to the next dose of paxlovid will be even worse” sort of day

paxlovid mouth is like if a brass key died like an organic creature and I left the corpse out for about three days, then ate it

hello we are very sleepy but paxlovid seems to have broken my fever! at the minor cost of paxlovid mouth

Welp! After avoiding it all this time, Covid got us. (We took our usual many precautions, but the major risk factor was of course my whole family staying together in a house.) We’re pretty sick and it’s not great.

for some reason they have been trying for a solid week to build a nest on this roof beam. it is not going well, but here they are, globs of mud in their beaks, persevering. 🪶

baby swallow drama 🪶

rails of the renaissance

the highlight of the galleria palatina for us was actually the inlaid stone tables. look at those house sparrows??