Cell Phones

In 1989 I got my first "car phone"...hard wired into my car. 300 minutes a month cost 300 dollars. Now, even though illegal, 3 out of 5 drivers I saw on the road today were chatting away, holding the phones to their heads, shaking their heads and laughing...frowning. Really, who is driving?

And I ate at the Northgate Nordstrom store where the food was excellent, the service was fast and courteous, and the music was fairly loud and annoying (to get you to move out and shop, perhaps) and the woman behind me, took a call on her cell..."HELLO!", she yelled? ARE YOU IN TOWN?" she continued, yelling..."I am so glad to talk to you!"

Louder than the obnoxious musac, so off I went, to my own car, where my cell phone is on mute.


Maybe it's only because I have had a phone in my car for 20 years (wow) that I find that others using theirs like every tiny unimportant conversation is necessary to take RIGHT NOW!...annoys me. But, really, do you need to yell in a restaurant? swerve on the highway? Sometimes I want to go back to the day when the phones were attached to a wall in a home. At least then, if you didn't want to hear someones conversation, you could leave them to their call. Now, they can just wander up and talk in your face.

Driftwood Days at the Beach

Here is a fine image of some driftwood heading past as the tide goes out.

Traffic in Seattle

Traffic!!! In Seattle. I think the traffic engineers should have to drive the roads they have planned work on, in a time-crunch-gotta-get-there way to see how super fine the plan is working out. Have you been on the West Seattle bridge lately? or driving to the stadiums lately?
Frustrating...

Desperate in Seattle

Carbon Footprint

I drove behind a car the other day, SUV style...and it was sporting a bumper sticker which read, "I offset my carbon footprint with TerraPass"...

So, I went online to check it out.

Kids and Art

My daughter needed to do a school project, decorate a t-shirt. She got out the marker pens and began. I suggested painting it with acrylics...and off we went to the studio. She mixed the color she wanted and practiced on one of my shirts that had an unfortunate stubborn stain. Here are a couple of images of the process.

Inviting kids into the studio is an excellent way to remember how easy it is to be creative.

Seeing Art

I recently took a class from Rita Natarova and it changed how I look at things. Granted, had I ever studied art formally, I would have learned this type of thinking and looking that the old masters used and students are taught, but, I'm a renegade, and have just lurched along, making art my way, and wondering why some of the things I make don't end up looking like I ha imagined.

There are edges, hard sharp edges of things, and soft edges, and shades of light to dark that I hadn't really notices before, and when artists hold out their paintbrushes and squint at things, I never really knew what they were doing. In fact, I was embarrased to ask in the class. Rita said, don't guess...everything is in front of you, just measure it. (How?)

Here are two pieces I made one before Rita's class, and one after, both worked on from the same sketch. I am improving! It's not too late to teach an old dog....