A Bit Like She-Ra

 A few days ago this mug arrived via post, straight from 1986.  It's nostalgic like wearing silver moon boots with your pink ballet tutu.  It makes me feel a little bit like She-Ra, my ultimate childhood hero, and of Rainbow Bright (I'm reminded of the day I lost her fuzzy little rainbow friend at the laundry mat - this was one of those traumatic 5 year old tragedies that haunted me for years).  All I really wanted back then was a white unicorn with a multi-colored mane.  And maybe to find out that I was actually a princess, but if not, meh.  Truly I wanted to be a warrior more.  

So tell me, because now I'm curious: IF you were there, what was your best memory of the 80's?

By the power of Grayskull,

~ Umber ~

Ah!

And p.s...

I've just placed a handful of Traveler Earrings in the shop for your flirty lobes!

p.s.s.

I just realized this was my 500th bloggity blog post!

And of all the deep things, artsy things, things of beauty and life, I hit this mini monument talking about She-Ra.  So freaking awesome.

Sharing the Afternoon

If you were here right now...

First off, I would offer you a Friday afternoon cocktail.  You see, I have these little cans of cane sugar tonic for my g&t's and they are the perfect size to split.  Then we'd cruise out to the garden, blue glasses clinking, and squeeze every single sugar snap pea.  I'd offer you one of the first golden "sweet 100s" cherry tomatos and we'd comb the blueberries bushes (unsuccessfully I might add, as I raided them heavily this morning but I wouldn't want to crush your spirit, so I'd let you look.  I know how you feel about blueberries).

We'd come back into the cool of the kitchen and I'd put this album on the speakers, turned up loud.  I'd tell you about my run with the dogs this morning, out behind the quarry, where yellow was the color of the day.  Goldfinch, Tanagers, western tiger swallowtail butterflies, and huge puffy blooms of a wildflower I don't know.  

By this time Freyja would have licked your hand clean and Sancho would have smeared some nasty jowlie slobber across your knees (but I know you and I know you'd forgive him because he's so flipping adorable).

I'd drag you upstairs into the studio, dislodge a kitty boy and plop down in my ratty old chair.  I'd show you the big painting, the one with the barn own, the one I think might be titled "homage" and we'd both look thoughtfully at it, still crunching the last of the peas.  I'd show you my new favorite paint color, unapologetically crusted around the edges of my nails and if you were game, I'd make you finger paint right along side me.

We'd listen to birdsong and laugh at the doves who occasionally sit on the studio window ledges and peer in with their tiny heads.  I'd show you my collection of blue feathers, every one a lucky day, and have you try on the rings and necklaces in varying stages of doneness on the bench.  We'd talk about the future and how on earth do we keep ourselves in the present when change looms ahead.

Later I'd offer you a sweater and we'd drive out to a high cliff, one I just discovered, that juts out above the ocean.  From there we could look down on the birds, cross our fingers for a colorful sunset and sit in silence because there is nothing more beautiful than sharing silent awe with a friend.

Salut my friends!

~ Umber ~

The Whats and The Wheres

I love the pacific coast.  I mean that with every stitch of my soul.  I have water in my veins and simply can't imagine a life without rivers and seas and lakes all converging.  Sunday evening I grabbed my camera and strolled out through the Mendocino Headlands.  This particular section of coast is devastatingly beautiful, hard and merciless in storms, elegantly rugged, and breathtaking enough to bring one to their knees.  Pelicans dot the sky like sheet music and quail are tame enough to scold your footsteps.
It's Magical with a capitol M.
* * *

Monday morning I pulled over on a high cliff where wild arugula clung perilously one hundred feet above the rocky surf.  It was so... big.  The sky, the sea, the mountains rising sharply behind, the enveloping scent of eucalyptus and salt.  I wanted to photograph it for you, to try and explain what it feels like to stand on the very edge of the West and feel the infinite possibilities of breath but when I looked at the images later, they fell short.  Kind of like trying to paint the full spectrum of a rainbow with a single tube of blue paint.  You need to see it for yourself.  I say this to plant the seed in your mind; write it on your bucket list: visit the wilds of Northern California.

* * *

 These dirty hands are my personal stamp of artistry, and pages upon pages of drawings tribute to the richness of the land.  And chroma, oh the scope and mind-blowing possibilities of chroma.  I am the kid in the candy shop.  The one who did get that whiskey neat after all.
I should mention that this past weekend was officially a "research, development, collection and education" weekend.  For that I have you wonderful friends to thank; this spring and summer has been my time to invest in myself.   By that I mean taking business funds, ALL thanks to your gorgeous support, and reinvesting them in education and tool expansion.  There is no way this would have been possible without you.  And I want you to know I am endlessly grateful and that I will squander color, never hoard it.  You have my promise.
~ Umber ~

Good Friday to you!
Where ever you are, what ever you find yourself doing, I hope the breeze that sweeps through your bones smells like the sea.

I'm off for a long weekend away, filled with the promises of personal expansion, new techniques, communion with a soul sister and if I'm reeeeeeeal good, a neat whiskey in a victorian bar.
See you next week!

Painty-rific

~ firstly ~

I need to say thanks be to you.  All those gorgeous comments, convos and emails about the Travelers collection?  They BOUYED my heart like a big ol' hot air balloon.  Ladies, you got style.  You really do.

~ secondly ~
The muse has been here.  For days upon glorious days (as well as nights upon nights of utter sleeplessness as I can not stop working through thoughts and shapes and images and colors and...) she has breathed a fire into my fingers and the world has been a whirlwind of chroma.  It should be noted here that I have been painting for over a decade now, first as a student, then as an amateur and now [as  I would gladly label myself] a professional.  In all that time I have never, EVER worked in acrylic paint.  Not once.  Even those very first AWFUL still-life-of-toilet-paper-on-crappy-panels-pun-intended-that-I-threw-in-the-dumpster-and-six-months-later-found-my-neighbor-had-retrieved-and-hung-in-her-bathroom (yes, this is real) were in oil.  Along the way I picked up watercolor and a whole number of stigmas and prejudices about acrylic.  Silly untruths handed down by traditionalist painters such as "you'll never achieve the same luminosity in acrylic" or "everything you do will look like plastic" or "oils and watercolors are the only mediums for intellectuals."
Well I'm finally calling bullshit.
I'm digging around and looking to rid myself of these prickly, binding beliefs that I don't believe.   So I dug in with both hands, cave woman style, finger painting, squatting on the floor, smearing ultramarine across my temple, swinging canvases, letting paint pool and run and drip.  I drove emergency style to pick up a few more canvases after the first four had been covered.  Food, sleep, showering, whatever.  Halos and pale drifting lotus petals are far more interesting.
To paint so freely feels like shaking off rust I didn't even know was there.
Can I get an amen?

~ thirdly ~
We screamed and hooted and roared for three hours straight on Saturday night at the Humboldt Roller Derby double header between the home and Sacramento teams.  Which brings me to the all important question: IF you were a derby girl, what would your name be?  I debated over a few (including such gems as "seal clubber" and "tank-a-ray" before coming up with the bell ringer:
"The Umber-Taker"
Come on, you know that's good.  BC landed on "Bustin' Chops" (not surprisingly for those that know him) and we both nearly decided to take up the skates.
* * *

Happy Monday you cheeky little chickadees!
~ Umber ~