Month: July 2025

It is close enough to three o’clock in the afternoon on a Sunday here. So far today I have balanced the books, cleaned up the kitchen, participated in the family call, and done my balancing exercises. That was all before noon. Since then I have worked in the studio, listened to a novella on audiobooks, done all my workout exercises plus the balance ones again. Now I have a glass of wine and am seated back in the studio.

While we (or at least I) are talking alcohol, let me show you my negroni from two nights ago.

What I have finally settled on for a recipe is as follows:

Over ice in a Tom Collins glass pour

1 1/2 oz gin (this is a good place to use the “flowery” ones because then you won’t be tasting the flower bed in a more martini-type drink.

1 1/2 oz sweet vermouth

1 oz Campari (if you go with most recipes this would be the same amount as the vermouth and gin) But it tastes like chewing on grapefruit peels if you go with that recommendation.

One hefty slice of orange or a carefully shaved peel.

Sit down, sip slowly, and don’t even think of fixing another!

Yesterday and today I worked on an idea for illustrations for my next book by S. Webster. I am titling it Connections. So far 35 new poems, 6 essays and 5 short stories. I would like to have a couple more short stories but find heat and humidity are not conducive to staying on track. We will see how it goes.

Anyway, here are the first illustrations which may only be used as breaks between three sections of the book and another for cover art. I enjoyed the process of combining graphite, watercolor wash, and stitched textiles. I like the stone’s dependency on both the support of sticks and comfort of cloth.

 

 

When I finish and photograph each one, I will adjust contrast and see how well they can be reproduced. The scraps of cloth are quite fiddly to hold onto but stitching bits together is so comforting a pastime.

I will do several so I have a good selection because once photographed and looked at closely, I can see better choices could have been made. It will keep me busy for awhile. After that, it is all about putting the book together.

I have managed another couple of pages in the leaves section of the six-way book.

On another note:

It is hard being optimistic in the United States anymore. We have reached such a new low every day with no way of digging our way out. The world as a whole, finds us much less than what we used to be. More than half the population here is disgusted with the ignorance and arrogance of those who continue to support their choice to lead our country. It doesn’t seem to matter that he is a sex-offending felon, has a deplorable cabinet of sycophants that are hell-bent on protecting their golden calf to line their pockets and promote their Nazi-like agenda. Who in their right mind is not physically sick at the look and sound of Stephen Miller pushing an agenda of pure evil? Thank you, Scotland, for your opposition to his being there. Only thing better would be to send him off to the Hague for crimes against humanity. Thank you to those in this country who ask Maga hat wearers where they get the nerve to eat in Mexican restaurants. And thank you to the women in Home Depot parking lots trying their best to help and put ICE agents in their place while grabbing workers out of cars to send wherever they choose.  Thanks to our less-than-stellar Supreme Court decisions to protect the president, only he will escape culpability….all those around him should look to getting a lawyer lined up for when this nightmare ends. “I was only following orders” does not work. Just ask the last group of Nazis.

I need to fill my wine glass and punch the bag again today.

Til later….

 

 

 

“Whatever you’re disappointed in can be upgraded by lowering your level of satisfaction.”

Without fail that is what I told my students who were forever complaining about the outcomes of their efforts in class. Most of the time it had to do with skills not yet mastered.

Improving one’s skill level takes time….lots of time….and effort that week-long workshops on personal expression did not have sufficient time to master once a commitment had been made. So, let’s say a student with no book making experience wanted to make a book to record visual ideas for a series of work. There is no time to teach them how to make a perfect book, but there is time to get them to understand that progressive sheets of paper held together by any means necessary, say, stitch, staples, glue, etc., is exactly what is “good enough” to get on with recording ideas.

As I age and watch my own skills succumb to accumulating limitations, I am happy to truly believe in the merits of lowering my level of satisfaction. My former skills in drawing are not going to suddenly reappear. If it is just a graphite pencil, there is always the eraser to help. But light pencil sketches to lay in unforgiving water colors is another matter. Remember the six-way opening book? First a section on wildflowers.

Then 72 pages of butterflies in the next section…

Then on to a section of just leaves.

And I keep going with this section…..now as of this morning up to page 44 of the 72 in this section…..and I am beginning to see a bit of decline in acuity.

But here is the good part. I love trying to get the leaves onto a page. And I always find something good about each one. Not least of which is that I did it! There is still one more narrow section to fill with 72 images of something and then the two full square sections (one of which has been committed to nests and eggs and probably feathers. I am determined to fill this entire book of pre-gessoed pages that began as a promise to myself to fill with Nature images.

The weather is hot and humid. Both those physical conditions paired with the total desperate insanity of leadership in our slowly tanking country keep me mostly hunkered down here at home in my sketchbooks and writing. I wrote about the weather and myself in this latest poem.

My View           S. Webster

 

It’s raining

Again.

Hard, heavy, wet.

Much like buckets

being emptied

just outside

my window.

Until the sun says,

“Stop!”

And forces the water

underground

or into rising steam.

Then

just as the sun

claims victory,

clouds conspire

to fill

their buckets.

Plans are

altered by

disappointment

to all but

those of us

inside,

looking out,

and trusting

nothing.

 

Friday night a friend took me to dinner and we started with double servings of Tom Collins cocktails. The dehydrated orange slices add nothing to the drink but a pleasing appearance. Cut wedge or peel would have done more for these very sweet drinks.

The view needed no improvements.

So that is it for now. I need to get on toward my step goal for the day and try to get a balance/confidence workout in before stopping for the day with a scotch and slow trip of memories.

Til later…..

I had bought several Lights of Sweden spots for over art works. Patrick helped me get them all hung in the best places. Then looking around, I asked him to help me move some art to different rooms. Mainly I wanted to get my stitched pieces into the studio where I could get closer to them.

A bit more shuffling pieces in the den by spotting the South African faces now hanging on each side of the window and moving the four egg tempera of Australian collected bits over near the door into the room, and there was the addition of the story of Malvern, Arkansas, told to me and recorded onto a cocktail napkin at a bar in Houston, Texas, that now hangs over my office desk. Lastly, over the couch/hide-a-bed hangs the Lost Peaces collage work now.

The result is that all of the egg tempera farm series and a couple more larger ones are now owned by Patrick and Marla. I promised no more moving artwork now that all are where I can see them better.

The very first thing he did was hang my new punching bag. I love this and manage to give it a good whack whenever I get in or out of my car. Plus the times when the garage is cooler and he and I can go a few rounds.

After countless more small jobs around the house and a small party to meet up with a couple of neighbors, we ordered take out from our favorite local restaurant. Oyster shooters, crab cakes, soups, popovers, scallops, potatoes, asparagus, and wine.

Then Patrick was off home on Saturday and I went to the Festival on the Square to practice being social and buying two pieces of Mexican street corn and some books by local writers.

I need to get back to my own writing but the heat and humidity slows my brain. So, with basket makers in Tasmania gathering over the weekend, I got busy drawing in The Gathering Book. I wanted to draw my Buddha bamboo for the book. Did you know that the only Buddha bamboo I could find on Google has squatted bulges, one on top of the other? Absolutely none like what Lee and I brought home from Japan in 1998. Ours alternates the bulges and I love the shape and feel of it!

Then a bit more “avoiding writing time” to work on drawing a nest a neighbor gave me. I am now starting the first of the two larger books in the six-way sketchbook.

After working an entire afternoon on this nest, I think I will go back to water colors. But this is okay for the introduction page. I am expecting myself to be much better at drawing and painting. Not as easy as it once was…before being eighty-one!

Later this week I am meeting an old friend for lunch to catch up on the lives we live now.

This morning I beat up the bag for a while and went through all my balance and breathing exercises.  Now I need to get the last 2,000 steps in before having a bit of libation.

Til later….

Different neighbor set off fireworks this year. And in the morning tidy hay bales fill the field.

Patrick arrived yesterday in time to go to wine tasting. A very fun evening of good company and some very nice wines that needed to be ordered for holiday consumption.

This morning we got busy on his list of almost ten things to do around here…adjust refrigerator doors, re-pound nails in the door of antique Chinese cabinet, adjust the bidet I installed by 1/2″ (it makes a difference!), sharpen all knives, replace nozzle on kitchen faucet, remove sticker from toilet in guest bathroom, replace furnace/AC filter in ceiling, check ceiling vents to make sure they were open, and most important of all was hang the punching bag he brought down for me. Here it is in place in the garage…

And with accessory he brought down to help me punch harder and longer….

This little juvenile bluebird showed up for a visit.

And this got my attention after my PT rearranged the cushions on the bench by the front door.

Seems you can herd cats by carrying a multi-tipped whip and putting a fish on your head.

It is very hot and humid here so we are staying indoors and having salad for dinner. First I have a PT session, then a drink before dinner. The last thing on the list is hanging artwork spot lights. We have to wait for it to be dark first. Tomorrow we are going to rearrange some artwork and package some up for him to take back home.

Tomorrow just a few friends are coming over to meet Patrick, talk about wood turning and Harley Davidson motorcycles. An interesting evening for sure.

That is about it for now. My 7,000 step goal is close and should be met by the time I dance around getting punches in.

Til later…