Not for sale. Phish and String Cheese Incident T-shirts, handmade designs.
Great American Road Trip
It has been an incredible journey, the last month since I left Oregon. I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset. I watched an old friend play music in Los Angeles and blow the crowd away. I acquainted myself with Las Vegas, thank you, once was enough. I had a picnic in the snow at the Grand Canyon. I passed by the Hoover Dam (missed the exit, Damn!). I moseyed up Canyon Road in Santa Fe in a faux fur coat and chatted up more than one gallery curator that seemed to think I could afford to buy something. I drove straight through the worst snow storm I’ve ever seen, on closed highways and icy frontage roads to get to Austin by Christmas Eve. I sat patiently in the hospital waiting room as my beautiful 
nephew, Henry David, came into the world and greeted him warmly with tears in my eyes and a stuffed monkey named Bongo. I danced down Bourbon Street in New Orleans with a sugary cocktail in my hand. And at last, I rang in the New Year with some of my very favorite people in St. Louis, to the masterful sounds of Umphrey’s McGee.
5,000 miles in two and a half weeks. I reconnected with old friends and new family and am only mildly sick of my music collection. Thank you Kathleen Mannis, Sam Daggett, Sat-Kaur Khalsa, Nick and Sarah Mandelberg, Caroline Strickland and Roger Linehan, Peggy Walton-Walker, Tim Maggio and The Schers for taking me in and making this whole silly shebang not only possible but damn fun too.
Now I find myself back at altitude in the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado. For the first time in four years I am experiencing an actual winter without running away to the tropics. (Not yet at least.) Next week I will be paying rent for the first time since 2008! I don’t know how the hell I get away with it but outlaw, vagabond, nomadic, gypsy wayfaring has somehow come naturally to me.
“What next?” is the question I always come back to. I truly have no idea. One foot in front of the other usually leads to something interesting, so I’ll start there. Taking time to write. Maybe picking up some banjo lessons. Building Bowrain a colorful little sister. Dreaming of beaches and palm trees. Snuggling with Grizzly, my favorite four-legged roommate. Enjoying having a kitchen and my own room while it lasts, and tentatively planning the next great adventure. I’ll keep you all posted from the edge.
“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” -Vonnegut
Filed under On the Road
Winter Solstice in Santa Fe
The Native American spirit is spilling out of every adobe doorway. Even the gravel on the sidewalk is calling to my ancient wolf mother psyche. The red clay earth and the woven afghans remind me of Kingsolver’s imagery and the homesick nostalgia therein. Home as the Earth. The source that we are so far removed from and so yearning to return to.
Stone walls and houses made with hands. Hands of your family. Hands of your neighbors. Villages, or Pueblos, pieced together, wall by wall. Room by room. To accommodate a community.
Once again I am overwhelmed by a hotspot of creative inspiration; an entire city, capital city no-less, totally devoted to making and sharing art.
Filed under On the Road
Sunshine Daydream
Utterly inspired. Honestly I came to LA expecting superficiality, skinny jeans, indie rock and egocentric superiority complexes and somehow I found something beautiful. Maybe I’m high on vitamin D. Maybe I am uncharacteristically over-emotional at the moment. Or maybe this bring-me-to-tears feeling of absolute creative inspiration is a legitimate reality. Maybe So-Cal is actually onto something… at least in a few select locations.
I am constantly in awe of how often I find myself in the right place/right time. Tonight has been no exception. I’ve found myself a private guest to a private and very special gathering honoring a truly incredible musician and featuring a few of his equally talented peers. An acoustic set in a living room overlooking the entirety of downtown Los Angeles.
California makes me high. It holds a place in my past, before a loss of innocence, before a confusing and stressful adolescence, before I ever experienced an actual winter. A golden state. Sunshine daydream, beaches, bicycles and poolside barbeques. I get so giddy when the temp stops climbing at a sublime 70 degrees and the palm trees sway at each overpass. The promise land. California. Where dreams come true. California. If not for the traffic, earthquakes and droughts I’d surely still be a California girl.
Sometimes the long and weary road seems daunting and sometimes it looks you right in the face and says, “You are on the right path, journey on. Now is the time, the time is now.”
Filed under On the Road, Uncategorized
Sad Little Clowny
This roller coaster life we love to live through. The glitter-gasms of another incredible burn fade into a harsh decompression this year. A carefree, love-crazed, giggling, jort wearing, rainbow clad clown has fallen back to earth. Back to the default world. Penniless with distant prospects. The gut wrenching heartache of love from a distance. Insatiable wanderlust. Getting deep into debt, just to look at the world from the bottom and say hello. Yes, of course it could be worse.
The view from the top is comfortable and full of possibilities but you really don’t appreciate that unless you go down once in a while. The happiness, the ease, the get up and go, the contentment you long for… it’s all perspective. So maybe we wallow in it. It can get the better of anyone, that sense of failure. What went wrong? Why do some people have it so easy? Where is my trust fund? Why do they get to fall in love with someone in the same zip code? But wallow forever? Of course not!
This life is a game and you have to play along. If you are afraid to try because you’re afraid to fail, FAIL! For heaven’s sake, fail a lot! Fail endlessly. Try things you suck at. Fall in love for the wrong reasons. Get into debt. Gamble your life away. Open your heart. Let it all fall down. Take risks. And laugh loudly when you make an ass of yourself, as expected. Because life is too short to play it safe and die wondering, “What if?”
What if I tried?
Filed under Burning Man
Kundalini: My First Burning Man Installation
Shadows
first assemblage
Fully strung
Kundalini
Rainbow Family Portrait
Night shot
Filed under Burning Man
Phish @ the Gorge 2011
Limited Edition Phish Print!
Made for the Gorge shows on August 5th and 6th, 2011.
$5 on lot, $15 on the interweb after the shows…
Filed under Uncategorized
Roadside Attraction…
Driving again. Driving a thousand miles across the country.
Through the rockies is one thing, its curvy, dangerous, sunbeams cut jagged and dramatic scenes into the barren chasms so you feel the grandiosity of the land. You feel like an explorer.
Then there is Kansas. God almighty. Hallowed be thy flatness. Anti abortion campaigns litter the billboards. One particularly hilarious sign promises you forgiveness from the lord and suggests foregoing pornography. This sign is conveniently placed about 200 feet in front of an adult super store. Ah, the will of some to save others is inspiring, or something.
Miles and miles of driving alone gives one a good handle on what good driving looks like. I’ve promised myself time and again that next trip I am making a sign! It’ll read, “I’m on cruise control! Try Harder!” For all those Sunday drivers that just have to pass you only to change back into your lane and slow down, over, and over, and over again. It does give you time to inspect their situation however. I find myself wondering about these trans-speed strangers. Why do they have so much stuff? Or where is all their stuff? Have they ever left Kansas I wonder? Where is their mother? Are you going where I’m going? Have you ever been in love? Has he ever washed that windsheild? People watching is one way to pass the time on a long and lonely drive.
Sometimes I make up stories about them. That was Jeff, the neurosurgeon, out on his day off, heading to Topeka to pick up some research results that will prove his thesis on brain entrainment.
Or hey! There goes Jackie, late for band practice because she’s been rolling around with Brad in the barn again. That devious grin on her 16 year old face. Saucy minx.
If there’s one thing I’m great at it’s the age old act of A to B. Dehydrating myself accidentally because I only let myself stop once every 300 miles. Gotta make good time. Some say that getting there is half the fun, but something tells me that Ricky the 600 pound prairie dog isn’t quite worth the stop. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s more to Kansas than this flat, dismal, hayfield with a sweet story about a girl who found her way out once. To a magical land that just isn’t Kansas!
Welcome to Missouri. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Filed under On the Road
Electric Forest Print 2011
11″x17″ Colored Pencil and Ink on Paper
$5 for sale in Rothbury Michigan during Electric Forest Festival
$15 for sale after the event.
Held June 30th – July 3rd 2011
Leftover prints will be on sale here after the festival.
Filed under Art
