Meet and greet/winding down

Today was Open Studios at Caldera. The weather was perfect and lots of folks came for performances, readings and studio visits. Last day in the studio tomorrow, then packing and cleaning for departure before dawn on Tuesday morning...

Caldera's director opens the event in the Grand Room

dance performance

in the studio...

In the studio...

I have just about a week left here, and so much has happened in the studio that I can hardly believe it. I came here with 3 projects that I really wanted to work on, not realizing that each was just at the most difficult point. So getting started was difficult, but now all 3 are roaring along...

I spent the first 2 weeks working on a new artist's book called "Mansion of Happiness", based on Victorian board games that I photographed several years ago at the American Antiquarian society. Most of them deal with vagaries of fate and fortune, and as I worked with the images I realized I was thinking a lot about our economy, unemployed friends, and people who have lost their homes and that proverbial American Dream.

Working on this meant days and days on the computer, so last week as that first draft started to come together I stepped away to work on collages based on Victorian wallpaper (there's a theme here...). This work stems directly from what I was doing in Wyoming, but moving into more abstraction (abstraction! I thought it was dead...) and color. In the end they are just plain fun to make, and that alone is enough right now. There are lots of pleasures in studio work, but not too many times that it is straight-out fun! I will make layered encaustic pieces out of these in the end, so everything is in sketch form so far.

My collage work has slowed radically in the last few days, as a combination of too much shoveling and too much paper cutting has made an old carpal tunnel problem flare up again. So I'm turning my focus this week to writing and my third project (not in any way Victorian in genesis), an artist's book that I started in Ireland last summer about my mother's illness and death from Alzheimer's. With all the images done, it has been waiting for a text, and at last that is beginning to happen. I've been working my way through the library's poetry collection, reading and writing every day.

As we go into the last week, I'm realizing that the solitude here has really helped my focus, keeping me in the "zone" through the day. Later this week we will all prepare for Open Studios on Saturday, which sometimes attracts a very large crowd. And one of our dancer's troupe will arrive to work with her, and the Caldera staff will be convening for a weekend retreat, so the vibe will change a lot in a few days. Then it will be time to pack (again??) and head out.

This morning, more snow, now rain... snow/rain/rain/snow, the sun was out yesterday!

The Mansion of Happiness

Starting to use all that studio space—

Let it snow!

I came here expecting a lot of snow, and for the first week and a half there wasn't any... but things have certainly changed! It started snowing on Saturday afternoon and has not really stopped since. In total I'd say we've gotten 2 feet, and this morning it had changed to rain and sleet. We are expected to shovel the walks (yesterday I did that 4 times!), so I'm getting my exercise that way, since walks in the woods are over, I'd guess. When I could see the storm coming in on Saturday, I dashed out for a walk around Suttle Lake. It was ferociously windy, but beautiful—the wind had pushed all the ice that was starting to form to the far end of the lake, piling it up on the shore and swelling in waves against itself. The sound was unearthly, like a million shells rattling.

News from the studio soon, lots happening there (what else is there to do besides shovel???)...

Before the snow...

A high peak (Washington?) glimpsed from a hike up the hills

path around Suttle Lake

Ice on Suttle Lake

The last time I saw the sun (Sunday)

Out and About: The Three Sisters (and Sisters, OR)

On Saturday we ventured into town (Sisters), about 20 minutes from Caldera, to do errands and get oriented to the area. The town is cute, very touristy, as it caters to visitors to summer and winter resorts in and around the Cascades. The biggest employers are the resorts and the Forest Service, followed closely by the school system. We found everything we needed there (hardware store, used books, and good coffee, all the essentials for artists). There's a wild west theme here, with some authentically old west buildings, and many new ones that mimic that style. Sisters is named for the Three Sisters, high peaks in the Cascade range. The other thing that Sisters seems to be known for is a huge summer quilt festival, with many avid quilters both locally and nationally coming to town to display quilts all over town.

The former Sisters Hotel, one of the oldest buildings in town

outside the health food store...

mural

The Cascades from Sisters—the ones in the middle are the Three Sisters

Hiking the rim

Today was a beautiful sunny and warm day, so I set out with one of the other artists and hiked the rim of the caldera for which this place is named. It cradles Blue Lake and is a volcanic crater, so the lake is very deep. I'm hoping to get out a lot more this week, as at any time the hiking may become impossible due to snow. So far so good...

Back to blogging—Greetings from Oregon!

It has been a while since I've updated, since I've been at home, working hard in the studio on production. It's been busy, busy, busy, but very productive.

After an incredibly long day traveling (4 flights and 5 airports in one day!), I arrived two nights ago at Caldera, an artist residency in the Cascade Mountains in central Oregon. I flew into Redmond, where it is pretty flat, but as we drove through Sisters and on to Caldera I could feel the land rise into the mountains (I arrived after dark, so did not get a good look at the surrounding countryside­­­­­­--more on that later.) Signs along the way urge motorists to put on chains, since after Caldera it goes on up into a high mountain pass. It is beautiful here, surrounded by National Forest land, and very peaceful and quiet. I’m living in a cozy A-frame cabin with a woodstove and they have given me one of two enormous studios. I’m not sure quite how I will use all the space, but so far the downstairs is my collage studio and the upstairs my computer space. An amazing luxury! There are 4 of us here, 2 visual artists and 2 writers, with a couple of dancers arriving mid-month. We were welcomed with wine and snacks and a blazing fire in the Hearth Building, a huge central building used for large groups and classes. 

Caldera is a little different than most residencies in that in addition to the artist residency program in the winter, they have extensive art programming in the summer for disadvantaged inner-city kids. As a result there’s a camp feeling to the place. They’ve recently acquired an adjacent property that was a church camp, and that’s being renovated to add to facilities for programming as well as occasionally rented out to groups for retreats and such.

It is cold but not too bad, and not much snow on the ground, a surprise, as I was expecting a lot. But I'm sure it will come…

En route, sunrise in Detroit (shooting through glass with wire mesh—weird!

My cabin—not the finest architectural design...

but pretty cozy inside!

the Hearth Building

Hearth Building: massive and better designed...

the studios, mine on the left

the lower level of my studio ("beauty" is left over from some previous tenant)