"Hanami - Coming to you" by Mara Cozzolino

Image posted with the permission of the artist. See more of Mara Cozzolino's artwork on either her Etsy store of her Blog.

This is one of those moments when I lose my sense of not only place and time but who I am. The weight of things doesn't matter. We might as well be on the moon. We might as well be in a dream. I see you moving toward me. Now I hear the swooshing sound of your skirt as you walk. And now I feel the air being pushed around by your movements. Wait, I'm being pulled back to earth, back to the waking world. I feel my feet hitting the pavement, smell the crisp, cool air, hear the pleasant chatter of people. But I don't want to leave, and I don't want to come back. I just want anonymously to drift in the spaces in between.

"Cats In the Trees" by Eileen Mayo

Are we one or two as we slink around the trees?

Up one, down one. Where is sky and ground? I cannot see. The leaves obscure our vision. But gaze on, we do, as if we have a view.

Shadows patch the branches like floating ghosts or overgrown amoebae. And as we move, our stripes slither as if they are their own living beings.

"Outside Stood An Old Fellow Chopping Wood" by Betsy Bowen

Image posted with the permission of the artist. This print was published in the book The Troll With no Heart in His Body by Lise Lunge-Larsen, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 1997. See more of Betsy Bowen's artwork on her website here.

A great troll, camouflaged as a towering evergreen, wrenches over, hands curled, eyes set with focused urgency. Is he looking at something in that hand? The sound of steady chops breaks the quiet stillness.The rest of the forest is set in aqua-blue like a whisper in the background of this dramatic scene. Indeed, the troll, flanked by pillars and with an arch overhead, seems to stand on a stage. And though I momentarily feel I am a member of an audience, his anxious leaning over and the shape of the rectangle which encases him cause me, too, to lean over. It is as if I am peering into a shoe box I had stowed under the bed and forgot about a long, long time ago.  

"Lake Spirit" by Dale de Armond

Yah! Hop, skip, like a stone over and above the waters (splish splosh, splish splosh), but you, you owl-faced sea-monster encircle me with your claws. This seems to take hardly any effort on your part. Those mighty talons, they churn up, swoop down, all at once, yet so calm and serene are your eyes. Oh, how exhilarating this hopeless flight! The cool, crisp air! The claps of waves against waves! The most wondrous dance I've ever done. You have me, yes, this I accept, and all I ask is that you make it quick.

"Fügelfjell i mitnattsol" (Birdcliffs in midnight sun) by Frithjof Tidemand Johannessen

The laughs of the seagulls invade my imagination. I run in circles asking myself what it is that I want from them, myself, or anyone else. I find no answers ever, but I keep asking these questions. Keep returning to the same places over and over again as if it is my destiny. As if I have no control over how my vacation time is spent. Let me lay here overlooking the restless waters; rest a while, alone, surrounded by such painfully beautiful geometry. I need a breather, just for bit, before the next lap around the track that has been set begins.

Monotype: "Eulabee"

Monotype (water-based inks on Rives BFK)
5" x 7" (image) 6.5" x 10" (paper)

I recently taught an intro to monotypes workshop to a group of teenagers, and so to prepare I did a bunch of monotypes in my studio. It had been years since I made a monotype, and I was never that into it. I made six pretty awful images before I created this lovely little sketch of my younger daughter.

I should do more of these. A lot more.


I should. 

"She Never Liked Dresses" by Belinda Del Pesco

Image reposted with the permission of the artist. Learn more about Belinda Del Pesco and her artwork at her website here.

...and it was just as well since she preferred to not be leered at like a piece of steak to be gnawed on. This particular dress wasn't so bad. With its collar and belt, it wore a bit more like a shirt and loose slacks, and worked well with her simple, easy-to-care-for haircut. Not to say she was a tomboy, for certainly she could never be mistaken for a boy. Just feminine in her own way, on her own terms. A flower over the ear, delicate hands, and a curvaceous figure, subtly emphasized by the way she walked. Never noticed by the lowest-common-denominator, but always loved for who she really was, and therefore happy in the most profound sense of the word.