art and bones

i snapped this last night on my way home from our art group gathering. if i get my camera out at the end of a long day, it's gotta be a shot i absolutely can't resist. in the morning i take pictures of everything. by nighttime nothing calls me. i don't know what it is about these signs and lights that i love so much... maybe it's that after driving 50 miles through flat, open country, i can't resist the color of the signs and the flashing-ness of the red lights. finally! after driving in an almost straight line for an hour i get to turn and see some color to boot!



i left at 8 a.m. to drive to roxanne's, about an hour and forty-five minutes north of here. i love this drive and took a bunch of pics while driving, but evidently it wasn't a good day for photos while driving. most of this area used to be underwater, and from what i understand the white settlers drained it for farming. so i'm driving on a former lake bed... there are lots of formations like this one that just jut up from the surrounding flatness. i really like them.

farther down the post i've shown one of the paintings i worked on at roxanne's... it was wonderful -- the whole day. sharing techniques and supplies. getting new ideas. eating good food. roxanne has some pics up already on her blog if you'd like to look. i took very few pictures -- i wanted to paint and talk.

gathering up my stuff in the late afternoon, i started for home. i had to stop for groceries first, and that devil caffeine twisted my arm 'til i broke down and got a mocha for the road. oh that sweet, tasty goodness! my next stop was one of my all time favorite places,



the petroglyph cliffs just south of the oregon california border. i've changed the tint to sepia to try and bring up some contrast...



they go on and on for what is about the length of a city block. to say that i snapped a lot of pics would be an understatement. i just snapped, and snapped, and



snapped. this is my favorite art. period.

the last time i was there i found a few owl pellets at the far end of the petroglyphs, so i wanted to see if i could find some this time. at first i only saw small bones scattered everywhere in the dry soil at the foot of the cliffs, but after about a half hour of walking and picking up tiny bones, i started to find owl pellets. and then i found a LOT of owl pellets. they were all over the place. i was beside myself with bone joy. grrl, kate, jo, i thought about you. you would have loved it...

i've barely begun to photograph or take apart the pellets... life seems to be happening faster than i can document it these days! but i do have a photo of



this one... with a bird skull and many bird bones in it.



and this one of a mouse skull, which was laying near the owl pellets.

i could hardly believe my good fortune. gratitude fills my bones!



i started this page yesterday at roxanne's and finished it with some wax and nickel azo yellow when i got home. roxanne gave me the lace and those big brads (which i looked for at safeway on the way home but unfortunately they didn't have them. what?!!). thank you roxanne for your generous kindness throughout the day!!






left and right page -- the hand belongs to one of the 'bog mummies' found in denmark (nat'l geographic photo). i got a bunch of national geographic mags earlier in the week on my other trip. they have the coolest photos/articles. bog mummies with orange hair intact after more than a thousand years!! i've been cutting up old dictionary pages and gluing them down a lot in this journal. something about it...