lovely Lopez and the Pacific North West

as regular readers of this blog have probably discerned

my heart has many homes.

one of them is Lopez Island and i'm happy to say that 

after i present my workshop for Maiwa in Vancouver 

i will be boarding the train 

 hoping for a window seat on the starboard side 

and heading back there in the  northern Fall

more details here

i just wish i could bring my Kubbi-Kabuki-dog to play with Isla (a.k.a. Her Royal Fluffiness) whose image you will see if you click on the link above

Leaving the islands behind

I have to say teaching on Whidbey Island was an absolute joy.

Lisa Bernhardt (who runs the Pacific NorthWest Art School) and my wonderful assistant Nita Wester spared no exertion to make it so. 

The island itself reminded me so much of Latvia. Lopez does too (but has lots more hills. I love it. (

We gathered dyes within walking distance of the studio...with the exception of a delightful field trip to Ebey's Landing. 

I feel I've only just begun to discover some of the magic of this gorgeous scattering of jewels in the Salish sea 

We remembered Fred Gerber and his method of analyzing potential mordants

Made sure to avoid the plant that dispatched Socrates

The species name of which - conium maculatum - warns us to watch out for spots

Driftwood came in handy

The ritual continued

And everybody looked after their string

Bless y'all,

I'll be seeing you. Sometime in 2016...

island life

Lovely days on Lopez, working on a film together with my friend Christi Carter:

using porcelain boats made during my residency in Portland last year

A wonderful day of filming...which may take a month or two to edit.

Meanwhile back at home

Yoda is holding the fort. 

at Maiwa

i left Lopez with considerable reluctance

but warmed by the comforting thought that

i will be back. it really feels like another home.

it's a rare thing to feel so compatible with hosts you've only just met

that it doesn't feel at all out of the ordinary to be sitting over the remains of dinner

reading poetry to each other

and comparing pocket music libraries

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it was a very good time

thank you Christi

and Patsy & John Sangster

and all my lovely students

the train journey up the coast

was truly beautiful

through dazzling scenery

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now i'm teaching at Maiwa

[again being thoroughly pampered by my kind hosts]

and there is rather a lot of magic emanating from the dyepots

the pavements provided a clue

as to potentially useful material

prunus leaves

literally scraped out of the gutters

the magic of maple

dogwood over prunus over cotoneaster

and good old sugar maple strutting her stuff

my list of special places is growing

i think i may have accidentally nibbled on a pomegranate

metaphorically speaking

leaving is going to be hard

but before i go

i promised the kind folk at the South End Restaurant

that i would mention them in dispatches

in case other visitors to the island want to play it safe

and eat delicious things that are not pomegranates

drop in here to see what they offer

Lopez Island

i have loved the idea of islands

ever since i was a small child devouring Arthur Ransome's stories

about the Swallows and Amazons who

sailed to Wildcat Island

and waged war against pirates

i think Lopez Island might be a grown-up version

of that childhood dream

 

 

and at the end of the working day

a small and secret cove beckons

where

i can imagine the two-masted red-sailed schooner

[that i once saw pass under the Golden Gate Bridge]

might anchor at sunset...

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