we have had traveling musicians, their Danes, and their vanagon around the last couple days. our old pal lauren a.k.a. linky (a gentle giant) has come through town on tour with alexa woodward. lauren plays the washboard, and alexa plays the banjo and they sing together. it is beautiful!

here are some upcoming tourdates for you pacific northwesters:

EUGENE, OR
Jul 10-12
Oregon Country Fair (playing on the trails and campfires and Linky is backing up Qtn at fair)

ASHLAND, OR
July 13th
8:00P
Stillwater w/ Lee Leatherman

PORTLAND, OR
Jul 15 2009
8:00P
Laurelthirst w/ Raina Rose and Hunter Paye!

SEATTLE, WA
SECRET SHOW
Jul 16 2009
8:00P

EUGENE OR
Jul 18 2009
10:00A
Eugene Saturday Market

EUGENE, OR
Jul 19 2009
8:00P
Sam Bond’s Garage w/ Brian QTN

MAHARIA


esther was telling us about how in 19th century california, men from india were marrying mexican women. there were laws against brown people marrying white people*, but indian-mexican marriage was o-k. they had similar material cultures (chilis, rotis, household altars, etc.) so one would think it would work out beautifully. but sometimes it didn't, and we were picturing a terrible argument starting with "honey, why does the virgin have eight arms?"

*'These marriages were more than a matter of individual choice, however, for the fact was that miscegenation laws prohibited marriages across racial lines in California until 1948 [<---OMG!! --ed.]. Most California county clerks saw the Punjabi men as colored, or “brown,” the word they used most often on the marriage license to describe the men’s race. Thus the women the Punjabis married also had to be perceived as “brown,” and that generally meant women of Mexican ancestry.'

( BIGGERER )

wheeeee! it's sunny in san francisco. could it be possible that i don't need the heater on when i go to bed tonight? here are some celebratory origami paper planes. the original is for sale, click here for the listing.

( biggerer! )

i got some postcards made of a couple tea paintings! 3 for $5, one to keep and two to send. :) click on the pictures above to go to their listings.

i'm hoping to do a few more of these in the near future, and maybe a few mixed sets. look at those hip rounded corners!!! eheh. man, i wonder if in 50 years that will stylistically mark them as turn of the century etsy postcards.

the backs look like this:

charles rennie mackintosh liked drawing these too! and look at the little square where he titled and signed it. continued indulgence in checkerboard pattern. familiar!

ooo, i ordered a rubber stamp for stamping the backs of the cards i'm making for the museum of craft & folk art store.





delightful! it was from rubberstamps.net, and both the price of the stamp and the shipping were nice and reasonable. and look how they etched the letters into the wooden base!

it's been cold, cold, cold this week! yeah, yeah, bostonites, not so cold. i do know what cold is, i had to dig our mailbox out of a 10 foot bank of snow several times last year! but the hardest thing about san francisco to deal with is that summer will never come. i miss truckee, northern flickers, and sunshine. the smell of crunchy, disintegrating pine needles underfoot on a hot day.

i like orange blobs in a painting.

church in uayma, yucatan, mexico. oooo

this painting is at the tate in london:

Cholmondeley Ladies ("Cholmondeley" is pronounced "Chumley" of course!)


their eyes are different colors.

for my beards series... let's not forget the ladies, eh?



Julia Pastrana
Charles Darwin described her thusly: "a remarkably fine woman – she had a thick and masculine beard." a charming person and graceful dancer with a beautiful voice, julia toured the world as a bearded lady in the mid-1800s.

plummy evening-colored nocturnal now for sale.

these came about because i'm making some greeting cards out of three of my gocco pictures for the museum of craft and folk art store(!!!) here in san francisco. i finished printing up their nocturnal order and the screen was still happy, so i ended up printing a bunch of 2nd editions. i'll probably put up some cards for sale on etsy once i figure out packaging stuff.

two more sets of cards to go! i'll probably print up some mutant strawberries next, though. but i'm still working on what colors should go on what layer. you know, the usual gocco confusion.

lovely hill country wedding! the air isn't this comfy to hang around outside all night in your best togs just anywhere.

i have no drawing posts lately! it's because i have been busy going to weddings.

it is nice to know about a kind-of secret swimming hole.

color pictures from our austin adventures this past weekend

my man, FISH, & GIZZARDS


merilee on the porch of her family's house in a hollow

awww, i love staying with the phillipseseses! everything at their house is sparkly or comfy. lots of different kinds of birds to watch at the bird feeder. neat old fotos to look at. we fell asleep every night to frogs chirrupping and woke up to whip-poor-wills. good food to eat, a swimming hole for swimming, a magical garden, nice company! jim taught me the two-step, and cindy baked us snickerdoodles. also, there was a rifle in jim 'n cindy's room, where we were sleeping. we were wondering why. one morning, cindy mentioned to jim that the squirrel was back at the feeder. suddenly there was a stomping and a shooting and a hollering. jim was on the deck with the rifle and firing into the air! cindy says it keeps him occupied. he does it several times a day.

steve and the kitty who has decided he belongs to jim 'n cindy, even though they're not convinced yet.

he acted like an interviewee all weekend. "i am a very high quality cat with lots of experience catting. see how i purr? and how nice and fluffy i am? i am well-qualified to be your very own cat."

merilee and rachel's fascinators for janie's wedding

hey everybody, i did it! i modernated my website and now it's ready for guests. please have a poke about and let me know if anything needs tidying up. there's still some work to be done, but i figured i'd put it out there anyway.

presenting...
stellarbaby.com

oh yeah, if you linked to anything on my antiquated, un-modern website, it should still work! if it doesn't, tell me.

i like it. time to mail! good bye little moths!



spanish moon moth, malaysian moon moth, luna moth, hyalophora euryalus, io moth, and the very rare and mysterious japonica origamii moths.

lemme know if you want to see any close up.

almost done! these were taken yesterday, today i was outlining. hmm... i wonder if people would be interested in a smallish moon moths tea painting.





of course there is time to stop and mess with a fascinator.