Journeying South Again

Putting the fall in snowfall

 I managed to get a taste of winter in Alaska with an early layer of snowfall before we left and had a  graceful cross country ski out back on the old trail.

We had a full deck of plans as usual this time of year which involved several states and visits and a road trip.

My first adventure after was down in the Hill Country at Lucky Star Art Camp

I had met the organizer Lisa at Squam Art Retreat a few years back when she was one of my roommates. It was her dream to manifest a women's art camp down in the Hill Country of Texas and she made it happen. I vowed to give my self a treat after a very business filled summer of pretty much focusing on my handmade component business.  

I felt I had been neglecting certain aspects of my creativity like the mixed media and journaling that I had been doing a few years back.

My retirement pastime has turned into a full time job it seems!

I  I took a workshop with Mindy Lacefield called "Field Notes" and this guy emerged

I let myself do some freeing journal pages there

I was glad I brought along some of my papers from a Ro Bruhn Etsy set!

We did some reflective nature walking

I took a Mixed Media alchemy class with my friend Corrine Gilman

She challenged us to using just a three colors in our palette and the rest is  just letting your muse go on walkabout.

I took a class on How To Write a Story With write Katherine Center.

She gave us some exercises to loosen us up

I met some great people at the camp and boy did they feed us well. Such a gorgeous location on the Guadalupe River

 After Camp was over we explored a bit in the town of Gruene

Took a short detour to Maine to visit my mum and celebrate my aunt's 94th birthday.

So glad we did. We lost dear old Martha just a few days after her grand birthday party. She had said she wanted to go out in style like her brother Raymond (my father) after a nice celebration.

I guess the those Rogers are true planners.

I ate some incredible seafood stew!

and then headed oback to Austin and got a room at this iconic hotel

It was too cold however to see the bats come out from under the bridge

Sage wisdom at the pizza joint.

We road tripped it back to Arizona and I am back in full production mode for a spell as my shop has been vacant for a bit too long.

I really needed the refreshing break and replenish my well.

The numi-sticks torch fired copper enamel matchsticks are proving ever popular and I try to come up with some different styles.

These are "Painted Desert"

I returned to my vintage tin plate stash and had the idea to cut them up to see how they took the enamels.

Success with the experiment. I love the ghost image of the old paint and the uneven application of the enamels revealing the distressed tin.

I am so pleased to use the frit I made for some more subtle effects

Trying out different finishes

I made a series with murrini

and good old beads

This lady followed me home one night when i visited a neighbor that was down-sizing.

I've named her Bea after my mother in law that I never met...also Bis-Bea

Did I show this already. Some lampwonk that I made way last month

Back to doing my daily desert neighborhood walkies.

Glass mosaic cactus

It's good to be home again

Feet & Meat... Non- Veg Post

Ah, summertime in Alaska.

I was lucky to have heard about a gathering out in the woods near my old stomping grounds from back in the day when I first arrived in Alaska.

I squatted at an old shack when I turned 20 that had once been a homestead. With no car and no rent to pay and a job cooking in a day care every other week I was pretty sure I had it made.

For a somewhat domesticated New England girl it was true pioneering... or just cheap.

Definitely was a character building experience.

I always get a wee bit nostalgic when I walk this muddy trail.

Of course none of us cabin dwellers had four wheelers then.

This cabin wasn't there. My friend Sepp is building it.

He's more of a mountain man type that actually has lived out in the bush trapping and hunting to feed himself,  a totally subsistence lifestyle. In the summers now he supports himself selling blueberries and morel mushrooms at the farmers market although he has given some slide tours of his lifestyle back in Germany where  he's from.

This is his friend getting ready to put a caribou leg on the fire.

Sepp's wild game cooking skills are legendary.

Plenty of garlic goes into the butter basting along with herbs

Sepp mixing it up

Campfire feet.

There's a gnarly story about that missing toe  but I don't want to gross you out too much. Besides it's his story.... only rivaled by his near mauling by a grizzly bear story and how the lead dog of his dog team saved his life

Good organic free-range lean meat

I told you there were feet in this post

Muddy ones.

This is the ubiquitous footwear of spring and early summer in interior Alaska.

"Extratufs"

Or this if you're extra tough yourself

Keep that fire burning

Then he shaves off the outside meat and throws it into the butter, garlic and herbs and  then it's passed around the campfire

We were under this tepee structure

Annalee found some of last years cranberries and a wolverine skull.

Some cranberries from the freezer were tossed in for flavor.

Annalee got to keep hers.

The skull went back to Sepp's rock garden

It was a hungry crowd. The caribou was melt in your mouth delicious.

See, they had to put a second leg on.

I went for a little walk and found my old shack. Some dipstick decided to blow it up with dynamite a few years ago. It had been going back to the earth just fine on its own.

Kind of made me mad that someone would do that.

My old outhouse.... sigh

And since it's light out all night I made the 2 hour drive back to Delta stopping at my son's archaeology field camp site at midnight since it was on the way.

This is the town of North Pole and Santa Claus House.

It's about 11:00 PM in this photo.

I've been using ups some scraps of copper that are left from punching discs.

I got a nice load of this textured copper from a roofing outfit...

most of it for free too.

Some enamel torch firing

I can see some wire wrapping round the stem

Fun with my new dimple pliers

torch enamel "matchsticks" on copper

The sun finally came out today after way too many cloudy or rainy days. It makes the solitude infinitely more easy to bear as Mr. Coryosity is leaving me here to my own devices for most of the summer.

So if I sound really "ronery"  here you'll know why.