See You on the Flip Side

Well, the time has finally come!! After a full year of thinking about and planning our wedding, we’re leaving tomorrow morning to drive to Colorado (from California) for our wedding in my hometown, Aspen. I have to say, it is absolutely frightening and exciting. As with everything, there seems to be that pull between fear and joy. Mostly, I’m hoping to really appreciate this time that I’m going to spend with family and friends that I don’t get to see very often. Also, I’m praying for stellar blue skies and fall colors in Colorado, and hoping to make peace with my fright about being in the spotlight for the entire wedding festivities.

After our wedding on September 26, we will head off for two weeks in the Oaxaca, Mexico area. We haven’t been on a real vacation in a couple of years, other than visiting family, so we’re so very excited to lounge about. I will attempt to post some pictures of the wedding and wedding prep at some point next week, or in between wedding and honeymoon, but I can’t make any promises—I have a feeling there will be much excitement and chaos the whole time, with little time for blogging.

You might also note that this means I will be away from my shop as well. I will be back on the blog and in the shop on October 14, so any orders placed between now and then will be shipped by October 15.

I’m really looking forward to sharing stories and pictures from the wedding with you because so many wonderful creative family members and friends will be participating. In fact, we have covered pretty much all parts of the wedding with family help, so it should really feel warm and fun!

See you on the flip side, or perhaps some time in between!

Kelp

Here’s a new addition to my Natural Patterns Alphabet:

“Kelp,” 5 x 5 inches, pen and ink, prints available in my shop, see all of them here

I have to admit, I struggled a little with this one—it was hard to fit such a giant and flowing mass into a small square. I want to call it a plant, but I’m not sure that’s correct—I read that kelp is a type of algae, and I thing algae is a separate type of organism from plants? Arrgh, I need to study up on my nature science.

Kelp, the word is as odd as the thing. It sounds very lowly, kind of like the word mud. It was a good challenge for the letter “k” and adds nicely to the other sea creatures I did for the series. I keep wanting to say that I’m closing in on finishing, but in truth, there are still five left, and they’ll have to wait until later this fall, as I will be leaving in just two days for my wedding.

A Quiet Calm

“A Quiet Calm,” 8 x 10 inches, pen and ink, available in my shop

This drawing has been in my head since I went on a hike a few weeks ago, so it felt good to finally get it down on paper. This is the first drawing I’ve done in a while that is not part of a series, so it was nice to do something totally random. While series are great fun because you can see all of the pieces developing and working together, there is something of the work-horse in finishing them. Speaking of which, I will hopefully be back with another piece for my Natural Patterns Alphabet series in the next couple of days. For now, I leave you with the breezy thoughts above.

Free at Last, and the Public Library

I think the public library is my temple, my church. It feels like a holy place to me—so many voices whispering across the quiet rows of books.

Today was my last day at my office job, and while I could be talking about that milestone, instead, I feel like talking about the public library, how it fills me with a quiet rejoicing, an endless sense of possibility. Maybe it’s because the library is more concrete—it is what it should be—something that you can depend on, a safe place. On the other hand, endings are hard to talk about because they are never what you would expect them to be. Even when you want the thing to end (you’ve been praying for it to end), it’s still disorienting.

You may be asking yourself, “what do libraries and quitting your day job have to do with each other?” The answer is, exactly nothing, except the fact that today was the last day of my day job (the final tether was snapped, allowing me to become a full-time artist) and to celebrate, I went for a quiet afternoon in the public library: collecting books (I praise you Mary Oliver, I think I’ve fallen in love), reading magazines, and in general, breathing in that buzzing amount of knowledge and thought that hangs in the air above the stacks.

Before going to the library (my first act as a free woman), I had a nice lunch with my now former bosses and coworkers. They were just so nice, as they always have been, giving me a twinge of guilt for not liking the job better, or at least accepting it while I was there. This does not nullify the insanity of the job, or the insanity of me being in the job (as I was so, so, painfully wrong for it), but it’s almost sad in a way when you wish to run out of the building cheering, and jump on your bike like a bandit, and never look back, but instead your office takes you out to lunch and gives you gifts. I am thankful that they were so kind, but my conscience didn’t feel like I deserved it.

But now, I am free at last, and tomorrow marks my first official day as a full-time artist. Can I hear a hooray echoing out across the blogosphere? Technically, I’ll be leaving this weekend for my other big transition this Fall—getting married, so the rest of this week is going to be more of a tying up of loose ends than a beginning of a new career. But stay tuned as I am most definitely going to fill these next three days with as much joyful creativity as possible. I will be back tomorrow, with something creative, but will be announcing later this week a three week holiday for wedding and honeymoon.

Solo Exhibit and Giveaway at Etsy Stalker

The wonderful Beatrice of Etsy Stalker has put together a beautiful solo exhibit of my work, including an interview and giveaway to help me celebrate my soon-to-be new-found freedom, doing art full-time! Woohoo!

Go visit this post to have a look-see and enter to win a set of three prints of your choice from my Natural Patterns Alphabet series. The winner will be chosen at random next Sunday 9/20, so get on over there and enter!

Double the Shows, Double the Fun

Hello there! Well, I just wanted to let you all know about two shows I’m doing this Saturday evening (September 12, 2009) in Sacramento, CA, in case you’re in the area.

I’ll be showing selections from my “How to Save the World” series of drawings at A.w.e.a.r., a women’s consignment boutique located at 2400 21st Street in Sacramento. There will be an opening from 6-8 pm, and my work will be up through the beginning of October. I will be at the opening from 6-7 pm.

I will also have a booth at the McMartin Realty art/craft show at 2031 K St. This event goes from 6-10 pm and has a great variety of art and craft vendors, and often live music. While I’m away at the other opening, my fiance will be manning the booth, so stop on by to see us both!

One of the drawings from my “How to Save the World” series, that I’ll be showing this weekend (and prints available in my shop):

Yay for shows! Happy Friday!

Reader’s Choice Buttons

You may remember that back on my first post about my Quit Your Day Job Button Celebration I asked for you, my blog readers, to suggest button ideas that I would select from and make sometime during my celebration. Well, the time has come, and here they are—see all six above, and now I will tell you who suggested them.

Era loves teapots and figs, so I made these two at her suggestion:

Margarita from Chocolate Creative suggested this thoughtful and self-empowering line:

Jaja is enamored of airplanes:

and last, but not least, Stacey from Pill’s Place got me chuckling with these suggestions:

These were really fun to make, and I want to make this process even more fun and celebratory by saying a big thank you to the above readers by sending these buttons to them for free. Originally, I was going to put them up for sale, but I decided it would just be more fun to give them away. If you are one of the above readers, I will be contacting you for your address. Thanks again for being a part of Blue Bicicletta! Only three more office-working days for me between now and September 15, my quitting day! Yoohoo!

Top Secret

Psssst, I’m working on a top secret project for my wedding, and I thought you might like a peek. Don’t tell anyone I showed you, just enjoy the pasta-love. If you will be a guest at my wedding, please pretend you didn’t see this.

Serendipity and 3 Letters

I believe in fate and letters, and last Friday these two things crossed paths. As you may have noticed, I love letters, and I keep seeing wall hanging collections of large letters and drooling. I have been trying to wait patiently until a day when I have some expendable income and can add to my small collection started with a gift from era.

Well, as fate would have it—I won’t have to wait—because ask and you shall receive. On Friday, I was getting the mail in the shopping plaza where I work, and I noticed a man pulling giant letters off the building where a business has moved.

I couldn’t believe my eyes—he was just throwing them on the ground as if they were trash!!! Truthfully, some of them were getting broken because they were glued to the building, but I marched right up to the worker and asked, breathlessly, if he thought he would be able to get any of the letters off the building without breaking them, and if so, could I have one or two (or one million) of them, pretty please with a cherry on top?

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure—and I love treasures, especially when they’re free.

Here is my take:

They’re a little weathered from living on the outside of a building and getting painted around the edges, but I LOVE them.

I haven’t quite decided where to hang them yet, but I’ve been experimenting in different places. Soon, my house with be further infused with the alphabet!

Another Mary Oliver

Another Mary Oliver poem to share today. Last night, I was reading my new book of her poems again, and I realized what it is about her writing that is pulling me in these days—she reminds me of why I love reading and writing—I love those moments when you discover something so true or honest or mind-bending that it changes how you are in the world. Many of her poems do that so simply. They make you think of something in such a new way, changing how you see it forever. Thank you Mary Oliver.

White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field
by Mary Oliver

Coming down
out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel,
or a buddha with wings,
it was beautiful
and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings—
five feet apart—and the grabbing
thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys
of the snow—

and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes,
to lurk there,
like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows—
so I thought:
maybe death
isn’t darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us—

as soft as feathers—
that we are instantly weary
of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes,
not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river
that is without the least dapple or shadow—
that is nothing but light—scalding, aortal light—
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.