Time to move

For decades this has been the playground for the extraction industry, the shooters, the party hypnotized youth. It has been seen as a wasteland, a lost fortress of rock, mud, little else save a few salt brush, sage, yucca, and juniper trees. The land rises like a giant wave, ridge like ripples cascade like bony fingers reaching back to the civilization that spreads out filling the low valley as far as I can see in both directions. There are signs everywhere of the recent flash flooding that has pounded this strip of land in Western Colorado. The road is washed out, a jumble of mud and boulders. Deep damp washes crease the land twisting and turning ever seeking the lowland yet with their meandering never seeming to get there. I know each trickle to rushing torrent makes it's way to the mighty Colorado river but their path is lost to my eye from this vantage point.

I sit with my back to a stony buttress with no easy path around. My dogs and I have hiked to either side but only soft loose slots of crumbling sandstone and bentonite lead upward. So I sit listening to the low rumble of industry emitting from the fertile corridor of Grand Junction, startled by the occasional pop of a marksman unseen around the bend. The breeze is still damp and cool as the sun slowly eats away at my shade. It flickers in the corner of my left eye, rising ever higher promising a day of light and warmth.



Time to move.
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Labor Day weekend

Labor Day has come and gone and with it a full weekend of activity. My band, The North 17th St Band, played at the Grand Junction Off Road race. Which turned out to be much more fun than I thought it would. I am looking forward to participating more next year (fingers crossed that there will be a next year) anyway we played a hour and a half long set and had a hoot of a time. It was a huge stage! But I am embarrassed to say how long it has been since we played in public. All was well. Many of these songs we have been playing for 5 years and we all have deepened into our craft. So we mostly nailed it and the few listening seemed entertained, or at least not willing to heckle. Heck I even saw a few singing along. Here is our instrument line up before we began.


Then Kate and I rushed to Moab to meet Nancy at her brother and sister in law's house for some riding. I really need to remember that they are not breakfast kind of people. I need big food in the morning to get me started. Gotta take the matter in my own hands... But they are fabulous hosts and good friends as well as family. I only got in one ride on Sunday but my it was a doozy. Milissa shuttled Nancy, Christian and I to the top of burro pass to ride the whole enchilada back into Moab. Big day big fun!



30+ miles of sweet riding from 11thousand feet at the top of burro pass to 35hundred something back on hwy 128. Nice!

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Carving a Lyre

One of the most rewarding crafts of this session of classes has been hand carving a lyre. I wish I got more pictures but the work was intense. It took 18.5 hours of carving, planing, scraping and sanding to get to this point. I am very happy with the result, yet the interesting thing is that the most rewarding part was not the lyre itself. It is the will activity of pushing myself everyday to make the lyre as perfect as I possibly could. Does it still have flaws? of course. An I ready to make another one? absolutely! I have found a new passion with these old tools... see what you think.

Veil Painting

Last week at Rudolf Steiner College I learned a new way to paint with watercolor paint. I wish I could have gotten more pictures of the process but it was pretty intense work.

We started by wetting and stretching the paper out on the board and taping it down. Then we divided into two halves. The top was to be a sunset veil, the bottom a triangle exercise. We worked on both simultaneously. The sunset was built up with layer after layer of light water color letting each pass dry before adding the next. The idea was to build transitions from the light in the center to the darkest at the top and bottom. Imagine a light source from behind the clouds somewhere on the page.

As it dried we painted little green triangles on the lower side.

I was not sure why, but that's what we did. If you tried to build up layers to soon it would turn into a wet blob, losing the veil effect.

Then as the triangles began to slowly layer the teacher asked us to use the negative space to find the crystals within. Then with the sunset we continued to darken the veil and adding some shadow to the clouds and maybe some land below.

What an incredible experience as it unfolded. I have to say I am pleased with the result.

Back at the blog and back at Steiner College

Well I am back at it. I so want to share some of the things I have been working on, so much so that I almost signed back up for Facebook...whew...I must be homesick now. So I dug up my blogger account and hope to have more time to update it.

So I am back in Fair Oaks, California staying with a family here in their little cabin on the property. I wish I could capture the feel of the place. There are fruit trees all around, and chickens and cats and a dog. The owner of the house has two of her own children here as well and her children's children. Even one little boy is her child's child's child. So with four generations of the Callon family here and me it is a full house.

But my space is peaceful and I have a nice desk facing the window now and I feel inspired to work and create here. So I thought I would share a few pictures of my space. I have not been taking pictures as I should.

 

Here is my desk before I moved it to the window.

 

Here is my little kitchen on the porch of the cabin.  

 

             Here is my makeshift bike shop when I needed to rebuild my front hub the other morning.

I hope to have more picture and updates soon.

Silk dying

Back here at Rudolf Steiner College.... 40 of the best and brightest, the very future of Waldorf early childhood education gathered around the home and pool of our lovely teacher Margarita. We swam we dyed silks, and learned the art of plant based dyes. Wild stuff I think I need to breathe into some of this...














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Happy little goat song

The days roll by here at Steiner College. Lots of classes and a full brain is everyday here. Here is a respite from the intellectual, brought by a couple of happy hungry goats

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