It is March. It is time to plant peas here in Portland. This year is ahead of itself, the warm weather means lots of wonderful sugar snap peas.

Printmaking was done here this weekend, not by me, I was digging in the dirt, but John and Aaron Scothorn spent a long afternoon working in the studio. Good stuff.

I am just begining the process again of convincing a big art institution to bring my friends, Wang Wen-Chih and Tsai Mei-Wen to town. Wen-Chih makes astounding sculpture from Bamboo and rattan among other materials. We were in negotiations with the Contemporary Crafts Museum for him to come this fall, but when the Museum hit their rough patch, they dropped the conversation. I met Wen-Chih and Mei-Wen in Vermont in '05 while at the Vermont Studio Center on a fellowship. (vermontstudiocenter.org) They are gracious and charming people, Mei-Wen is a curator and writer, Wen-Chih a sculptor. They are living in Taiwan and have a beautiful studio/home there. They visited here in 2007 and began the design process for a big installation on the Cont. Craft site, They were both very excited by the place and the people. Wish me luck and soon we will have them here.

Blog number one

So, after many many years of promised web sites by others, my glorious and talented friend Julia (thorazos@gmail.com) built me a lovely one. I will add more images as they come in.

In December John and I got to participate in the Prints for Pica printing extravaganza, we also taught a monotype workshop for children as a part of that. It was a wonderful day of making art with kids. Our youngest student was four and a half, the oldest twelve. Most had at leas one parent in the arts, and were not intimidated by the process. Much beautiful work was made. Six year old Jake should get his parents to buy him his own press. He had such a clear grasp of the techniques we were teaching, it was like he found his native language. Making prints is wonderful, teaching people to make prints, and being there for the moment that someone else's 'aha' happens is a privilege. Next year we will take photos to post.

For now, it is sunny and warm and my garden is calling.