Valentine making party

Our mess

When we were kids, my best friends, Sarah and Leah, and I used to get together with our mothers and their aunt Martha to make elaborate, Victorian, over-wrought Valentine's Day cards.  Someone—I think it was Sarah and Leah's late mom, Hannah—invented a technique for creating these big, stuffed fabric hearts that protruded like sentimental little pot bellies from the front of our construction paper and doily creations. 

The originals: Leah, Sarah, and Martha

We made dozens (collectively, hundreds) of them over the course of many years for many different people: boyfriends long gone, parents deceased, friends whose names we've since forgotten.  And here we still are, surrounded by rubber stamps and old magazines and bits of ribbon and scraps of fabric, making valentines.  This time with our own kids.  We don't do it every year, but yesterday we did it big.   Its kind of like our modern-suburban version of a sewing circle.  Or at least it's as close as I come to that sort of thing.

Maggie, grandma, and Georgia making valentines

A snippet from the party:

OLIVER (holding up yet another stale conversation heart): Mommy, can I eat this?

ME: No, honey, you've already had enough and that one has glue all over it.

OLIVER: No, I already licked it all off. 

Some of our handiwork.  Cute, huh?

A thing I like

This photo by Christian Chaize of a beach in Portugal.  I love the colors.  I love the composition.  I love the vibe.  You can buy a print at Jen Bekmans' 20x200 gallery here.  I would, but I'm still not buying anything.  So do it for me.  I can live vicariously.

Encaustic painting, Doris Day and Carmel-by-the-Sea

Doris Day owns my hotel.  I'm in  Carmel-by-the-Sea, a town so Thomas Kincaid-esque, it make me feel as if I might come-face-to-face with Bilbo Baggins all snug in his Christmas elf suit.  Everything is so dimiutive and quaint and incredibly chi-chi.

See for yourself

They have a shop here that just sells handcrafted lampshades.  Another devoted entirely to an aviation theme—you know, flight jackets for babies and massive framed photos of fighter jets against the blue, blue sky.  

Clint Eastwood used to be the mayor and I have trouble understanding how he could have taken it all seriously.  His first act in office?  Legalizing ice cream cones.  Apparently the city had an ordinance against take-out.  Not anymore.  I just now polished off a bag of Chinese.  Alone.  In my hotel owned by Doris Day.

I am here on a women's art retreat, an assignment.  I'm learning encaustic painting (painting with hot wax) in the company of six other would-be artists.  I've learned three things so far:

1.) I LOVE encaustic painting.  It's luminous and lovely and just so fun to play with.

2.) Being a visual artist is much more fun than being a writer, especially with a staff waiting on you hand and foot (Chris, more wine.  Clap!  Clap!) 

3.) A lot of women own and wear fur coats without a trace of guilt or self-consciousness. (What would Doris Day think?)

Oh, and if you took all the diamonds off all the fingers in Carmel, you might just be able to bail out the economy once and for all.

Here's my first encaustic painting (they have a tendency to look a little tie-dye Dead Heady)

Sometimes the internet is used for good

People can be so amazing and interesting.  Here's one of them.  I don't know him but I love this project called Unphotographable.

A few hundred words are worth a picture.