LEO TIME...

Often a bit late, even though I am an early Leo... I have always celebrated both the 27th & 28th of July for as long as I can remember, there having been some disagreement in the family for which my clever child simply chose the most generous solution. I believed I was being correct in using the 28Th when I got my driver's license so many years ago, but the birth certificate Momma sent, when I got my passport much later, stated it was the 27Th... so in fact now they both are officially documented !

Stephen's mother Helen gave us this Op Art print by the Mexican artist Pablo Friedeberg as a nod, perhaps, to my boldly, if a bit pinkly, leonine aspects... even though I rarely actually blush. It has found a protected place to hang above the folded dining table where it gets little direct sunlight to fade its reds & pinks.

Stephen took me on a trip to celebrate. Even as I could have happily spent the season in our own garden, he has wanted to show me the garden at Hollyhock on Cortez Island for many years.

We drove, taking four ferries to three more islands from ours before taking another ferry to the Sunshine Coast of the Canadian mainland, visiting friends & one more island along the way. Ten days is more than I would have planned, but we needed that much for waiting in those 12 ferry lines! He is ever the consummate traveler! I could but continue to practice.

For now I will mostly note this travel by sharing the drawing I made in my round book while sitting & listening during the gathering we attended. This time we circled with a different breed...

I posted last year about this drawing book.

We visited the Royal BC Museum in Victoria & I was reminded of another similar version of this mask important during an earlier period of my life. The image attached itself to my searching mind as I contemplated this drawing.

An bowl carved of argelite continued such play...

The drawing took its own tack...

Later in the road trip I kept seeing notions of similar ilk... like this curious strut-like spacer on the power lines along the road, presumably it prevents the results of tangling winds...

Or the moon wheel covers of a beautifully restored auto also waiting to catch a ferry...

After dinner in Victoria we played at a luminary festival in the park near where we stayed. The Bucky balls captured Stephen...

Of the many views of gorgeous scenery I captured, here is but one, sandwiched by a deck plank's weathered pattern made by a long dead tree. That is life in the Northwest...

One more contemplation of blooming circularities is this first course dish which I made for one of our intimate dinners just before we left on the Canadian odyssey... a Hungarian Jicama Rose.

Here we are on Gambier Island with a map of the territory we are exploring behind us...

The shot was made with my camera supported atop a funny new toy of a tripod I'd discovered...

Finally... Leo brings annually these blooms to a cactus hanging over our bed. its red bringing 'round again the paprika of jicama roses & Freideberg.

THE MASTERS CAST...

This draft got waylaid by work on my article Sculpture Is Drawing In Space that was published last month by the American Bell Association's magazine THE BELL TOWER. It is based on my post of February 13 of the same name.

This stage of the production has not been photographed much before & it is still timely. I've been trying to share studio processes more intimately this design year. I'm pleased to have rediscovered it.

I am taking some deep lessons for myself inside this season of translation... the waxes I've spent weeks have been lost... lost into the process of casting them as metal masters.

A plaster waste mold is poured around the finished wax carving & is paced into a kiln. From inside my original carved wax flows molten... leaving its impression which thus can receive molten silver in turn... transforming & quite accurately translating my wax work into durable metallic form... if all has gone right. There is possibility for metal being too cool, for instance, making for an incomplete casting. Or too much heat can result in a poor surface. All went well this time... WHEW!!!

I now get to analyse & amplify my carving further in this more dense material. The wax, while being the hardest I can find, is much softer than silver. Now more than ever I can tend to sharpening details... inside & out... I can develop the surface to a tighter polish.

Translation is always somewhat rough. The solidification of any dream becomes inevitably more crude at higher resolution. This shift determines the outer limits of available material. Unlike the wax, I cannot add to the form. I can only work inward from here. Growth becomes that beautiful negative so equally requisite...

Here you can see into the pores of a raw cast surface. There have been wild dialogues between my carved surfaces & hardening plaster... between that plaster surface & the flow of molten metal into its cavity... which shrinks while cooling, taking on such a deep complexion...

In these shots I've begun to use silicon brushes to start developing the surface...

The new version of The GINGKO Bell & a design inspired by the Hawai'ian vine we know as Split Leaf Philodendron, The MONSTERA Bell are also ready for the reworking of all those surfaces toward new degrees of perfection...

SOLSTICE SOUNDCLIFF GARDEN...

Our first day of summer is typically overcast. Nonetheless, that light allowed color to glow from the lush growth in our garden. While there are plenty of neglected spots & even some substantial weed patches, my camera found views which celebrate the results of the cool & rainy days of our lingering spring weather.

The work of polishing out the new bell masters & molding them for production has kept me in deep nocturnal mode for recent weeks, so I have not gardened so much as I would wish. But I have been working to distribute more of the compost we've had delivered.

Our south lawn is shady, a composition of textures in numerous greens...

The Acanthus, or "Bear's Britches" has become an annual stalwart inhabiting that part of the garden. Its sturdy spikes are beginning to reach sunward...

Like the Lady's Mantle above the greens begin to give way to other hues. The spots on this plant for which I do not know a name, hint to remind me that it later sends up delicate spikes with small red flower balls. We are learning that the St. John's Wort we appreciate for its lively beauty of red & yellow blossoms-becoming-berries is also good for holding slopes, so we are transplanting the seedlings down on our lower reaches..

An area beneath the window over my wax desk seems like a small fireworks display... energetically sending sparks of healing blessings toward nephew David, [read about that in Stephen's blog here] for whom Stephen planted the Dianthus inside a bed already blooming with Lavatera, Allium, Peony, among others... plus a seeding bunch of Festuca grass!

The Allium is such intriguing sculpture...

The north yard is more open... sunnier for the food crops in the four raised beds & adjacent borders. The new deck sits on the edge.

The circle in the lawn is the bed of Roman chamomile which began as a cover for our cat Gertie's grave, which I've been keeping groomed & will soon cut a spiral out of it to plant more area. We love this sturdy ground cover for a story at the beginning of our acquaintance & I intend to replace large portions of the lawn with its fragrant softness...

The raised bed with a trellis is planted with snow peas, lettuce & a cabbage. It also supports several wind chimes, one a Paolo Soleri bell my parents gave me when they closed their house in Monument, Colorado.

The Cardoon, which is an artichoke's cousin, got tucked too closely between two Rhodies several years ago... I tried to move it, but too late, I'm afraid it has settled where it is. It is raising itself even taller in bloom this year, like the Mustard I am letting develop seed to save for planting later. It's obviously being a fine year for foxglove [digitalis]; there is an entire meadow of it nearby!

I'm also saving seed on both colors of Swiss chard that fed us over last winter. Their stalks are gorgeous structures...

A smoke bush gives the north border the wildest coloration combining deep silvery purples with orange accents, particularly on the undersides of the leaves!

A simply sweet small old variety of rose & the white papery Cistus also live nearby.

A Calla lily floats in the space beneath a Fuchsia...

Something newly fuzzy, a "goatsbeard" which Stephen brought home last week, is planted in front of a Hosta.

The birdhouse in the apricot tree housed a family of chickadees this spring, keeping the parents busy! I had hoped to see the young ones learn to fly, but that probably happened while I slept one morning after a nocturnal work session...

This year's big project has been the new garden on the clay slope north of Stephen's writing cottage, his Forge. It had been our typical clay, packed by the equipment which did the retaining wall a year ago. Steven Shaun helped me build the zig-zagging gravel path from which we could begin working organic material into that density to build tilth. I had a load of okara delivered, since it is a free resource from our local Island Spring Tofu factory. The material, derived from soybeans, is like wet sawdust. It seemed ideal for this project, but it does have some drawbacks... it can smell! We covered it with compost before the Open Studio to mask that increasing odor, since it did not have any opportunity to dry out in our weather. Even now I am only gingerly beginning to fork it up to add more mulch into some of the deeper areas of those new beds... I believe it is a good material -- I just wish it were more pleasant!

The result of all that process has been pleasing to watch as the plants we'd been collecting over several years in pots or temporary spots during that period of upset on our cliff settle into their new places, taking off better than could be expected.

The Lacinata kale plants which had been growing in one of the raised beds took up residence & have mostly tripled in growth! They are wonderful food, especially during the cold winter months, & can perennialize for 3-4 years in this climate, building meandering trunks & huge inflourescences of yellow blossoms.

The last of the iris dance with several white digitalis above a row of Sedum which also will live in their temporary spot for another year... there just was not enough gardening time between the rains to accomplish soil building in time to plant... There IS Always Next Year!

The next couple shots were made several weeks ago, when the Siberian iris were at their prime against a rhododendron.

This rainbow last week was the flattest one I'd ever seen... a rainstorm traveled through it as I watched...

Tahoma then came out to say her bon soir with the pink backlight of sunset...