Frost on My Pumpkins

A blustery day in Anchorage knocked out power and prompted an air quality advisory. Anchorage saw high winds that whipped up so much dust and debris that the view of the Chugach Range was obscured. The real weather change was going from Anchorage which was in the 40’s (and no 

real deep freeze at our house near downtown) to Girdwood where this morning it was a cool 12 degrees! The good news is it’s a blue bird day and the Resort has the snow cannons blazing making the mountain's first layer of snow. A good base of man-made snow enables the mountain to, hopefully with Mother Natures' cooperation, have quality top to bottom skiing. The opening of the 2009/10 Season for Alyeska Ski Resort is slated for November 25th.

I finished a commission for a client that wanted a wall sculpture of Mt. Susitna, also known as Sleeping Lady. The evening news used this image of Mt. Susitna obscured by the high winds and dust last night. I’ve also included a clear shot of how the beautiful she normally appears. Mount Susitna is often called The Sleeping Lady for its resemblance to a sleeping woman from Anchorage and the parts of the Valley. The name is sometimes said to derive from a legend, in which a woman named Susitna belonging to a race of giants vows to sleep until world peace is achieved, but no actual legend has been confirmed. The finished metal sculpture is over 60"

wide and about 23” tall (unfortunately, the photo is not very good and was taken at an angle in my entry way because I didn't have a large blank wall available!). The client loved the piece but would have preferred that it had a bit more height to fit their space but the mountain is so horizontal I didn’t want to add any more trees or mountain to plump up the height than I already did or it 

would take away from the mountains recognizable shape.

Quite appropriate for Halloween, I received a letter in the mail yesterday that started with “Dear Citizen Scientist, Thank you so much for your participation in the Alaska Bat Monitoring Program from 2002-2009!” The 

letter was an update and summary report information and the distribution of the Little Brown Bat in Alaska. Volunteer, Citizen Scientists provided valuable little known informational data on the creature in Alaska. For years in late summer we have see the quick flutters at dusk near the eve of our roof. In the mornings we would wake to finding bat guano on our deck in Girdwood. Several years ago, we thought for sure a mouse had taken up residence in a wood stove, but we found and rescued a young bat that had fallen down the flue! We’ve tracked and reported the area and times when our little bat friends have visited. This year their time was brief, only a couple weeks in late August. I love Bats and have been inspired to use their imagery in my sculpture work. Here is a good link on the Bat Monitoring Project. There are some good Bat pictures just in time to show the kiddies before they go out trick-or-treating tonight...  -eeeeeeekkk!