NEW Line of Hand-crafted COOL Wearables, Gear, and ARTful Originals!

New designs, new art, and a new brand just in time for adventuring! Though it has been a LOT of work, I have been feeling satisfied creatively and having a lot of fun creating new t-shirt art, new Growler and gear bag designs with Kristen (our daughter) for our new Crow Creek Coolture  brand.  Below is the new logo and a couple of the graphics for the weather-resistant Growler & Gather bags we are making. The water resistant vinyl bags are a perfect fit for a Growler (...from LaBodega Girdwood!) or even for berry picking this fall! 

Water resistant Growler Bag production on the sewing table! Just in time for our walk up to La Bodega Girdwood!

Our new logo and brand for COOL wearables, Gear, and ARTful Originals!

NEW Line of Hand-crafted COOL Wearables, Gear, and ARTful Originals!

New designs, new art, and a new brand just in time for adventuring! Though it has been a LOT of work, I have been feeling satisfied creatively and having a lot of fun creating new t-shirt art, new Growler and gear bag designs with Kristen (our daughter) for our new Crow Creek Coolture  brand.  Below is the new logo and a couple of the graphics for the weather-resistant Growler & Gather bags we are making. The water resistant vinyl bags are a perfect fit for a Growler (...from LaBodega Girdwood!) or even for berry picking this fall! 

Water resistant Growler Bag production on the sewing table! Just in time for our walk up to La Bodega Girdwood!

Our new logo and brand for COOL wearables, Gear, and ARTful Originals!

Come With Us on A Fall Walkies

Nothing better than a hike in the fresh mountain air in beautiful Girdwood. Tauzer Schnauzer has to take the short route due to her arthritis but Nimbus can't get enough so we take two daily hikes.

During our hikes and walkies Nimbus LOVES to submerge himself in whatever water he can find -however shallow or COLD!

At the higher elevations, snow is on the mountain peaks & glaciers and that means time for the Resort to pull the snow making machines out. Once the temps drop the snowmaking machines can start creating a solid base at the lower levels of the resort to keep us skiing into the spring.

With all of the berry picking done Moose Meadows waits for a blanket of snow so we can cross country ski and hopefully I take Nimbus Skijouring!

Plenty of new construction in Girdwood. The new paved road is for nine new hi-end residential lots just below the Challenge Alaska building. There is more information about the real estate on the Resort's web site.

Almost all of the container plants and flowers have died due to the last couple of frosts EXCEPT this one which flowered this week! I didn't even know that these vines (sorry, I don't know the plant's name) flowered. I've been putting off wintering the deck pots because they are still growing. Think I'll wait till the first snowfall...

I Choose To Be Here...

After a summer of record setting rain, where would you choose to be?

I think you can imagine what I chose this weekend and there is some serious R&R going on here at the cabin. Yes, I have a stack of work I should be doing in the shop and studio and Derek has a stack of papers to grade, but the glorious Autumn weather forced us to hike, BBQ, enjoy cocktails on the deck and catch up on a stack of good reading in the mountain sun -and Daddy-O even patched the roof while I "supervised." Even though the Spenard Farmers Market is over, I was hard at it all week with new work. The week was spent finalizing some new quilted wall art patterns I’ve been working on this year. A talented group of quilters are in the process of reviewing my new work and I hope to finalize the pattern production this month.

The plasma cutter and welder gets plugged in on Monday though. It was fun to take a break from steel and turn to fabric but it ended up forcing me to get an eye appointment… Yes, I needed to get reading glasses –arrrgh! It was getting harder and harder to see threading that damn needle and I was tired of the wasted energy of mis-threads. This was a hard appointment for me to make as “ol Eagle Eye” as Daddy-O affectionately calls me has finally succumbed to one of the natural affects of young age. Fortunately, I don't need my new glasses for welding!

OK, Enough is Enough

Even for us hearty Alaskan souls, I think we've had about as much snow as we need for Spring Break! The Seward Highway into Anchorage is closed for a few hours due to an avalanche at Bird Point and DOT will be doing more avalanche mitigation. The Mountain has a delayed opening until 1:00 pm for snow load control and the Spring Break Silvertip School Groups Camp cancelled morning sessions. We can hear the safety crew with the avalanche guns blasting the mountain and can see where Max's Mountain actually had a slide all the way down to the upper parking lot -holy cow! The skies are clearing though and it seems the only one having more fun than first-tracks skiers is Tauzer's buddy, Isis!

Welcome 2010!

Fireworks and a Torchlight Parade welcomed in the New Year here in Girdwood. Kristen and Derek skied with three-hundred and fifty plus hearty souls carrying torches down the slopes of Mt. Alyeska. Skiing in the Parade wasn't open to the public but reserved for employees of the resort and members of the Alyeska Ski Club. Once at the top of the mountain, sophisticated torches were constructed using very high-tech materials of road flares, duct tape and bamboo poles! A huge crowd of cheering spectators lined the base of the mountain and watched the procession, which was then followed by an incredible fireworks display. A fog layer made for an eerie ride up the lifts but fortunately the fog didn't block the view of the fireworks or parade. Several friends and their kids showed up at our house after the parade with mini kegs, champagne and sparkling wine (for the kids) in hand and a crazy, fun, impromptu party broke out at our house as we watched the fireworks from our deck. Half of us were in the house, the kids were running around and standing around the fire pit the rest of us were cheering to each of the fantastic fireworks explosion. Which is the reason I think at some point the neighbors actually shouted for us to keep it down but Daddy-O and I found that quite flattering since we haven't been shhhhhh'ed in about 15 years! We are all moving a bit s-l-o-o-o-w this morning and it’s not from all of the skiing… Aye carumba, keeping up with these college kids is hard to do. Wishing everyone PEACE, HEALTH and HAPPINESS in 2010!

Space Invaders

Last year, when I was redesigning the studio to accommodate my newest medium of clay I had bought a couple of good books on studio design and really cool potters studios. One of the things mentioned in a book was “a Slab Roller Table can double as additional surface area.” I thought to myself, “no way! I would never use my sacred slab roller area for anything other than clay,” that just seemed sacrilegious… well, not using that valuable surface area lasted about two months! Anchorage set a record low temp “for this day in history” last week. At a 

cool 6 degrees (colder in most areas and it’s not even Thanksgiving!!) I had to move a lot of metal pieces that were (not) drying out in the shop/garage area into the warmer and dryer clean studio area. Ravens were on tap this week filing pre-Holiday orders and finishing up some special requests from the Bad Girls Show. I had Raven sculptures in various stages of production everywhere! Ironically, there was a story in the Fairbanks Newsminer that a customer and our daughter had e-mailed me about “Hundreds of birds seem to mourn deaths of fellow ravens…” I guess there were hundreds of Ravens gathered in east Fairbanks after two Ravens roosting on top of a transformer were electrocuted. It made for quite an eerie scene.

We had a couple of pleasant surprises when we arrived at the Girdwood house last night. First, it was snowing and a balmy 15 degrees! Second, Daddy-O’s new boards arrived and were waiting for him at the Mountain Learning Center’s office. Derek works part-time as a PSIA Level III Ski Instructor 

and PSIA Examiner at the Resort. He was a very happy boy. The upper level instructors are being treated to a clinic day on the lower mountain today, before the mountain

opens to the public this Wednesday the 25th. Third, while Derek was picking up his skis we saw that the lights were on at Shelbi Lynne’s new shop, “Babes in the Woods Gallery!” Here shop features “Art, Apparel and Adventure” and is located on the Alyeska Boardwalk. Shelbi says her new gallery is “featuring a fresh collection of Alaskan artwork, a rejuvenated vision, surrounded by woods and some of the best ski slopes Alaska has to offer. Nestled in between the Sitzmark and the 

Day Lodge, just a few doors down from Girdwood Visual Arts Center and the Bake Shop, come by to say hello, enjoy the space, and get a healthy dose of inspiration.” She asked me to bring in some of my metal work and I’m excited to make up a few cool art pieces and bring them down to her hip little shop next week. Just in time for artful Holiday gift giving!

Push Me Pull Me (Please!)

With the flip of the calendar from October to November(!) I’m on countdown till the big Bad Girls of the North Show which opens at 4pm on Friday… Less than 3 days of production left –yikes. It seems like there were still so many other fun pieces I wanted to make. There are clearly not enough clay with steel works made. Originally, I had BIG plans to 

introduce my new medium of clay at Bad Girls but I didn’t do a very good job of juggling “mixing of the mediums” very well at all this year. Heavy sigh –so much art to make, so few 28-hour days. My stomach always gets a bit rumbly-tumbly and does flip-flops starting a whole week before a show. I’ve been working hard and diligently planning my artmaking but I’m never sure if I’ve made the right stuff or even enough stuff. There are only so many forming, welding, firing, glazing, finishing, painting, drying days left now, so a few things that were on my “want to make for Bad Girls” list have been crossed completely off.

One of the clay and steel sculptures that I really wanted to finish and DID finish -yippee, was “Tired Old Moon.” When I looked in the archive to see when I first Blogged about Mr. Moon I would have never guessed it was last January! Holy cow, where did time go?!

When I finished the Magpie sculpture last week, I was inspired as to how to make a stand for “Tired Old Moon.” Both sculptures are free standing, welded to round, 14” steel plate bases and are about 6’ tall. The Moon can slip on and off the steel stand through a fist size hole in the back of the Moon. He was formed using Tile White clay, fired at ^04 in my electric kiln and I used an Amaco Matte aqua glaze.

O.K. I admit my muscles (and Tauzer's too!) are moving a bit slower today than normal and it’s not from all the steel I’ve been slinging! Saturday, on Halloween Gus wanted us to look for ghosts up at Crow Creek Mine in Girdwood. The mountain scene photo was taken up at Crow Pass Trail, where we took him up to the trail head to see if he could see any apparitions. With no sign of spooky spirits in the bright sunshine, we headed back down the mountain toward the trailhead of 

the Iditarod National Historic Trail which extends from Girdwood to Eklutna. His voice echoed in the frozen boreal forest “If any of you miner ghosts are out there, just give me a sign –even if it is a creepy one!” That had Derek and I biting our tongues not to laugh out loud as we hiked along the Winner Creek Gorge Trail. The reward was reaching the hand tram and crossing Winner Creek. Thankfully, Daddy-O has Popeye arms and pulled me back across after I got a picture of the creek! 

Enjoying What the Bears and Birds Missed

Daddy-O and I started to winterize around the Girdwood house. Snow on the top of Max’s Mountain Saturday morning is one of our annual signs to shift our seasonal lifestyle. We drained and unhooked the garden hose, dried and stowed the mountain bikes, emptied the terracotta planters and put the picnic table under shelter so it doesn’t get plowed into matchsticks by the front end loader that manages our snow load in the parking area. We were also on squirrel patrol, since Kelly, one of our renters mentioned there is a squirrel now running back and forth in her bedroom ceiling (probably stashing pine cones for winter) which is between our upper unit and the ground level unit…not good.  Sealing off some probable entrance points in the old logs on the side of the house and knowing my husband as I do, the squirrel doesn’t stand a chance! Winterizing only lasted so long as the beauty of Fall overtook us. Before long we were all playing in our woods eating the sweetened blueberries that the Bears and Birds missed, explored the upended root den of a huge fallen Evergreen, found new growth Hemlocks and generally appreciating the vibrant colors of Fall. Tauzer Schnauzer chased critters, chewed sticks and was just glad to be a Girdwood Dog. We laughed at all the grass seed and Blueberry bush leaves that had stuck to her. We even thought she was cute all stinky and rain soaked, until I noticed that the brown thing on the top of her forehead wasn’t a leaf at all, it was a gross SLUG! 

Even the Weather Was Artful

It’s probably best that it is pouring rain this morning here in Girdwood. Daddy-O has the football game on (thankfully at a very low volume), I’m sipping hot tea and we’re not up for our

usual morning hike. Gus is drawing with his new super-duper mega-marker set he bid on and won in the kid’s silent auction. The GCVA “Fall for Art” was a huge success last night and we’re worn out from so much laughing, dancing, eating and revelry that can only happen when you throw a bunch of artists and joyous patrons together in Girdwood –not to mention a live band, the best beers on tap and wine sold by the bottle (with dinner of course)!

The setting couldn’t have been more spectacular and the beer couldn’t have been better (one of our favorites, Glacier Brewhouse Amber Ale: Made with the finest English floor malts in the world, malty, medium bodied, and balanced with hints of chocolate and caramel…) –sorry, did I mention beer again?! We were surprised and impressed to see that GCVA unveiled their plans, designed by Architects Alaska, which is a beautiful new Arts Center building! This ambitious goal certainly fueled higher than normal bidding.

Alyeska Resort and their employees hosted quite the spread of a full spaghetti

dinner, bar and all you can eat fresh Pie for dessert. Art patrons dined amid the alpenglow of beautiful Mt. Alyeska, the changing yellow birch trees and kids of all ages ran around on the freshly cut resort grounds. There were over 5 huge tables of silent auction items and 6 live auction items. I was honored that “Spenard Kinetic” was a live auction item and brought over $800 to GCVA, thanks to a generous supporter of the arts. Winners of the Pie Baking contest won highly coveted hand thrown pie dishes donated by Girdwood’s best potters, which always heats up the competition even more. The center pieces were hip and creative using shredded paper for nests atop recycled plastic jugs that contained glow-in-the dark liquid and battery operated tea lights. Newsprint painted leaves and origami cranes in various sized nested on table tops. The center pieces came to life as the Daylodge dining lights were dimmed when the auctions ended and the band fired up. Kids and adults hit the dance floor working off a bit of dinner and tons of fresh PIE we all had consumed! 

The Girdwood Center for Visual Art's Annual "Spaghetti Feed" has always been a family event making it fun for all ages, one that we’re glad to have involved our 3 kids. This year the event

got a new name, a new look and some much needed new energy. In addition to all of the adult type silent auction art items, this year there were 2 lowered silent auction tables just for kid bidding and even a Kids category for the Pie Baking Pie Contest. Gus was thrilled to 

have WON the Kids Pie Baking Contest with his Apple-Cranberry-Raisin Pie!!  It was inspiring to see the new vision of a 6,000 + sq. ft. arts building for GCVA and meet the new board and new volunteers. The old “GCVA Spaghetti Feed” used to be held at various artists homes who would spend the day cooking up batches and batches of spaghetti and sauce with the help of friends and family, a job that is now hosted by the Resort and professional staff. The “Spaghetti Feed”  has grown not only into a real fund raising event but a “not to miss” social event and highly competitive Pie Baking Contest.  While the new "larger vision" for GCVA  is inspiring, fortunately, the friends, the fun, support, and everyone’s LOVE OF ART is still the same.