Christmas came and went in a lovely swirl of colored paper, lasagna, and laughing with children. It was warm at our families houses and we feel really connected, calmed, and confident about the place we are, the people we are surrounded by, and our lucky luck.

There's a lot of hodge podge in my head and on my desk and I am feeling particularly sharing so:


I'm dreaming of Penland...
There's a fun design contest you should enter with your champagne bottles.
The Bul Ma Min song on this CD is lovely lovely lovely!

There are opportunities to make and show artwork all over the place,kids! They need diary comics in Athens (scroll down to see the call for entry) even!

and finally, I did write a poem on the occasion of our big furnace purchase:

The icy answer
cold reality
the chilly truth is
simply
we are nicer warmer.

be nice, be warm, be good, be in touch, will ya?!
Rachael

It's cold in this house but we're warmly wishing you a merry and a happy. I'll share my favorite old xmas-y picture...a snowfamily in a truck in little five points in Atlanta a bunch a years ago.

You prob'ly will also enjoy Keri's guerrilla Xmas ideasAnd how
Anna's post gives great insight on how a group of artists look at political art. All sorts of good stuff lurks on the web, and more is in my attic studio and in little conversations with all sorts of people. So, I'll share more soon, when it's warmer.
Make good, work for peace, be nice and have a wonderful holiday,
love,
Rachael

Happy winter, happy cold, happy re-growth, happy keeping warm. It's been a while since I posted a painting and even though this is an oldie, it seems to fit as I see snowflakes falling and I am still reading about gardens...

You can look at the weeds in New Jersey here. Botanical illustrations abound here and here.
I have more stories to tell, more pictures to post (and yes, an attack teapot), more wishes for you but the bread needs to bake and I have more paperdolls to joint before I sleep.
take good care,
Rachael

Any writer who can use the work "quacksomely" to describe a duck is a delight, and having discovered what everybody else discovered years ago, I'm getting me some Diane Ackerman. I'm reading her book about her garden. I love the language, the play, the oberservation, the joy, the silly. This interview is nice too. My husband doesn't call me swan. But then he doesn't call me duck or ostrich either so I guess I'm OK.

And apparently I jinxed it. the minute I told you we were warm our old furnace got finicky. It sometimes heats, it sometimes smells, it certainly will keep us busy but that's the fun of home-ownership I suppose and we do own the house (well, yes, the bank owns the house but they let us live in it). I call the bank swan.

Oh and there's this big buy-a-lot crazy out-of-control holiday looming over us. I simply wish you a merry one with more homemade than store-bought, more family than frantic, more friends than financing, and more hope and peace than anything else. Bye swan.

take care,
Rachael


(ps. Ciao Cristina! )

Our hot water is back. I have a warm handspun (though not currently spinning)scarf around my neck (a lovely trade from Julie who now has paper dolls dancing around her office) and I simply don't care that it is 3 degrees out or that Christmas is twenty minutes away or that I have my eye on a grant application I oughtta write out or that I have more paper dolls to make, more books to read, more bread to bake, more friends to write to, more things to do than hours to do them.

oh well. I'm warm, healthy and alive.

I'm OK with that. You?

love,

Rachael