The Living Room

This past Friday night we had our first art opening of the season here at El Zaguan which is why I have not posted in a while. Between the show and work I have been a busy bee. It was a group show featuring work by all the current artist's in residence including Billy and I, Brenda Roper, Max Carlos Martinez, Greg Tweed and Adam Eisman. I had three photo prints in the show and Billy hung 8 paintings. We had a great turn out and a really fun evening. The show hangs for another week or so if you are in Santa Fe stop over to say HI and see the work.

This is a piece by Brenda Roper.... she is a really thoughtful and interesting person to know and her work is beautiful. This pic has a bit of a glare but gives you a good feel for her art.

Annnnd this is Max. He lives right next door to us and I love him to pieces. If you move back to New York Max I will burn the city to the ground.

I don't know who this wretched geek is but someone should have thrown her out into the street...

Here's a long shot view of Billy's wall... I will post a few close ups further down.

Brenda and I after a few preliminary sips of prosecco.

And here are a few of Billy's pieces... up close.

The last one is a dude all cozied up to a fire in an arroyo.... I love the feel of it. Night time paintings!

We are still dry as a heap of shredded wheat here and all smoked up from the fires that continue in AZ. It makes for some beautiful skies in the evening but I have had my fill of the smell and the sore throat, etc. stemming from it.



I have several days off this coming week and a visit from a VIP friend this next weekend so we should have tons of pics and stories to share coming up.

Cheers!

Number 3

Where have we been for the past 6 months? Touring with a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band. No? Can we pretend that is where we have been? Let's do. That way I can just skip right to telling you where we are now. That's all that really matters anyway. Here's a nutshell version.... we left Nantucket in the end of March, spent a month on the road visiting family, bake saling for dollars and trying to live in an Airstream with no running water or electricity that has major parts being held on by duct tape. We managed to travel all the way back to New Mexico in this way and have now settled in to apartment 3 at El Zaguan on Canyon Rd. It's an artist's residency space in an historic building owned by The Historic Santa Fe Foundation. It's a pretty remarkable situation. We have fabulous neighbors, access to real food again (I'm thumbing my nose at YOU Nantucket) and are really glad to be back home in Santa Fe.

This is the street view of El Zag looking down Canyon....

And the view from our garage roof tops out back....

The view from our bedroom door on the zaguan (a long outdoor hallway that runs the length of the building) at dusk.

This place is pure magic.

Here is an (lengthy but interesting) article The New Mexican published on the building and it's history for anyone curious.

We (the current artist's in residence) will be writing a blog sharing work, photos, writing and event dates such as shows etc. which I will post about here as soon as it is up and running.

Thanks for hanging with me.... it was a long, tough winter and I had no motivation to write! The tide has most definitely turned!

Summer Storms in NM

All these pics were taken tonight.... it was such a mind blowing, beautiful sky. We had a blast wandering around shooting pics and watching the show. I am so glad to be back in Santa Fe.

Getting Settled

Whew! It has been a wild change of pace for us over the past few weeks since we left Mendocino. Up there we were sort of floating around in a slow paced fog wearing layers of long sleeves and woolen sweaters and suddenly now we are stinking hot in the Santa Fe sun in 90 + degree temps, zipping back and forth across town in traffic and working on a real live schedule (something that we have not done in years.) I have been a little overwhelmed and a lot exhausted since we got here. But! Things are starting to shape up and settle down now.

My new job is great and I am so thrilled to have scored such a cool gig. I start my chocolatier training tomorrow. Up until now I have been learning the general ropes of the shop and just getting acclimated to the whole scene there. One bit of interesting news is that Billy is actually going to be helping out working one or two days a week cooking at the shop. He will be making the caramel, toffee and the pate (6 flavors of ganache style chocolate enrobed in wax for easy traveling and longevity.) He starts tomorrow training with Keith (one of the owners) on how to cook all these goodies up in a huge copper kettle. It will be funny to have him there at work with me. Rudy will benefit from this in that he gets to go spend the days we work together at the doggie day care which is right next door. The place is called Santa Fe Tails. It's a new business and they seem to be doing a great job so far. One of the best things about the place is that they have web cams set up so you can check in on your dog while they are there playing for the day. They also take each dog out for a walk at the railyard park across the street. Rudy had a blast the last time we dropped him off for the day although the dudes working there did mention that Rudy was a pistol and they could hardly even believe his energy levels. Yo. Tell me about it.

My biggest news to report is that as of August 1st we will be taking a break from the Airstream. Probably a long break other than occasional weekend trips. We just rented a little place right on Canyon Rd and will be moving in the first of next month. We are doing this because the RV parks in and around Santa Fe are just not aesthetically pleasing to me, they are almost as expensive as a casita rental and in the winter here we would freeze our ass off in the trailer. So we will be putting the old girl in storage for awhile. I guess I am ready for a change of living quarters since we have been in the AS for a solid year straight and on and off for almost three years now. Our new place is really sweet... it's not very big but it will suit our purposes quite well. And the location is as good as it gets. We can walk down Canyon Rd and into town in a matter of minutes. I can't wait to move in. Even though we have no furniture! It will be heaven to have a real live big bathroom (and tub) again.... and a full kitchen with counter space! I love our Airstream but variety is the spice of life baby. I am ready to live without wheels under my bed for a minute here.

So with all that said... on to the fun stuff. Yesterday we drove out to Abiquiu, one of my favorite places in the whole of the USA. We had the intention of spending the afternoon and early evening out on the lake in our kayak waiting to shoot photos at dusk. The weather had other plans for us unfortunately. We had only been in the lake for about 5 minutes when the storm clouds starting rolling in and the lightening started dancing across the horizon. Lightening in northern NM is nothing to fool around about.... especially out in the middle of a big assed flat lake. We paddled around a bit, pulled of to have a late lunch and then high tailed it back to the launch site before we got zapped. Also the wind was making paddling around a stupidly huge effort so it was best to give it up for the day. After we got the kayak secured back on the truck we cruised over to Ghost Ranch to shoot some pics.











Rudy was pissed that we did not let him out of the truck at Ghost Ranch but in light of the fact that the bubonic plague is on the loose in the flea population of the area we felt it best that his hairy little ass stayed put inside. The last thing we need is him sticking his snout in some rodent hole and bringing home a host of black plague party animals to roost in our bed sheets.

The next two weeks will entail a lot of cleaning, organizing and prep for moving along with training at work so bear with me if posting is light. I'll do my best to jump on and post some pics and a few stories as the days roll by.

Another Quickie Post

I am just gonna throw a photo post up here to appease anyone who drifts through for another day or two. I have really sucked this past two weeks about getting new stuff up on here. Sorry for that! Things are going great and we are still just so busy.

Here are a random string of pics from Santa Fe over the time since we arrived.....

My fave fireworks shot I grabbed out back of the RV park on the 4th....




Rudy and I on our sunset walk in the arroyo....



Billy and Rudy people watchin' downtown.....




Chelle on our lunch date at The Aztec Cafe...




A cool shot Billy grabbed per my request the other night while the sky was full of intense clouds...




Smiling Billy....


Swingin'....



Nice shot of the train down in the railyard station area....



I think we are headed out to Abiquiu this Saturday to kayak the lake and hang out. Should be fun and I love shooting pics out there. I promise to do a "getting caught up"post by Sunday.

Have a good Friday peeps....

Big Change of Scenery, Temperature and Altitude!

HEY! Sorry I straight up disappeared on y'all for a loooong stretch there. Things have been pretty much whacked for us for a few weeks. In a nut shell.... we made the tough decision to leave California and come back to New Mexico. California was not working for us at this moment in our lives.... and obviously we are not alone in saying that. California is not working for barely anyone who is inside the state lines at this point in time. California is a hot mess. The art scene in Carmel that Billy was striving to become a part of has pretty much tanked over the past year and the once interesting galleries are now one inch shy of selling paint by numbers of baby horses. It's not the time to be workin' that scene. Unless of course you are a paint by numbers pro who specializes in cute baby animals or ugly Tuscan landscape scenes overflowing with red flowers and water fountains. Yikes.

Besides the big move we just made I have been seriously ill with my thyroid situation. I am starting to get a handle on it again but it is going to be a slow process getting my body back on track. I will write more about that later in a separate post.

We left Mendocino and took the route through Sonoma and Napa. We stopped off at Bouchon for a farewell lunch and to grab one last box of macarons from their bakery. I am tellin' ya people.... the food there is stellar. It blows my brains out every time. Check out this cucumber salad....




I'm talking 'bout a smoked paprika infused creme fraiche with marcona almonds, green olives and juicy little sweet blanched tomatoes all piled up with the cucumber slices. It was fabulous. Billy had the mussels again and I had the gnocchi (again) but both were prepared differently than we had them before. The giant cone of salty fries that come with the mussels were the same though....



Those fries are dangerous. You can't stop eating them and they give you a TON of them.

From Napa Valley we booked it straight to our friend's ranch in Paradise Valley to stop off and say goodbye and then moved on over to Clarksburg to see Bill's family. We only stayed one night each place and then hit the road south and made it all the way to Needles on our first day. It was like a 12 hour day of travel and it suuuuuucked. Needles had kicked a high temp of 119 degrees that day and it still felt like the inside of an oven when we got there. Thankfully our campsite was on the Colorado River so we all went down for a twilight swim.






In that last shot I am The Colorado River Monster. Clearly. And yet somehow Billy is unfazed and Rudy is utterly distracted. Also... check my luxurious Mendocino Fog Tan. White as snow baby... white as snoooow.

The next day we got hung up in Flagstaff for 5 or 6 hours at the Camping World getting some repair work done on the trailer. We had a new vent fan dropped in to the space above our bed where the old vent cover had blown off... finally getting rid of the garbage bag and duct tape we had be gazing up at for over a month. We also had a new electrical plug installed because we were having problems with our connection and kept blowing our breaker. I love Flagstaff so it was kind of nice to spend the afternoon downtown while the trailer was getting fixed up.

We made Santa Fe the next day and boy are we STILL pooped from the drive. I am struggling with really bad altitude induced headaches.... yuck. So we have pretty much been laying low waiting to get acclimated. I am glad to be back home in Santa Fe... the drive in was spectacular as always. We passed through this storm coming up from Albuquerque.




The New Mexican sky never let's ya down. So there you have it... for now. I will try to get some more posting in this weekend once I can sit at the laptop for a bit longer without feeling like there is an angry gnome hammering away at my head with a pick ax. Ahhhhhhhhhh.......

The Return

Whew! Annnnnnd we are back. Sorry for the gaping chasm of non posting there. Between saying goodbye to family and friends, driving 2500 miles and dealing with the laptop switcheroo I just dropped the bloggie ball there for awhile.

We had a nice farewell dinner with my parents and Gram. Here is the requisite family in front of the fireplace photo. You know you all have a series of these yourselves....



I am unsure why I forcibly shoved my Mother's head off to the side with my own huge head but she dealt with it very gracefully. I also have to share this one with you because I love the way my Mom is cupping Rudy's butt. You know somebody loves you when they cup you butt as seen here.... and also, you may enjoy seeing me looking toothier than a barracuda.




We let Rudy have one last romp in the frozen back yard. There's a cornfield out back and it was always full of Canada Geese. I am glad we made it through our stay without incident between dog and goose. I think we owe that to the fact that there was a polar ice shelf separating us from the field.




Our drive back west was without incident beside the fact that we had a dead battery when we went to pull out of my parents driveway to leave. That was funny timing. We had a tearful embrace with my Mom... did the wild waving goodbye from the driveway and climbed in, I then turned the key to the sound of a stone cold dead truck. We sat there stunned for a minute thinking that maybe our starter had gone out or that something major was wrong then we gradually realized it was just a dead battery. We charged it up and were on our way.

Let me tell ya... it is a long drive from Northern Illinois to the bay area of California via the southern route. You don't get any instant gratification anywhere along the route. Every state feels enormous. Well, maybe not Oklahoma.... but the rest are so wide open and vast that it really blows your mind. One highlight (funny word) of the drive was staying at The Big Texan Motel in Amarillo, Texas. You may have heard of the place on The Food Network or in a roadside attractions guide. They are famed for their 72 oz steak challenge. If you can finish the 4 pound slab of dead cow along with all the side items (baked potato etc) in under an hour you get the meal free and a cheesy certificate that commemorates your pinnacle moment as a pig. We were not interested in their steak dinners but more so the kitchy motel accommodations. Our room was made of rough wood paneling with not much to spruce it up besides a picture of a steer here and there and there was a Texas flag shower curtain in the weird little bathroom. We scored an old Bogart flick (Key Largo) on the TV and watched it until we konked out.



Just outside of Amarillo to the west you can pull off on the service road and walk out to see The Cadillac Ranch... or Car Henge. I have always wanted to stop and this time we did. We walked out and grabbed a few shots of the spray painted caddy's against the big old blue Texas sky.



We detoured up to Santa Fe for one day so we could visit with Michelle. We stayed right on our old street at Casa del Toro which is a bed and breakfast right down town. They have great rates and the rooms feel like you are staying in someones house. I highly recommend it for anyone traveling to Santa Fe. You can rent a small room on a frugal budget or a fancy decked out house from them and they are great people to deal with. It felt really funny to suddenly be back in the neighborhood we left behind seven months ago to hit the road in the Airstream again. We walked around downtown and ate at a few of our favorite old haunts. I do have to express my disappointment in the Plaza Diner for changing their cherry pie. It was formally on my list of favorite things in the whole wide world to eat and this time it sucked eggs. The food overall was not great.... what gives Plaza Diner? Anyway... we had a fun visit with Chelle. We got to see her new house and stop in at her husband's coffee shop and soak up some rays. I soaked up enough to burn the living crap out of my face.



At Downtown Subscription... two mean customers.



After Santa Fe we had to just haul ass back to Cali. We made it all the way to Needles, CA on the next day of driving and then all the way up Hwy 5 (boring, boring, boring drive) to Fairfield where the trailer was waiting for us yesterday. We arrived after dark and were totally fried from driving. We had to open the trailer door with our fingers and toes crossed that it was not going to be a mold festival inside. It wasn't. Our anti mold set up worked. I can now fully endorse those little humidity soaker upper things they sell at Walmart. We had about six of them in here along with baking soda in the fridge and freezer and it did the trick. Just to be on the safe side we cleaned everything again yesterday.... all the areas that had been a problem before. Billy even climbed up top and cleaned the fan hoods.



We are going to order a dehumidifier and run it at night in Mendocino just to be sure we keep on top of things. I am hoping that once we get up above the mid forties at night condensation will be less of a problem.

So we are glad to be back in California where spring is in full swing. We saw some fabulous displays of wildflowers along the highway yesterday....


Rudy is happy to be back in warmer temps (he did not love the cold in Illinois.) Although he did love eating popcorn and cheese with my Mom. One thing balances out the other.



I am so looking forward to Mendocino. We head up there this Thursday. We are unsure if we will be able to get online from our campsite but I will be posting pics as soon as I can! I am hoping the flowers are in bloom there just like this gorgeous rosemary bush here at the ranch.