Oh, pickles!

Dear blog,

I won’t be posting much today because I’m busy. I’ve purchased ink, paper and chipboard, and have ordered my very first custom magnesium dies for my new letterpress contact/calling cards.  I have asked people to hang onto excess paperboard so I may use that for printing as well. Hollander’s has open studios on Monday evenings and their C&P is in my cross-hatches. I am excited.

Admittedly, I have also spent an embarrassing but considerable amount of time visiting Chuck on Dooce. He is fantastic. (The whole site is fantastic, for that matter.) I tried putting a cookie on Olly’s head and he would have none of that.

xo,

Meg

This is the first spring I’ve been so utterly smitten with all the tiny buds, the fresh greens and the early blossoms. I’ve always noticed them, always been so relieved to see winter say buh-bye, but this year I’ve noticed myself getting more and more interested in exactly what is blooming, how quickly it’s blooming, the entire process.

This spring, I’ve noticed the most gorgeous colors - incredibly refreshing and inspiring; here are a few pics in my fave file:

Don’t even know what these little finger-like leaves and fuzzy purple raspberries are (above), but love, love, loved the colors and weirdness.

Behind my mom’s house is a dead-brown-leaf-covered woodsy area which recently revealed some of the most amazing daffodils I’ve seen. Creamy whites with petal-tendrils reaching out, layers and layers of ruffles - gorgeous, right?!

Maple leaves are maple leaves, but these rubbery chartreuse baby leaves made me look twice. And thrice. They really got me thinking about how maple leaves know how to look like maple leaves, always with that definitive maple leaf shape; they don’t wake up in the spring and change it up and decide to look like oak leaves on a whim. How they know, all of them, that they are maple leaves (I AM MAPLE LEAF, no question of identity)… and how reliable they are (maple leaf = maple leaf, year after year after year) - it’s incredibly reassuring in a way.

Can’t get this notion out of my head lately. The kicker is the search for tuning in to exactly what might make me happy + what might also produce income. (This is something Holly at decor8 has been addressing via many interesting interviews lately, if you’re also in the middle of that search for yourself.)

A lovely new piece from Linzie Hunter, who also designed some whimsical illustrative spam, all available right here.

So, I’m no Crystal Kluge, but I’ve been loving my new calligraphy class. It’s incredibly rewarding to make “a” after “a” after “a” and finally feel like I’m getting it. It requires a lot of patience and a ton of practice, but I have really enjoyed how methodical it is.

Frankly, one of the primary reasons I took ancient Greek classes in college was because I wanted to be able to write the decorative letters! It was so fun just to write sentences and see how they looked. In calligraphy, we’ve learned the entire lowercase Foundational Hand alphabet, so we’re on to putting complete words and phrases together and working on spacing.

Seeing as how my new job is full time and the schedule is feeling frighteningly rigid, I’ll have to stop taking calligraphy. This definitely goes on the “con” list for evaluating the new job, because I don’t even know how to make capital letters yet!

Spring has arrived in Michigan and we couldn’t be happier about that.

Violet chionodoxa have waved through and the yellow daffodils are up and shining. On my time away from the blog - particularly during my “positive energy” week - we visited a local nature reserve that provided a renewed burst of energy (much needed). Seeing the brilliant blues and yellows and greens pushing up from under the dead brown covers was surprisingly powerful. I also couldn’t get this out of my head; so mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.

I’m so pleased to see that WordPress has decided to allow me to insert my pictures. That makes for a good welcome back to blogging. For we have news to report (for whatever it’s worth) about a new job which may or may not last longer than a week. The weekend will be comprised of many “pro” and “con” lists to sort out whether it’s worth having a job for having-a-job-sake, or whether it may be worth just a little further consideration, a little more investigation into the possibilities of really pushing to find work that I am passionate about, work that I really enjoy, pursuing something I want to put my time and energy into, rather than walking into someone else’s dream and fitting into someone else’s box. Right? Because, if not now… when?

I was thinking I would show a picture of my first attempts at calligraphy, but I’m having more trouble displaying images in my wordpress posts ever since a new back end “upgrade”.  I’ve had one calligraphy class and have another tomorrow, and so far, so good. Foundational hand isn’t the prettiest… so it’ll be a challenge to see how quickly I can do it well enough to move on to something a little more interesting!

I also want to share with you a very cool new site called Mixwit. I would embed my own custom “mix tape” right here, but it’s not supported by wordpress… yet.  You can create your own mixes, name them, and decorate the cassette tape with custom images, tape designs, etc.

Because last week had more than its fair share of negativity and frustration - generated from internal and external sources - I’ve declared this week as a positive energy zone. It simply must be positive and forward-moving, forward-thinking, and that’s it. Despite the fact that one of my fortune cookie fortunes tonight read: “endurance and persistence will be rewarded,” if things are too aggravating this week, they need to get out of the way for now. Seeing as how wordpress is not willing to cooperate tonight, it’s going on the “get out of the way for now” list. For now. Back to practicing my scripty i’s, j’s, h’s, m’s and n’s. For now.

Today was a big day of progress on my mom’s new website featuring her colored pencil artwork. Still have a lot to do and a handful of kinks to work out, but a few galleries are up and I invite you to take a look right here!

Speaking of beautiful floral design, I came across the Floral Annual book via the work of Rob Plattel, a natural artist and floral designer from the Netherlands. (One of his contemporary floral designs was featured in the Annual.) Below, a series of photographs of a “temporary beauty” installation.

Plattel also designs “hardscape” artistic installations using stone, wood, branches and roots with a very circular theme throughout:

Above, Betula is a large installation using birch wood sections arranged in an enormous circle.

Above and below, two round art installations. Above includes sunflower stems, below is a circle of rhubarb roots surrounded by gold leaf.

Read more about Plattel’s work at his website right here, or, he’s got a new book called Natural Rhythms which looks gorrrrgeous - available right here.

I’ve been pouring through some of the most gorgeous floral design I’ve ever seen - primarily Dutch and Belgian designers, avant garde and just so incredibly lovely. Images from the most recent International Annual of Floral Art, a “yearbook compiling contemporary floral compositions” are included here. (Unfortunately, most of the book’s preview images don’t include credits!) Above, “flying” orchids remind me of a similar installation of “flying” ginkgo leaves created by (amazing) floral artist Daniel Ost.

I’m smitten by this chicken wire hemisphere covered with reeds and grasses and dotted with vibrant orchids. It makes my imagination go wild - I can see these adapted to hang as chandeliers for an event, dot across a perfect lawn for a garden party, or as mini-versions as translucent tabletop centerpieces.

We’ve finally gotten a first taste of spring here in Michigan, so all thoughts seem to navigate to spring flowers, spring colors, the lightness and freshness of spring.