I ran to the top of the hill overlooking the valley this morning, watching the sunrise, then did some yoga with Janet and Richard, getting well set up for the day, but getting involved in working on the gilding as soon as I got into the studio after a cup of tea. It’s been a constant flow all day since then. John found a window of opportunity to get to the reflux process, so we were able to drain the extracted sage brush and filter it (photo tomorrow). It’s a lovely reddish brown colour, almost exactly the colour of a good english ale, and it has a delicious scent of the desert sage. Wonderful. We plan to set up the same process to extract the sandstone essence tomorrow. I’m hoping to capture the rich earthy smell it has as effectively as we have caught the sage. The successful outcome of this effort has encouraged me to do the same thing with other places, ready for display in the Brand Gallery exhibit alongside the As the Crow Flies piece. The second batch of the sagebrush is bubbling away right now in the lab.
Kathy Wagonner’s show is in the gallery and looks fantastic. If you happen to live near Thousand Oaks, do yourself a favour and come and see how effective ceramics can be – these are awesome mystical sculptures of Goddess women. Opens Saturday evening at seven in the Kwan Fong Gallery.
I’ve been gilding, completing half of the gold for the new Gilded Ravens for Chris. The gold’s looking good over the traditional red undercoat.
I’m off to shower and run to the reception for the exhibit in Ventura at the Government centre, then dinner with Teddy, who has a couple of large canvases for me. This is perfect timing, as I have stretchers for one four feet by six feet piece, then I’m out of grounds and will need to get a pile more. Teddy’s are tall and thin, so I will have to consider how to use them most effectively.
Â
