The Rose Nursery

July 31, 2005

Looking back at my last entry, it seems a little Six-Feet-Under-ish but that was certainly not the intent (although I do like the show). The reason there are always a lot of roses at our family events is because of the Ninomiya’s nursery.

For many years, my cousins have run a huge rose nursery business just outside of San Francisco, but recently retired. When I was little, I would visit the nursery, and I loved walking into the coolers that were filled with a wonderful scent of thousands of fresh cut roses.

At its peak, the nursery included over a million square feet of greenhouses under glass.

Although the Nimomiyas have retired and are selling the land, when we visited there were still fruit trees, vegetables, and orchids growing everywhere.

My cousin Alice teaches my niece how to look for ripe strawberries in the family garden.

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Sunnyview in El Cerrito

July 30, 2005

The day after our family renuion, there was a memorial service for my grandmother who passed away this spring. Her ashes now rest by my grandfather in their joint plot in Sunnyview at El Cerrito, just outside of San Francisco.

After the service, we climbed the hill to look out at the ocean. We left armloads of the Ninomiya’s roses on the grave, and Russ took this photo of my nephew running down the hillside.

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A Crafty Bunch

July 29, 2005

No family reunion is complete without everyone showing up and sharing their talent, right? My family has always been a crafty bunch. Gary and Greg brought their guitars, and Tara sang. There were homemade jams, jellies, and pot scrubbies galore. Mari was wearing a very cute yellow tshirt with appliqued fish in Japanese fabrics.

Karen brought her knitting bag in progress, and Cathy brought lots of cute finished ones, including the one below in pink eyelash yarn.

Made me want to start knitting again, but that was in chilly northern California. Even as I look for my needles and patterns, the urge is passing in the Missouri summer heat.

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We’re Baaaaacck!

July 28, 2005

Early, early last Saturday morning we flew away from the sweltering midwest heat to California — Monterey and San Francisco, to be more exact, for a big family reunion and few other side adventures. Here’s a view of the Bay Bridge as we drove across it on one our art-seeking side adventures in Oakland. More photos of art, knitting, flowers, and family to come…

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July 22, 2005

As I was driving to yoga class at five-thirty this morning, I passed a man on a bicycle. From a distance, he seemed to be weaving down the middle of the road. As I got closer, I saw that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he was smoking a pipe. I don’t know why anyone would smoke a pipe while they were riding a bicycle at 5:30 in the morning, but I thought it was a strange coincidence that I chanced to pass him on the road.

I also attended a funeral for a friend today. He was an artist, a musician, a great teacher, a family guy, and only one year older than me. He had been driving in center city last Sunday (which is relatively empty on that day) and someone who had been stopped by the police for an expired license left the scene in a hurry, ran a red light and smashed into the side of his truck, killing both himself and our friend. It’s been a sad week thinking about what happened to Mark and the loss his family feels.

I don’t know why I feel that there is a connection between the man on the bike and my friend, other than the pure randomness of our lives. Free will, self determination, I believe in all that. But there is always the element of randomness — accidents, chance meetings, the bouncing around of atoms in the vastness of molecular space — that we can’t control no matter how much we wish we could.

If I had left the house five minutes earlier or later, I wouldn’t have been so amused by the sight of the man smoking a pipe on his bicycle. But the same could be said for our friend’s accident. Tonight there was a party to celebrate his life and art, downtown at Firestation #2. A camera couldn’t have captured the somber and yet joyful mood of the evening — a renunion of many old friends, a sharing of art and music. There is a huge old bell behind the firestation and as trains passed by in the dark night, each of us took turns pulling on the rope to toll the bell in rememberance of Mark. As his brother said today at the service, to remember and honor him, we should all, “Take whatever we have and what little time we have and create.”

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Illustration Friday - Karma

July 21, 2005

PaMdora briefly thought about naming her new puppy “Karma” so that depending on what the puppy did, she could say, “Good Karma!” or “Bad Karma!”

I also wanted to use this drawing for Illustration Friday because orginally I was going to include two puppies — the good one and the bad. But ran out of time…

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Doggie Names

July 20, 2005

This morning I sat outside and sketched the new puppy, but she moves around so much it’s difficult. She’s really happy outside — the family we got her from kept all their dogs outside, so that’s all she knew before coming home with us. Yesterday Russ fixed all the questional areas of our fence, so now it’s easier to let her play outside all she wants.

Our last dog was a blue heeler mix, so she was super smart, but didn’t have the typical coloring of a blue heeler. She looked like a minature german shepard, except with big deer-like ears. Her name was Mocha, and it makes me sad just posting this photo because I still miss her. She lived to about 15, and since she died a couple of years ago, we’ve been looking for another dog.

Russ would read all the ads for blue heeler mixed puppies, but we didn’t find one we liked until last Sunday. Our new puppy came from a litter of ten, and she was the only dark one. Her mother was a heeler, a good dog, and our little puppy seems to be learning very fast.

Melody must be psychic, because right after she proposed the name Petunia, the puppy started chewing up my petunias! I love all the comments and names every one posted, but Gerrie was closest when she said we’d probably try to find a Japanese name.

We tried Aki which means autumn, but now we’re pretty set on Mochi. I hope Myra doesn’t mind — it was actually Russ who thought of it, and he doesn’t read My Little Mochi. Mochi means Japanese rice cake (sometimes sweet and mostly sticky). I know the puppy isn’t white, but she seems to like the name best of all the ones we’ve tried on her. Maybe she has a fondness for little rice cakes!

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What’s My Name?

July 19, 2005

Evidence was found in the house early this morning that there was a teddy bear abuser on the loose.

But who could be to blame? Not this innocent little puppy who spends much of the day sleeping?

Who takes long naps in her food bowl?

Oh, now that she’s awake, we still think she looks sweet and innocent. But I still think teddy bears should beware.

We’ve been thinking for two days what is a good name for the puppy, but haven’t hit on a good one… Any suggestions?

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Illustration Friday - Metropolitan

July 14, 2005

Haven’t participated in Illustration Friday in a while, but I promised myself that I would do my next one in fabric (not drawing.) So here it is: I free-cut the fabric, and improvisationally pieced and fused. No pattern! Don’t know if I’ll quilt it, but it would be fun to define the cables on the bridges in thread. It’s a nice size, 44″ by 34″.

I don’t know if it might look ominous to other people, but my thoughts as I made it were how I love going to other cities and the excitement I feel when driving towards big buildings downtown after dark.

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Natural Dye Workshop

July 11, 2005

Over the weekend I took a two-day natural dye workshop. It’s kind of a local thing, the Springfield Fiber Artists get together every summer to do a dye workshop lead by one of the members, and Marty did a great job this year showing us what she learned at the Missouri Fiber Guild workshop.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I really had a great time. We used natural dye extracts on lots of different types of silk, and I was most interested in the effects using different physical resists. Above I’m experimenting with binder clips, rubber bands, and pebbles.

This cloth was been previously dyed in brazilwood, and then bound up with pebbles and dipped into a dye pot of logwood.

And here’s the result, my favorite!

On the left I used clothes pins to make the little “firefly” dots, then did multiple gradiate dips into pink, red, and orange. On the right, I dyed a piece of silk in osage orange to get that fantastic yellow color, then folded and clamped with binder clips, and dipped in orange.

This piece I used clothes pins, then did multiple folds and dips in pink, orange and red. I should turn it on its side and call it “Tequila Sunrise.”

More experiments with wrapping and twisting cloth around wine bottles and then dipping into various dyes. Oooh, I want to do more of this!

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Holidays are Fun…

July 6, 2005

…but you don’t get a lot of art done. The most artistic thing I made last week was the Barefoot Contessa’s Flag cake, although it didn’t turn out anything like her version, because I accidently put in TWO extra sticks of butter, and for decorating I had the help of a couple of creative teenage girls. Sorry, there are no photos since I dropped the camera in the icing (just kidding.) To compensate, here is my great-niece decked out in flag attire…

I have a new respect for the Barefoot Contessa. I had seen her show and thought the recipes looked way too elaborate, but really they aren’t that hard. I made four new things for our Fourth of July BBQ - Rasberry Corn Muffins, Flag Cake, French Provencial Potato Salad, and Ultimate Brownies - and they all turned out good, especially the brownies. But what I most love is her attitude about making food for family and friends, and how to be casual and special all at the same time. Check out her cookbooks, they are great!

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